Good morning. North Korea is now the world’s most dangerous crypto thief.

It has swiped more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency over the past decade—a sum so large that no one else compares.

The country’s hackers are both patient and brazen, according to investigators. To get into companies’ computers, they comb through employees’ Facebook and Instagram pages and invent tailor-made stories to trick them into clicking on links with viruses. Some North Korean hackers have even become employees themselves, fooling U.S. companies into hiring them as remote IT workers and gaining access to their networks.

Pyongyang’s crowning achievement came in February with a $1.5 billion raid of Bybit, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, in the largest-ever such heist. The illicit money helps fund the Kim regime’s nuclear program and prop up the country’s sanctions-strapped economy.

Judge approves dismissal of bribery case against former Cognizant executives.

A federal judge in New Jersey has dismissed foreign bribery charges against two former Cognizant Technology Solutions executives after U.S. Justice Department prosecutors said they didn’t want to proceed given the Trump administration’s new antibribery enforcement policy.

U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Thursday put an end to the more than six-year-old case against Gordon Coburn, Cognizant’s former president, and Steven Schwartz, the professional services company’s former chief legal officer. The two were indicted in 2019 over their alleged involvement in a scheme to pay a $2 million bribe in India to obtain permission to build a Cognizant corporate campus there.

• This startup wanted to revolutionize fashion. Now it’s under investigation for fraud.
   
• The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced it has lifted sanctions against the wife of a Russian billionaire and close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
   
• The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on 13 individuals and entities involved in corruption and undermining democratic processes in Moldova, Georgia, and Guatemala, including Evrazia, a Russian nonprofit allegedly used to bribe Moldovan citizens to vote “no” in last year’s referendum on joining the EU.
   
• The U.K competition watchdog said the remedies put forward by French aerospace supplier Safran for its proposed purchase of a part of Collins Aerospace’s business could resolve its concerns.

WTO sees decline in trade flows, threat of tariff war.

Global trade flows will likely fall this year following U.S. President Trump’s latest round of tariff increases, while fresh rounds of retaliation would deepen the economic impact, the head of the World Trade Organization said.

Trade in goods rebounded last year after a 2023 decline, and the WTO had expected to see a further pickup this year. But that outlook has changed following the sweeping rise in duties on imports announced by the U.S. Wednesday.

Stocks suffer biggest one-day wipeout since March 2020.

U.S. markets slid Thursday in their steepest declines since 2020, as investors grappled with the threat that President Trump’s new tariff plan will trigger global retaliation and hurt the economy.

Major stock indexes dropped as much as 6%. Stocks lost roughly $3.1 trillion in market value Thursday, their largest one-day decline since March 2020.

• A Market-Rattling Attempt to Make the Economy Trump Always Wanted
• Republicans Raise Concerns About Trump’s Tariff Blitz
• Eurozone Faces Recession Threat
• Bonds Rally as Investors Seek Safety From Tariff Turmoil
• Resistance Is Futile, Make a Deal: Trump’s Tariff Message to the World
• Canada to Hit U.S. Autos With Retaliatory Tariffs
• China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs

• President Trump’s jumbo tariffs on China threaten to create a new problem for a global economy already stressed over trade: a $400 billion deluge of Chinese goods looking for new markets.
   
• German factory orders stagnated in February, a weaker-than-expected reading despite signs of frontloading ahead of tariffs that have roiled markets in recent days.

Trump fires director of National Security Agency.

Gen. Tim Haugh, the chief of the National Security Agency, was fired Thursday at the direction of the White House, according to people familiar with the matter.

Haugh, who jointly helms U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s combatant command for offensive use of cyberattacks, was informed by the White House that his services were no longer required, the people said, adding that his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, was also removed from her position, though she was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon.

• Private-equity employees may face layoffs unless the industry’s asset sales and fundraising picks up in 2025.
   
• All emerging technology needs to deliver on its promise, sooner or later. For AI agents, that time is now.
   
• A number of companies are being sued in Europe for not doing enough to tackle climate change, even as firms in the U.S. face lawsuits for focusing too much on green issues.
   
• True Religion, a one-time god of denim, is embracing the fans who stayed faithful through two bankruptcies, with $400 price tags a thing of the past.

• Deloitte is cutting U.S. workers in its consulting business after the federal government demanded it find ways to shrink the cost of government projects it is working on.
   
• The Pentagon’s inspector general said Thursday it had launched a review into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of military plans ahead of U.S. strikes on Yemen in a Signal chat group.
   
• World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab told the staff and the board of trustees that he will step down as chairman, in the wake of a board investigation into the Davos organizer’s workplace culture.
   
• Several National Security Council staffers were fired this week, people familiar with the matter said, as right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer alleged to President Trump that some members of his administration weren’t aligned with his priorities.
   
• South Korea’s Constitutional Court ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived declaration of martial law, clearing the way for a snap vote to elect a new president who will contend with deep divisions at home and rising friction with the U.S.

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