WSJ

The popular app can feed young users a stream of intense, polarized and hard-to-verify videos about the Israel-Hamas war Learn more in our story here.

This complex network of companies belonging to the paramilitary group will make any Kremlin takeover a challenge. Learn more in our story here.

Our documentary reveals how the Russian private military company hides the flow of riches and resources that ultimately connect to the Kremlin. Watch the documentary here.

The assets, which consisted largely of four thinly traded crypto tokens, likely were worth less than the $6.4 billion FTX was claiming. Read the full story here.

Yuri Kovalchuk, with vast holdings in banking and media, is helping his longtime friend Vladimir Putin tighten the Kremlin’s grip on the internet. Read the full story here.

The web of shell companies and middlemen managed by services firm Bridgewaters makes it hard for authorities to track assets and enforce sanctions. The company has connections to now-blacklisted oligarchs including Alisher Usmanov, Andrei Skoch and Sergei Chemezov. Read the full story here.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said sanctions would “impose massive costs on Putin’s closest confidants.” In reality, the impact is far milder. Read the full story here.

When TikTok users start to feel that the videos being shown to them are harmful to their well-being, how easy is it to disengage? And what responsibility do authorities, from parents to governments to TikTok itself, have in keeping the platform safe? Read the full story here.

When it comes to TikTok videos that discuss mental health, eating disorders and self-harm, deciphering what is helpful and what is harmful can be hard for TikTok’s algorithm. And even when users share videos of their recovery, their posts can send others into spirals. So how do TikTokers try to help each other in this gray area? Read the full story here.

TikTok’s powerful algorithm is exceptionally good at engaging users. But what happens when the endless scroll on the app turns into a stream of potentially harmful content, including on starvation diets, self-harm and suicide? And why do users who say they didn’t go looking for this type of content still see so much of it? Read the full story here.

The app’s algorithm can send users down rabbit holes of narrow interest, resulting in potentially dangerous content such as emaciated images, purging techniques, hazardous diets and body shaming. Read the full story here.

The popular app can quickly drive young users into endless spools of adult content, including videos touting drug use and promoting pornography sites, a Wall Street Journal investigation finds. Read the full story here.

The Wall Street Journal created dozens of automated accounts that watched hundreds of thousands of videos to reveal how the social network knows you so well. Watch the video here.

Several Twitter accounts posed as U.S. news organizations to falsely declare election victories for Democrat Joe Biden, in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign to inject disinformation into conversation about the presidential contest. Read the full story here.

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service to conduct rigorous sweeps of facilities serving states with looming election deadlines like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, so any ballots still in the system reach election officials in time. Read the full story here.

Millions of mail-in ballots haven’t been received by election offices in critical battleground states, where recent slowdowns in mail deliveries risk some votes not arriving in time to count for the presidential election. Read the full story here.

Of the 29 states that require mail-in ballots to arrive on or before election day, 28 have seen periods in recent weeks of average delivery times of more than six days, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Read the full story here.

Months before travel bans and lockdowns, Americans were transmitting the virus across the country The Wall Street Journal interviewed disease detectives and reviewed hundreds of pages of new research to piece together how the coronavirus infiltrated the wealthiest nation on earth. The latest genetic, epidemiological and computational research suggests it was spreading inside the country before anyone started looking. How did it happen? Find out here.

After 2016, social-media companies tried to limit the reach of RT, as it is now known. Instead, the outlet has been boosted by a news aggregator dominated by conservative publishers, including National Review, The Daily Caller and Newsmax. Read the full story here.

Sparse testing is just one reason the official tally is far too low, but the numbers will get more reliable over time. Read the full story here.

A Journal investigation finds the Cloud Hopper attack was much bigger than previously known Read the full story here.

Hackers homed in on smaller electricity providers in proximity to critical infrastructure; FBI investigating Read the full story here.

Trump campaign adviser sought corroboration for Indian’s allegations against Hillary Clinton. Read the full story here.

Behind the scenes, Michael Cohen hired RedFinch Solutions, then allegedly stiffed it–and his boss. Read the full story here.

Motorola seeks to revive flip phone that was dethroned by the iPhone a decade ago. Read the full story here.

Documents show mining giant provided nearly $1 billion in loans and advances to aid investments by accused businessman Dan Gertler. Read the full story here.

A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the worst known hack into the nation’s power system reveals attacks on hundreds of small contractors. Read the full story here.

The Russian operation to influence Americans through social media included an effort to persuade business owners to buy into a marketing campaign and turn over private information. Read the full story here.

The Justice Department charged eight people, most of them in Eastern Europe, with operating two alleged advertising schemes involving scores of faked websites and infected computers across the world. Read the full story here.

