A group of wholesale steel distributors will pay more than $3.3 million to settle allegations that they made false statements in order to secure federal loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The seven corporations in question, each part of Georgia-based steel company Allied Crawford, are incorporated across seven separate states, including Virginia, where federal prosecutors investigated the matter.

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According to the Justice Department, they received more than $2.7 million combined in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, which was designed to ensure that businesses could keep their doors open and continue paying their employees amid the pandemic.

The companies, however, were actually ineligible to receive those loans, prosecutors claimed. They said company officials falsely certified that they were eligible for the loans — both on their initial applications, and on subsequent filings for the forgiveness of the loans in 2021.

The case began with a lawsuit filed by a whistleblower under the provisions of the federal False Claims Act; that whistleblower will receive a 10% share of the settlement.

The U.S. government reportedly allocated nearly $6 trillion in emergency spending during the pandemic, and although experts broadly agreed that the funding helped keep the economy afloat, it also created opportunities for fraud — investigations of which persist some six years later.

Prosecutors noted that the settlement does not include a determination of civil liability.

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Last week, Taiwanese auto supplier Minth announced plans to invest some $430 million to breathe new life into a century-old steel mill site in Alabama.

The Minth Group is a massive company with nearly 28,000 global employees spanning 78 plants, making trim and structural automotive parts. The company says it is the largest supplier of battery enclosures and body structure components in the world, making parts for more than 80 automotive brands, including Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, Jeep, and Lucid.

The Minth Group bought the former Republic Steel 400-acre brownfield site in Gadsden, Alabama, about 60 miles northeast of Birmingham.

The project will become Minth's largest campus and is expected to create 1,325 jobs. Initially, the plant should bring a few hundred jobs, but new roles will be added as operations grow. The facility will produce plastic and aluminum components for Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, and for Kia in West Point, Georgia.

Minth said the new location will help serve North American customers, including those transitioning to electric and advanced vehicles.

Minth’s U.S. operations are part of Minth North America, with regional headquarters in Wixom, Michigan, and two other locations in Michigan and Tennessee.

The Gadsden site is expected to be a flagship U.S. facility with nearly 1 million square feet of manufacturing space. The company plans to renovate and expand the site. The new jobs will average $49,000 in annual wages.

When the steel plant shuttered in August 2000, some 1,800 workers lost their jobs. The Gulf States Steel plant had been in operation since 1903 and was acquired by Republic Steel in 1937.

In a statement, William Chin, the son of Minth’s founder and the company’s chief strategy officer, said, “From rubble to renewal, from depression to prosperity – this site, once a reminder of jobs that moved overseas, now represents a bright future ... It’s not rubber and steel anymore; it’s plastic and aluminum.”

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A leading global food manufacturer has reportedly overhauled its employee bonus program as part of a broader effort to revamp its corporate culture.

Under the new structure at Nestlé, people familiar with the move recently told Bloomberg, workers deemed “exemplary” could get bonuses of up to 150% of company targets, while those at the other end of the spectrum, or “unsatisfactory,” would get a maximum of 50% of the target — or no bonus at all.

The top bonuses were previously capped at 130%, but more importantly, according to the report, the changes represented a dramatic shift from a culture in which nearly all 271,000 employees tended to get bonuses of at least 80% of company targets.

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Swiss agricultural manufacturer Syngenta announced it will end global production of paraquat, an herbicide used to control weeds in farming operations, by the end of June. The company plans to phase out production at its facility in Huddersfield, UK, its only manufacturing site for the ingredient.

Syngenta cited significant competition from global producers, which put pressure on the company’s competitiveness, as the reason for the decision.

The release, however, did not mention ongoing legal challenges involving paraquat, including a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois that named Syngenta as a defendant and consolidated over 5,000 plaintiffs who alleged they developed Parkinson’s disease due to paraquat exposure.

The MDL references expert witness Martin Wells, who conducted a meta-analysis of seven epidemiological studies that measured a potential association between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease. According to the document, Wells determined that there was a “near tripling of [Parkinson’s] occurrence in [study] participants occupationally exposed to paraquat.”

Syngenta previously rejected the claims of a causal link between paraquat and Parkinson’s, stating that the herbicide is “safe when used in line with registered label instructions.” In its announcement on ending production, the company mentioned that paraquat supports conservation practices such as no-till farming and added that the herbicide is registered for sale by more than 750 companies.

Over 70 countries have banned or discontinued the use of paraquat. This includes the EU, which withdrew the herbicide from its market in 2007, as well as China, Brazil and Canada. In 2024, nearly 50 members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter to the EPA asking the agency to ban paraquat.

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Stanley Black & Decker plans to close its last manufacturing facility in New Britain, Connecticut, the city home to the company’s headquarters. Connecticut Public Radio reported that the action will impact nearly 300 workers at the factory, which primarily makes single-sided tape measures.

Company spokesperson Debora Raymond told CPR that the facility’s products “are becoming obsolete” as more people rely on electronic devices to measure distance. The Hartford Courant reported that New Britain Mayor Bobby Sanchez blamed the decision on “ongoing uncertainty at the federal level, including shifting trade policies and tariffs that have driven up material and production costs.”

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Officers from a UK medicine regulator raided two sites in February during an ongoing investigation into a criminal network that manufactures and distributes unlicensed weight-loss medicines, also known as “skinny jabs.”

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated that the operation, which targeted farm and residential properties in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, resulted in the seizure of nearly 2,000 doses of unauthorized weight-loss medicines, including retatrutide, tirzepatide and peptide products. The agency added that officers also confiscated manufacturing equipment, suspected pharmaceutical ingredients, packaging and commercial vehicles.

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Big 3 auto workers tend to rely on annual profit-sharing checks as a part of the compensation plans negotiated through the United Autoworkers Union.

This year, Ford employees are taking home just shy of $7,000. GM’s union workers were just awarded $10,500.

So how does Stellantis - the other piece of this Detroit auto trifecta – stack up when it comes to these bonus payouts? They’re not even on the board.

Stellantis reported a significant annual loss for its 2025 fiscal year, which meant it fell below the minimum profit-sharing threshold spelled out in its 2023 contract with the UAW. And since there were no profits, the company’s employees received no bonus.

According to the Detroit Free Press, this is the first year in history that Stellantis has failed to award the profit-sharing checks.

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Mexico’s largest cement producer — and one of the leading building materials manufacturers globally — hopes that a newly announced acquisition will bolster its position in the U.S. construction market.

Cemex said Thursday that it reached an agreement to buy Omega Products International, a top provider of stucco in the western U.S.

Omega, based in Southern California, operates four production facilities across California, Colorado and Nevada, and serves both residential and commercial construction. Cemex officials said that the company offers “significant synergies” with its existing U.S. business and aligns with its broader growth efforts north of the border.

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