The Utah Public Service Commission on Friday gave Questar Gas Co. permission to raise is rates 20.3 percent, or $196,481,000 annually, to recapture the money it expects to spend to buy natural gas for its customers this coming winter.

Questar's new rates will go into effect Tuesday.

The change is expected to increase the bill for a typical residential customer by about $18 per month. Rate hikes earlier this year mean that Questar's customers will pay approximately 38 percent more to heat their homes this winter compared to last year.

Questar buys approximately half of the gas it supplies its customers on the open market. Questar supplies gas to its customers without a mark up.

- Steven Oberbeck

Zoloft suicide case settled

A lawsuit filed against Pfizer Inc. has been filed by the parents of a teenage girl who committed suicide shortly after she started taking Zoloft, an antidepressant made by the pharmaceutical giant. Details of the agreement between Ken and Angela Kallas of South Jordan and the company are confidential.

The deal comes about five weeks after lawyers for the Food and Drug Administration submitted a friend-of-the-court brief saying Pfizer should not be held liable for the death of 15-year-old Shyra Marie Kallas because no association had been found as of late 2002 between Zoloft and suicidal thoughts or behavior. Therefore, strengthening the warning about the risk of adolescent suicide on the antidepressant's label would have violated FDA regulations, the brief said.

Shyra Kallas, a student at Pine View High School in St. George, killed herself in November 2002. Her parents filed a wrongful death suit in U.S. District Court claiming that the girl's doctor was not warned about a suicide risk when he prescribed Zoloft.

Since late 2004, the FDA has required all antidepressants to carry labels about the increased risk of suicide to children and adolescents.

- Pamela Manson

SnowSports of Australia to base U.S. work in Ogden

SnowSports Interactive, an Australian company that develops interactive services for the ski industry, will base its North American operations in Ogden.

The company develops technology that allows a group of skiers or snowboarders to obtain real-time video replays of every turn and spill. Another option enables friends back home to watch a person's ski trip online, said SnowSports Interactive managing director Steve Kenny.

He projected that SnowSports Interactive will create 25 to 50 sales and marketing jobs in the next 18 to 24 months. The company will operate for the next year at Ogden's Business Information Centre, 2444 Washington Blvd., while looking for a long-term location.

- Mike Gorrell