The Morning Risk Report

Good morning. President Biden said Friday he would sign into law a bill effectively banning video app TikTok or forcing its sale, fueling lawmakers’ latest push to block the app’s Chinese owners from operating in the U.S..

“If they pass it, I’ll sign it,” Biden told reporters Friday.

• Bipartisan antipathy? The bill, which is expected to easily pass the House on Wednesday, could hit turmoil in the Senate. 
   
• Strategy misfire: As lawmakers prepared to consider the legislation, users of the app, which is accessed by more than 170 million Americans, saw notifications Thursday urging them to complain to their House representative about the bill. Then the app let people call their representative with a few presses of buttons.
   
• Last-ditch pitch: TikTok plans to further mobilize its users and TikTok celebrities to publicly campaign against legislation that could ban it, a person close to the company said.
   
• What lies for the future of TikTok: Already, U.S. tech and media titans are circling. In recent days, some executives have discussed buying TikTok if ByteDance agrees to sell. Bobby Kotick, the former chief executive of videogame publisher Activision, has expressed interest to ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming, according to a person familiar with the situation. Any price tag is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

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Justice Department to flesh out whistleblower program after 90-day ‘policy sprint.’

A senior U.S. Justice Department official sketched out the broad policy goals of the agency’s newly announced whistleblower program but offered few additional details on the initiative, which is intended to help prosecutors bring more foreign corruption cases.

“When it comes to the pilot, there are only so many details I can share at this point—and that’s because the whole point of the [Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s] 90-day ‘policy sprint’ is to gather information, to consult with stakeholders and to design a thoughtful, well-informed program,” said Nicole Argentieri, acting U.S. assistant attorney general for the criminal division, at the American Bar Association conference on Friday.

Fed tells clearing houses to prepare for cyberattacks.

The handful of firms that provide the backbone of the financial system by settling and clearing payments and stock trades must take steps to guard against the risk of cyberattacks, the Federal Reserve said. The so-called financial market utilities, or FMUs, that have been designated as systemically important will have to plan for extreme cyber events that have become more likely in recent years, the Fed said.

The Fed said it also wants the FMUs to plan for contingency scenarios in which an attack leaves them compromised for longer than expected. Eight clearing houses fall under the new rule.

• Apple has reversed course on its decision to prevent Fortnite-maker Epic Games from building its own app store in Europe, softening what appeared to be a hard line stance as it faces an array of regulations.
   
• Federal officials are at odds over President Biden’s push to loosen restrictions on marijuana, a move some in the White House hope to see ahead of an election in which he needs the support of younger voters.
   
• OpenAI said Friday that CEO Sam Altman is rejoining the company’s revamped board of directors, after an internal investigation concluded he was the right leader for the startup.
   
• The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight, according to documents and people familiar with the matter. Months before the accident, the plane spent nearly three weeks shuffling down an assembly line with faulty rivets in need of repair. Meanwhile, Boeing is overhauling how it pays employee bonuses to emphasize quality and safety over meeting financial targets.
   
• The Australian government has announced it will abolish close to 500 “nuisance” tariffs from July 1, reducing the cost of importing everything from toothbrushes to roller coasters and bumper cars.

Cold weather businesses suffer in the winter that wasn’t.

This is the winter that wasn’t in Minnesota and other states across America’s normally frozen northern tier. Record warm temperatures and low snowfall have forced the cancellation of everything from ice fishing tournaments to dog sled races to winter carnivals. Business has dried up for ski resorts, snowmobile makers and any other venture that relies on cold weather and white powder to make a living.

What’s at stake. No estimates have been compiled on nationwide economic damage from the warm, dry winter, but industry officials say they are well into the millions. Snow-related activities generate an estimated $7 billion a year in economic activity, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

• The Senate on Friday passed a $460 billion spending bill to keep the U.S. government operating, taking a potential shutdown for several agencies off the table for the rest of the fiscal year.
   
• The Biden administration is warning Israel of the risks of attacking the southern Gaza city of Rafah, intensifying efforts to get its Middle East ally to rethink the conduct of the five-month-old war.
   
• Steady hiring and cooling wage growth last month offered the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is making progress toward a so-called soft landing that brings inflation down without a recession.
   
• China’s consumer prices rose in February, ending four straight months of declines.
   
• Drought in Panama and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are delaying maritime deliveries and pushng up shipping costs.
   
• One fewer thing for risk managers to worry about: The Pentagon has found no evidence that aliens are behind UFO sightings.

• Robert Hur will arrive on Capitol Hill this week intent on turning down the political temperature surrounding his report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, according to people familiar with his preparations. That won’t be easy.
   
• The little-known presidential candidate who beat President Biden in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus earlier this week says artificial intelligence played a big role in his campaign strategy.
   
• Get ready for more ads when ordering a ride or food. The battle for your eyeballs is the latest front in the ride-booking and delivery wars.
   
• By outward appearances, the labor market today looks much as it did before the pandemic. But beneath the surface, the nature of labor has changed profoundly.
   
• Five regional-bank executives talk about their industry after a long year.