Camila Domonoske

Nikola founder Trevor Milton has stepped away from his startup, which is working on making tractor trailers powered by hydrogen fuel cells, after he was accused of fraudulently exaggerating the viability of some of his company's technology.

Milton, who denies the allegations, says he resigned his position as executive chairman of Nikola's Board of Directors because "the focus should be on the Company ... not me." He said he intends to defend himself against "false accusations."

Marcie was at work at a Ford plant when she got a text warning her she might have been exposed to the coronavirus. It wasn't a sure thing — she was a few steps removed from the confirmed positive case. But it was worrying.

"So am I supposed to leave work? Technically I could be positive and not know it," said Marcie, who didn't want her last name used because she's worried about retribution for talking about the plant. "But, you know, a lot of people just can't do that. Can't just get up and go. We depend on the forty hours."

2020 is shaping up to be an extraordinarily bad year for oil.

In the spring, pandemic lockdowns sent oil demand plummeting and markets into a tailspin. At one point, U.S. oil prices even turned negative for the first time in history.

But summer brought new optimism to the industry, with hopes rising for a controlled pandemic, a recovering economy and resurgent oil demand.

Orbital Insight CEO Jimmy Crawford has, quite literally, a bird's-eye view of the U.S. auto industry

Using satellite images as well as anonymous cellphone location data, Orbital Insight tracks a wide range of human behavior — including key economic indicators such as how many people report to work at auto plants.

"We can just look at the number of cars in the parking lot," he said.

This spring, when the industry entered an unprecedented shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, "there was just nobody there," Crawford said. "Just really skeleton crews."

United Airlines will be putting 16,370 workers on involuntary, indefinite furlough at the start of October unless more aid materializes from the federal government, the company announced Wednesday.

Together with some 7,400 voluntary departures, the airline is cutting its workforce by more than 25%. It's hardly alone. American Airlines recently announced 19,000 furloughs and layoffs, while Delta cut its workforce by 20% through buyouts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the classic blue-chip stock index. Exxon Mobil is an iconic blue-chip stock.

But starting next week, the oil giant — currently the Dow's longest-tenured member — will be dropped from the influential index, which for many people is shorthand for the stock market.

Updated at 10 a.m. ET Wednesday

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has publicly called for businesses, individuals and governments to work together to fight climate change.

But a new analysis from the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, found that the Chamber didn't reflect that goal in its annual scorecard evaluating U.S. lawmakers' voting records.

Across America, buildings are opening back up — offices, schools, theaters, stores, restaurants — even as evidence mounts that the coronavirus can circulate through the air in a closed indoor space.

That means a lot of business owners and facility managers are calling up people like Dennis Knight, the founder of Whole Buildings Systems in Charleston, S.C., asking what they can do to make sure their building doesn't spread the virus.

Updated Aug. 18: The Department of Homeland Security has responded to the GAO's report with an eight-page letter calling the watchdog group's conclusions "baseless and baffling." The department says that the last secretary of Homeland Security clearly designated her successor not only through paperwork, but by swearing him in, and that her decision must be respected.