Business: Loose change

MILES OF SHOPPING: Syracuse, N.Y., soon can lay claim to the nation's largest shopping mall. A $900-million expansion will triple Carousel Center to 4.7-million square feet, surpassing Minnesota's Mall of America by 500,000 square feet. The expansion will include a four-story aquarium, 800 hotel rooms, an indoor golf range and an indoor bass-fishing pond.

MEAL DEALS: The business lunch hasn't lost favor with executives eager to cut a deal. Forty-nine percent of 1,400 chief financial officers surveyed for the Robert Half International employment agency say their most successful business meeting outside the office was at a restaurant. Nine percent said a golf course.

SNAP DECISIONS: Don't expect execs to spend much time with your resume. Fifty-six percent of 150 executives polled for Accountemps staffing service say they spend three to five minutes reviewing each resume they receive for an advertised position; 24 percent spend two minutes or less.

LITTLE LOVE FOR LEAVES: More employers are vexed by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave. About 36 percent of 1,839 employers surveyed by the Labor Department say compliance is difficult, up from 15 percent five years ago.

DOT-GONE: On second thought, maybe adding a dot-com to a company's name isn't such a great idea. With a multitude of online companies going bust, others are choosing to drop the dot-com designation. Among them: Stockwalk Group, ClubTools, InfoSpace and Lifeminders.

SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE: Benjamin Franklin would have seen it coming. The inventor considered social implications of innovations, University of Oklahoma psychology professor Michael Mumford says, and would have known Internet sales are risky because people like to "shop socially" in stores. -- Compiled by Cathy Keim from Times wires.

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