Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera said the South American country will face power shortages for another seven days after an outage left 80 percent of the population in darkness for more than two hours yesterday. “We are going to have an unstable electric system for the next seven days,” Pinera told reporters in Santiago today. Power lines “that may have been damaged during the earthquake” will be checked and repaired in coming days, he said. The power cut, the result of grid damage from last month’s earthquake, affected a 2,000-kilometer (1,243-mile) stretch of the country and struck at about 8:43 p.m. local time yesterday. The outage extended from the Atacama Desert in the North to the Chilean lakes in the South, plunging locals into darkness and forcing mines to switch on emergency generators.

In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same. Bank officials said that effective this summer, customers who try to make purchases with their debit cards without enough money in their checking accounts will simply be declined. Debit purchases account for roughly 60 percent of overdrafts at Bank of America, the nation’s largest issuer of debit cards. Banks are bracing for a new federal rule that will require them to get permission from account holders before providing overdraft services for debit purchases and A.T.M. withdrawals. That change was already expected to wipe out billions of dollars in overdraft revenue for the banks.

A simple typo gave Michael Ivey the idea for his company. One day in the fall of 2008, Ivey’s wife, using her pink RAZR phone, sent him a note via Twitter. But instead of typing the letter d at the beginning of the tweet — which would have sent the note as a direct message, a private note just for Ivey — she hit p. It could have been an embarrassing snafu, but instead it sparked a brainstorm. That’s how you should pay people, Ivey publicly replied. Ivey’s friends quickly jumped into the conversation, enthusiastically endorsing the idea. Ivey, a computer programmer based in Alabama, began wondering if he and his wife hadn’t hit on something: What if people could transfer money over Twitter for next to nothing, simply by typing a username and a dollar amount?

Mexico's state oil company Pemex plans to present a new growth strategy by mid-year, company CEO Juan José Suárez told a webcast. The plan has yet to be approved by the company's board but will include a calendar for various initiatives to take effect. The main results of the strategy are expected to be seen in "the medium term," Suárez said. "It is very clear to us that we need to produce results fast for the transformation that we need in the company to happen," he added.

Chile scrambled on Monday to provide aid to tens of thousands of homeless people in areas devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunamis, and 10,000 troops patrolled to quell looting. The 8.8 magnitude quake on Saturday killed 711 people and the death toll was expected to rise. Harrowing scenes of destruction emerged in isolated towns swamped by giant waves triggered by one of the strongest quakes in a century. Many people were still missing in some communities in the worst-hit central region of Chile, which remained largely cut off by mangled highways and fallen telephone lines. Shortages of drinking water and food worsened the effects of the disaster, while power cuts slowed relief efforts and threatened economic output.