Good morning. Meta Platforms agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, bringing an end to a massive federal trial over social media's harm to teenagers and ushering in a new era of tech companies having legal responsibility for their platforms.

As part of the settlement agreement, Meta will also make sweeping changes to its services, Facebook and Instagram, including implementing a default two-hour time limit on its apps for users under 18.

Possible discount: In a unique setup, Meta will pay out only 70% of the settlement unless TikTok and YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet, also agree to set default one-hour time limits a day on their apps for underage users and each pay the states roughly $5.3 billion. Meta will only pay the remaining 30% of its settlement, also $5.3 billion, if the two other companies agree to the terms.

Harms to users: The settlement comes a few years after The Wall Street Journal reported on the company's own internal research showing its products were harming users in an award-winning series called The Facebook Files. On Tuesday, the Facebook Files were referenced in the trial, which was taking place in Oakland, Calif.

'School mode': Other agreed platform changes include launching "night mode," a default block on its apps between midnight and 6 a.m. and a "school mode" disabling push notifications during school hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. for underage users. The settings can only be changed with a parent's permission.

Approval required: A federal judge must still approve the settlement, which halts the Oakland trial that was ongoing as recently as Tuesday. That case, brought by the state attorneys general of California, Kentucky, New Jersey and Colorado, alleged that Meta violated their states' consumer-protection laws and the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, commonly known as COPPA, by knowingly making its platforms addictive and going after young users.

Risk Journal Podcast

Special edition: The Trump administration's new sanctions regime against Iran reaches far beyond its borders. We explore what this new phase of economic warfare means for global companies.

You can listen to new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon.

Compliance

Florida governor says public is 'right to be concerned' about Flock cameras.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the use of automated license-plate readers has gotten "out of control," as debates continue across the country over Flock Safety's AI-enabled cameras.

The readers, used in communities across the U.S., photograph the back of passing vehicles and collect license-plate data and other identifying information. Flock, the largest supplier of the technology, has 120,000 cameras in 49 states and captures 20 billion license plates a month. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Supporters of the technology say it helps police catch criminals. But critics say the cameras violate privacy rights and have been used by officers to stalk innocent people.

The U.S. is trying to strangle Iran's economy. Here's how Tehran is surviving.

The Trump administration launched "Operation Economic Outcast" to squeeze Iran financially and try to force the regime into concessions to end the conflict in the Middle East.

Washington is warning world leaders to stop doing business with Iran and threatening to cut companies from the U.S. financial system should they do so. The U.S. is simultaneously blockading Iranian ports, choking off the regime's primary financial lifeline.

Iran, however, has spent years setting up a complex system of oil sales and clandestine shadow banking that it hopes will sustain its economy and military long enough to outlast the economic assault.

The U.K.'s financial services watchdog banned three senior figures at Dolfin Financial, a defunct wealth management company, from working in finance for allegedly abusing an investor visa program, Risk Journal reports (free link).

Companies shouldn't assume they are too big or systemically important to be targeted by the Trump administration's economic pressure campaign on Iran, a former U.S. Treasury sanctions official said.

The House Oversight Committee released a transcript of its questioning of former JPMorgan and Barclays executive Jes Staley about his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

The length, in words, of Bill Gates's essay warning about AI's risks to employment and the human condition.

Risk

FBI shuts down sprawling China-linked hacking network.

U.S. officials say they have disrupted a China-linked hacking operation that broke into U.S. government networks and critical infrastructure, while hiding its tracks on a global network of hacked devices, cloud-computing infrastructure and even clandestine networks.

The goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace. The operation targeted networks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy and the Senate, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a court filing.

The group exploited software vulnerabilities to launch cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, power companies and hospital systems, and operated a worldwide network of hacked devices-known as a botnet-to conduct its hacking campaigns, according to Brett Leatherman, the FBI's top cyber official.

Google is moving a team focused on the risks and societal impact of artificial intelligence out of Google DeepMind, the research lab developing its frontier AI models, according to an internal email viewed by the Journal.

A cyberattack at medical-device maker Boston Scientific has triggered a global outage of key operational technology, leaving the company unable to fill orders.

A complex global supply chain linked to China has enabled the proliferation of Iran's cheap, one-way Shahed attack drones.

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What Else Matters

Banks fought against stablecoins. Now they are considering launching their own.

A new AI assistant is rocketing across Silicon Valley.

A prominent Chinese artist was convicted on Tuesday and sentenced to three years in prison for insulting Chinese heroes in a series of works in the early 2000s.

The Trump administration has paused processing of immigrant visas, which allow recipients to move permanently to the U.S., to train visa officers on new guidance ensuring that applicants have enough financial means to support themselves after they arrive.

A year after President Trump set out to rewire global trade in America's favor, the biggest winner has turned out to be Vietnam.

About Us

Follow us on LinkedIn. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com, Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editors Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and David Smagalla at david.smagalla@wsj.com.

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