SBA approves $1B
in Hurricane Ian aid
The U.S. Small Business Administration said Monday that more than $1 billion in disaster assistance has been approved for small businesses, homeowners, renters and private nonprofit organizations with losses related to Hurricane Ian in September.
"Our SBA disaster assistance teams hit the ground immediately in the wake of Hurricane Ian to help ... homeowners, renters, and businesses with critical financial relief," SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman said in a news release. "Reaching the $1 billion mark demonstrates the scale of devastation."
As of Monday, the SBA had approved 14,877 low-interest disaster loans delivering a combined $1,049,679,000.
For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small aquaculture businesses and most private nonprofit organizations, the SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any physical property damage.
-- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Amazon unit vows
to replenish water
Amazon Web Services, the largest cloud-computing provider, is promising by 2030 to replenish the water consumed by its data centers, the latest environmental pledge from the company.
Parent company Amazon.com said in a statement Monday that it's supporting efforts to replenish groundwater in California, the United Kingdom and India to offset the water the company's cloud centers use. Google, which has vowed to offset 120% of its water usage, revealed last week that its global data centers use 4.3 billion gallons of water a year. Microsoft has already committed to replenish more water than it consumes by the end of the decade.
Data centers use a considerable amount of water to cool the racks of servers and computers. While Amazon and its rivals have disclosed more of their energy footprints, they have been less willing to share how much water they use. That's caused political tension in areas facing drought.
Amazon said it relies on recycled water for 20 of its data centers, including two in drought-stricken California.
-- Bloomberg News
State index finishes
session 14.82 lower
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Monday at 835.83, down 14.82.
"Despite investors leaning into hopes that interests rates and inflation may peak soon, Federal Reserve members threw cold water on that after suggesting more rate hikes are coming," pushing U.S. stocks lower Monday," said Chris Harkins, managing director at Raymond James & Associates.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.