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Tesla CEO Elon Musk won’t be joining Twitter’s board after all
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Billionaire Elon Musk, one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders, is changing course and will no longer join the company’s board of directors, less than a week after he was given a job. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the news, which followed a weekend of tweets from Musk suggesting changes to Twitter, including removing advertising from the site. Nearly 90% of Twitter revenue in 2021 came from ads. Musk, it was revealed last week, had quickly amassed a massive holding in Twitter to become its largest individual shareholder. Agrawal offered no explanation for the reversal, but said the decision was made by the mercurial billionaire.
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Russia’s war will shrink Ukraine’s economy by 45%, says World Bank
LONDON (AP) — The World Bank says Ukraine’s economy will contract 45.1% this year due to Russia’s invasion, which shut down half of the country’s businesses, disrupted imports and exports and damaged a large number of of critical infrastructure. The World Bank also said on Sunday that unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western allies in response to the war are plunging Russia into a deep recession and will wipe out more than a tenth of its economy by 2022. The Washington-based lender said in his “War in the Region Economic report that the war will inflict twice as much economic damage on Europe and Central Asia as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Efforts to manufacture protective medical equipment in the US fail
UNIVERSITY CITY, Mo. (AP) — The momentum to make personal protective equipment in the U.S. is running out of steam after an initial surge at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Associated Press identified more than $125 million in government grants to more than 300 companies in 10 states to spur production of masks, gowns, disinfectants and other supplies for the pandemic. But the AP found that many growers had trouble finding reliable equipment, materials and buyers. Many have downsized, closed, or given up. Industry officials say they need more help from the federal government to ensure there is enough American-made protective gear for future pandemics or emergencies.
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California utilities to pay $55 million for massive wildfires
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires sparked in Northern California by aging power lines. The deals with the nation’s largest utility also include five years of independent oversight, which prosecutors say was a key victory, similar to a five-year criminal probation PG&E served for misconduct. The civil settlements are designed to speed up payments to hundreds of people whose homes were destroyed so they can start rebuilding more quickly than others who suffered devastating losses in 2017 and 2018 from fires set by PG&E equipment. The utility still faces criminal charges for a 2020 fire that killed four people.
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Stocks fall on Wall Street, led by the fall of technology companies
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell on Wall Street on Monday, extending a losing streak from last week. The S&P 500 lost 1.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq fell 2.2%. Technology stocks sank and were the heaviest weight in the market. Energy companies also fell along with the drop in crude oil prices. Twitter surged after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he wasn’t joining the company’s board after all. Musk recently became the company’s largest individual shareholder and is now free to increase his stake. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.78%.
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Once a retail giant, Kmart nears extinction after closing
AVENEL, NJ (AP) — When the Kmart in Avenel, New Jersey, closes its doors on April 16, it will leave only a handful of locations remaining for the former retail powerhouse. It’s a far cry from the chain’s heyday in the 1980s and ’90s, when it had more than 2,000 stores and sold product lines endorsed by Martha Stewart and former “Charlies Angel” Jaclyn Smith. Kmart’s demise is blamed on the rise of Walmart and Target and online giant Amazon. But retail expert Mark Cohen says the company was also plagued by poor management decisions and could have remained viable.
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UK Treasury chief fights to save reputation in fiscal storm
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Treasury chief is fighting to save his reputation by calling for an investigation into his own conduct after a series of news stories about his family’s finances raised questions about his judgment. Rishi Sunak asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday for a review of all the disclosures Sunak has made since he became a government minister. Sunak’s reputation has been damaged by revelations that his Indian-born wife took advantage of rules that allow many foreigners to escape UK tax on their foreign income. She came at the same time she was raising income taxes for most residents who were already facing a cost-of-living crisis related to rising energy prices.
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Frontier CEO Discusses Airline Merger and Travel Outlook
DALLAS (AP) — Barry Biffle is juggling his day job as CEO of Frontier Airlines while working to salvage a proposed merger with Spirit Airlines that would create the nation’s fifth-largest airline by some measures. On the merger, Biffle says Frontier and Spirit are fielding questions from regulators, and he’s not alarmed that several liberals in Congress are urging the Biden administration to take a closer look at whether the deal will hurt consumers. The biggest hurdle to a Frontier-Spirit deal is JetBlue Airways, which made its own $3.6 billion bid for Spirit last week. JetBlue’s offer is higher than Frontier’s $2.9 billion offer, which was announced in February.
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The S&P 500 fell 75.75 points, or 1.7%, to 4,412.53. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 413.04 points, or 1.2%, to 34,308.08. The Nasdaq fell 299.04 points, or 2.2%, to 13,411.96. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 14.24 points, or 0.7%, to 1,980.32.
