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The Morning Risk Report: MLB Is Prohibiting Players From Playing in Venezuelan Winter League
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Caribes de Anzoategui players celebrate during a game at the Jose Bernardo Perez stadium in the city of Valencia. PHOTO: JUAN CARLOS HERNANDEZ/ZUMA PRESS
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Good morning. Major League Baseball is suspending players from participating in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League this winter as it seeks clarification on how to comply with U.S.-imposed sanctions against the government of Venezuela, several people familiar with the matter said.
The prohibition applies to major-league and minor-league players, these people said. The ruling won’t prevent Venezuelan players from returning to their home country in the off-season. MLB began informing teams of its decision on Thursday.
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This month, President Trump signed an executive order freezing all assets from the government of President Nicolás Maduro and prohibiting transactions with it, unless specifically exempted. Venezuela’s baseball league, Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional, is heavily sponsored by Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, the state-owned oil company that was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury in January.
MLB’s action in Venezuela comes just months after it faced scrutiny over its efforts in Cuba. In April, the Trump administration blocked MLB from signing players directly from Cuba to play professional in the U.S., nullifying a historic deal the league struck in December with the island nation’s baseball federation.
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American Bankers Association Chief Executive Rob Nichols, shown in 2017, says the trade group is supporting politicians who ‘understand and appreciate the critical role banks of all sizes play in the economy.’ PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
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Banks plan to be more active in the 2020 elections, with a large industry group promising to boost campaign spending and political advertising after keeping a relatively low profile in the decade after the financial crisis. The industry’s re-emergence in the political arena comes amid a friendlier tone in Washington during the Trump administration. Congress and financial regulators have sought to ease capital rules, limits on trading and other restrictions placed on banks by the Obama administration after the 2008 crisis, arguing the financial system is more resilient now.
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Large telecom companies and attorneys general from every state unveiled Thursday a new pact for combating robocalls, the latest step toward cutting off such calls before they reach a consumer’s phone. Under the agreement, the companies are promising to work to prevent illegal robocalls on their networks and to work with state law enforcement investigating the calls’ origins.
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Shares of Boeing Co. ascended Thursday on a signal that the aerospace giant’s troubled fleet of 737 MAX aircraft is moving toward a return to service. Boeing’s stock rose 4.2% after Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr said the Federal Aviation Administration certification flight for the 737 MAX could take place in four to six weeks.
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Federal regulators examining test data manipulation for a gene-therapy drug made by Novartis AG are zeroing in on the company’s two-month delay in launching a formal inquiry, according to documents and interviews.
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An investigation into sales practices at one of Aflac Inc.’s distribution partners in Japan is making it harder for the insurer’s finance chief to make revenue forecasts. “We have fairly limited information on the trajectory of our sales forecast,” Aflac Chief Financial Officer Frederick J. Crawford said in an interview Thursday.
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Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba, has had to navigate shifting political winds. PHOTO: CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has postponed plans for a multibillion-dollar share listing in Hong Kong, as protests now in their third month exact a deepening economic cost.
The Chinese e-commerce company was on track to launch the sale in the coming weeks but put that plan on hold due to market instability and political uncertainty in the city, according to people familiar with the matter. Alibaba executives were also concerned about the optics of one of China’s highest-profile companies listing in Hong Kong amid the protests, one of the people said.
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Lab technicians at FamilyTreeDNA work on customer samples. PHOTO: BRANDON THIBODEAUX FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Millions of consumers have bought at-home genetic test kits, including 1.5 million from FamilyTreeDNA. As the databases expand, so do uses of the information. Decisions on what uses are permissible largely rest with the controllers of the DNA databases—sometimes a single individual at a company.
Consumers use genetic data to gain insight into family roots or learn about health risks. The boom has also revealed information test takers never expected, such as the identities of biological parents in adoptions or partners involved in secret relationships. DNA databases have drawn interest from outsiders too—drug companies eager to mine them for information, researchers studying population migration and law enforcement seeking leads to crime suspects.
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The national anthem is played before the women’s final of the U.S. Open last September at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. PHOTO: DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN/REUTERS
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The U.S. Tennis Association has underreported revenue from its Queens tennis center and owes New York City hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a new audit by the city comptroller’s office.
The audit, released Thursday, found that the organization, which pays the city to host the U.S. Open inside Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, didn’t report at least $31 million in gross revenue to the city between 2014 and 2017.
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Patrick Byrne has overseen the company since 1999. PHOTO: STEVEN FERDMAN/GETTY IMAGES
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Patrick Byrne, CEO of online retailer Overstock.com Inc., resigned Thursday, saying he didn’t want his presence to distract from the company’s business strategy. Mr. Byrne has made a career of provoking Wall Street. This month, he confirmed media reports that said he’d had a relationship with Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty to accusations that she tried to influence U.S. policy in favor of the Kremlin. He also asserted he had helped the U.S. government in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
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HP Inc. Chief Executive Dion Weisler is stepping down as the leader of one of the world’s largest PC makers later this year for family health reasons.
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Groupon Inc. is losing its chief financial officer in the midst of a turnaround effort aimed at leading the daily-deals company to sustainable growth.
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The last time Dick’s Sporting Goods reported positive same-store sales was in the second quarter of fiscal 2017. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Shares of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. climbed Thursday after the retailer reported its first positive quarterly same-store sales in about two years and increased its fiscal-year outlook. While the company has struggled with same-store sales for a while, its decision last year to stop selling guns to customers under the age of 21 also hurt results.
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Walmart Inc. plans to reopen the El Paso store where a gunman killed 22 people, but it will first entirely renovate the interior and add an on-site memorial. The retailer says it will gut the store, adding new flooring, fixtures and merchandise, a process that is expected to take three or four months. The location could reopen in November or December ahead of the holidays.
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David Marcus, a Facebook executive, spoke about Libra’s benefits for the unbanked during his congressional testimony in Washington last month. PHOTO: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
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Facebook Inc. has an ambitious goal for its proposed cryptocurrency, Libra: to bring financial services to the hundreds of millions of people world-wide who don’t use banks or other traditional institutions. The cryptocurrency sector has for years tried to do the same and failed.
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Volkswagen AG lifted the curtain on the first of a new generation of vehicles it is betting will take the electric car out of its tiny market niche and make it the new car for the masses.
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