Business News at a Glance

New Investigations Into Facebook Add New Pressures

Federal regulators and state prosecutors are opening investigations into Facebook. Politicians in the United States and Europe are calling for its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, to testify before them. Investors have cut the value of the social networking giant by about $50 billion in the past two days. They are all focused on whether Facebook mishandled users’ data. Facebook has built its highly profitable social network off its users, selling advertisements based on their ages, interests and other details. But the scrutiny over the company’s trove of personal data — following a report that a political consulting firm had improperly obtained information of 50 million users — is taking direct aim at that lucrative formula.

The End for Facebook’s Security Evangelist

Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief information security officer, was often known to push superiors on security matters beyond where they were comfortable, people who have worked with him have said. At times, Stamos’ outspokenness made him an asset. But it also made him a nuisance in Silicon Valley, where tech executives publicly praise a spirit of openness even as many of them become more opaque. Stamos favored more disclosure about how Russian agents used the site to influence the 2016 presidential election. But Stamos, 39, was met with resistance and now plans to leave the company just before the midterm election.

Worrying What Lurks in the Dark Shadows of a Long Recovery

Americans have spent much of the past decade wondering when the economy would recover from the Great Recession. Now, they are considering another question: When, and how, will that recovery end? Next month the current recovery will become the second-longest U.S. economic expansion on record. There is no sign that the rebound will end soon. But many economists argue that the seeds of the next crisis are already being sown. The United States is piling on debt and adopting policies — immigration restrictions, increased trade barriers, looser financial regulation — that many economists view as counterproductive.

BMW Offices Raided by Authorities in Emissions-Cheating Investigation

Prosecutors in Munich searched BMW’s headquarters Tuesday as part of their continuing investigation into an emissions-cheating scandal that has badly damaged other German carmakers. The raids, in which about 100 investigators targeted BMW offices in Munich and an engine factory in Austria, suggested that all of Germany’s top domestic automakers may have evaded emissions rules. Munich prosecutors said in a statement they were investigating whether the software in some BMW diesel models functioned like defeat devices, cranking up pollution controls when a car’s engine computer detects an emissions test in progress and allowing excess exhaust under real-world conditions. BMW said the software had been installed by mistake.

Fox News Analyst Quits, Calling Network a ‘Propaganda Machine’

A longtime analyst for Fox News is leaving the network, saying he could not “in good conscience” remain with an organization that “is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit." In a searing farewell note sent to colleagues Tuesday, Ralph Peters, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, castigated the network for its coverage of President Donald Trump and the rhetoric of its prime-time hosts. "In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” Peters wrote.