TheChek News Flow

Imran Amed shares his observations from a trip to the wealthy desert metropolis, home to the most lucrative stores for many of the world’s top fashion brands.

DUBAI — The last time I touched down in Dubai back in 2015, the question I was asked over and over again was whether the Emirati city-state could become a global fashion capital: could it make the leap from being a mere consumer of fashion to a creator of fashion, bringing together the critical elements of a fashion industry ecosystem, from education and design, to manufacturing, finance and technology?

Back then, the big four fashion capitals — New York, London, Paris and Milan — still dominated the industry, and it seemed like a long-shot for Dubai, better known for conspicuous consumption than industry clout, to become a fashion hub of this stature.

Eight years later, much has changed on planet fashion.

London and New York, while still on the map, have lost ground as global fashion capitals. While London continues be the training ground for the industry’s top creative talent (Chemena Kamali and Seán McGirr who debuted this season as creative directors at Chloé and McQueen, respectively, were both educated at London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design), the city has been losing ground as a major fashion hub for years. Now, the implosion of Farfetch and Matches, and ongoing troubles at Net-a-Porter, have eroded London’s position as a hub for technological innovation in fashion and placed huge pressure on the city’s independent designers who rely heavily on them for scale and global distribution.

Across the pond, the challenges faced by America’s department stores have put similar pressures on New York’s independent brands. At the same time, the city’s one-time status as the industry’s commercial capital has waned, as Parisian mega-brands — Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Hermès — have surged to previously unimaginable scale.

Meanwhile, Shanghai, which had taken the leading position in the race to become the fifth global fashion capital, has become increasingly cut-off from the rest of the fashion industry amid growing geopolitical tensions, a slowing economy and a lingering sense of insularity after Covid lockdowns.

But the very notion of a fifth fashion capital may be a thing of the past. In a globalised world, the fashion industry, too, is more global than ever and the concept of fashion capitals may be shifting from a handful of citadels (which Shanghai or any other city might join) to a wider system of hubs, each with its own specialisation, orbiting one increasingly dominant centre: Paris.

Milan (and now Mumbai) specialise in offering high-quality manufacturing, London produces top creative talent, Seoul and Los Angeles churn out brand ambassadors. And Paris, truly the world’s fashion capital, is where it all comes together.

So where does this leave Dubai? That was the question on my mind as I sat down with more than a dozen fashion professionals last week — several of whom were expats who had come to Dubai for six months only to find themselves still there more than 10 years later — to learn more about life and the behind the scenes of the fashion industry in this city.

Before it was an international metropolis, Dubai was a fishing village. As vice president, prime minister, minister of defence, and now absolute ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was instrumental to this transformation, helping to create companies like Emirates Airlines, Jumeirah Group and DP World, and real estate developments like the Palm Islands, Burj Al Arab and Burj Khalifa, establishing Dubai as a global brand.

As one person said to me, Sheikh Mohamed’s original direction to close advisors developing his vision for 2020 was not to think of Dubai as a city, but to think of Dubai as a business. That pragmatic mindset is evident in everything you see and hear happening in the city.

While the city has suffered significant setbacks, notably during the financial crisis of 2008, it’s back to blistering growth, buoyed by relatively low cost of living, advantageous tax rules and its decision to remain open to the world during the pandemic. In 2020 alone, the city’s population surged by 5.6 percent, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the world, now home to more than 3.6 million people.

There’s no doubt Dubai is creaking under this growth spurt. Everything used to be 20 minutes away. Now it’s more like 60, with gridlock to rival Los Angeles.

But Dubai is extraordinarily global and diverse in a way that I have not experienced anywhere else in the world. Emiratis only make up about 10 percent of the population, with more than 200 other nationalities represented. This was fully on display one night at the ninth anniversary party for La Faubourg du Cantine, the Dubai outpost for the original Parisian restaurant which closed in 2006, where I felt like I had been parachuted into the future. Not only was there a sense of openness and optimism that is hard to find these days in New York, London and Paris, there was also a global mix of culture where multiple languages were spoken interchangeably and music by a live band veered from 90′s R&B to classic Parisian show tunes to which everybody seemed to know the words. It was a vibe.

