** AT&T said it had struck a $1 billion multi-year deal with Corning to buy fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions, as the U.S. telecom giant looks to expand its high-speed internet services.
** Boeing reportedly dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) department as part of an overhaul of its operations ordered by the company’s new top executive — becoming the latest major company to ditch the controversial initiative.
**The U.S. safety regulator said on Monday it has closed a probe into an estimated 411,315 Ford SUVs and pickup trucks over a loss of motive power. In 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had opened its investigation into certain Ford Bronco vehicles equipped with 2.7L EcoBoost engines over concerns of a faulty valvetrain.
** Iowa’s largest utility plans to close all of its coal plants by 2049 and add 2,450 MW of new solar and 2,100 MW of new natural gas generation over the next 20 years, according to a filing with state regulators.
** The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has allocated over 2.4 billion USD from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund 122 rail improvement projects across 41 states and Washington, D.C.
World
** A Japanese nuclear reactor that restarted last week for the first time in more than 13 years after it had survived a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami that badly damaged the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant was shut down again Monday due to an equipment problem, its operator said.
** Volkswagen’s planned cost-cutting programme was unavoidable in order to remedy “decades of structural problems” at the German carmaker, CEO Oliver Blume said in an interview published on Sunday. The head of Volkswagen’s works council said last Monday that the carmaker plans to shut at least three factories in Germany, lay off tens of thousands of staff and shrink its remaining plants in Europe’s biggest economy as it plots a deeper-than-expected overhaul.
** Some of the biggest Chinese-owned solar factories in Vietnam are cutting production and laying off workers, spurred on by the expansion of U.S. trade tariffs targeting it and three other Southeast Asian countries. Meanwhile, in nearby Indonesia and Laos, a slew of new Chinese-owned solar plants are popping up, out of the reach of Washington’s trade protections.
