Good morning. A string of artificial-intelligence safety incidents is exposing a gaping hole for the fast-growing industry: the lack of available insurance.

• Limitless possibilities: Rogue agents have hacked into websites. AI chatbots have been accused of encouraging suicides and murders. An agent submitted fake unsolved murder tips. The latest episodes add to existing lawsuits AI companies face alleging chatbot harm and copyright violations when models are trained. The seemingly limitless possibilities of artificial intelligence to change the world also include a wide-ranging capacity for harm that could leave companies that produce or use AI legally vulnerable.

• Huge liability: The biggest AI companies are racking up potential legal liabilities running into the tens—if not hundreds—of billions of dollars, as AI adoption spreads through the economy, according to insurers specializing in AI risks. Some industry officials have even called for the U.S. government to provide a liability backstop.

• Filling the gap? AI companies have the usual corporate suite of traditional insurance policies, such as general liability and cyber-insurance, brokers said. But the industry’s phenomenal rate of growth means AI-related claims have the potential to outpace the limits on that coverage, according to AI and insurance industry insiders. Startups are hoping to fill the gap, and insurance companies more broadly see AI down the road as a new opportunity for offering specialty products.

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He crafted a crypto law for Trump—as his company got millions from a crypto giant.

Lawmakers and executives crowded into the East Room of the White House in July 2025 to watch President Trump sign the Genius Act, a landmark crypto bill that set rules for selling stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar.

From a podium, Trump rattled off thank-yous to the law’s architects. “Where’s Bo Hines?” he asked. The president’s 29-year-old crypto adviser rose from the front row to applause.

What most people in the room didn’t know: While Hines was leading the White House’s push to pass the Genius Act, Tether—the company with the most at stake in the legislation—was steering millions of dollars to Nxum, a business he co-owned, according to messages, internal documents and payment records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Once the bill was signed, Tether hired him—to run its U.S. operations. A Nxum representative said Hines was unaware of the business dealings with Tether and did not receive Tether-derived funds while in the White House.

• Swedish bank SEB has settled with the New York State Department of Financial Services for $33 million over alleged anti-money-laundering failures, Risk Journal reports (free link).

• Lithuania has frozen the assets of Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov under its national sanctions regime, joining Estonia in imposing its own measures on the two after the European Union removed them from its Russia sanctions.

• China is considering new export controls on artificial-intelligence technologies in a bid to safeguard the strategically critical industry amid intensifying competition.

Expected global economic growth this year, down from 3.5% in 2025, according to the International Monetary Fund. Growth is being buoyed by strength in a few countries that are leading the AI boom, while other nations, particularly in the developing world and parts of Europe, are getting hit.

Big Tech is soft-launching data centers early, bracing for scrutiny.

Google has a message for New Mexico’s Lea County, an area of arid pastureland in the oil-rich Permian Basin, that the company is eyeing as a possible home for a new data center: “We’re listening.”

The technology company reached out to the community via a website, saying its plans are still in the very early stages, but such projects “naturally bring questions about how data centers operate.” It then tried to answer those queries pre-emptively, assuring the approximately 75,000 residents, for example, that it expects its data center would consume water at a similar rate to an office building. A survey asks what additional investment the area might need.

Hyperscalers, or large tech companies that operate vast networks of computing infrastructure, say they want to be increasingly transparent, getting construction plans out in the open sooner in the hopes of heading off opposition. But answering local queries and frustrations is getting trickier as resistance picks up, with government officials and residents expressing worries about everything from electricity prices to water waste.

• Some insurance industry insiders are warning that mounting risks from climate change could lead to economic disaster, as firms pull out of covering at-risk areas, leaving governments and ordinary citizens on the hook for the costs of damage.

• Ukraine resumed strikes on Russian refineries Thursday, after accusing Moscow of violating President Trump’s ceasefire on energy targets, and as its military regained full access to Starlink following a mysterious disruption the day before.

• Progress toward a U.S-Mexico tariff deal has stalled after opposition from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, people familiar with the talks said, the second time that he has had a hand in upending advanced negotiations with a North American partner.

• Higher interest rates and persistent inflation in the U.S. and elsewhere have upturned the way Moody’s assesses risk, according to the ratings company’s chief credit officer.

• Indonesian stocks suffered their steepest drop since the Asian financial crisis in 1998 after index provider MSCI warned the country risked being removed from its indexes.