Good morning. The U.S. Treasury Department is seeking public comment on the possible illicit finance and national security risks posed by the use of digital assets, as part of the agency’s mandate under President Biden’s March executive order to study the development of cryptocurrency.

The request for comment, issued Monday, also asks the public for suggestions to mitigate these risks by the deadline of Nov. 3.

The Treasury, in a version of the request-for-comment document on the Federal Register website, said crypto has been used in sophisticated cybercrime-related financial networks and activity, including through ransomware. The growing use of digital assets has increased the risk of crimes such as money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, thefts and corruption, according to the document.

Brian Nelson, the Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement Monday that public input will aid the agency in setting controls to hold bad actors accountable and to identify potential gaps in existing enforcement.

Sign up for the next WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum on Nov. 16 for discussions on the critical issues facing corporate risk & compliance professionals, including keeping up with sanctions, screening for forced labor, and proposed U.S. rules on climate change and cybersecurity. Register here.
 

AnnaLou Tirol, a former deputy director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, will join law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP as a partner in October, focusing on white-collar crime defense and financial technology issues, the firm said on Monday.

Ms. Tirol, who left FinCEN in July, was the second-highest official at the Treasury unit focused on combating money-laundering. She oversaw regulatory issues related to anti-money laundering and the enforcement of regulations, according to a statement from O'Melveny.

She also served as the acting chief of the public integrity section at the Justice Department’s criminal division between 2016 and 2019, and before that was a federal prosecutor in California.

Jimmy Kirby, who joined FinCEN as its associate director to lead its intelligence division, was appointed as FinCEN’s acting deputy director in July.

—Mengqi Sun

EU seeks new powers over supply chains. The European Union staked its claim to sweeping new powers to regulate industries during crises, presenting a controversial proposal that has already drawn opposition from business leaders but which EU officials say is vital to tackle disruptions such as those during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, on Monday unveiled what it calls the Single Market Emergency Instrument, which aims to address the kinds of disruptions that took place during the pandemic, when some countries, including the U.S., sought to block exports of vaccines and other health-related products. Other free-market economies have already enacted such measures. The new proposal will need approval from the EU’s 27 member states and the European Parliament to become law.

Nikola CEO testifies in Trevor Milton trial. Nikola Corp. CEO Mark Russell told a New York federal jury Monday that he had concerns about joining the electric-truck company because he believed its founder, Trevor Milton, “was prone to exaggeration in public statements.”

Testifying in Mr. Milton’s securities-fraud trial, Mr. Russell said that before coming on board in 2019 as president of Nikola, he and Mr. Milton reached an agreement that Mr. Russell would become the chief executive officer if Nikola became a publicly traded company. Mr. Russell said he sought the arrangement because as head of a public company, statements from the CEO needed to be accurate.

In other compliance-related news...

• Aviation-safety regulators rejected a proposal by a regional airline seeking to reduce the number of hours that some co-pilots need to begin flying passengers.

Ukraine forces take control of extended advance in eastern region.  Ukrainian forces said they now control the eastern bank of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region, while Moscow continues to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine following its military setbacks in the country’s east.

Strategic Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces posted a video on social media on Sunday that appeared to show an armored vehicle crossing the river, along with the message, “Ukraine controls the left bank.”

Wegmans stops using self-checkout app after suffering losses. Wegmans, the East Coast supermarket chain, said Monday that it would stop using its self-checkout app until the system could be improved because its stores were experiencing losses.

The chain, which stretches from New York to North Carolina, said it rolled out its app, called Scan, early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Customers at certain locations could scan items on the app as they shopped and then pay at a self-checkout register.

In other risk-related news...

• Weather officials warned Puerto Rico could see landslides and mudslides amid life-threatening rain stemming from Hurricane Fiona, which has knocked out power for much of the island and prompted overflowing rivers and flash floods.
   
• A strong earthquake rocked southwestern Mexico on Monday and was felt in Mexico City less than an hour after a drill was held to commemorate devastating quakes in 1985 and 2017.

Hackers leaked ‘Grand Theft Auto’ footage, Rockstar Games says. Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said hackers broke into the networks of its Rockstar Games Inc. unit and illegally accessed early-development footage of the company’s next “Grand Theft Auto” videogame.

Take-Two disclosed the hack in a securities filing Monday, saying that an unauthorized third party downloaded confidential information from its systems. The New York-based company said that Rockstar Games doesn’t expect any long-term disruptions from the incident and that work on the widely known game would continue as planned.

Big ocean shipping lines turn to planes as supply-chain snarls deepen. For the giants of ocean trade, big ships aren’t enough anymore; they need planes, too.

The pandemic, which accelerated the shift toward online shopping, followed by post-lockdown demand and now the war in Ukraine, scrambled the intricate ballet that shipping companies rely on both at sea and in port to deliver goods on time. Port congestion has forced ships to wait at anchor for weeks. A lack of workers to load and unload ships has further slowed deliveries. Empty containers have piled up in places with nothing to put in them; exporters elsewhere, eager to move their goods, can’t find enough of them.

In other operations-related news...

• Major U.S. companies will pledge to hire more than 20,000 refugees over the next three years, a number that refugee advocates say will help integrate the wave of Afghans and Ukrainians who arrived over the past year.
   
• Ford Motor Co. said Monday that shortages of certain parts will result in a higher-than-planned number of unfinished vehicles in its inventory.

Mr. Biden said during an interview that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes” that “the pandemic is over. We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s—but the pandemic is over.”