The daily business briefing: May 12, 2016

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1. To protect users, Google bans ads from payday lenders
2. Oil futures rise as inventories and production drop
3. Nissan takes on 34 percent stake in scandal-plagued Mitsubishi
4. Hyperloop One tests high-speed transport technology in Nevada
5. Payless removes Jake Lighted Runner shoes after pair reportedly catches fire

published 12 May 2016

1. To protect users, Google bans ads from payday lenders

Google announced Wednesday that it would no longer post ads from payday lenders. Payday loans offer customers quick cash — typically to low-income people who face exorbitant interest rates if they can't pay back quickly. "This change is designed to protect our users from deceptive or harmful financial products," Google director of global product policy David Graff wrote in a blog post. Google previously has banned other types of ads for products incompatible with its family-friendly image, including guns and tobacco.

Oil futures shot above $46 a barrel on Wednesday and ended the day at their highest level in six months after the federal government reported an unexpected weekly drop in crude inventories and the ninth straight week of production declines. The U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude increased by 3.5 percent to settle at $46.23 a barrel. U.S. stocks, which have been fluctuating along with oil prices recently, lost ground Wednesday due to Disney's disappointing earnings and slumping retailers, but pointed to a higher open on Thursday.

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Nissan has agreed to buy a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors in a deal the companies said would help Mitsubishi "regain trust" after it admitted to overstating the fuel economy of its minicars, sending its market value plummeting by 40 percent. Nissan will get a 5.3 percent discount to Wednesday's closing price on $2.2 billion in Mitsubishi shares. "We believe this will be a win-win situation, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said. "We can help and support and grow together, better than if Mitsubishi was doing this on its own."

Hyperloop One conducted the first test of the propulsion system in the desert near Las Vegas on Wednesday, sending a sled zooming down a track for two seconds then into a pile of sand. The technology is intended to be used in a new mode of high-speed transportation. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2013 unveiled his vision for a hyperloop system capable of zipping people between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 30 minutes. Hyperloop One is one of several startups trying to develop the technology.

Payless ShoeSource said Tuesday that it is pulling boys' Jake Lighted Runner light-up shoes from its shelves pending an investigation into a report that a Texas toddler's shoes caught on fire. Attila and Jovan Virag of Katy, Texas, told a local TV station that their 2-year-old son's Jake and the Neverland Pirates shoes burned the backseat of their SUV after he kicked them off. The family blames the shoes' lithium battery, although no official cause has been determined.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.