** The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday seeking more than $100 million from the owner and operator of the container ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore killing six and paralyzing a major transportation artery for the U.S. Northeast. The department is seeking to recover what the U.S. spent in responding to the disaster and for clearing the wreck and bridge debris so that the Port of Baltimore could reopen in June.
** The U.S. South added 54,000 clean energy jobs in 2023, the first full year of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to a report by nonprofit group Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). That is more than half as many new jobs in renewables, electric vehicles and retrofitting of fossil fuel infrastructure as the 95,000 that have been added across the entire rest of the country, E2 found.
** Opponents of offshore wind around the U.S. are pelting projects with lawsuits seeking to cancel them or tie them up for years in costly litigation. The court cases represent another hurdle the nascent industry must overcome, particularly along the East Coast where opposition to offshore wind farms is vocal and well-organized, reported the AP.
** Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday urged a new look at global trade rules, calling the existing mediator of trade disputes, the World Trade Organization, “neutered.”
** Boeing’s CEO said Wednesday that the company will begin furloughing “a large number” of employees to conserve cash during the strike by union machinists that began last week. Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg said the people who would be required to take time off without pay starting in the coming days include executives, managers and other employees based in the U.S.
** Lawyers representing Venezuela on Tuesday requested a four-month pause in a U.S. court-ordered auction of shares in a parent of Houston-based oil refiner Citgo Petroleum to pay creditors, according to a filing in U.S. District court, Delaware.
World
** Over 15,000 workers could face job cuts as Volkswagen considers shutting two or three factories in the coming months, Jefferies analysts wrote in a note Monday. Roughly 120,000 of the Volkswagen brand’s 200,000 employees are Germany-based.
** India is prepared to keep buying oil from Russian companies that are allowed to make such sales, since prices are cheap, oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.