The Morning Risk Report: More Workers Are Cheating on Drug Tests

Good morning. Workers are cheating on drug tests at the highest rate in more than 30 years, according to one of the U.S.’s largest drug-testing labs.

• Rising numbers: The increase in tampered tests came from samples collected in 2023, a year also marked by rising marijuana positive tests from employees and job candidates in traditional office settings, according to Quest Diagnostics.
   
• Industry highs: Workforce positive drug screens were particularly high last year for jobs associated with office work, Quest said. Marijuana positivity was up last year in 13 out of 15 industries, led by finance and insurance, which increased more than 35%. Public administration positive tests rose by nearly 24% and real-estate rental and leasing jobs that screened positive were up more than 22%. Positive marijuana screens were also higher in the education sector, as well as professional, scientific and technical services.
   
• Workplace headaches: The percentage of urine samples that came back positive for drugs among the U.S. workforce remained steady at a two-decade high for the third year in a row. But the substantial rise of tampering, as well as the patchwork of new marijuana laws across the U.S., has intensified challenges for employers seeking to keep drugs out of the workplace.

Lawmakers from both parties grill FDIC chairman over scathing report. 

Lawmakers in both parties laid into Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg over a report that revealed widespread sexual harassment at the agency, with Republicans badgering him to resign and some Democrats signaling they didn’t have confidence in him to lead the agency.

“You have failed your employees, your agency and the American people,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in his opening remarks at the panel’s hearing.

Former FTX executive asks for 18-month sentence.

Attorneys representing former FTX executive Ryan Salame have asked that he be sentenced to 18 months in prison, citing his cooperation with authorities.

Salame pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to make illegal political contributions, as well as conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmission business. Salame was not part of crypto exchange FTX’s inner circle and had no knowledge customer funds had been taken, his lawyers said.

• Billionaire Frank McCourt said he is organizing a bid to acquire TikTok in the U.S., weeks after the passage of a law that could force the social-media platform’s Chinese owner into a sale.
   
• Microsoft will ask its main suppliers to use 100% renewable energy by the end of the decade, the company said, as it acknowledged that its biggest challenge in meeting its climate goals is tackling the emissions that come from its supply chain and other indirect sources.
   
• Latin America’s biggest oil producer, Petrobras, announced the exit of its chief executive, Jean Paul Prates, late Tuesday, the fifth head of the company to be fired or quit in three years as the government battles for greater control over the group.

Hamas shift to guerrilla tactics raises specter of forever war for Israel. 

Seven months into the war, Hamas is far from defeated, stoking fears in Israel that it is walking into a forever war.

The U.S.-designated terrorist group is using its network of tunnels, small cells of fighters and broad social influence to not only survive but to harry Israeli forces. Hamas is attacking more aggressively, firing more antitank weapons at soldiers sheltering in houses and at Israeli military vehicles daily, said an Israeli reservist from the 98th commando division fighting in Jabalia.

Russia advances on new front, stretching outnumbered Ukrainian troops.

Russian forces are fighting inside the northeastern border city of Vovchansk, as Moscow grinds forward on a new front while Kyiv is still waiting for much-needed U.S. weaponry to reach the battlefield.

Russia’s advance into the city, located about 3 miles south of the border with Russia, is part of a push into the Kharkiv region that is drawing Ukrainian troops from other fronts in the east and is aimed at threatening the regional capital of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Russia has seized a handful of villages since it sent armored vehicles and infantry across the border on Friday.

• The economies of central Europe are set for stronger growth this year and next as inflation cools, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to cast a shadow over their prospects in the form of higher borrowing costs, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Wednesday.
   
• Slovakia’s populist prime minister and longtime leader, Robert Fico, remained in critical condition Thursday morning after being shot multiple times at close range in what officials in the central European country said was likely a politically motivated attack.

Eli Lilly on Wednesday said Alonzo Weems, executive vice president of enterprise risk management and chief ethics and compliance officer, plans to retire at the end of the year after more than a quarter of a century with the drugmaker, according to MarketWatch. 

• Tesla shareholders have a big decision to make in the next month about Elon Musk. On June 13, they are set to vote on whether to reinstate stock options currently valued at $46 billion to Musk, the carmaker’s chief executive and one of the world’s richest people, after a judge struck down the award in January.
   
• For more than a century, businesses have struggled to solve a curiously complicated challenge: How to make a paper bottle that doesn’t get soggy and keeps drinks fresh. Now they say they are the closest they have ever been.