Good morning. A whistleblower whose information helped U.S. and U.K. regulators investigate manipulation of global interest-rate benchmarks by Deutsche Bank AG was awarded nearly $200 million for assisting the probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

The payout is the largest ever by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which along with the Justice Department and U.K. Financial Conduct Authority settled enforcement actions against Deutsche Bank in 2015.

The CFTC’s announcement didn’t name the bank or the case, but the reward is related to the bank’s manipulation of the London interbank offered rate and similar widely used benchmarks, the people said.

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“We’re very happy that the CFTC was able to reverse an earlier decision and turn around their thinking,” David Kovel, a managing partner at law firm Kirby McInerney LLP who represents the whistleblower. “It says a lot about the people there that they don’t feel forced to stick with the wrong decision given the amount that’s at stake.”

The prospect of such a large payout pushed the CFTC whistleblower program into turmoil this year, as agency leaders contended there was no mechanism to pay the former bank executive and other applicants and keep funding the program. The agency averted a crisis after President Biden signed a bill in July to fund the program.

Global finance watchdog censures Turkey. The Financial Action Task Force added Turkey to its list of countries requiring special regulatory oversight for failing to stop money laundering and terrorist financing, a designation analysts say will rattle Ankara’s already shaky economy.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday said it had launched an inquiry on consumer data practices at these and other firms. The move opens a new front in Washington’s scrutiny of the companies.

• Separately, Facebook's oversight board said the company hadn’t been forthcoming about how it exempts high-profile users from its rules and said it is drafting recommendations for how to overhaul the system, following a Wall Street Journal investigation into the practice.
   
• How Many Users Does Facebook Have? The Company Struggles to Figure It Out

• The criminal trial of former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas drew to a close Thursday as federal prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred over whether he made illegal political donations and helped funnel foreign money into U.S. elections in 2018.

A judge in eastern Iowa awarded Deere a temporary injunction against union members on strike, prohibiting them from trespassing on the company’s property or obstructing entrances and exits.

Allegation: The petition alleges members of the United Auto Workers union and their supporters disrupted the company’s business operations and blocked entrances to Deere’s Davenport Works facility.  

• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell imposed sweeping personal-investing restrictions on senior officials in a bid to address a stock-trading controversy that prompted the resignation of two reserve bank presidents.
• The planned departure of Intel CFO George Davis is the latest example of a finance chief leaving after a company names a new chief executive.

Rising global temperatures pose a growing risk to U.S. national security, as nations battle over who will pay for climate change’s costs, maneuver for advantage in a melting Arctic and grapple with effects such as drought and migration, a new U.S. intelligence report concluded.

The National Intelligence Estimate is the first of its kind to look at the link between climate change and national security. It projects that nations will fail to meet their pledges to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with that mark being passed around 2030. The report portrays climate change as a new geopolitical battleground.

• Houston’s pension fund for its firefighters said it bought $25 million worth of bitcoin and ether for its defined-benefit plan’s portfolio.The move comes as bitcoin powered back to a record above $66,000 earlier this week.
   
• Snap said it expects growth to slow in the current quarter because of recent changes to Apple’s App Store privacy rules, highlighting the impact of the iPhone maker’s new policy on digital advertising.
   
• Western Digital Corp.’s talks to merge with Japanese chip maker Kioxia Holdings Corp. in a $20 billion-plus deal have stalled, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• The U.S. Commerce Department issued more than $100 billion worth of export licenses for semiconductors and other products to suppliers of Huawei Technologies and another blacklisted Chinese tech company, as a global chip shortage started to bite.

Rail-yard congestion holds down shipping volumes. The chief executives at CSX and Union Pacific say a lack of truck drivers, equipment and warehouse workers are causing congestion in their yards, forcing the railroad operators to turn down some business during a time of high demand for shipping companies.

Internal issues. The railroads also are facing issues within their own operations, from damaged bridges to difficulty hiring conductors, that they say are hampering them from transporting more goods.

• Shortages of dishwashers and refrigerators are likely to stretch well into next year, according to Whirlpool's chief executive officer.
   
• Surveys of purchasing managers conducted over recent weeks point to a sharp slowdown in European factory activity as businesses reported difficulties getting hold of the parts and raw materials they needed.
   
• Tighter Warehouse Space Adds to the Supply-Chain Squeeze
   

• Fintech startup Plaid is making a move into the payments business, less than a year after an antitrust lawsuit scuttled its high-price sale to Visa.
   
• Certain fresh onions sold in restaurants and grocery stores around the U.S. were connected to a salmonella outbreak that has made at least 652 people sick, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The outbreak has been tied to onions imported from Chihuahua, Mexico, and distributed by ProSource Inc., based in Hailey, Idaho.

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