Part way through my trip, locals began warning me that a man-made rainstorm was coming, part of a “cloud seeding” programme run by the government that brings much needed hydration to this desert city. Then I received an alert on my phone advising me to stay home on Saturday, the day I had set aside to visit the city’s two expansive shopping malls, Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates. The next day, I woke up and parts of the city were flooded because there were no drainage systems to handle the torrential sheets of rain.

I decided to venture out anyway as it was my last day in town. Nobody else seemed to have heeded the warnings either. When we arrived at Dubai Mall, it was almost impossible to find a parking spot and the mega brand stores were heaving with customers. Dior, Chanel and Hermès were all doing brisk business. Quiet luxury brands Loro Piana, Zegna and Brunello Cucinelli were very busy too.

For many of these luxury brands, their Dubai Mall store is their number one store in the world, while the Middle East makes up roughly 10 percent of global sales, and growing. But that doesn’t mean the customers are all locals. Of course there were Emiratis, but also lots of Russians (many of whom seemed to have moved here after the war in Ukraine broke out) Indians and Western expats. It’s no wonder that for many luxury fashion brands, Dubai is where they meet a wide and unique cross-section of their global customers in one place.

As for its place among the world’s fashion hubs, Dubai may still be mostly about luxury consumption, but it is also emerging as the dominant hub for brands keen to engage with the wider MENA region, including the high-potential Indian market, only a two hour flight away. Condé Nast has opened an office here, with expectations that it is going to take back its licences for Vogue Arabia and GQ Middle East in order to operate them directly and reap more of the profits.

There are also fashion schools, including a two year-old outpost of Istituto Marangoni and FAD which is expanding its own course offering in the Dubai Design District in the coming months. And, yes there are more and more homegrown businesses like Rami Al-Ali’s couture, The Giving Movement’s activewear, Nadine Kanso’s Bil Arabi jewellery and Sole DXB’s trade shows that are making a global fashion impact.

So, yes, while at times, Dubai can still feel like being on a different planet from the rest of the fashion world with its Blade Runner-like city-scape, giant shopping malls and man-made storms, and while its global ambitions will never be fully realised until it confronts its record on human rights, it is also a place that is constantly changing. In some ways, Dubai is a window into the future of fashion as power and wealth shift Eastwards, seeding opportunities for fashion creativity and entrepreneurship to flourish far beyond fashion’s traditional capitals.

The largest collection of Boivin jewels ever to come to auction will go under the hammer in May during a sale by an anonymous European female collector at Sotheby's Geneva.

GREEN PIECES: Nature-inspired jewelry from the house of Boivin will be at the heart of the Sotheby’s auction, Iconic Jewels: Her Sense of Style, which takes place in Geneva in May.

The house, founded by René Boivin in 1890, was known for its sculptural jewels inspired by flowers in bloom, greenery and “garland style” diamond settings.

When Boivin died in 1917, his wife Jeanne took the business to new heights, hiring her daughter Germaine as well as Suzanne Belperron, who would go on to become one of the most influential female jewelry designers of the 20th century.

Among the pieces on sale is the Bouquet de Violettes brooch and earring set, with an estimate of 25,000 to 35,000 Swiss francs; and the Algae necklace, with an estimate of 20,000 to 30,000 Swiss francs.

There is also the Noeud de Passementerie brooch, which carries an estimate of 15,000 to 20,000 Swiss francs, and a seal flacon pendant, priced between 30,000 and 50,000 Swiss francs.

Sotheby’s said the Boivin jewels may well represent the “most extensive selection of works by the French jeweler in the world,” and is definitely the largest collection of Boivin jewels ever to come to auction.

Overall, the auction will offer more than 250 pieces by an anonymous “European female collector” who amassed her collection over five decades. Sotheby’s has described it as “one of the most important private collections of signed jewelry ever to come to auction.”

The single-owner collection carries an overall estimate of $5.4 million to $8.3 million and will be offered across two sales in May. One lot of 46 jewels will be sold on May 14 as part of Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva.

More than 200 pieces will be sold in a dedicated Iconic Jewels: Her Sense of Style online sale from May 2, with bidding closing on May 16.

The wider sale will also feature 20th century jewelry designs by houses including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Boucheron, Chaumet and Marina B.

