Good morning. Weeks after President Trump granted a pardon to convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October, executives at the crypto exchange dismantled a staff investigation into $1 billion that had recently moved through Binance to a network funding Iran-backed terror groups, according to company documents and people familiar with Binance’s operations.

• Primary channel: A trading account belonging to a close Binance business partner was identified as a primary channel that moved cryptocurrency to the Iranian network. Binance subsequently fired the investigators who had uncovered the transfers—and the network remained active.
   
• Individual circumstances: A Binance spokeswoman said the investigators weren’t “suspended or terminated for raising compliance concerns” but instead left “based on individual circumstances.” The investigation continued, she said, and resulted in the entities identified being removed from Binance’s platform.
   
• Familiar problem: The episode echoed some of the same concerns that drew U.S. scrutiny in 2023, when prosecutors secured a $4.3 billion plea deal with the world’s largest crypto exchange and a prison sentence for Zhao. Binance admitted to breaking sanctions and anti-money-laundering laws—violations that turned it into a money-laundering hub for criminals, terrorists and Iranian-sanction evaders.
   
• Trump walkback: After Trump returned to office last year, Binance lobbied for Zhao’s pardon and pushed to remove U.S. monitors appointed as part of the plea agreement. It also took steps to boost the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, by providing crucial backing to its main product, a stablecoin whose market capitalization has surpassed $5 billion. After issuing the pardon, Trump said he had been told Zhao wasn’t “guilty of anything.”

New York to roll out extensive buy-now-pay-later rules.

New York state is moving to impose the nation’s first comprehensive oversight framework on the “buy now, pay later” industry, reports Risk Journal’s Mengqi Sun.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Monday the New York State Department of Financial Services has proposed rules to regulate the short-term installment loan industry. The proposed regulations, following a 2025 legislative mandate, will require providers of buy-now-pay-later credit products to obtain state licenses, conduct meaningful underwriting to assess a borrower’s ability to repay and adhere to strict data privacy protections.

Hochul, a Democrat, said the regulations aim to protect New Yorkers from what she described as “junk fees” and opaque fine print that can leave consumers in a debt spiral.

• The U.S. Supreme Court will take on an appeal from oil companies looking to block a lawsuit by Colorado officials that would hold them directly responsible for climate change, Clara Hudson writes for Risk Journal.
   
• U.S. artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic said three Chinese AI companies set up more than 24,000 fraudulent accounts with its Claude AI model to help their own systems catch up.

Trump considers new national security tariffs after Supreme Court ruling.

The Trump administration is considering new national security tariffs on a half-dozen industries in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last week that invalidated many of the president’s second-term levies.

The new tariffs being considered could cover industries such as large-scale batteries, cast iron and iron fittings, plastic piping, industrial chemicals and power grid and telecom equipment, according to people familiar with the plans. They would be issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives the president broad powers to impose tariffs based on national security risks.

The new Section 232 tariffs would be issued separately from other levies that President Trump has already announced since the Supreme Court threw out many of his tariffs on Friday morning. Those announced include a new 15% tariff that Trump can keep in place for five months, and a number of levies planned for after that period, which would be issued under another legal authority, Section 301 of the Trade Act.

See also: 

• In Trump Era, the Only Sure Thing for Businesses and Governments Is Uncertainty
• EU Lawmakers Shelve U.S. Trade Deal Talks After Tariff Ruling
• Tariff Refunds Are Now In Play. Here’s What to Know.

Grupo Aeromexico resuming operations after cartel rampage.

Grupo Aeromexico expects to resume regular operations at four Mexican airports beginning Monday afternoon after the killing of a prominent cartel leader by the Mexican military set off a wave of violence across the Jalisco state.

The Mexican airline said Monday that it is in the process of restoring operations at airports in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Tepic, and Manzanillo. It added that the disruption was unlikely to be material to its broader operations, given that the four airports are a limited part of its overall network.

• The Pentagon is raising concerns to President Trump about an extended military campaign against Iran, advising that war plans being considered carry risks including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force.
   
• Weak home sales are curbing shoppers’ appetite for appliances, cabinets and flooring. People buy higher-end products when they are remodeling, moving or building a home. All of those activities have been in a post-Covid trough because of elevated prices, higher interest rates and low consumer confidence.
   
• Longevity doctor Peter Attia is leaving his role as a CBS News contributor after scrutiny mounted over his correspondences with Jeffrey Epstein.
   
• A onetime DJ who sold tens of thousands of counterfeit aircraft parts to some of the world’s biggest airlines has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison, capping a scandal that exposed a major vulnerability in the global aerospace supply chain.

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.

Request a complimentary invitation here using the code COMPLIMENTARY. Attendance is limited, and all requests are subject to approval.

• Security forces launched a massive operation to capture Mexico’s top drug lord after U.S. and Mexican intelligence agencies tracked one of his girlfriends to a secluded love nest in a colonial town, Mexican officials said Monday.
   
• As protests rekindle across Iran’s universities and an American fleet builds up offshore, Iranians are girding themselves for the chaos and violence that might unfold if the ruling regime is actually brought down.
   
• A National Park Service employee fired after hanging a transgender pride flag at Yosemite has sued several federal agencies and officials over an alleged First Amendment violation.
   
• Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the U.S., was arrested Monday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, as the revelations linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continued to send shock waves through Britain’s establishment.
   
• Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas faced calls from Republican colleagues to drop his re-election bid over an alleged affair with a staff member, after new text messages of a sexual nature surfaced between Gonzales and the aide, who died after setting herself on fire last year.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editor David Smagalla at david.smagalla@wsj.com.