Good morning. A new side effect from remote working, layoffs and furloughs stemming from the coronavirus pandemic: more whistleblowers. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received about 4,000 tips, complaints and referrals of possible corporate wrongdoings from mid-March to mid-May, said Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division. That’s up 35% from the same period last year. The tips have led to hundreds of new investigations—“many Covid-19 related, but many in other traditional areas,” Mr. Peikin said in a recent speech.

Lawyers chalk up the increase to the fact that many would-be tipsters are working from the privacy of their home, out of view of snooping colleagues and managers and thus safer from being exposed as whistleblowers. Tipsters might also feel less concerned about retaliation if they are not interacting regularly with their managers, lawyers say; if they have been furloughed or laid off, they might feel even less so.

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“These people have more time on their hands,” said Christopher Connors, a managing attorney at the Connors Law Group in Chicago, whose team has taken on at least seven new whistleblower clients since the end of February—a big increase for the firm. “They don’t have to go see their bosses, and they may feel a bit more emboldened to report,” he said.

When employees face pressure to meet goals during difficult financial times, the likelihood of wrongdoing can increase. Anticorruption organizations have warned that the current economic tumble could create an environment ripe for bribery.

New guidance on civil monetary penalties from the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission lays out factors regulators are meant to consider when calculating fines.

The guidance—the CFTC’s first update to its guidelines on monetary penalties since 1994—was issued in the form of a memo to CFTC staff by enforcement director James McDonald and released publicly in May. It is designed to give companies more transparency and ensure greater consistency in calculating fines, Mr. McDonald said during an online discussion hosted by the Futures Industry Association. The guidance is meant to supplement, not replace, existing penalty guidelines, he said.

• The Environmental Protection Agency is setting new rules aimed at speeding up Clean Water Act permit approvals that are often a sticking point for pipelines and other major infrastructure projects. The changes, which narrow the scope states have for rejecting permits, are part of a broad set of moves from the Trump administration seeking to limit how bedrock environmental laws can be applied to climate policy. Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to sign the new rules Monday. This rules change marks an uncommon move for an administration that has often weakened federal authority to give more power to states as it deregulates oversight of the U.S. energy industry.
   
• Michael Flynn urged Russia’s ambassador during the 2016 presidential transition to refrain from escalating a standoff over sanctions levied by the outgoing Obama administration, according to a newly-released transcript of a conversation that led to Mr. Flynn’s firing as national security adviser. The record of the Dec. 29, 2016, call, released Friday along with transcripts of other conversations between Mr. Flynn and then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that were intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies, confirm earlier reports of an episode that helped cloud the beginning of the Trump administration and fueled aspects of the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
   
• U.S. national security officials approved an investor group’s purchase of gay-dating app Grindr that is being sold by a Chinese company after the Trump administration raised concerns about the potential theft of Americans’ personal data. China’s Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. said that the buyer has secured approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a panel of national security experts who ordered that Beijing Kunlun Tech sell its ownership last year.
   
• The Food and Drug Administration said it has asked five companies to voluntarily recall a widely used diabetes drug after the agency’s testing found higher-than-acceptable levels of a contaminant that could cause cancer. The drug, metformin, is used to control high blood sugar in type-2 diabetes patients. The FDA said it found the impurity in certain extended-release versions of the drug, not immediate-release versions that are more popular.
   
• Nestlé must stop branding its plant-based burger “Incredible” after a European court ruled the language infringed on Impossible Foods’ trademarks and could confuse consumers.

Many retailers and restaurants, already crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, are grappling with damage to their properties and new closures following protests sparked by the death of George Floyd that have sometimes turned violent. 

Target, Walmart, Nike and small family businesses have collectively closed hundreds of locations or are recovering from looting and physical damage related to protests. Adidas said it was temporarily closing its U.S. stores, while Amazon said it had scaled back or adjusted delivery routes in a handful of cities to protect employees. Many executives and business owners expressed solidarity with protesters, who object to broader issues of racism and social justice.