Everybody knows Russian trolls love U.S. politics. But did you know they also really like the canceled Comedy Central game show @midnight with Chris Hardwick? Read the full story here.

After a Wall Street Journal investigation, Google takes action to weed out scam artists who advertise on its platform aiming to defraud customers seeking technical support. Read the full story here.

A $100,000 real-estate brokerage fee that was part of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea came from representing a company owned by a member of the Qatar royal family. Read the full story here.

Newly identified Twitter accounts were until recently still tweeting out politically divisive messages as midterm elections approach. Read the full story here.

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone privately sought information he considered damaging to Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story here.

Fidelity Investments has fired or allowed more than 200 employees to resign over alleged misuse of workplace-benefits programs, according to people familiar with the matter. Read the full story here.

The extent of Russian trolls’ social-media activity remains unknown. “We know something happened, but the public doesn’t know exactly what,” one expert said. Read the full story here.

The federal government’s troubles combating Russian trolls spreading fake news isn’t its only problem on social media. It is also struggling to keep track of which accounts are its own. Read the full story here.

Roger Stone said in an Aug. 4, 2016, email: “I dined with my new pal Julian Assange last nite.” Now, Mr. Stone says, “I never dined with Assange.” Either way, it’s gotten Robert Mueller’s attention. Read the full story here.

Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online “trolls” flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. Read the full story here.

Russian operators used social media to pitch fake business directories and petitions in return for information. Read the full story here.

An analysis of 221,641 tweets shows Russian trolls tried to incite chaos, fear and outrage about fake events before their election activity, as if they were testing to see how much they could get Americans to believe. Read the full story here.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty last week to lying to the FBI about his conversation with a Russian diplomat, told an American businessman that U.S. sanctions on Russia would be “ripped up” under the Trump administration, a whistleblower told a congressman. Read the full story here.

Project backers drafted memos for President Trump and Flynn allies continued to push the plan after the Trump security adviser was ousted. Read the full story here.

Russian Twitter accounts began heaping praise on Donald Trump and ripping his rivals earlier than previously thought–within weeks after he announced his bid for the presidency in June 2015. Read the full story here.

As President Trump’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn promoted a controversial private-sector nuclear-power project in the Middle East that had once involved Russian companies, according to former security-council staffers and others familiar with the effort. Read the full story here.

Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and posted some on his blog. Read the full story here.

VEB, a Russian state-run bank under scrutiny by U.S. investigators, financed a deal involving Donald Trump’s onetime partner in a Toronto hotel tower at a key moment for the project, according to people familiar with the transaction. Read the full story here.

Federal authorities indicted Kassim Tajideen, an alleged terror financier whose family businesses engaged in commodity deals for years with an iconic American food producer. Read the full story here.

Former national security adviser Mike Flynn interacted with a graduate student with dual Russian and British nationalities at a 2014 U.K. security conference, a contact that came to the notice of U.S. intelligence but that Mr. Flynn, then the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn’t disclose. Read the full story here.

U.S. investigators have examined contacts Attorney General Jeff Sessions had with Russian officials during the time he was advising Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. Read the full story here.

Annie Murray’s 2009 Land Cruiser followed the same overseas car caravan that U.S. officials alleged raised millions of dollars for Hezbollah–a trade route they thought they had cleaned up five years ago. Read the full story here.

U.S. companies are barred from doing business with people and entities named on the government’s designated-terrorist list. The firm that touts the Butterball turkey is being investigated over such alleged ties. Read the full story here.

Some terrorist financiers blacklisted by the U.S. government continue to raise money and attract followers on U.S.-based social media, a new report says. Read the full story here.

The Government Accountability Office has launched an inquiry into the effects of banks’ increasing efforts to close high-risk accounts, including those held by money-transfer firms and humanitarian organizations. Read the full story here.

Account shutdowns and holdups of money transfers hinder ability to deliver aid to refugees. Read the full story here.

Banks close the accounts of customers they fear may be up to no good, evicting from the financial system those the government most wants to watch. Read the full story here.

Republican Jeb Bush rounded up donations in the first 15 days of his presidential campaign from at least 136 top-tier donors to his brother, former President George W. Bush. Read the full story here.

The top 1% of billers of the federal program in 2013 reaped 17.5% of all payments to individual providers that year. That same cluster of doctors and other individual providers received 16.6% of the program’s payments in 2012. Read the full story here.

Powerful painkiller hydrocodone acetaminophen was the most widely prescribed drug under Medicare Part D in 2013, often by primary-care doctors. Read the full story here.

