Good morning. AI hype is everywhere, including compliance departments. But with a recent wave of white-collar layoffs fueled by the increased use of artificial intelligence—and with executives pushing remaining employees to use the technology—compliance officers are feeling pressured to adapt it for use in daily tasks, writes Risk Journal's Max Fillion.

• Still early days: But compliance professionals, consultants and lawyers who spoke with Risk Journal said they are only just beginning to test the technology, with many still using it for basic tasks such as running a policy through a chatbot for feedback or scanning the internet for regulatory updates. Many professionals lured by buzzy promises of increased efficiency may not yet know how AI can help with everyday compliance tasks.
   
• Shiny object? “They’re open to something they don’t understand,” said Zach Coseglia, co-founder of data analytics consulting firm CDE Advisors. “You look around and say ‘All my friends are buying Ferraris, I gotta buy a Ferrari,’ but you only drive within 2 miles of your home.”
   
• Still in the game: That hasn’t stopped people from trying. According to a Moody’s survey of compliance professionals in September, some 53% of respondents said they are actively using or testing AI, up from 30% in 2023.

Also see: CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

Trump administration approves first round of crypto-focused banks.

The Trump administration on Friday blessed plans to launch five new cryptocurrency-focused national banks, part of its push to give the industry broader access to the traditional financial system.

Circle and Ripple were among the crypto upstarts that received approval on applications filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC, part of the Treasury Department, regulates national banks.

Background. A crowd of nonbanks has been knocking at the door of the banking system thanks to President Trump’s friendly stance toward the crypto industry and focus on deregulation.

Trump’s financial crime cops to target Minnesota fraud scandal.

The Trump administration is directing U.S. financial crime enforcers to investigate the wave of social-services fraud in Minnesota and will impose new reporting requirements on some money transmitters, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Bessent on Friday said the Treasury Department will soon issue what is known as a geographic targeting order that will subject certain money-services businesses to enhanced reporting requirements, citing concerns about “egregious” fraud in the state. “This will empower investigators to develop additional leads through increased scrutiny on funds going to areas of concern, such as Somalia,” Bessent said in a post on the social-media platform X.

• Democrats Struggle to Push Back on Minnesota Fraud Scandal That Only Grows

• President Trump said he was leaning toward choosing either former Fed governor Kevin Warsh or National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett to lead the Federal Reserve next year.
   
• President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that aims to override state laws on artificial intelligence.
   
• More investors would be able to access private markets under a bill that cleared the House of Representatives with a strong bipartisan majority on Thursday afternoon.
   
• Risk Journal reports that the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority has fined Nationwide Building Society 44 million pounds, equivalent to $58.8 million, saying that its anti-money-laundering systems and financial crime controls were inadequate over a nearly five-year period.
   
• A group of seven Democratic U.S. senators is pushing back on President Trump’s decision this week to allow Nvidia to sell its second-most advanced generation of artificial-intelligence chips in China.
   
• Disgraced crypto tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to fraud in connection with the $40 billion crash of his TerraUSD and Luna coins in 2022.
   
• OpenAI told staff this past week that it was ending a compensation policy that required employees to work at the company for at least six months before their equity vests.
   
• China plans to implement a steel export licensing mechanism next year, a move that could curb outflow of the metal that has been the subject of trade spats across the globe.
   
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday outlined plans to rework the way a top financial regulatory body monitors the U.S. financial system for risks.
   
• Lawmakers from both parties and businesses spanning the airline and farming industries want sustainable aviation fuel to take off.
   
• Reddit is taking the Australian government to court to block its social-media ban for children under the age of 16, saying the ban infringes on their freedom of political discourse.

U.S. pours more firepower into the Caribbean as Trump ramps up threats.

The U.S. military is moving more weapons and units into the Caribbean that give President Trump powerful new options to escalate his pressure campaign on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and potentially bring him down.

After weeks of deadly boat strikes and the seizure of an oil tanker, the Pentagon is sending assets that could enable land strikes, disable Venezuela’s defenses and enforce an oil embargo—posing a direct threat not only to Maduro but to his regional allies such as Cuba.

• Seizure of Venezuelan Oil Strikes at the Heart of Maduro’s Grip on Power

The Supreme Court tariff decision could be coming soon.

The Supreme Court could soon rule whether President Donald Trump’s tariffs are legal—a decision that will have far-reaching implications on the extent of the president’s powers.

The stakes are high for U.S. importers hoping for refunds—and for consumers with increasingly pinched wallets. The impact on markets, however, is expected to be more limited. Either way, the decision likely won’t change the White House’s use of tariffs as a policy tool.

• What other tariffs could Trump roll back as economic worries persist?

• President Trump’s top envoys held five hours of talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin on Sunday, with Washington hailing progress as the administration steps up pressure on Kyiv to seal a peace deal with Russia by year-end.
   
• Two U.S. soldiers and an American civilian interpreter were killed during an attack Saturday near the city of Palmyra, Syria, according to the Pentagon.
   
• A U.S. special operations team boarded a ship in the Indian Ocean last month and seized military-related articles headed to Iran from China, U.S. officials said, a rare interdiction operation at sea aimed at blocking Tehran from rebuilding its military arsenal.
   
• Trump administration officials are seeking to recruit a multinational force of around 10,000 troops under a U.S. general to stabilize postwar Gaza, officials say, but no foreign countries have yet committed troops, partly over reservations that the mission could expand.
   
• The governments of Thailand and Cambodia said Saturday that fighting continued along their shared border, seemingly contradicting an earlier statement from President Trump that their prime ministers had agreed to a cease-fire.
   
• As part of deadly border clashes, the Thai military has struck several Cambodian casino and hotel complexes it says had been used to run transnational cyberscams.
   
• Chileans on Sunday elected their most right-wing president in a generation, with hard-line conservative José Antonio Kast winning easily after vowing to clamp down on crime and illegal immigration.
   
• New limits on steel imports into Canada take effect the day after Christmas, the country’s finance department said Friday.

• Two gunmen killed 15 people during a Hanukkah event Sunday on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in what officials called a terrorist attack on Australia’s Jewish community. One suspect was also killed and the other is in critical condition.
   
• President Trump conveyed uncertainty about whether Republicans would maintain control of the House in next year’s midterm elections because some of his economic policies have yet to take full effect.
   
• Chinese videogame executive Xu Bo, said to have more than 100 children, and other Chinese elites are building mega-families, testing citizenship laws and drawing on nannies, IVF and legal firms set up to help them.
   
• The $901 billion defense-policy bill passed by the House would codify more than a dozen of President Trump’s executive orders, authorizing major weapons programs, troop deployments and international-security assistance. Here's what's in the bill.
   
• Crypto executives have