Business News at a Glance

China Is Pumping $175 Billion Into Economy

Troubled by slowing growth, persistent debt problems and President Donald Trump’s trade war, the Chinese government has taken steps in recent months to shore up its economy. It has pared back a high-profile campaign to tackle debt. It has restarted big infrastructure projects. It has censored bad economic news. On Sunday, Beijing went one step further. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, pulled a financial lever that will effectively pump $175 billion into the economy. The government is aiming to help small and midsize businesses in particular, which have had trouble obtaining loans and face other rising pressures.

China Might Target Big U.S. Deals

Qualcomm, the U.S. chipmaker, spent two years hammering out a $44 billion deal to acquire a Dutch semiconductor manufacturer. Then, as the trade war with the United States erupted, Chinese regulators effectively killed it. Now China is looking for new ways to retaliate in the intensifying trade drama — and experts warn that some corporate deals with U.S. buyers could be in jeopardy. A number of global deals involving U.S. companies are under review by Chinese market regulators. Among the biggest is Walt Disney Co.'s $71 billion acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox, which has an Oct. 19 deadline.

Silicon Valley Investors Shunned Juul but Back Other Nicotine Startups

When Juul, an electronic cigarette maker widely criticized for marketing its products to teenagers, set out to raise more than $1 billion over the summer, investors appeared to draw a moral line in the sand. But while Silicon Valley investors have shunned Juul, now under a federal investigation for its advertising practices, they have signed checks to other nicotine startups. Those include Lucy, a nicotine gum company, and Ro, a company that sells nicotine gum as part of smoking cessation kits. The willingness to back some nicotine startups illustrates the delicate ethical dance that investors are trying to perform.

Student Loan Collector Navient Considered Settling; Then Trump Won

In the final months the Obama administration, the government’s top consumer regulator was negotiating a large settlement with the student loan collector Navient, which it said had misled borrowers and made mistakes that added billions to their bills. But after President Donald Trump’s victory, the talks between the company and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broke down. Two days before his inauguration, the bureau sued Navient. Illinois and Washington simultaneously filed their own suits in state courts. The possibility that the Trump administration will ease up on Navient has prompted more states to join the legal fray.

Tech Workers Take a Stand Over the Uses of Their Work

Across the technology industry, rank-and-file employees are demanding greater insight into how their companies are deploying the technology that they built. At Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce, as well as at tech startups, engineers and technologists are increasingly asking whether the products they are working on are being used for surveillance in places like China or for military projects in the United States or elsewhere. It is a sign of how some tech companies are expanding more into government work. And it coincides with concerns in Silicon Valley about the Trump administration and the larger role of technology in government.

Chain Reports Second Death From Allergic Reaction

Pret A Manger has acknowledged that a second customer died after an allergic reaction to food sold at the British sandwich chain. The revelation of the death in December comes as Pret is under scrutiny after a 15-year-old girl, who was allergic to sesame seeds, died in 2016 after eating a sandwich that did not list sesame seeds among the ingredients. On Wednesday, after an inquest on that case, Pret said it would start affixing ingredient labels to its fresh products. Pret said it believed the second customer’s death had been caused by dairy protein found in a nondairy yogurt.