Drugs for diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis account for more than a quarter of spending on prescriptions for America’s elderly and disabled, data show. Read the full story here.

Christopher Veale started his career as a stockbroker at the notorious boiler room Stratton Oakmont Inc. depicted in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street.” In the 20 years since then, he has worked for 18 firms and racked up 25 red flags on his disciplinary record. Read the full story here.

Frank Staltaro, a kitchen-cabinet maker, preaches the importance of researching stockbrokers before investing, rather than after a problem arises. He learned the hard way. Read the full story here.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority doesn’t make public all regulatory red flags it has about brokers, prompting calls for more expansive disclosure. Read the full story here.

Efforts to provide a clearer national picture on the number of people killed by police gathered momentum this week, as lawmakers cleared legislation that would give states and federal law-enforcement agencies strong incentives to report deaths in custody and during arrests. Read the full story here.

The Senate cleared and sent to President Barack Obama legislation that would provide strong incentives for states and federal law-enforcement agencies to report deaths in custody and during arrests. The House passed the legislation a year ago. Read the full story here.

How many people are killed by police each year? One academic and former police officer says he has an answer: Ask them to tell us. Read the full story here.

Data from 105 of the nation’s largest police agencies showing the number of justifiable homicides by officers each year. Read the full story here.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 105 of the largest police agencies in the country found more than 550 police killings between 2007 and 2012 were missing from the FBI’s records or, in a few dozen cases, not attributed to the agency whose officers were involved. The result: It is nearly impossible to determine how many people are killed by police each year. Read the full story here.

State securities regulators are drawing up plans to allow information on problem stockbroker firms to be shared more effectively among them. Read the full story here.

Detailed maps and reports about the 16 stockbroker “hot spots” identified by The Journal. Read the full story here.

How we built the models that showed the designated hitter likely boosts the American League’s fortunes in interleague play. Read the full story here.

Over more than 15 years of interleague baseball, the American League has had a bigger home-field advantage than the National League. A key reason may be the designated hitter. Read the full story here.

More than 2,300 providers earned $500,000 or more from Medicare in 2012 from a single procedure or service, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Read the full story here.

One of the biggest believers in gold is prospecting for outside investors after seeing the value of his personal holdings slashed in the metal’s steep fall. Read the full story here.

How we collected and analyzed the data behind our recent coverage of troubled stockbrokers. Read the full story here.

Investors made outsize bets on Allergan Inc. stock in the 10 days during which activist hedge-fund manager William Ackman was privately accumulating a stake in the Botox maker, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Read the full story here.

Securities regulators are expected to unveil plans to step up checks on stockbrokers’ records, including requiring brokerage firms for the first time to do formal background checks on new employees. Read the full story here.

More than 51,500 stockbrokers failed a basic exam needed to sell securities at least once and those who repeatedly failed have on average worse disciplinary records. Read the full story here.

Some doctors who received large sums from Medicare in 2012 have had run-ins with the law, signaling how the government’s unprecedented move to make such payments public could throw up red flags for potential abuse. Read the full story here.

For a new breed of “activist” investors, tipping other investors is part of the playbook. Read the full story here.

A major Wall Street regulator “routinely deletes” red flags on stockbrokers, said a study released Thursday. The study follows a Wall Street Journal analysis that found more than 1,600 stockbrokers have bankruptcies or criminal charges in their past that weren’t reported to regulators. Read the full story here.

More than 1,600 stockbrokers have bankruptcies or criminal charges in their past that weren’t reported to regulators, leaving investors in the dark, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. Read the full story here.

Foreign airline crews saw problematic approaches to San Francisco’s airport more frequently than U.S. crews when part of an automated landing system was out of service. Read the full story here.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is highlighting a fast-track program it began earlier this year to go after what it calls “high-risk brokers.” Read the full story here.

When corporate executives give favorable stock guidance, sell their own shares, then disclose bad news, investors sometimes grow suspicious. Read the full story here.

Study Shows Brokers’ Requests to Strike Complaints Granted in Vast Majority of Cases Read the full story here.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said it will consider requiring brokerage firms to carry insurance to cover the payment of arbitration awards to investors. Read the full story here.

More than 5,000 brokers were still licensed to sell securities earlier this year after working for one or more firms that regulators expelled between 2005 and 2012, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story here.

Up to 11% of certified financial planners who work at big firms call themselves ‘fee only’ when, by definition, they can’t be. Read the full story here.

Short sellers are facing their worst losses in at least a decade, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found. Read the full story here.

U.S. companies are beginning to change the way they police trades by executives and other insiders in their company stock. U.S. companies are revising trading rules for executives, with some introducing longer “cooling-off periods” before trades can occur after establishing preset trading plans. The changes come after a series of Wall Street Journal articles highlighting profitable, well-timed trades by company insiders. Read the full story here.

