Good morning. The Treasury Department on Monday identified Russia’s second-largest financial institution, VTB Bank, as a key financial node for Iran’s Islamic Republic and put further sanctions on the bank.

The new sanctions on VTB are a bid to pressure international partners to cut off dealings with it, according to people familiar with the matter. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly threatened secondary sanctions against foreign companies that help Iran to evade U.S. economic restrictions.

• Getting at Iran through Russia: Bessent, who announced a maximum pressure campaign against Iran dubbed Operation Economic Outcast last month, previewed the latest sanctions on Friday without naming the target. “We are just going to continue with this process until everyone stops dealing with this regime,” he said.

• Already sanctioned: The immediate impact of the new sanctions is unclear. VTB was already put under U.S. sanctions in 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the pre-existing sanctions prohibit any U.S. person or institution from dealing with VTB.

• Financial supporter of Iran: The Russian bank has continued to provide a major lifeline to Iran despite those sanctions, according to U.S. officials. VTB provides clearing accounts to the Central Bank of Iran and a number of sanctioned Iranian banks, allowing for the easy exchange of Iranian rials and Russian rubles, the people familiar with the matter said.

Trump says AI doesn’t need more guardrails and calls safety fears a hoax.

President Trump pushed back on the need for tighter federal regulations on artificial intelligence and dismissed safety concerns as a hoax that would leave the industry in financial ruin and hand China a competitive edge.

Public skepticism: The president’s forceful messaging on AI comes as industry leaders sound increasingly urgent warnings about the need for regulation to guard against potential dangers from their own technology, while public backlash builds to the construction of the data centers needed to power it.

• As AI Companies Call for a Slowdown, Here’s How Washington Could Pump the Brakes

EPA to cut emissions limits for power plants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is getting rid of rules that put limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by fossil fuels, Risk Journal’s Clara Hudson reports (free link).

The EPA on Monday said it would cut most Biden-era rules for power plants running on coal and natural gas, rescinding mandates that tasked the plants with using carbon-curbing technology to lower emissions. The agency also proposed rescinding every remaining greenhouse gas standard for the power sector, and is seeking public comment.

Background: The move marks the latest climate rollback under President Trump’s EPA, following its dismantling of a core climate rule earlier this year, known as the endangerment finding. That 2009 finding was the legal foundation for federal greenhouse gas emissions regulation, which classified six gases as a threat to public health and welfare.

• Accenture will pay $25 million to resolve allegations by the Justice Department that it failed to comply with antidiscrimination requirements. The consulting firm took race or sex into account when making hiring decisions to achieve progress toward nonpublic workforce composition goals, the DOJ said Monday.

• Abbott Laboratories has agreed to pay $385 million to settle allegations related to its management of a baby formula facility where deadly bacteria was suspected of causing infant deaths, the Justice Department said Monday.

• Risk Journal reports: Former hedge-fund executive Crispin Odey lost an appeal to overturn his ban from the U.K.’s financial services industry (free link). Odey earlier this year sought to appeal the March 2025 ban, which stemmed from accusations he breached a final written warning relating to inappropriate behavior toward female employees.

• GOP senators are making an 11th-hour push to get support from Democrats for the Clarity Act, a cryptocurrency bill coming to a vote on Tuesday. Everything will have to go right for the bill to pass.

• The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission granted 10 whistleblower awards totaling more than $150 million this summer, Risk Journal reports (free link).

• Regulators are trying to curb the supply of illicit, unapproved versions of Eli Lilly’s experimental weight-loss drug retatrutide.

• Top New York City Council members are calling for a ban on students using YouTube in city schools, a sign of growing opposition to the role of Big Tech in education.

Awards given by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to whistleblowers since the regulator first granted such awards in 2014.

China also thinks AI could kill us. But first, it wants to match the U.S.

China also worries that artificial intelligence could bring doomsday. But first things first: It needs to catch up to the U.S.

As America wrung its hands over warnings that AI could end humanity within years, a top Chinese official on Sunday shared Beijing’s latest view: AI is the “core engine of a new round of technological revolution” and the main battleground of its rivalry with the U.S.

• Microsoft Sets Limits for AI Models as Altman Details Control Risks

• AI Leaders Are Calling for a Slowdown, but Wall Street Keeps on Buying

Widening Mideast instability squeezes global oil supplies.

Yemen is the latest domino to fall in the chain of instability set off by the U.S. war with Iran, a development that deepens the risk to global energy supplies and complicates efforts to find a diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict.

The squeeze is on: The Houthi offensive has put the two most important energy corridors in the Middle East—including the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula—under the sway of Iran and its allies. Saudi Arabia, an energy kingpin and important U.S. military ally, has few safe routes remaining to export its oil.

Gloomy outlook: Meanwhile, American oil executives warned for months that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz was bound to cause a fuel crisis. Now, they say it is here.