Good morning. A simple sign required by an Atlanta suburb may be part of the solution to battling scams using cryptocurrency automated teller machines.

Sandy Springs, Ga., has seen a significant drop in fraud cases and losses involving crypto kiosks, according to the city’s police department, since a local ordinance requiring crypto ATMs to display a fraud warning sign went into effect.

• Possible solution nationwide? The city’s police department said the sign, cautioning users to potential fraudsters posing as law enforcement or government agencies to solicit payment through crypto, could be duplicated elsewhere to combat the increasing number of scams nationwide.
   
• Crypto kiosks scams skyrocketed: The Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded more than 12,000 complaints between January and November of last year of scams using crypto ATMs, with more than $333 million lost. Crypto kiosks allow users to convert cash into cryptocurrency and send it to a digital wallet anywhere. Crypto ATM companies say the machines, often found in gas stations and grocery and convenience stores, make cryptocurrencies more accessible to the public. 
   
• Doing more? One of the biggest operators of crypto ATMs says it supports the moves by Sandy Springs, but with some caveats. CoinFlip, which operates more than 5,500 crypto ATMs worldwide and has one machine in Sandy Springs, said it takes consumer protection seriously and holds itself to the highest compliance and transparency standards. 

Kalshi dealt major setback in court fight to remain in Nevada.

Kalshi suffered a blow in its battle to remain available in Nevada, as a federal appeals court rejected its request for a stay on the state’s efforts to block the prediction-market platform.

The case is being followed closely as a debate heats up over the proper way to regulate the nascent and fast-growing prediction markets industry. Battle lines have formed between officials at the federal and state level who say buying and selling event contracts on platforms like Kalshi, including on sports, is distinct from online betting and those who see them as one and the same.

• The Federal Communications Commission voted Wednesday to advance sweeping reforms to its Lifeline program, tightening eligibility requirements and procedures for the nearly $3 billion phone and internet subsidy for low-income households.
   
• Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced a barrage of questions about his social-media company’s efforts to secure ever more of its users’ time and attention at a landmark trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
   
• Nonbank lenders now handle most U.S. home loans. But that could change as Washington aims to get banks back into the mortgage market.
   
• Former coal executive Charles Hobson was found guilty of bribing Egyptian officials by a federal jury in Pittsburgh, Risk Journal reports. 
   
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko endorsed Russia’s proposal to create a global alliance of sanctioned countries, saying nations facing Western restrictions should unite to counter those which imposed them, Risk Journal reports.
   
• The European Union has removed provisions allowing it to impose travel bans and asset freezes under its Zimbabwe sanctions regime, leaving only an arms embargo in place after concluding its annual review of the measures, Risk Journal reports.
   
• A Coca-Cola bottler faces a sex discrimination lawsuit from the Trump administration’s employment bias enforcer for allegedly holding a no-men-invited off-site event, Risk Journal reports.

Iran is getting ready for war with the U.S.

Iran’s leaders want to reach a nuclear deal with the U.S., but they are also rushing to prepare for war in case talks between the countries fail. Tehran is deploying its forces, dispersing decision-making authority, fortifying its nuclear sites and expanding its crackdown on domestic dissent. The moves reflect its leaders’ belief that the survival of the regime itself is at stake.

Domestically, the Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in decades. Its leaders are facing widespread popular discontent over the worsening economic picture and the mass killing of protesters last month. Meanwhile, the U.S. has deployed two aircraft carriers and a host of other warships and jet fighters to the region in preparation for a possible attack.

Fed minutes reveal little appetite for rate cuts.

Federal Reserve officials signaled little appetite for reducing interest rates at their meeting last month, with most indicating they wanted to see further progress on inflation before considering any further cuts—a process that could take months.

Moreover, even though two officials opposed the decision to hold rates steady at their Jan. 27-28 meeting and favored a cut, minutes of the meeting showed that other officials would have supported more neutral language characterizing the prospect of a rate cut or a rate hike as evenly balanced.

• The U.S. is in the process of withdrawing all of its roughly 1,000 troops from Syria, according to three American officials, ending a decadelong military operation in the country.
   
• The U.S. is hosting an inaugural meeting of President Trump’s Board of Peace on Thursday, debuting the president’s vision for a new international organization to cement Middle East peace and rebuild a war-ravaged Gaza.
   
• Hungary and Slovakia threatened to cut off energy supplies to Ukraine in a dispute over an oil pipeline, potentially compounding a crisis that has left millions of Ukrainians without reliable power during the coldest months of the year.

Join us in New York on March 4 for the Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit. Speakers include Kaitlin Asrow, acting superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services; Erika Brown Lee, head of global data privacy legal, Citi; Beth Collins, chief compliance officer, Walmart; Indrani Franchini, chief compliance officer, IBM; and Kevin O’Connor, general counsel, Lockheed Martin.

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• Leslie Wexner told lawmakers he was “duped” by Jeffrey Epstein and had no knowledge of his crimes, as the retail billionaire faced congressional scrutiny about his relationship with the sex offender.
   
• EBay has agreed to acquire the secondhand fashion platform Depop from Etsy for approximately $1.2 billion, adding a site popular with younger consumers to the online auction site’s core marketplace business.
   
• The Food and Drug Administration reversed course and agreed to begin a review of Moderna’s application to sell a new seasonal flu shot after the vaccine maker agreed to conduct additional testing in the elderly.

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