SOCIAL MEDIA
State AGs, led by Healey, to investigate TikTok
A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general on Wednesday announced an investigation into TikTok, focused on whether the company is designing and promoting its platform in a way that harms the physical and mental health of children and teens. The probe, announced in a news release from the Massachusetts state attorney general’s office, will examine whether the company’s practices violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk. ‘’As children and teens already grapple with issues of anxiety, social pressure, and depression, we cannot allow social media to further harm their physical health and mental wellbeing,’’ said Massachusetts state Attorney General Maura Healey in a statement. ‘’State attorneys general have an imperative to protect young people and seek more information about how companies like TikTok are influencing their daily lives.’’ Healey is leading the investigation with attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. — WASHINGTON POST
WORKPLACE
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Google workers in Cambridge to return to the office next month
Google told its 2,000-plus employees in Cambridge that they should return to the office April 18 on a hybrid schedule. The company said Wednesday that employees will now have “six weeks to help transition,” and most will work from the offices three days a week. The announcement is part of a broader plan at Google to bring more people back to its offices two years after the company sent employees home at the start of the pandemic. Google told workers in its San Francisco Bay Area offices that they’ll be expected to come back into the office April 4, a timeline that will also apply to other offices in the United States, Britain, and Asia, a spokesman for Google said. Google’s hybrid approach stands in contrast to other tech companies, such as Twitter and Slack, which have said they will allow remote work indefinitely. But it mirrors recent announcements from other Boston-area tech employers, such as Wayfair and Akamai Technologies, which plan to return in hybrid fashion in the coming weeks. — ANISSA GARDIZY
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FITNESS
Fitbit recalls smartwatch over reports of burn injuries
Fitbit, the Google-owned maker of health tracking wearables, is voluntarily recalling its Ionic smartwatch after more than 100 reports of burn injuries caused by an overheating battery, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday. About 1 million of the devices, which track activity, heart rate, and sleep, were sold in the United States from September 2017 through December 2021, with an additional 693,000 sold internationally. Fitbit received at least 174 reports of the lithium-ion battery’s overheating, leading to 118 reported injuries, including two cases of third-degree burns and four of second-degree burns, according to the commission. Owners will be refunded $299 after returning their Ionic watch and will receive a discount code for select Fitbit devices, the commission said. A Fitbit representative noted that the injury reports represented fewer than 0.01 percent of all Ionic watches sold, and said the recall did not affect other Fitbit products. — NEW YORK TIMES
UKRAINE
Exxon to end long relationship with Russia
Exxon has begun work to terminate its decades-long relationship with Russia due to international sanctions and the nation’s “needless destruction” in Ukraine, said chief executive Darren Woods. The process of ending operations before eventually exiting its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil development will be “complicated” and require careful management, Woods said during the company’s annual Investor Day event on Wednesday. The asset is valued on Exxon’s books at about $4 billion and makes up 1 percent to 2 percent of earnings and capital employed. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
FISHERIES
Number of baby lobsters off New England continues to be below average
New data show the population of baby lobsters off New England is below average, raising concerns about the size of future commercial hauls of the valuable crustaceans as waters warm. The baby lobsters settle at the bottom of the ocean, take shelter, and grow. Members of the fishing industry closely watch trends about lobster settlement because they provide an insight into what the population of adult lobsters, which are trapped by fishermen, could look like in future years. University of Maine scientist Rick Wahle, who has documented baby lobster density for decades, said a trend of below average settlement numbers in the Gulf of Maine extended into 2021. The gulf stretches from Canada to Cape Cod and is critical to the lobstering business. Meanwhile, there was a moderate uptick in baby lobsters in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where some Canadian fishermen harvest lobsters, Wahle said. The trends illustrate the northeastward shift of the lobster population as waters warm, he said. Lobster catch has cratered off of southern New England locations such as Buzzards Bay and is growing off of places like Newfoundland, Wahle said. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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ECONOMY
Companies added more jobs than predicted in February
US companies in February added more jobs than forecast as COVID-19 cases dropped and restrictions eased, encouraging more Americans to work. Businesses’ payrolls rose by 475,000 last month, according to ADP Research Institute data released Wednesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 375,000 rise. The initial January print showed a 301,000 plunge in the month, the worst since April 2020, but was revised up to a 509,000 gain. The greater-than-expected job growth points to a labor market rebounding strongly from the Omicron variant’s spread in January, which led to business closures and kept many workers at home sick. The data precede Friday’s monthly employment report from the Labor Department, which is currently forecast to show that private payrolls increased by 383,000 in February. The ADP figures don’t always follow the same pattern as the Labor Department’s data. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
UKRAINE
Boeing suspending operations in Russia
Boeing is suspending major operations in Moscow and temporarily restricting employees and partners in Russia from accessing sensitive technical data until it can secure export licenses from the US government. The Chicago-based plane maker said in an e-mail late Tuesday that it has suspended providing spare parts, maintenance, and technical services to Russian customers as it navigates deteriorating relations between the United States and Russia. European planemaker Airbus separately said that it would take similar action, citing a growing list of international sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
ENERGY
Oil driller to help fund pipeline to capture carbon dioxide
North Dakota’s biggest oil driller said Wednesday it will commit $250 million to help fund a proposed pipeline that would gather carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants across the Midwest and pump it thousands of feet underground for permanent storage. Continental Resources, headed by billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm, discussed the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion pipeline at an ethanol plant in Casselton, in eastern North Dakota. The plant is one of 31 ethanol facilities across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, where emissions would be captured and piped to western North Dakota and buried deep underground. The pipeline system would extend 2,000 miles and could move up to 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, said Wade Boeshans, executive vice president of the Iowa-based pipeline developer. That’s equal to removing the annual carbon emissions of 2.6 million cars, he said. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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