SOCIAL MEDIA
Login snafu hits Meta sites
A technical issue caused widespread login issues for a few hours across Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Messenger platforms Tuesday. Andy Stone, Meta’s head of communications, acknowledged the issues on X, formerly known as Twitter, and said the company “resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.” Users reported being locked out of their Facebook accounts and feeds on the platform and that Threads and Instagram were not refreshing. WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta, appeared unaffected. The outage came just ahead of Thursday’s deadline for Big Tech companies to comply with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act. To comply, Meta is making changes, like allowing users to separate their Facebook and Instagram accounts so personal information can’t be combined to target them with online ads. It’s not clear whether the outage is connected to any preparations Meta might be carrying out for the DMA. In 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for hours, an outage the company said was a result of faulty changes on routers that coordinate network traffic between its data centers. The next year, WhatsApp had another brief outage. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
SENDING MONEY
Visa and Western Union grow partnership
Visa and Western Union are expanding their cross-border money-movement partnership, doubling the number of countries where customers can send funds. The agreement between the payments-network giant and wire-transfer company, which runs to 2031, allows customers to send money to eligible Visa cards and bank accounts in more than 40 countries, including Poland, Peru, and Pakistan — up from 20 in 2020, according to a statement Tuesday. Visa executives previewed the expanded relationship during an earnings call in January. Past iterations of the partnership focused on serving consumers in North America and Europe, said Chris Newkirk, Visa’s head of commercial and money-movement solutions. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
RETAIL
Target relaunches loyalty program
Target, looking for ways to add sales, is relaunching its Target Circle loyalty program including a new paid membership with unlimited free same-day delivery in as little as an hour for orders over $35. The loyalty program called Target Circle 360 will launch with a special offer for new members for $49 per year from April 7 through May 18. The current Target Circle program has more than 100 million members. The relaunch comes as Target aims to copy the success of Amazon’s juggernaut Amazon Prime and follow Walmart’s membership program. Target unveiled a series of steps at its annual investors’ meeting Tuesday that aim to rejuvenate sales and traffic. Target will refresh its stores, and over the next decade, the Minneapolis discounter will build more than 300 new stores. Separately, the Minneapolis-based discounter reported a 58 percent increase in fourth-quarter profits and handily beat Wall Street expectations as the retailer cut costs and maintained a lean inventory during the critical holiday season. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Arson suspected in power outage that knocked out German Tesla plant
Production at Tesla’s electric vehicle plant near Berlin came to a standstill and workers were evacuated on Tuesday after a power outage that officials suspect was caused by arson. According to the Interior Ministry in the state of Brandenburg where the plant is located, unknown perpetrators are suspected of deliberately setting fire to a high-voltage transmission line. The early morning fire caused the power supply to fail in surrounding towns, including Grünheide, where the Tesla factory is located. The power outage at the Tesla factory comes as environmental activists have been staging a protest in a forest near the plant against plans by Tesla to expand. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
INTERNATIONAL
Bayer rejects structural changes in wake of Monsanto legal headaches
Bayer forecast another year of falling profit and opted to stick with its conglomerate structure for now as it works to get on top of billions of dollars of legal woes that threaten the company’s long-term future. The German crop sciences to pharma business, whose value has plunged by more than 70 percent since the $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto, said that splitting the business might seem like a quick fix to its multitude of problems, but it would likely make them worse. New chief executive Bill Anderson drew a parallel between the state of Bayer and a skateboarding accident that shattered his leg. The immediate…
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