A Wall Street Journal review of thousands of trades by insiders in their own company’s stock found the trades veering heavily toward selling rather than buying as bankruptcy filings drew nearer. We found that corporate insiders often shift from buying to selling their company’s stock as bankruptcy approaches. Our analysis suggests insiders might be privy to their company’s deteriorating conditions ahead of other investors. In the last three months before bankruptcy filings, insider stock buys dropped over 80%, while sales only slightly decreased....

Stock “pinning” is the tendency of stocks to close precisely at their nearest option strike price and is a regular feature of expiration Fridays. A Wall Street Journal examination of trading behavior from the start of 2007 through April 2013, using a list of all U.S. stocks with options from DeltaNeutral.com, gives a sense of the phenomenon’s prevalence. We analyzed trading behaviors from 2007 to April 2013 using U.S. stocks with options data....

The release of government data showing wide variation in hospital pricing removes a layer of secrecy but probably won’t make medical charges more uniform, experts said Wednesday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released data revealing significant variations in hospital pricing for common treatments from 3,337 hospitals. The disclosed prices often don’t reflect the actual amounts paid, with numerous entities like Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers negotiating different rates. Despite the data’s transparency, experts believe it might not standardize medical charges, and its usefulness for consumers determining out-of-pocket costs is limited....

Prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into whether corporate directors misused government-sanctioned trading plans to sell company shares for investment funds they run. Federal prosecutors are investigating potential misuse of 10b5-1 plans by corporate directors, allowing them to sell company shares even when privy to nonpublic information about their firms. The probe was triggered by a Wall Street Journal article detailing trading activities at several companiues. Read the full story here.

Corporate board members are increasingly using a type of opaque trading plan that was originally intended primarily for executives. The use of government-sanctioned 10b5-1 trading plans, designed to avoid insider trading suspicion by scheduling trades in advance, has surged by 55% among nonexecutive directors since 2008. Some directors use these plans for rapid large-scale stock sales. Critics argue that these trading plans may sometimes be abused, especially by board members who also run investment funds, potentially leading to the appearance of impropriety....

Many schools’ financial-aid letters are devilishly difficult to figure out. Here’s what you need to know. Many high school seniors face the challenge of evaluating college acceptance and financial-aid offers, but colleges use non-uniform language in their aid packages, making comparison difficult. Only a fraction adopt the U.S. Department of Education’s standardized “Financial Aid Shopping Sheet”. College costs go beyond tuition and fees; they include transportation, textbooks, and living expenses. Some colleges may provide more generous grants to freshmen but reduce them for upperclassmen....

A WSJ investigation into asbestos trust claims and court cases of roughly 850,000 people filed since the late 1980s found many apparent anomalies. Asbestos claims continue rising by 85 per day even as asbestos usage has declined. Our analysis of claims data found anomalies like over 2,000 claimants saying they were exposed under age 12, and discrepancies between disease types reported to trusts versus courts. Trusts have reduced payout rates as assets deplete rapidly from mounting claims....

Most people assume a degree in the arts is no guarantee of riches. Now there is evidence that such graduates also rack up the most student-loan debt. Graduates from arts-focused schools accrue the highest student-loan debt, with a median debt load of $21,576, and often have starting salaries around $40,000. Our analysis of Department of Education data found that research university graduates typically have less student loan debt than those from liberal-arts colleges: $18,100 versus $19,445, respectively....

Regulators will step up their focus on trading by corporate executives this year, according to a large international law firm that is pressing corporate boards to increase oversight of executive-trading plans. Regulators will increase scrutiny on trading by corporate executives, pushing corporate boards to enhance oversight of executive-trading plans and ensure compliance beyond just the letter of the law. Concerns arise from loopholes in 10b5-1 plans, which allow executives to trade company shares even with private company knowledge, given the plans were established without such knowledge; there’s currently minimal oversight and public disclosure requirements for these plans....

A medical-supplies company made a $43 million repurchase of its own shares last year, buoying the stock before bad news hit, even as four top managers were selling company shares. A medical-supplies firm repurchased a significant amount of its own shares, boosting the stock’s value, while four top executives sold their company shares. A month later, the stock experienced a 9% drop following the announcement of poor earnings. Some employees within the firm expressed concerns about the trading activities....

The SEC is facing mounting pressure to tighten its rules, following a Wall Street Journal investigation that found profitable and well-timed trades by more than 1,400 executives. In 2007, a senior securities regulator cautioned about the potential misuse of preset plans by executives to trade their companies’ stock based on inside information. Following a Wall Street Journal investigation revealing well-timed trades by over 1,400 executives, pressure has mounted on the SEC to tighten its rules....

