Business News at a Glance

Turkey’s Lira Slides, Raising Fears a Crisis Could Spill Across Borders

Turkey’s currency fell to another record low — 7.2 liras to the U.S. dollar — on Monday, hitting stocks in Europe and Asia and raising fears that the country is on the verge of an economic meltdown that could spread to other emerging markets. The crisis, caused by soaring inflation, economic mismanagement by the Turkish government and tensions with the United States, has raised concerns over whether emerging economies that have benefited in recent years from foreign investment may also be vulnerable. Rising interest rates in the United States and in Europe have made investors less tolerant of emerging markets.

Musk’s Tesla Tweet Raises New Questions

An abrupt tweet last week by Elon Musk about the prospect of taking Tesla private was dashed off with little forethought, and had not been cleared ahead of time with the company’s board, two people familiar with the chain of events said Monday. The account raised new questions about the cryptic Twitter post in which Musk said he had “funding secured” for a buyout of the $60 billion electric-car maker. The tweet prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to contact Tesla to inquire about the tweet's accuracy and the reason the disclosure had not been made in a regulatory filing, according to a person briefed on the inquiry.

Type Carefully. Your Bank Is Watching.

When you’re browsing a website and the mouse cursor disappears, it might be a computer glitch — or it might be a deliberate test to find out who you are. The way you press, scroll and type on a phone screen or keyboard, known as “behavioral biometrics,” can be as unique as your fingerprints or facial features. To fight fraud, a growing number of banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland and merchants are tracking visitors’ physical movements as they use websites and apps. Privacy advocates view this as potentially troubling, partly because few companies disclose to users when and how their taps and swipes are being tracked.

The Large Hidden Costs of Medicare’s Drug Program

Premiums for Medicare’s prescription drug program — also called Medicare Part D — have exhibited little to no growth since the program’s inception in 2006. But the stability in the premiums belies much larger growth in the cost for taxpayers. In 2007, Part D cost taxpayers $46 billion. By 2016, the figure reached $79 billion, a 72 percent increase. But there is also a subtle way in which the program’s structure promotes cost growth. Reinsurance spending, which is not reflected in premiums, has been rising rapidly. Reinsurance is the fastest-growing component of Medicare’s drug program, expanding at an 18 percent annual rate between 2007 and 2016.

VF Plans to Spin Out Its Denim Brands

Denim is out. Athleisure is in. For VF Corp., the apparel company that owns Wrangler and Lee jeans, that made for a simple decision. VF announced on Monday that it planned to spin out its denim brands into a separate publicly traded business, so it can better focus on its faster-growing activewear and lifestyle clothing lines like The North Face and Vans. Shareholders appeared skeptical of the move. Shares in VF were down more than 3 percent as of Monday afternoon to $92.82. Shareholders of VF will receive stock in the company through a tax-free spinoff.

New Machines Let TSA Agents See More and Open Less

There is a glimmer of hope that the frustrating, slow airport security experience will get a little smoother over the next few years. The Transportation Security Administration is trying out new machines that use computed tomography, a technology that produces three-dimensional images so detailed they can even show the mass and densities of items in carry-on bags, including liquids inside their containers. With the new machines, the TSA says, security agents will be better able to analyze what is inside a bag and will be less likely to have to perform searches by hand.

Sandy Hook Father Combats Blog Site’s Policy

Leonard Pozner says he spends hours every day trying to erase online conspiracy theories that his 6-year-old son Noah’s death at the Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax. He has taken Alex Jones of Infowars to court. He has put pressure on Facebook, Amazon and Google to take action against the conspiracy theorists who flourish on their platforms. But one company, Pozner says, has pushed back against his attempts: WordPress, one the internet’s biggest blogging platforms. “Posting conspiracy theories or untrue content is not banned from WordPress.com, and unfortunately this is one of those situations,” Automattic, the company that operates WordPress, said in a statement.