Good morning. The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the ability of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal agencies to impose monetary penalties through special in-house tribunals, a blow to regulators that could have ripple effects across the U.S. government.

The ruling was the capstone of a decadeslong effort by legal conservatives and defense attorneys to weaken the SEC’s power over Wall Street and other corners of the investment industry.

• In-house court: The SEC has for years been able to sue defendants in either federal court or the agency’s internal venue. Some targets of enforcement actions have long complained that they didn’t have the same rights in SEC administrative courts to challenge the commission’s witnesses and evidence.
   
• No comment: The SEC declined to address how the ruling would affect its program. Its enforcement director, Gurbir Grewal, said regulators have successfully defended investors by litigating their claims in federal court.
   
• Looming cloud: Thursday’s decision seemingly invites further litigation to test the boundaries of the court’s decision, which could cast a cloud over how other agencies with in-house courts operate.

Supreme Court rejects Purdue Pharma deal to shield Sackler family.

The Supreme Court rejected a bankruptcy plan for OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma that would have allocated billions of dollars from members of the wealthy Sackler family to combat opioid addiction in exchange for shielding them from civil lawsuits over their alleged role in fueling the drug epidemic.

The 5-4 decision marks a victory for the minority of opioid victims who voted to reject the settlement plan because they want to continue pressing lawsuits against the Sackler family members who own Purdue, and a loss for the majority of opioid victims and state and local governments who voted to accept it.

Milwaukee Tool sued over alleged Chinese forced labor in supply chain.

Milwaukee Tool faces a lawsuit from a former Chinese prisoner who alleges he was forced to make work gloves for the power tool company after being jailed for his activism.

The former prisoner, using the pseudonym Xu Lun, filed a lawsuit Thursday in Milwaukee federal court against Milwaukee Tool and its Hong Kong-based parent company, Techtronic Industries, alleging that in 2022 he was part of a crew of prison laborers forced to make Milwaukee Tool-branded gloves under the threat of beatings and electric shock.

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange landed in Australia as a free man for the first time in more than a decade, waved to supporters as he exited his airplane and then disappeared from public view.
   
• Google and TikTok have banned Done Global from running ads on their platforms amid a widening federal crackdown over distribution of Adderall and other stimulants at the telehealth company.
   
• Harvard University task forces, created to help combat bias, painted a dire picture of life on campus for Jewish, Muslim and Arab students, finding that they were harassed, bullied and discriminated against.
   
• Uber Technologies and Lyft agreed to pay ride-share drivers in Massachusetts a minimum wage and give them other benefits while continuing to classify them as independent contractors, the latest development in the companies’ nationwide fight to defend their gig-worker models.
   
• Vienna is now a base for Russian clandestine operations, including financing and logistical support for murder, sabotage and recruitment across Europe, as well as industrial espionage and influence operations, according to over a dozen Austrian, European and U.S. intelligence and government officials.

Biden administration scrambles to head off wider war between Israel and Hezbollah.

A Biden administration push to curtail worsening border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is running into major headwinds because of the difficulty the U.S. faces in arranging a cease-fire in Gaza, U.S. officials say.

The connections between the two fronts underscore the diplomatic conundrum facing the White House as it seeks to prevent a full-scale war that could draw in Iran and broaden the fighting well beyond Gaza.

• Iran's election pits a reformist candidate leading in the polls, who favors re-engaging with the West, against several hard-liners who want to deepen Iran’s relationships with Russia and China, fortify its alliance of anti-Israel militias and forge ahead with its nuclear program.
   
• North Korea said it had successfully tested technology for raining down multiple nuclear warheads at once—a top weapons goal for Kim Jong Un and an increased threat to the U.S. and its allies.
   
• China’s Communist Party expelled two former defense ministers for alleged corruption and directed prosecutors to bring charges against them, punctuating a corruption crackdown that has raised questions about the combat readiness of one of the world’s most powerful militaries.
   
• The AI fervor powering the stock market shows no sign of cooling down. The S&P 500 has climbed 15% despite reduced hopes for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts.
   
• CDK Global, which provides dealer-management software to some 15,000 retailers, is bringing some dealers back online following two cyber incidents, but problems could linger into next week.
   
• High interest rates have had an unexpected impact on U.S. housing. Instead of triggering a fall in home prices, as happened with commercial real estate, costlier mortgages have pushed residential values higher. Blame the “lock-in” effect of ultracheap mortgages secured when interest rates were low, which are trapping owners in their homes.

• Finance chiefs’ median pay rose nearly 8.5% last year as stock-based incentives lifted compensation.
   
• Getting full value out of AI workplace assistants is turning out to require a heavy lift from enterprises.
   
• Poor returns on boom-era funds are threatening to become a long-term drag on the venture-capital industry.
  
  🎧 Listen to Rubrik co-founder and CEO Bipul Sinha discuss his journey from growing up in poverty in rural India to navigating his cybersecurity firm through a $5.6 billion IPO.

• The challenge for the two candidates in Thursday’s debate couldn’t have been clearer: to be something they were not. Only one of them managed to do it. The task for President Biden was to show vigor and coherence, and he failed utterly. The task for former President Donald Trump was to keep his cool; to an uncharacteristic extent, he did so.
   
• Amazon.com plans to launch a service focused on shipping cheap fashion wear, household goods and other products directly from warehouses in China, as it faces growing competition from low-cost e-commerce platforms Temu and Shein.
   
• How early should you arrive for the busiest air-travel day in U.S. history?
   
• The Hispanic population in the U.S. continues to climb, according to the latest census estimates, propelling a slight increase in the overall population while also buttressing metro areas where growth would have otherwise stalled.
   
• Entertainment mogul Haim Saban, creator of the TV series “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” is listing his oceanfront home in Malibu, Calif., for $75 million.

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