Good morning. British billionaire Joe Lewis won’t serve prison time for his role in an insider-trading scheme, a New York federal judge said Thursday, citing the businessman’s advanced age and poor health as reasons for not imposing a sentence of incarceration.

• Tips for friends: Lewis, 87 years old, pleaded guilty in January to securities-fraud charges for tipping off a romantic partner, a poker buddy and the pilots of his private jet to confidential information on companies he was invested in. Federal prosecutors said while Lewis—one of the 500 richest people in the world—didn’t profit from the scheme, his associates collectively made millions of dollars by trading on the information.
   
• Own goal: Lewis, whose family owns the English Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, apologized for his crimes in a letter to the judge ahead of the hearing, saying his actions were the result of arrogance and childish exuberance.
   
• Fall risks: U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke ordered Lewis to serve three years probation and pay a fine of $5 million. While Clarke called Lewis’s crimes serious, she said she chose not to incarcerate him because of his health and that he was far older than the vast majority of inmates in the federal prison system. His lawyers had urged the judge to spare Lewis from incarceration, saying he was nearing the end of his life and would be at risk of falling in prison.

Huawei sanctions-evasion trial pushed to 2026 after settlement negotiations fizzle.

A federal judge scheduled the trial of China’s Huawei Technologies over sanctions-evasion and intellectual property theft charges for January 2026 after prosecutors on Thursday said settlement talks had faltered.

The new trial date comes after a relatively quiet period in the criminal case against Huawei in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Justice Department in 2021 struck a deal that allowed Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou to return home to China nearly three years after she was detained in Canada on the request of U.S. prosecutors.

Treasury sanctions vessel operator over links to Iranian military

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned a Dubai-based operator of more than a dozen ships, saying the company is “deeply involved” with facilitating shipments of Iranian commodities, including for Iran’s military.

OFAC said the Hecate, an Oceanlink Maritime DMCC-managed vessel, recently made a ship-to-ship transfer of Iranian commodities valued at more than $100 million to another sanctioned tanker on behalf of Iranian energy company Sepehr Energy, a company OFAC sanctioned in November for its role in selling Iranian commodities for Iran’s military. Oceanlink Maritime wasn’t able to be contacted for comment.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it would pause the implementation of its new climate disclosure rule while it fights in court over the measure’s legality.
   
• Vodafone UK’s planned joint venture with Three UK will come under greater scrutiny after the country’s competition regulator submitted the deal for a more in-depth antitrust review.

Taiwan's magnitude-7.4 quake was strong, but preparation—and some luck—made it far less deadly than the last big one.

This week's earthquake took a toll on Taiwan, but it was far less deadly than one that struck in 1999, which killed more than 2,400 people and left more than 11,000 others injured. That 7.7-magnitude quake struck the center of the island and destroyed thousands of buildings.

The relatively light damage from Wednesday’s quake illustrated the value of government enforcement of rigorous engineering codes, seismologists said. Shoddy or outdated construction has led to high death tolls in other earthquakes around the world, including China.

• Taiwan Earthquake Tests Readiness of World’s Chip-Making Hub
• Taiwanese Chip-Making Giant TSMC Says No Earthquake Damage to Most-Critical Tools

Bird flu spreads to cattle, raising fears on farms.

In the U.S. agriculture industry, bird flu isn’t just for birds anymore.

An avian influenza outbreak that has led to the death of about 80 million birds over the past two years is now sickening dairy cattle, temporarily curbing their milk production and prompting some states to increase restrictions on the livestock crossing state lines. Concern that the disease could spread to beef cattle and hurt consumer meat demand has roiled livestock markets.

• Drone attacks in Russia, unrest in the Middle East and strong consumer demand have propelled oil prices to their highest level in months.
   
• A 270-foot U.S. Coast Guard cutter has been transferred to the Pacific as part of the Biden administration's latest move to compete with China for influence in the region.
   
• The Israeli military has been scrambling GPS signals as the country braces for possible retaliation by Iran or one of its allied militias for a suspected Israeli airstrike Monday on an Iranian diplomatic building. The attack marked an escalation of the yearslong shadow war between Israel and Iran, with the potential to explode into direct conflict.

• UnitedHealth's actions since a ransomware attack in February show the challenges of crisis communications during a cyber incident.
   
• Yum Brands has a vision for “AI-powered” fast food in which AI shapes nearly every aspect of how its Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC chains are run.
   
• Generative AI has gripped the ad industry. Too bad consumers hate the look.

🎧 Listen to Winnie Cisar, global head of strategy for CreditSights, discuss how an interest-rate cut from the Fed could affect companies’ access to credit.

• Alaska Air Group has received a $160 million payment from plane maker Boeing as initial compensation to make up for lost profits due to the midair blowout of a door plug on an Alaska flight in January.
   
• American businesses are sending all types of work across the Atlantic, drawn by depressed U.K. salaries, tax incentives and a weak currency.
   
• Tesla is raising compensation for its artificial intelligence engineers in a bid to ward off poaching from the likes of OpenAI, Chief Executive Elon Musk said.
   
• Ford Motor said it is delaying the launch of a new three-row electric vehicle, which will buy time for the consumer market for EVs to further develop.
   
• No Labels, the centrist group which has sought to field a third-party presidential bid, is abandoning efforts to create a “unity ticket” aiming to win the White House, the organization announced Thursday.

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.

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