Defense

The European Union on Tuesday adopted a new anti-corruption directive that creates bloc-wide minimum rules on corruption offenses, penalties, prevention measures, and enforcement, replacing a 2003 law on private-sector corruption and a 1997 convention covering EU and member-state officials, the Council of the EU said.

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday imposed sanctions on 14 individuals, entities, and aircraft in Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates that it said were involved in arming Iran with missiles and drones.

Ukraine is seeing early signs that sanctions are disrupting Russia’s access to some foreign technology used in Shahed drones, although newly manufactured Western and Asian components are still being found in the weapons.

Three Polymarket accounts made about $611,000 betting on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire before President Donald Trump’s conditional ceasefire announcement, according to a Decrypt report citing blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, in trades that renewed scrutiny of possible insider activity on prediction markets.

Tehran has intensified cyber attacks against Israel and the United States in response to the Iran war, using operations designed to spread fear, gather intelligence, and support military targeting.

Iran-linked hackers have stepped up cyberattacks on Israel in recent weeks, wiping data at more than 50 small businesses and compromising about 50 public security cameras, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing Israel’s top civilian cyber official.

North Korean IT operatives are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools to pose as remote workers, win jobs, and draw salaries from European companies, the Financial Times reported, citing cyber security experts who said the threat is spreading beyond the United States.

European defense company Czechoslovak Group failed to tell investors before its January stock market debut that a Spanish ammunition subsidiary had been suspended by NATO’s procurement agency amid a widening corruption investigation.

The Justice Department released its first department-wide corporate enforcement policy for criminal matters, establishing a uniform framework for how prosecutors handle corporate cases across the department, except antitrust matters. 

An investigative news outlet on Thursday launched a searchable online database containing nearly 3,200 financial disclosure records for more than 1,500 Trump-appointed federal officials, detailing extensive financial ties between senior members of the administration and the industries they regulate.