Iran has relied on digital dollars issued by one of the world's most profitable cryptocurrency companies to bypass a U.S. sanctions dragnet, said a report that Senate Democrats released Monday. The report, by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, says Tether's stablecoin has become a primary means of payment for the Iranian regime and a tool for funding terrorist proxy organizations such as Hezbollah.

The U.S. further delayed an expansion of its export controls as part of a broader trade truce with China extended last week. Details: The U.S. agreed to push off implementing the so-called 50% rule until Jan. 10 under the truce, according to a Treasury official. The rule, also called the affiliates rule, would ban U.S. companies from exporting to entities at least 50% controlled by entities already on a government trade blacklist. Impact: The rule effectively bans exports to many affiliates of blacklisted Chinese businesses, a move favored by China hawks in the Trump administration. The U.S. agreed to suspend the rule for one year last October in exchange for China dropping export restrictions on rare earth minerals.

Research leaders at Open AI, Anthropic, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are asking policymakers to probe the degree to which their companies have automated artificial-intelligence research. In a paper published Monday, researchers including Open AI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, Microsoft Chief Scientific Officer Eric Horvitz and Meta's Vice President of AI Research Dawn Song wrote that automating AI research could set off an 'intelligence explosion.'

The number of items on the list of U.S. exports to China recommended for a lower tariff rate, according to documents released by the Trump administration yesterday. Some $30 billion worth of nonsensitive U.S. exports have been earmarked for better trade treatment as part of an agreement struck during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's summit with President Trump last week.