Business Highlights: Solar power plan in New Jersey; Former Southwest agent charged with fraud

Jan 30, 2024

___

New Jersey utilities float solar panels on reservoir, powering water treatment plant

MILLBURN, N.J. (AP) — Two New Jersey utilities have joined forces on a clean energy project to pump water from a reservoir to 84,000 homes and businesses. New Jersey American Water Company and NJR Clean Energy Ventures put more than 16,500 floating solar panels atop the water of a reservoir in Millburn. The power generated by those floating panels provides 95% of the electricity that the Canoe Brook Water Treatment plant requires each day. The companies say the 17-acre solar array is the largest floating solar array in North America. Long popular in Asia, floating solar arrays are starting to catch on in the United States.

___

Former Southwest Airlines customer-service agent is charged with fraud in voucher-selling scheme

CHICAGO (AP) — A former Southwest Airlines customer-service agent is being charged with fraud. Federal prosecutors say he issued nearly $1.9 million in travel vouchers and sold them. Prosecutors said Tuesday that DaJuan Martin was charged with 12 counts of wire fraud in an indictment. A co-defendant who bought some of the vouchers faces four counts of wire fraud. Each count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say Martin was working for Southwest at Chicago's Midway Airport when the voucher scheme took place.

___

Bluesky, championed by Jack Dorsey, was supposed to be Twitter 2.0. Can it succeed?

Bluesky is the internet's hottest members-only spot at the moment. It feels a bit like an exclusive club these days, populated by some Very Online folks, popular Twitter characters and fed up ex-users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. Born inside Twitter and championed by Jack Dorsey, it was supposed to one day replace Twitter as a decentralized social media system, where anyone can build a social media app that isn't controlled by a single person or company. The idea is to make social networks open and portable, like emails, blogs or phone numbers, and less like walled gardens like Facebook and Twitter.

___

White House website highlights infrastructure, manufacturing investments as Biden pushes policy wins

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday is starting a website to map and track tens of thousands of infrastructure projects and private manufacturing investments, an effort by the administration to show the impact of its policies on the U.S. economy. The site documents roughly 32,000 infrastructure projects and more than $470 billion worth of investments in the production of electric vehicles, batteries, computer chips, biotech, clean energy and other sectors. President Joe Biden is seeking reelection in 2024 by trying to show how his policies are reshaping the U.S. economy to address climate change and compete with rivals such as China. But high inflation has voters giving him low marks on economic leadership.

___

Coinbase targeted by SEC in latest shot at crypto firms for allegedly skirting securities laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Coinbase has been targeted by U.S. regulators in a new lawsuit that alleges the cryptocurrency platform is operating as an unregistered securities platform and brokerage service. The lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday comes only a day after it filed charges against Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, and its founder Changpeng Zhao are accused of misusing investor funds, operating as an unregistered exchange and violating a slew of U.S. securities laws. Coinbase shares plunged nearly 15% early Tuesday. In its complaint, the SEC said Coinbase made billions acting as the middle man for cryptocurrency buyers and sellers but did not give investors lawful protections while acting as a broker.

___

Banks’ growing reliance on chatbots to handle customer service tasks worries consumer watchdog

NEW YORK (AP) — Can you trust Erica, or Sandi or Amy to increasingly control parts of your financial life without giving you inaccurate information or sending money to the wrong place? That's what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is asking in a report released Tuesday, where the bureau lays out a number of concerns about the growing use of chatbots by banks to handle routine customer service requests. Among the agencies’ concerns is that banks may cut back on human customer service employees and that chatbots, if poorly designed, may run afoul of federal laws that govern how debts are collected or how personal information is being used.

___

World Bank offers dim outlook for the global economy in face of higher interest rates

WASHINGTON (AP) — The global economy is likely slowing sharply this year, hobbled by high interest rates, the repercussions of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic. That's the latest outlook of the World Bank, a 189-country anti-poverty agency, which estimates that the international economy will expand just 2.1% in 2023 after growing 3.1% in 2022. Still, that marks an upgrade from its previous forecast in January. That estimate had envisioned worldwide growth of just 1.7% this year. Central banks have been aggressively raising interest rates to combat a resurgence of inflation, set off by a stronger-than-expected rebound from the pandemic recession, persistent supply shortages and energy and food price shocks caused by the Ukraine war.

___

Merck sues federal government, calling plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices extortion

Merck is suing the federal government over a plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices, calling the program a sham equivalent to extortion. The drugmaker is seeking to halt the program, which was laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act and is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars in the coming years. Merck said in a complaint filed Tuesday that the program does not involve genuine negotiation. Instead, it said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services selects drugs to be included and then dictates the price. Federal government representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

___

UK's leading business lobby group wins backing of members in vote amid sexual misconduct allegations

LONDON (AP) — Britain's leading business lobby group has won the overwhelming support of its members at a special meeting for a broad set of reform proposals that should ensure its continued survival. A string of allegations of inappropriate behavior led to the cancellation of Confederation of British Industry membership subscriptions from some of the country's biggest companies. The CBI sought the support of its members for its plan to improve its governance structures and internal culture. The organization received the backing of 93% of members at the vote on Tuesday. Failure to have got the plan through could have spelled the demise of the CBI. The group was established in 1965 to ensure business’ voice is heard within the government.

___

The S&P 500 rose 10.06 points, or 0.2%, to 4,283.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 10.42 points, or less than 0.1%, to 33,573.28. The Nasdaq composite rose 46.99 points, or 0.4% to 13,276.42. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 48.69 points, or 2.7%, to 1,855.40.