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The Morning Risk Report: Walmart to Stop Selling Ammunition for Assault-Style Weapons
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Walmart employees visit a memorial for mass-shooting victims outside a store in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 6. PHOTO: LARRY W SMITH/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Good Morning. Walmart Inc. said it will stop selling ammunition for assault-style rifles and handguns, further restricting the retailer’s gun-related sales and policies after two deadly shootings in Walmart stores last month.
Ammunition that can be used in high-capacity clips on assault-style guns, as well as all handgun ammunition will no longer be sold in stores, the company said. Walmart ended the sale of handguns in all stores except those in Alaska over two decades ago, but will now stop in the state as well.
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Although it is one of the biggest U.S. sellers of firearms and ammunition, Walmart has been gradually tightening its policies as the nation confronts a rash of mass shootings. In 2015, it stopped selling assault-style rifles. Last year, the company raised the minimum age to purchase guns or ammunition to 21 after a deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Last month, a gunman walked into an El Paso, Texas, Walmart with an AK-style semiautomatic rifle and killed 22 people, in one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. Earlier that week, a Walmart employee shot and killed two other workers in a Mississippi Walmart store.
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Carnival, Looking to Improve Compliance, Turns to Interactive Training
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Cruise-line operator Carnival Corp. is revamping the way it delivers compliance training, focusing on virtual simulations instead of classroom lectures, as it looks to prevent future lapses in environmental controls.
The Miami-based company in June admitted to dumping plastic in the ocean and falsifying training records as part of a $20 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department. Two years earlier, a subsidiary pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $40 million for illegally dumping oily water overboard and attempting to conceal it.
Under the terms of its 2017 agreement, Carnival agreed to implement an annual training program for its environmental officers, according to Chris Donald, senior vice president of corporate environmental compliance. Those sessions initially involved lecture-based instruction.
The company decided this year to make the training more interactive to improve on-the-job problem-solving. Environmental compliance officers are now required to participate in a virtual simulation of a 23-day cruise. The weeklong training presents the officers with real-world challenges, such as providing the final check on navigation plans or researching rules and regulations.
The training, developed in partnership with the University of West Florida, is offered to officers at Carnival’s maritime training center in the Netherlands. So far, 39 of the company’s roughly 250 environmental officers have completed the seven-day training, according to the company.
—Kristin Broughton
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U.K. Sentences Lengthen for Money-Laundering Offenses
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Individuals convicted of money laundering in the U.K. are receiving longer prison terms because of a recent change in sentencing guidelines.
The average sentence for money-laundering offenses in 2018 was 27 months, compared with 25 months in 2017, and an increase of 30% from five years earlier, according to research published by Thomson Reuters, which is based on May 2019 data from the Ministry of Justice.
The changes reflect the impact of sentencing guidelines adopted in 2014, which gave prosecutors more flexibility to argue for harsher punishments, Charles Thomson, a partner on the dispute resolution team at Baker & McKenzie LLP, said in a statement. The longer terms are designed to deter criminal behavior, Mr. Thomson said.
“The courts will hope that longer sentences will deter professionals in the financial and professional services sector who might be tempted to assist illegal finances,” Mr. Thomson added.
—Kristin Broughton
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Anthony Levandowski leaving the federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing trade secrets from Alphabet’s self-driving-car unit. PHOTO: JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The federal indictment announced last week against a driverless-car engineer that accuses him of stealing trade secrets from Google’s parent company before he jumped to a rival is being viewed as a warning to Silicon Valley that prosecutors may scrutinize defections to competitors that involve sensitive technology.
Legal experts who specialize in intellectual property say they can’t think of another example in which federal agents pursued an expansive criminal case against a high-level U.S. tech employee accused of taking proprietary material to a new job. Traditionally, trade-secrets-theft cases have been brought by U.S. companies against a former employee, not by the Justice Department.
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FedEx Corp. faces another investigation in China, this time suspected of illegally shipping a parcel containing knives to Hong Kong, state media said. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday that a probe had begun into FedEx about the package of knives but offered no further details.
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The State Department imposed sanctions against Iran’s space program on Tuesday following a failed attempt to launch a rocket last week, which the U.S. suspects was an effort to advance its ballistic missile program.
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An unusual legal dispute brewing in the nationwide college-admissions cheating scandal could lead to lighter punishments than prosecutors want for parents who have pleaded guilty.
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A prominent ally of Mexico’s president who is one of the country’s richest businessmen has deep ties to companies that owned significant shares in a fertilizer maker at the center of a burgeoning national corruption scandal.
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Eric Rosengren of the Boston Fed at a conference in Hong Kong earlier this year. PHOTO: PAUL YEUNG/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Boston Fed leader Eric Rosengren said Tuesday the U.S. economy still seems in a good enough place to avoid the need for rate cuts, in comments that shrugged off bond-market pricing levels that suggest a downturn is looming.
“This is a particularly good time to carefully watch incoming data—to determine whether any additional policy adjustments are necessary to achieve the Fed’s congressionally mandated goals of maximum employment and stable prices,” Mr. Rosengren said in the text of a speech to be delivered in Easton, Mass.
Given the current situation with global growth, “it is clearly reasonable to make the assessment that risks are elevated,” he said. “Should those risks become a reality, the appropriate monetary policy would be to ease aggressively. However, to date, these elevated risks have not become reality, at least for the U.S. economy,” Mr. Rosengren said.
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The app uses deepfake technology, which harnesses artificial intelligence to produce doctored photos, videos and audio recordings. PHOTO: IMAGINECHINA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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A Chinese-made app that lets users morph themselves almost seamlessly into scenes from iconic movies and TV shows using a single selfie is the latest viral sensation to fan fears about data privacy and identity theft.
Zao, which shot to the top of China’s list of most-downloaded free apps after it launched Friday, uses deepfake technology to repurpose a user’s image to dramatic effect.
The app is now at the center of a debate about personal data privacy in China that erupted after users discovered playing with Zao required signing away “irrevocable, permanent, transferable” rights over their content. People flocked online to gripe about the app’s far-reaching user agreement, and Chinese social-media platform WeChat , from Tencent Holdings Ltd. , blocked links to content generated by Zao.
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The UAW’s leadership has criticized General Motors’ move to close several U.S. factories as prioritizing profits over manufacturing jobs. PHOTO: HARRISON MCCLARY/REUTERS
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The United Auto Workers union said it would target General Motors Co. first in negotiating a new labor contract, aiming for a deal that can be used to guide talks with the other two Detroit car companies.
The UAW’s choice of GM over Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV signals the union has made the most headway there toward an agreement that could benefit hourly factory workers at all three U.S. car companies.
The current labor agreement expires Sept. 14, with both sides expecting tougher negotiations than in years past as the once-booming U.S. car market slows, putting pressure on the auto makers to restrain factory output.
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Mr. Stankey, chief executive of WarnerMedia, will become AT&T’s new president and operating chief. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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AT&T Inc. promoted longtime executive John Stankey to a newly created No. 2 role, setting up the WarnerMedia boss as the likely successor to Chief Executive Randall Stephenson.
Mr. Stankey, 56 years old, will serve as president and chief operating officer starting next month. He will continue to serve as the head of WarnerMedia, the unit that houses HBO, the Warner Bros. studio and cable channels like CNN.
He will report to Mr. Stephenson and is the front-runner to take over the top job, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Stankey joined one of AT&T’s predecessors in 1985 and spent most of his career in the telecommunications business.
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