Good morning. The European Union slapped a raft of new sanctions on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, targeting the Kremlin’s liquefied natural gas shipments for the first time.

• A new round of sanctions: The sanctions package—the 14th since the outbreak of the war in 2022—bans the re-export of Russian LNG shipments destined to third countries through EU ports, covering ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore transfers, as well as re-loading operations.
   
• The goal: The measure is aimed at making Russia’s gas export activities more difficult and hitting the country’s energy revenue, but it falls short of restricting imports of Russian LNG, which EU members are still allowed to purchase despite plans to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
   
• Other measures: The EU is also prohibiting new investment and provision of technology, goods and services for the completion of LNG projects under construction—such as Arctic LNG 2 and Murmansk LNG—and imposing sanctions on vessels that are part of Russia’s shadow fleet and used to get around oil price caps and other restrictions.
   
• Unclear impact: DNB Markets’ senior energy analyst Helge Andre Martinsen said transshipments of Russian LNG to Asia via EU ports represent only a small portion of the Kremlin’s total LNG exports, and that the new sanctions might actually increase Russian LNG volumes to the EU.

Julian Assange cuts deal to plead guilty, gain freedom.

Julian Assange is set to plead guilty this week in his U.S. espionage case, in an agreement that will allow the WikiLeaks founder to walk free after spending more than a decade holed up and imprisoned in London, largely to avoid being sent to the U.S.

Assange is expected to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to obtain and distribute classified information, according to a court document and people familiar with the matter, over the website’s publication of thousands of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables about America’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.

Carmakers file challenge to parts of new automatic-braking rule.

A trade group representing carmakers is pushing back on a rule that requires automated emergency-braking systems in future vehicles, arguing the requirements are nearly impossible to meet and would be too costly.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents the largest automakers, on Monday petitioned the auto industry’s top safety regulator to reconsider certain parts of the final rule, but it didn’t object to an overall requirement that new vehicles come equipped with the automatic-braking feature.

• The European Union charged Microsoft with antitrust violations related to the company’s bundling of its Teams collaboration tool with Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
   
• Blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy has been approved in China, opening the door for maker Novo Nordisk to begin selling it in the world’s second-largest economy, where the appetite for similar treatments is surging.
   
• For nearly three decades, federal dietary guidelines have said it is safe for men to have two or fewer drinks a day, and for women to have one. That could change next year when the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments update recommendations that are part of federal dietary guidelines.

Hedge funds made a killing on FTX—then it got complicated.

The FTX bankruptcy was looking like a hedge-fund trade for the ages, set to make hundreds of millions of dollars for intrepid vulture investors. That was before things got messy.

Hedge funds and other distressed investors rejoiced last month when bankruptcy managers said the corporate carcass of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto exchange, had enough assets to more than make its creditors whole.

Hidden markups at mail-order pharmacies make drugs more costly for employers.

A key tool that businesses have counted on to keep a lid on employees’ drug spending—filling workers’ prescriptions by mail—is now driving up their costs.

Unity Care NW, a nonprofit health clinic in Washington state, forecasts the cost of medical and drug benefits for its 365 employees and their family members will increase this year by 25% to more than $3 million. A big reason: Drugs delivered by mail are costing multiples more than those picked up at a store counter.

• Major music companies are suing two generative AI startups that allow users to compose new tracks using text prompts, alleging that they infringed on artist and labels’ copyrights in creating the tools.
   
• Fashion giant Shein has filed to go public in London, people familiar with the matter said, a compromise after the China-founded company’s plans to list in New York became mired in difficulties.
   
• Americans chasing high interest rates risk falling into a ‘cash trap.’ Investors must decide whether to sit on their cash or redistribute it ahead of expected rate cuts.
   
• One of South Korea’s deadliest chemical fires led its president to call for improved industrial safety measures, after at least 22 people were killed at a lithium-battery factory.
   
• Oceans help cool down the world. Startups are betting they can tweak the chemistry of seas to make them do even more.

AutoNation, other car dealers hurt by CDK cyberattack as outage persists.

Auto dealership owner John Hiester expected to deliver 20 cars and trucks to customers this past Wednesday at the four locations he owns in central North Carolina. Instead, he has spent the past several days trying to salvage his operations after a cyberattack on software provider CDK Global hobbled his business.

“It was a shock to the system,” Hiester said. “The first couple of days were really tough.”

The attack, announced Wednesday, continued disrupting business into a second week. Dealers such as Hiester have rolled back the technological clock and returned to workarounds such as spreadsheets and pen-and-paper to keep track of sales, repairs and orders.

• Beijing has been stirring up anti-American sentiment and preventing people from attending embassy events, Nicholas Burns, Washington’s ambassador in Beijing, says in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
   
• The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states can restrict medical treatments for transgender minors, a case that puts the justices in the middle of a charged national debate over gender identity.
   
• A terrorist attack that killed at least 20 people over the weekend in Dagestan exposes some of Russia’s growing security weak spots deep in its hinterland, as the Kremlin focuses instead on pursuing its war in Ukraine and silencing its political opponents in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
   
• The prosecution of Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents has moved so slowly that some legal observers have questioned whether the judge overseeing the case is in over her head.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at david.smagalla@wsj.com.