Business notebook

RALEIGH, N.C. Volvo Car Corp. announced Monday that it plans to invest $500 million to build a new plant in the United States, and multiple reports have said the Carolinas are among several Southeastern states in the running.

Volvo’s announcement didn’t mention any specific locations, saying it has “drawn up a short list of potential locations and full details of the location of the new factory and the size of the investment will be announced at a later date.”

The Financial Times and several other news outlets reported in January that the company was in talks with North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky.

The automaker is now moving quickly. The company’s CEO, Hakan Samuelsson, told The Wall Street Journal that the location will be announced in about a month. Volvo is owned by China-based Geely Holding Group.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that so-called “religious objection” legislation being introduced in a number of states is dangerous and bad for business.

The bills, like the one enacted last week in Indiana, create a legal framework for individuals, mostly business owners, to claim that a law or regulation mandated by the government infringes on their religious beliefs.

In an op-ed piece for The Washington Post, the leader of the nation’s largest corporation, who in October announced that he is gay, said that bills under consideration “have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.”

IN BRIEF

▪  U.S. consumers spent just slightly more in February even though their income rose by a healthy amount. But economists hope bigger paychecks will give spending a bigger boost in the coming months. Consumer spending edged up a tiny 0.1 percent following declines of 0.2 percent in both January and December, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

▪  A state board in Richmond, Va., has approved a $361,000 fine against CSX Transportation for a 2014 derailment in Lynchburg that spilled Bakken crude oil into the James River.

▪  Once the sedan of presidents, the Lincoln Continental was mothballed by Ford last decade. Now it’s back, in a nod to Lincoln’s improved sales in the U.S. and an appetite for luxury brands in China.

▪  Pediatrician Beverley Wilson has moved her practice from Orangeburg to the Harbison area in northwest Columbia. Wilson said she’s a board certified pediatrician. Her office is in the Brookside Park Building on Harbison Way.

From Staff and Wire Reports.