Ten Big Lots Inc. executives sold a total of more than $23 million in the discount retailer’s stock in March before the company announced news that sank its stock, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Read the full story here.

Federal prosecutors and securities regulators are taking a deeper look into how executives use prearranged trading plans to buy and sell shares of their company stock. Read the full story here.

Some investors are calling for better disclosure of stock transactions by corporate executives amid concern that some may be trading based on private information about their companies. Read the full story here.

An investigation of insider trading by corporate executives found many make profitable trades prior to news announcements. Our analysis found that many executives made trades yielding considerable profits just before significant company news announcements. Of 20,237 executives we looked at, 1,418 experienced an average gain of 10% in their trades one week before significant news releases. This rate of profit was notably higher than that of executives who faced negative stock movements....

Nearly a quarter of New York and New Jersey’s Superfund sites are vulnerable to storm surge flooding. Read the full story here.

Only a fraction of homeowners in some parts of the Northeast who incurred property damage from Sandy have insurance that covers losses from floods, a Wall Street Journal analysis finds. Read the full story here.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows that banks’ submissions used to calculate the London interbank offered rate often are slow to change and sometimes fail to track the market’s view of the credit risk posed by each firm. We found that banks’ submissions used to determine the London interbank offered rate (Libor) frequently remain static and often don’t align with the market’s perception of each firm’s credit risk, leading to questions about Libor’s credibility....

Rising college costs and a sagging economy are taking the biggest toll on a surprising group: upper-middle-income families. Read the full story here.

The Galleon Group hedge fund wasn’t alone in piling into Goldman Sachs Group Inc. stock hours before the bank announced a $5 billion investment from Warren Buffett’s firm at the height of the financial crisis, trading records show. Read the full story here.

Presidential candidates and super PACs have paid more than $50 million for various services to obscure corporate entities set up in the past year, many of which use postal-box addresses and file little or no information about their ownership. Read the full story here.

The Labor Department has revised upward its first estimate of seasonally adjusted claims the following week in 57 of the past 58 reports, a Dow Jones analysis found Read the full story here.

At a time when the overall U.S. homicide rate is declining, more civilians are killing each other and claiming self-defense–a trend that is most pronounced in states with new “stand your ground” laws. The U.S. has seen a notable increase in justifiable homicides, particularly in states with “stand your ground” laws, even as the overall homicide rate declines. “Stand your ground” laws allow individuals greater latitude in using force for self-defense outside the home....

The U.S. job market’s recent improvement has some economists wondering if 2012 will break from last year’s pattern of strong job growth in the winter followed by a slowing in the spring and summer. Read the full story here.

The U.S. government allocated more than $10 billion under section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote job creation and renewable energy through the establishment of wind farms, solar projects, and other alternative energy initiatives. However, a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the actual number of jobs produced was significantly lower than the 100,000 direct jobs reported by companies benefiting from the program. This discrepancy underscores the challenges in accurately quantifying the economic impact of stimulus spending, with some plants laying off workers and others shutting down altogether....

The share of American workers in the science and engineering professions fell slightly in the past decade, ending what had been a steady upward trend in the proportion of workers in fields associated with technological innovation and economic growth. Read the full story here.

Results from Russia’s parliamentary vote earlier this month are studded with red flags that suggest broad electoral fraud, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Our analysis of nearly 100,000 voting precincts reveals potential vote-rigging, with up to 14 million votes in question. Higher turnout areas showed suspiciously strong support for Putin’s United Russia party. Large-scale protests have erupted in response to allegations of fraud, challenging Putin’s political legitimacy. In response, Putin promises transparent measures for upcoming elections....

Smaller U.S. banks and savings institutions are cutting jobs in a sign of a deepening financial-industry retrenchment that is shaking firms from Main Street to Wall Street. Read the full story here.

A U.S. company that makes Internet-blocking gear acknowledges that Syria has been using at least 13 of its devices to censor Web activity there–an admission that comes as the Syrian government cracks down on its citizens and silences their online activities. Read the full story here.

When disgraced hedge-fund titan Raj Rajaratnam is sentenced in federal court Thursday, he will come up against a hard and unavoidable truth: Inside traders are facing considerably harsher sentences than they did in the past. Read the full story here.

Despite a decade of technological advances that make it possible to work almost anywhere, many of the nation’s most educated people continue to cluster in a handful of dominant metropolitan areas such as Boston, New York and California’s Silicon Valley, according to census data released Thursday. Read the full story here.