Good morning. U.S. regulators have appointed two separate independent compliance monitors to ensure cryptocurrency exchange Binance meets the requirements set forth in its settlements over money-laundering and sanctions violations.

• Who they are: The U.S. Justice Department has chosen Frances McLeod, a founding partner at forensic consulting firm Forensic Risk Alliance, for the three-year-monitorship of Binance, according to a Binance spokesperson. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has selected Sharon Cohen Levin, a partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, to serve as its monitor for five years, the spokesperson added.
   
• Background: Binance agreed to retain independent compliance monitors as part of its settlements with U.S. prosecutors and FinCEN, after the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume pleaded guilty in November and agreed to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion to settle claims from multiple agencies that it violated U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and sanctions rules.
   
• Why it could be complicated: “I think Binance has the potential to be a particularly complex monitorship because this is in many ways still an emerging industry and Binance isn’t a public corporation,” said Veronica Root Martinez, a law professor at Duke University School of Law.

Dimon led bank CEOs to fend off tougher capital rules.

JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and other big-bank CEOs played hardball with the Federal Reserve over proposals that the lenders hold more capital. Now, it looks like those tactics are paying off.

The plan. The Fed and two other federal regulators are moving toward a plan that would significantly lessen a nearly 20% mandated increase in capital for the biggest U.S. banks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The implications. It would be a big win for the banks and Dimon. Banks say the rules as originally proposed would drive up costs and crimp lending. It also represents a shift in the balance of power between big banks and their regulators, turning the page on an era in which the Fed held the upper hand.

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Martin Gruenberg was flogged for two days by Congress this week over allegations that sexual harassment, bullying and other misconduct define the culture of the workplace he oversees. Yet that might be easy compared to what Gruenberg faces these days at his own agency.
   
• A move to increase regulation of laboratory tests will raise the cost of developing these diagnostics and narrow the pool of venture capitalists willing to finance them, some investors and entrepreneurs told WSJ Pro Venture Capital (subscription required). 
   
• Workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama voted against joining the United Auto Workers, blunting the union’s momentum as it mounts organizing drives at many foreign-owned factories.
   
• Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI has been cleared by the U.K. competition watchdog.
   
• The June vote at Tesla on the 2018 pay package for Elon Musk raises questions about what a board should do with a restless but valued leader.

U.S. fears undersea cables are vulnerable to espionage from Chinese repair ships.

U.S. officials are privately delivering an unusual warning to telecommunications companies: Undersea cables that ferry internet traffic across the Pacific Ocean could be vulnerable to tampering by Chinese repair ships.

The issue. The warnings highlight an overlooked security risk to undersea fiber-optic cables, according to these officials: Silicon Valley giants, such as Google and Meta Platforms, partially own many cables and are investing in more. But they rely on specialized construction and repair companies, including some with foreign ownership that U.S. officials fear could endanger the security of commercial and military data.

• Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, according to state-run Press TV, depriving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of a longtime ally as Tehran angles for regional dominance through armed militias that are fighting the U.S. and Israel.
   
• Ukraine has asked the Biden administration to help identify targets in Russia for Kyiv to strike using its own weapons. It has also asked the U.S. to lift restrictions on the use of American provided weapons against military objectives inside Russia, U.S. and defense officials said.
   
• Electric vehicle, wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers face a shortfall in critical metals and minerals unless more investment is made in projects such as new mines and recycling, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.
   
• China’s consumption and investment slowed unexpectedly in April, while industrial output beat expectations as Beijing doubled down on its manufacturing drive to spur growth.
   
• U.S. troops will withdraw from Niger by Sept. 15, ending a nearly decadelong partnership, the Pentagon said Sunday.
   
• European investigators increasingly see Russian fingerprints around recent acts of suspected sabotage on strategic infrastructure but are struggling to respond.

• Manhattan prosecutors have framed their case against Donald Trump as a simple story about the criminal coverup of a sex scandal. But to win a conviction, they would have to convince jurors that Trump orchestrated the coverup with the intent of concealing another crime.
   
• President Biden told the graduating class of Morehouse College on Sunday that his administration was seeking an immediate cease-fire to address “a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” in a high-profile commencement address in which he appealed to Black voters following a season of campus unrest over the war between Israel and Hamas.
   
• The Planet Fitness gym chain contends with a boycott and bomb threats as it stands by its inclusive locker-room policy.
   
• President Biden’s decision last week to raise tariffs on roughly $18 billion of goods from China has revived a long-running debate in economics over who ultimately pays such tariffs.

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.

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