Good morning. The Federal Trade Commission plans to study the impact of artificial-intelligence chatbots on children’s mental health and request documents from OpenAI and other tech companies, a signal that regulators are growing concerned about the unintended consequences of the AI boom.

The antitrust and consumer-protection regulator is expected to evaluate whether ChatGPT and other chatbots are harming children and affecting their mental health, administration officials said.

• Requests for info: The agency is preparing letters to tech companies operating popular chatbots—including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Meta Platforms and Character.AI—that will require the companies to turn over documents to the FTC. The White House recently approved the move, the officials said. The study and letters could be an initial step for the FTC to understand the issue and prepare further action, they said.
   
• Pressure from parents: The Trump administration and Congress are under pressure from parents and advocacy groups to protect children using social-media platforms and AI chatbots. Recent reports of teenagers who died by suicide after forming close relationships with chatbots have heightened focus on the issue.
   
• Competing priorities: Discussions of any regulatory moves in the chatbot space are complicated in the White House because some officials argue they could slow down the tech companies in the AI race with China and limit AI’s benefits for the economy, two top priorities for the president.

Justice Department sues utility over Southern California fires.

The Justice Department is suing Southern California Edison for about $77 million in damages, alleging the utility provider’s negligence caused two deadly wildfires.

The DOJ on Thursday blamed the utility for failing to maintain infrastructure that prosecutors said sparked the Eaton fire in January and the 2022 Fairview fire in Riverside County. The blazes collectively killed nearly two dozen people and damaged more than 42,000 acres.

• Gavin Newsom Has an $18 Billion Plan to Shore Up California’s Utilities. It Isn’t Enough.

FTC probing corporate noncompetes.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is asking the public for tips on potentially illegal noncompete agreements, reports Risk Journal.

In a request for information published Thursday, the agency said it is trying to identify companies that impose noncompete agreements on employees, and is seeking to better understand the scope and prevalence of such agreements in employment contracts.

• Republican attorneys general are accusing net-zero standards setters of running climate cartels.
   
• Nasdaq is seeking to tighten its rules for small Chinese stocks, following criticism from Wall Street veterans and investor-protection advocates that such listings have become a hotbed for fraud and manipulation.
   
• Two former executives at collapsed financial technology firm Synapse face a probe from Wall Street’s self-regulatory arm over alleged failures to properly supervise the company and retain required records.
   
• The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a China-based chemical company as part of what officials called a “first-of-its-kind international operation” targeting the fentanyl crisis.
   
• Pressure from the U.S. and individual member states shouldn’t lead to a further watering down of the European Union’s flagship climate policies, environmental legislation experts told Risk Journal.
   
• Spain’s market regulator has given the green light for lender BBVA to take over smaller peer Banco de Sabadell.

How effective is corporate cybersecurity training? Not very, it seems.

Cybersecurity-awareness training might not help employees avoid phishing attacks, a recent study suggests.

The study involved nearly 20,000 employees at UC San Diego Health, a large California healthcare provider, and 10 simulated phishing attacks carried out against those employees over eight months between January and October 2023. UC San Diego Health uses the same cybersecurity-training programs as many organizations around the country.

Macron says 26 countries agree to contribute to Ukraine’s security.

French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 countries were ready to contribute to a peacekeeping mission if the fighting between Ukraine and Russia stops, part of an effort to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate with his Ukrainian counterpart.

Putin has shown little interest in coming to the table for talks on ending the conflict. But the Trump administration and European officials have been plowing ahead with negotiations aimed at providing Ukraine with robust security guarantees in a bid to strengthen the hand of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

• Top Israeli security officials and ministers are privately urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do a temporary cease-fire deal with Hamas rather than expand a ground offensive against the militant group in Gaza City, according to Israeli officials.
   
• Hundreds of people including South Korean workers were arrested in an immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor battery plant under construction in Georgia, weeks after the carmaker pledged $26 billion in U.S. investments. South Korea protested the action to the U.S.
   
• Mexico’s cartels are exporting their bloody rivalry to Ecuador and beyond.

• Skydance’s Paramount is bringing employees back to the office five days a week, beginning in January. Company executives have said they plan to cut costs by more than $2 billion and there would be reductions in head count later this year.
   
• The District of Columbia’s attorney general said Thursday that he was suing to end the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, two days after a federal judge ruled the Trump administration’s use of the National Guard in Los Angeles had been unlawful.
   
• The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, issuing subpoenas as part of an inquiry into whether she submitted fraudulent information on mortgage applications, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
   
• Tesla’s board is asking investors to approve a new pay package for Chief Executive Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.
   
• A light-beer maker backed by the football stars Travis and Jason Kelce bucked recent concerns about beer’s popularity, claiming a roughly $200 million valuation in its first institutional round of fundraising, according to people familiar with the matter.

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