Good morning. Employers that use artificial intelligence to assess workers and job seekers need to be careful to comply with laws protecting disabled people, two U.S. federal agencies said, expressing skepticism of a technology that many businesses have tapped amid widespread labor shortages.

Companies whose AI or machine-learning technology leads to discrimination could face legal repercussions, the U.S. Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said on Thursday.

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“We are sounding an alarm regarding the dangers tied to blind reliance on AI and other technologies that we are seeing increasingly used by employers,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, speaking at a press conference.

“As technology continues to rapidly advance, so too must our enforcement efforts to ensure that people with disabilities are not marginalized and left behind in the digital world,” she said.

FTX US has appointed former Fidelity Investments Inc. executive Marissa MacDonald as chief compliance officer for a to-be-formed New York unit, a move coming as the cryptocurrency exchange seeks approval to operate in the state.

• FTX CEO and Emergent Fidelity Disclose 7.6% Stake in Robinhood

Sovcomflot has sold about a dozen ships to buyers in Asia and the Middle East, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Russian state-controlled company works to repay loans to Western banks ending business ties to comply with sanctions.

The company, among the world’s largest tanker operators, sold five tankers to Dubai-based Koban Shipping and four natural-gas carriers to Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, the people said. Eastern Pacific paid $700 million to a bank that had taken ownership of the vessels.

The deals come ahead of a Sunday deadline for companies in the European Union to terminate their dealings with Russia to comply with sanctions brought after the invasion of Ukraine. Lloyd’s List earlier reported Sovcomflot was looking to sell as much as one-third of its fleet.

Shell PLC has agreed to sell its Russian retail-station and lubricants business to oil giant Lukoil, the latest Western company to find a local buyer for its planned Russia exit.

The deal for the business, called Shell Neft LLC, includes 411 retail stations in Russia and a lubricants-blending plant near Moscow. Shell, which didn’t disclose a deal value, said on Thursday the agreement was expected to preserve 350 Shell employees’ jobs in Russia. Last week it said its Russian marketing business, which includes assets in the Lukoil deal, was valued at about $600 million.

Natural-gas prices in Europe shot higher Thursday, a day after Russia unveiled a set of sanctions on energy companies operating on the Continent that could further threaten supply.

Among the companies sanctioned by Moscow were former subsidiaries of Russian state gas giant Gazprom PJSC in the European Union and the Polish owner of a key stretch of pipeline. The restrictions could reduce Europe’s flexibility to import Russian gas through routes beyond Ukraine, though the full implications on gas supplies weren’t yet clear, analysts said.

One target of the Russian sanctions was Gazprom Germania GmbH, a major Gazprom unit that the German government took control of last month.

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• Currencies across Asia sank to their weakest levels in years Thursday, as surprisingly robust U.S. inflation data gave fresh impetus to a monthslong rally in the dollar.
   
• TerraUSD’s plunge raises urgent questions on crypto developers’ ambitions to build a new form of finance. It shows that despite the hype, the nascent crypto system is still prone to the kinds of destabilizing bank runs that happen in the nondigital world.
   
• How More Than $1 Trillion of Crypto Vanished in Just Six Months

Dozens of employees at Ukrainian cybersecurity startup Hacken fled their war-torn country and found refuge about 2,000 miles away in Portugal. Since then, they have managed to keep their business alive and are now supporting cyber operations against Russia.

The company moved its main office from Kyiv to Lisbon, with stops in between, mirroring the drastic measures taken by millions of Ukrainians seeking to escape danger and preserve their livelihoods while the Kremlin wreaks havoc. For Hacken Chief Executive Dmytro Budorin, keeping his business going in the fast-growing market for cryptosecurity meant urging his workers to flee before the bombs began to fall.

Many contribute to the war effort by finding vulnerabilities in Ukrainian and Russian computer systems and reporting the information to Kyiv’s Ministry of Digital Transformation or National Security and Defense Council, Mr. Budorin, 35, said.

Elon Musk said his deal to buy Twitter Inc. was on hold pending details on the amount of fake accounts on the social-media platform, prompting a sharp slide in the company’s shares in premarket trade.

On Thursday, the company said it was pausing hiring and looking to cut costs as it grapples with disruptions in the digital advertising market from global economic turmoil and the war in Ukraine. Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal announced the actions along with the surprise departure of two senior executives, according to an internal memo.

Chobani Inc. finance chief Jody Macedonio will exit the company next month, the latest executive departure after the yogurt maker put plans for its initial public offering on hold.

Ms. Macedonio joined the company in 2020 to help prepare the company for its public debut. A search for a new CFO is under way, according to an internal memo from Chief Operating Officer Kevin Burns to staff that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Diesel costs are reaching new highs across the U.S., straining the operations of trucking companies and wrecking the transportation budgets of businesses that need to ship goods.

The price of the fuel that powers heavy-duty trucks has increased by more than $1.50 a gallon in roughly two months, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The national average price has climbed to $5.62 a gallon, setting a record for the second week in a row, as prices at the pump surpassed $6 in some markets.