Business News at a Glance

Nissan Workers in Japan Falsified Emissions Tests, Review Says

Nissan Motor has become the latest Japanese automaker to admit to falsifying product-quality data, dealing a further blow to Japan Inc.'s reputation for dependable quality. An internal review of emissions and fuel economy tests at Nissan’s production plants in Japan showed that inspectors used “altered measurement values” on inspection reports, the company said Monday. The review found that all models complied with Japanese safety and emissions standards, with the exception of the Nissan GT-R, which the company produces too few of to comprehensively review its record, a Nissan spokesman said. The company said the falsification problems ultimately did not affect fuel-economy findings.

Xiaomi’s Weak IPO Raises Doubts About China’s Tech Boom

Xiaomi’s public debut was supposed to value the Chinese gadget-maker at $100 billion and set the stage for a global coming-out party for some of China’s most successful technology companies. When Xiaomi finished its first day of trading Monday, the company was worth only $48 billion, weakness that could hang over the rest of the Chinese tech players waiting to go public. China’s leaders are bracing for a bruising fight with the United States over trade. Xiaomi’s founder and chairman, Lei Jun, cited worries about the trade war just before the company’s shares began trading.

Facebook’s Push for Facial Recognition Prompts Privacy Alarms

When Facebook rolled out facial recognition tools in the European Union this year, it promoted the technology as a way to help people safeguard their online identities. The company is taking a huge reputational risk in aggressively pushing the technology at a time when its data-mining practices are under heightened scrutiny in the United States and Europe. More than a dozen privacy and consumer groups, and at least a few officials, argue that the company’s use of facial recognition has violated people’s privacy by not obtaining appropriate user consent. The technology can be used to remotely identify people by name without their knowledge or consent.

Developing Countries May Need Their Own Strategies to Cope With Job-Taking Robots

A new study by economists at King’s College London, written for the Washington think tank Center for Global Development, suggests there is still a need to consider how developing countries will cope with the rise of automation. Most strategies to help workers displaced by robots have been devised for developed nations and may not translate to the developing world. Reports by the McKinsey Global Institute and the World Bank suggest that agricultural and industrial sectors have higher potential for automation than service sector jobs. That poses particular concern for developing countries, where there are typically larger pools of unskilled labor in agriculture or simple manufacturing roles.

China’s Taste for Soybeans Is a Weak Spot in the Trade War With Trump

For all its economic might, China hasn’t been able to solve a crucial problem: It can't grow enough soybeans. Beijing placed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans last week in retaliation for the Trump administration’s levies on Chinese-made goods. Last year, soy growers in the United States sold nearly one-third of their harvest to China. In dollar terms, only airplanes are a more significant U.S. export to China, the world’s second-largest economy. China buys so much soy from the United States — $14 billion last year — that it can hardly switch to new suppliers overnight.

Uber Invests in Electric Scooter Company

Uber, the ride-hailing company, announced Monday that it had invested in Lime, a company best known for offering rides on motorized scooters. As part of a $335 million fundraising round that values Lime at $1.1 billion, the startup said it was accepting a “sizable” investment from Uber and would team up with the company. Uber said it would show Lime scooters as an option within its mobile app. Neither Uber nor Lime disclosed the exact size of Uber’s investment. Companies like Lime and Bird allow customers to rent scooters by the minute, picking up and dropping them off on sidewalks around cities.

Starbucks to Stop Using Disposable Plastic Straws by 2020

Starbucks will stop using disposable plastic straws by 2020, eliminating more than 1 billion straws a year, the retailer announced Monday. Instead, Starbucks, which has more than 28,000 stores worldwide, will use recyclable, strawless lids on most of its iced drinks, except the Frappuccino, which will have a straw made from either paper or compostable plastic. In the United States alone, an estimated more than 500 million disposable plastic straws are used every day, according to Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit recycling organization. Although plastic straws are made from polypropylene, a recyclable plastic, most recyclers won’t accept them.

‘No Poach’ Deals for Fast-Food Workers Face Scrutiny by States

Attorneys general in 10 states are moving to investigate whether a clause in fast-food franchise agreements is preventing workers from switching jobs, locking them into low-paying positions and, some economists say, contributing to widespread wage stagnation in the United States. In a letter released Monday, the attorneys general asked eight restaurant chains for information about whether their contracts with franchisees prohibited them from hiring workers away from one another. The restrictions, often referred to as no-poach clauses, do not stop workers from switching from, say, an Arby’s store to a Wendy’s, but can keep an employee of one Wendy’s location from taking a job at another.