After China last week approved a plan to impose new national-security laws on Hong Kong, President Trump said the U.S. would no longer treat Hong Kong as a separate entity from China and would roll back policy exemptions for the city. They could include measures such as export controls, tariffs and visa restrictions, according to analysts, but businesses will have to wait for details and the timing of any moves.

Anxious not to become entangled in the rivalry, European Union foreign ministers emphasized the need for dialogue over Hong Kong, although they described China’s moves to tighten its grip on the territory as a matter of “grave concern.”

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• U.S. consumer spending fell by a record 13.6% in April, the steepest decline for records tracing back to 1959. The U.S. will need a strong regime to test, trace and quarantine cases of the new coronavirus to ensure a stronger rebound in employment and economic activity as states lift restrictions on commerce this summer, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said. A slow economic recovery could test the strength of nonbank lenders, forcing many to raise capital if the businesses that have borrowed from them struggle to recover or shut down after the lockdown enforced during the coronavirus pandemic.
   
• Newspapers and television stations that post their own articles on Facebook’s platform are liable for other Facebook users’ defamatory comments on those posts, an Australian court ruled Monday, presenting a fresh dilemma for traditional publishers in the social-media age.
   
• The world economy is likely to feel the impact as China accelerates its shift away from a decadeslong fixation on achieving a specific, rapid pace of economic expansion to a focus on other goals, though at a slower growth rate. China’s economic recovery may already be stalling as the pandemic began curbing the world’s demand for its goods.
   
• The American semiconductor industry is gearing up for a lobbying push to obtain billions of dollars in federal funding for factory building and research to keep the U.S. ahead of China and other countries that heavily subsidize their chip industries.
   
• India detailed plans to ease a nationwide lockdown that has affected more than a billion people, even as officials reported another daily high increase in coronavirus cases. The country’s gross-domestic-product growth slowed to an 11-year low last fiscal year as the lockdown started to strangle the country’s already struggling economy, highlighting the struggles of many developing-world economies.
   
• The regime of Nicolás Maduro said it will scale back its longstanding fuel subsidy and privatize service stations, in a significant shift for Venezuelans long accustomed to filling up their cars free of charge. The measures, which take effect on Monday, are a gamble for Mr. Maduro as he struggles with a devastating economic crisis and tries to outlast U.S.-led sanctions meant to topple his authoritarian administration.

Since Tuesday, Twitter has taken several actions on messages from President Trump as well as a post from the official White House account, marking some as breaking the company’s rules and adding a fact-check label to two about mail-in ballots.

The moves marked a sharp reversal for Twitter, which for years has faced criticism from users for what they see as inaction and inconsistency in policing its own platform, and turmoil among its employees over how it has managed its most prominent user. Some of Twitter’s 4,000 employees have accused the company and Chief Executive Jack Dorsey of ignoring harmful behavior from the accounts of powerful figures, while others have said moderating those accounts would be akin to censorship.

• Companies that used to indulge their customers are adjusting to an era when shoppers also pose dangers. Wegmans Food Markets Inc., a grocery-store chain that has inspired a cult following, is discovering how challenging that transformation can be.
   
• Surging e-commerce volumes during the coronavirus pandemic are straining the U.S. Postal Service’s parcel network as staffing shortages and backlogs in hard-hit areas slow deliveries. The problems have delayed some packages for days and even weeks, shippers and consumers say, holding up orders at a time when many people are shopping more online to avoid infection with the virus.

Coty is set to appoint its fourth new chief executive in less than four years, as the cosmetics and fragrance maker strives to revive slumping sales and reduce its burdensome debt load.

Peter Harf, Coty’s current chairman, will also assume the CEO role as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. That will leave the New York-based company’s fortunes directly in the hands of its largest shareholder, JAB Holding Co., of which Mr. Harf is one of two managing partners. 

Mr. Harf has a lot riding on the turnaround as a major shareholder of Coty who has been involved in the company since 1990.