Good morning. Morgan Stanley agreed Friday to pay $249 million to settle criminal and regulatory investigations into allegations that some employees improperly shared information about clients’ stock sales, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said.

• What the settlement means? The resolution ends a long-running probe into how the bank sold large blocks of stock for institutional investors. Morgan Stanley obtained a nonprosecution agreement, a form of leniency that means it won’t face criminal charges as long as it cooperates with ongoing requests from prosecutors for three years and doesn’t violate its settlement agreement.
   
• What it includes: The bank’s total settlement includes an agreement to pay fines of about $112 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We are pleased to resolve these investigations and are confident in the enhancements we have made to our controls around block trading,” the bank said Friday in a statement.
   
• Role of block trading head: A former executive in charge of block trading, Pawan Passi, admitted that he misled clients from 2018 to 2021 about how he would handle their trades. He agreed to a one-year bar from the securities industry and to pay a $250,000 fine to the SEC.
   
• What's block trading? Block trades occur when a large shareholder, such as a private-equity firm, wants to sell a swath of stock at once. A bank such as Morgan Stanley offers to buy the block at a discount to the day’s closing price and then sells the shares at a slight markup from what it paid. In the years leading up to the probe, Morgan Stanley was the dominant bank in block trading.

Crypto firm Genesis Global Trading to pay $8 million for compliance failings.

Crypto brokerage firm Genesis Global Trading has agreed to pay $8 million in a settlement with New York state’s financial regulator over alleged failings in its anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity programs.

Genesis Global Trading, part of the now-bankrupt Genesis Global Holdco LLC, closed its U.S. spot crypto trading operations in September and is in the process of winding down. As part of its settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services, the trading unit will surrender its BitLicense, which allowed it to operate a crypto business in New York, the regulator said in a statement Friday.

U.S., partners explore seizing Russian assets to back loans to Ukraine.

The U.S. and its partners are exploring ways to use some of the $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank reserves to back loans to Ukraine, one of a series of ideas that Western officials are considering as they struggle to agree on a method to seize Russian funds without spooking international investors.

Why the push? With Congress blocking funding for Ukraine, there is renewed impetus in Washington to find other sources of long-term financial support. After the outbreak of war, billions of dollars in Russian foreign currency reserves, gold and government bonds were frozen across the U.S., Europe and Japan to ensure they weren’t used to fund its illegal invasion.

• An unusual agreement between Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and a natural-gas driller could serve as a model for finding consensus over an issue that continues to divide much of the U.S.: fracking.
   
• Workers at a Wells Fargo branch in Daytona Beach, Fla., voted to unionize Thursday.
   
• OpenAI outlined limits on using its tools in politics during the run-up to elections in 2024, amid mounting concern that artificial-intelligence systems could mass-produce misinformation and sway voters in high-profile races.
   
• Apple is removing a blood-oxygen sensor from some of its smartwatches to get around a patent dispute related to the technology.

Taiwan vote leaves China with few good options.

For eight years, China has raged against Taiwan’s ruling party, accusing it of pursuing a separatist agenda that must be confronted with economic muscle and shows of military might.

On Saturday, Taiwanese voters handed the Democratic Progressive Party another ringing victory, all but ensuring that those tensions will persist—or even intensify—over the next four years, and cementing the island’s status as a flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.

• Taiwan Voters Defy Beijing in Electing New President
• Taiwan Election Piles Pressure on Delicate U.S.-China Ties

After 100 days, Israel-Hamas war threatens to spill beyond Gaza, disrupt global trade.

After 100 days, Israel’s war with Hamas is turning into a protracted conflict with no clear end, threatening to spread across the Middle East, disrupt global trade and bog down the U.S.

Affecting trade. The U.S. and its allies conducted strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen this weekend in response to attacks in the Red Sea that have caused ships to make costlier journeys and rattled commodities prices tied to those flows.

• Houthis Turn Their Sights on U.S. Ships, Vow to Keep Attacking Red Sea Targets
• Israel Pushes Ahead With War Against Hamas Despite Growing Pressure Over Hostages
• Divisions in Israel’s War Cabinet Emerge as Gaza Conflict Enters Pivotal Stage

• The good news is the probability of a recession is down sharply, according to The Wall Street Journal’s latest survey of economists. The bad news is that, for a lot of people, it is still going to feel like a recession.
   
• China is sinking deeper into its worst deflation in years, spelling trouble for the whole world as demand falters in its second-largest economy.
   
• With the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of U.S. exchange-traded funds holding bitcoin, cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments must focus more on managing risk and communicating with participants, Chief Financial Officer Ed McGee said.
   
• Long before the harrowing Alaska Airlines blowout on Jan. 5, there were concerns within Boeing about the way the aerospace giant was building its planes. 
   
• After a year of right-sizing, employers are looking in the mirror and concluding there is still fat to lose.
   
• Germany is stuck in a rut, and there is no quick way out.

Varma, who also previously served as general counsel for TPC Group and Trico Marine Services, will succeed Anna Richo, who is retiring. According to Cargill, Varma was involved in the legal separation of Hewlett Packard Co., a longstanding technology company, into Hewlett Packard Enterprises, a cloud company, and HP Inc., which continues to make computers and printers.

• Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses Monday night with the largest margin in the history of the first Republican presidential nominating contest, cementing an early victory in his defiant bid to return to the White House.
   
• Congressional leaders have reached an agreement on a new stopgap spending bill that would extend government funding into March.
   
• New data shows that people who log on from home five days a week get fewer promotions and less mentoring than people in the office.
   
• It is hard not to see echoes of Donald Trump in Elon Musk these days.
   
• When Bjørn Gulden took over at Adidas just over a year ago, morale was down and employees complained about a lack of transparency. In response, during his first town hall, Gulden volunteered sensitive information including financial data and even gave out his cellphone number to all 60,000 employees.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at david.smagalla@wsj.com.