A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general from 10 states has “opened an investigation into Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, for promoting its social media app Instagram while knowing of mental and emotional harms caused by the service”—particularly for young people. The big question is whether doing so “violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360
In an effort to fight the chip shortages that have plagued the auto industry (and others) and disrupted production over the past year, Ford Motor company announced a new partnership with GlobalFoundries—a semiconductor supplier with a large U.S. manufacturing base—aimed at “improving Ford’s supply of the critical parts” - NYTimes and WSJ
A new Federal Reserve-issued rule will require U.S. banks to “report major cyberattacks to regulators within 36 hours if the incident is likely to disrupt their business,” including their regular operations, “services to customers or the stability of the financial system.” The new mandate will take effect May 1 - Bloomberg
CVS will close roughly 300 stores a year for the next 3 years as part of a shift in focus to “offering more health care services and expanding its digital footprint.” Those 900 closings will impact roughly 9% of the company’s total retail presence - NYTimes and WSJ
The latest e-car upstart to take aim at Elon Musk and Tesla’s dominance is Lucid Motors, the startup whose CEO “engineered the Model S, the sedan that established Tesla as a serious carmaker.” Now that same exec, Peter Rawlinson, is hoping that Lucid’s high-priced and long-battery Air model can make the same mark on the rapidly growing electric car industry and establish his company as an automaker to take seriously - NYTimes
Oprah and Reese Witherspoon are joining with Blackstone and Bumble’s founder in acquiring a majority stake in the shapewear brand Spanx, a deal that values the company at $1.2 billion. Winfrey’s involvement is something of a full-circle moment for Spanx, which rose to prominence over 20 years ago thanks, in part, to Oprah naming it her favorite product of the year 2000 - NYTimes
Checking in on the “currency crisis” currently threatening Turkey’s economy and “imperiling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nearly two-decade-long grip on power.” In short: thanks largely to Erdogan’s own continuing pushes for lower interest rates to spur growth, the Turkish lira has “lost more than a third of its value since March and is the worst-performing major emerging market currency this year so far” - WSJ and Bloomberg
OCC nominee Saule Omarova’s Senate confirmation hearing went about as smoothly as those opening remarks we told you about yesterday hinted it would. That is, not a shining moment for the Committee, and far from smooth sailing for the nominee - WSJ and Law360
Big win out of the S.D. Fla. Courts this week for Robinhood and Citadel Securities, as Judge Cecilia Antonaga dismissed antitrust claims accusing the companies of colluding to “stop investors from buying GameStop Corp. and other meme stocks in January.” The ruling found that the evidence included in the complaint by plaintiffs “wasn’t strong enough to support their accusations of illegal collusion” - WSJ and Law360
Given the state of human efforts at determining right from wrong these days, forgive us for our skepticism of the Allen Institute for AI’s claims that its Delphi artificial intelligence tech can “make moral judgments” - NYTimes
Stay safe, get vaxxed, and have a great weekend,
MDR
