Good morning. Dozens of tankers filled with Russian oil are floating at sea without buyers. Western powers are seizing the aging ships the country relies upon. Buyers of Russian oil are demanding the steepest discount to global oil prices since the early months of the war in Ukraine.

It all spells crunchtime from Moscow’s most important economic engine.

• Putting the squeeze on: A fresh wave of pressure, a combination of European sanctions against specific ships, dramatic military ship seizures on the high seas, and President Trump’s efforts to put a wedge between Russia and India, have left Moscow’s most important industry in a precarious state.
   
• Deep discount: Russia’s main grade of crude, known as Urals, trades for around $45 a barrel, a record $27 below the international benchmark Brent, according to commodities-data firm Argus Media.
   
• Shadow fleet under pressure: A series of recent ship seizures by the U.S. and Europe has made it riskier to operate Moscow’s fleet of shadow tankers. These ships, with opaque ownership that also operate without Western insurance and finance, transported nearly 80% of its oil in 2025.

The Morning Risk Report won’t be published Monday in observance of Presidents Day. We’ll be back on Tuesday.

Justice Department’s antitrust chief leaves post after clashes with leadership.

The Justice Department’s top antitrust official said on Thursday that she is leaving her job, capping a rocky year in which she clashed with senior officials who at times favored more lenient oversight of mergers.

Slater’s departure, which followed weeks of being overruled on matters large and small, opens a leadership vacuum at the antitrust division, which is litigating several major antitrust lawsuits.

FTC warns Apple of potential federal law violation regarding Apple News.

The Federal Trade Commission issued a letter to Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook, warning that the company’s Apple News product may violate federal law.

The letter from FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson cited reports—including one from the Media Research Center, a nonprofit critical of national news organizations—that Apple News promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications.

• Artificial-intelligence upstart Anthropic is spending $20 million ahead of the midterm elections to push for greater regulation and restrictions on exporting AI chips.
   
• A prestigious Florida sports school has agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle allegations it violated U.S. sanctions by enrolling the children of Mexican cartel bosses, Risk Journal reports.
   
• Israel has arrested several people, including army reservists, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on Israeli military operations on Polymarket.
   
• Russia is restricting access to WhatsApp as it accelerates its campaign to shift Russians away from Western-based messaging platforms outside its control and onto homegrown equivalents approved by the government.
   
• Securities and Exchange Commission head Paul Atkins defended the agency’s record of going after Wall Street during the Trump administration, saying that the SEC shouldn’t engage in so-called “regulation by enforcement.”
   
• The FDA’s refusal to review Moderna’s application to sell a new flu shot is part of a pattern of regulatory U-turns and overruling of FDA staff by Vinay Prasad, head of the agency’s vaccine division.
   
• The U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office is reviewing 19 cases after discovering an issue in its e-discovery software may have caused it to miss exculpatory evidence.

U.S. smuggled thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran after protest crackdown.

The Trump administration covertly sent thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran after the regime’s brutal crackdown on demonstrations last month, U.S. officials said, an effort to keep dissidents online following Tehran’s stifling of internet access.

After Iranian authorities smothered mounting unrest in January by killing thousands of protesters and severely cutting internet connectivity, the U.S. smuggled roughly 6,000 of the satellite-internet kits into the country, the first time the U.S. has directly sent Starlink into Iran.

AI agents are here to stay, businesses say.

Companies are thinking very differently about AI agents than they were at this time last year. There’s no more second-guessing whether the bots are here to stay.

While it’s true that AI agents are increasingly getting deployed inside companies, many tech and personnel challenges remain—from concerns about cybersecurity and governance to resistance from employees who fear AI will take their jobs.

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright said “enormous progress” is being made with Venezuela’s regime in the transformation of its decrepit oil industry, but that the objective is an end to sanctions and a transition toward democracy.
   
• Financial stress is spreading beyond the lowest-income borrowers.
   
• Could Russia launch a war across Europe? The Germans aren’t waiting to find out.
   
• U.S. troops have vacated a strategic military base in southeast Syria and turned it over to government forces, the U.S. military said, ending a decadelong presence as part of a drawdown of American troops in the country.
   
• Mercedes-Benz expects profitability in its core car business to remain muted this year as it continues to grapple with tariff costs and intense competition in China.

Join us in New York on March 4 for the Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit. Speakers include Kaitlin Asrow, acting superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services; Erika Brown Lee, head of global data privacy legal, Citi; Beth Collins, chief compliance officer, Walmart; Indrani Franchini, chief compliance officer, IBM; and Kevin O’Connor, general counsel, Lockheed Martin.

Request a complimentary invitation here using the code COMPLIMENTARY. Attendance is limited, and all requests are subject to approval.

• Customs and Border Protection used a high-energy laser from the Pentagon earlier this week in the vicinity of El Paso, Texas, prompting concerns within the FAA and leading it to temporarily shut down all flights over the city, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
   
• The Trump administration is ending its immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is on the verge of a shutdown after Senate Democrats voted to block a bill to fund the agency.
   
• Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Winter Olympics on Thursday for wearing a helmet that featured images of Ukrainian athletes killed during the Russian invasion.
   
• Two people reported minor injuries Wednesday when a U.S. warship and a Navy supply vessel assigned to the military buildup in the Caribbean