Good morning. The chief executive of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange, stepped down and pleaded guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements, in a deal that might preserve the company’s ability to continue operating, according to court documents.

• CZ's plea: Changpeng Zhao appeared in Seattle federal court Tuesday and entered his plea, according to court records. Prosecutors accused Binance, which Zhao owns, of facilitating transactions with sanctioned groups. Binance encouraged U.S. users to obscure their location so the firm could avoid complying with U.S. anti-money-laundering laws, prosecutors said.
   
• Firm pleads guilty: Binance pleaded guilty and agreed to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion, which includes amounts to settle civil allegations made by regulators.
   
• What happens now? The deal ends long-running investigations of Binance. Zhao founded the firm in 2017 and turned it into the most important hub of the global crypto market. The criminal probe has shadowed the company even as its market share initially grew after the collapse last year of FTX, one of its main offshore competitors.
   
• Treasury's view: The Treasury Department, meanwhile, views the settlement with Binance as a turning point for crypto compliance programs. "Every virtual asset service provider should be on notice that safeguarding the U.S. financial system from crime and abuse is not optional,  said Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a conference call.

Please note: The Morning Risk Report will take a break for Thanksgiving and will be back in inboxes on Monday.

Labor group plans board fight at Starbucks.

A labor group is seeking representation on the Starbucks board, ratcheting up pressure in a battle between the coffee giant and its workers over pay and working conditions.

The Strategic Organizing Center—a coalition of labor unions including the Service Employees International Union that owns a small Starbucks stake—is seeking to address what it views as a failure by the board to oversee the company’s treatment of its workers.

The group has nominated three director candidates, according to people familiar with the matter, kicking off what is sure to be one of the most closely watched proxy battles in 2024.

OpenAI says Sam Altman to return as CEO.

OpenAI said Sam Altman will return as chief executive of the artificial-intelligence startup that he co-founded, ending a dramatic five-day standoff between him and the board that fired him.

OpenAI said the parties were “collaborating to figure out the details.” The company announced the formation of a new initial board that won’t include three of the four board members involved in removing Altman.

U.S. seizes alleged crypto ‘pig-butchering’ proceeds.

U.S. prosecutors seized nearly $9 million worth of the cryptocurrency Tether that they said came from crypto addresses associated with scammers. The scammers allegedly exploited more than 70 victims through romance scams and confidence schemes, broadly known as "pig butchering."

"Although the current landscape of the cryptocurrency ecosystem may seem like an ideal way to launder ill-gotten gains, law enforcement will continue to develop the expertise needed to follow the money and seize it back for victims," said U.S. Justice Department Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri.

• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board is forming a special committee to oversee an independent review of the agency’s workplace culture, the agency said Tuesday, restricting the ability of the rest of the board—including the chairman—to influence the investigation.
   
• Elon Musk’s social-media company X sued Media Matters for America after the left-leaning media watchdog group reported ads appeared near antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
   
• Two of the world’s largest accounting firms, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers, picked global chairs with starkly different backgrounds but tailored to the specific problems they are facing, from governance issues to slowing revenue growth.

The Fed wants more evidence before changing rate stance.

Federal Reserve officials were unwilling to conclude they were done raising interest rates when they decided earlier this month to extend a pause in rate increases.

But minutes of their most recent policy meeting suggested they might be comfortable holding rates steady for at least the rest of the year.

“All participants agreed that the committee was in a position to proceed carefully,” said the minutes of the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 meeting released on Tuesday. 

• Home Sales Fell to a New 13-Year Low in October

The big bank with a $15 billion conundrum in China.

HSBC Holdings has a $15 billion headache in China—a big stake in a local lender that it can’t easily sell and that could require a big write-down.

What's the issue? Long after most other Western banking giants have exited similar positions, HSBC has held on to its roughly 19% position in Bank of Communications, an investment that dates back to 2004. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank by market value, has said the stake is strategically important for its ambitions to grow in Asia. But over the years, a gulf has opened up between HSBC’s valuation of the shareholding and the lower value implied by BoCom’s stock price.

• Many Israelis who live near the border with Lebanon say their military can’t end the fighting without assuring them that Hezbollah can’t do to them what Hamas did to Israelis in the south. Israeli military officials have amplified the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a decisive blow.
   
• Chinese leader Xi Jinping is seizing on the conflict in Gaza to portray his country as a force for stability in the Muslim world, in contrast with what Beijing casts as American meddling in the Middle East.
   
• The U.S. fears Iran is preparing to provide Russia with advanced short-range ballistic missiles for its military campaign in Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
   
• North Korea said it had successfully placed its homegrown spy satellite into orbit.
   
• Ford Motor is moving forward on construction of a battery plant in Michigan but at a reduced size from original plans, citing a pullback in the outlook for future electric-vehicle demand.
   
• A wrong-way bet on the price of wood pellets has jeopardized America’s biggest exporter of the fuel: Enviva said its gambit to buy pellets from a customer, and resell them for more, backfired when prices fell, and that nine-figure losses could trigger a default with its lenders by year-end.

• Israel carried out targeted raids in the Gaza Strip and Hamas fired rockets at Israel ahead of implementing an agreed pause in fighting and the release of hostages. On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to free 50 civilian hostages held by militants in Gaza in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and a four-day pause in fighting.
   
• Nvidia reported another quarter of record sales and gave a strong revenue outlook, pointing to red-hot demand for chips that underpin the artificial-intelligence boom.
   
• The U.S. government said Tuesday it would impose visa restrictions on individuals running charter flights into Nicaragua, flooding the Central American country with tens of thousands of U.S.-bound migrants, mostly from Haiti, Cuba and Africa.
   
• Ilya Sutskever, Open AI’s chief scientist, led a board coup against one of the most prominent figures in Silicon Valley.

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