Other top lots include a pair of Bulgari earrings, set with two Fancy Intense Yellow diamonds, each weighing just under 10 carats and previously belonging to the American socialite Baroness di Portanova. They carry an estimate of 400,000 Swiss francs to 600,000 Swiss francs.

There is also a Cartier Panthère bangle from 1969 and a Tutti Frutti bracelet from the brand. The sale also features a choker and earring set by Marina B, intricately mounted with carved amethyst. Sotheby’s said the Marina B piece is a great example of “the power styling so readily associated with 1980s jewelry.”

Hot rock batteries are coming to Europe — soon

Electro-thermal batteries’ selling point is they can heat up bricks and rocks using cheapest six hours of electricity in any given day

For investors in new decarbonisation technologies, there is one question that trumps all others. When will they become competitive with existing fossil fuel alternatives?

Solar and wind power have crossed the line; electric vehicles are close. The next candidate for this coveted position is the heat-based battery for plants and factories. 

Such electro-thermal installations, variously made of rocks, bricks and other materials heated with an electric coil, aim to solve one of the energy transition’s largest and least talked-about problems. Delivering high temperatures — anything from 100 to 1,500 degrees — to make food, beverages, paper, chemicals and a host of other materials accounts for about a quarter of current fossil fuel consumption globally. This is also 20 per cent of carbon emissions. 

Potential solutions, such as burning hydrogen or capturing carbon, are almost by definition more expensive than existing gas-fired boilers. So is using electricity directly: wholesale prices in the UK are around £60/MWh, almost three times the cost of natural gas. 

That is now changing. Advances in heat pumps, which get over the cost hurdle by delivering two to three times the energy they need to run, make them a candidate for temperatures up to 200C. Beyond that, electro-thermal batteries lead the field. 

Their selling point is that they can heat up bricks and such using the cheapest six hours of electricity in any given day. These can soak up the midday glut in southern European solar power, or a midnight excess of northern European wind. Then these batteries discharge heat over the next 18 hours.

Today, that would cut perhaps 30 to 40 per cent off the cost of electricity from wholesale prices. As more renewables enter the mix, midday prices might fall to zero or even negative.

On top of that, bricks and rocks are cheap — costing perhaps 15-20€/MWh compared with electro-chemical batteries at €150/MWh — and lose very little energy in the process. They are already competitive in Spain. Portuguese utility EDP last week joined up with San Francisco-based hot-brick maker Rondo to pitch this to clients across Europe.

There are still hurdles to clear. Today’s heat batteries only reach 400 degrees, according to a report by Systemiq, although some manufacturers say they can go to 650 degrees heating with steam. The lower limit would lop off around half of the addressable market.

Meanwhile, much of Europe has been saddled with an electricity-pricing mechanism that does not pass on the full benefits of cheap peak renewable production and lower grid congestion. But this is changing. Thus the business of hot rocks already has a solid future.

Many EU countries with biggest shortfalls have high levels of debt and budget deficits

Nato’s European members need to find an extra €56bn a year to meet the alliance’s defence spending target, but the shortfall has halved in the past decade, according to research by Germany’s Ifo Institute for the Financial Times.

The research showed many of the EU countries with the biggest shortfalls in Nato’s target for defence spending to hit 2 per cent of gross domestic product — including Italy, Spain and Belgium — also have among the highest levels of debt and budget deficits in Europe.

The push for the 32 members of the US-led alliance to boost defence spending in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is stoking budgetary pressures in Europe at a time of low growth and when many countries are tightening their fiscal plans. Economists say this will make it harder for the laggards to bridge the gap.

The biggest shortfall by value was in Germany, which last year spent €14bn less than needed to meet the benchmark, according to Ifo. But Berlin has halved this gap in the past decade, adjusted for inflation, and plans to close it completely this year.

The next largest European shortfalls were €11bn in Spain, €10.8bn in Italy and €4.6bn in Belgium. The trio were among six EU countries with debt above 100 per cent of their GDP last year. Italy also had one of the bloc’s highest budget deficits at 7.2 per cent and its interest costs are set to rise above 9 per cent of government revenues this year.

“Countries with high debt levels and high interest costs do not have much room to raise more debt, so the only real way to do it is to cut spending in other areas,” said Marcel Schlepper, an economist at Ifo. “This is not easy, as we saw when Germany tried to cut subsidies on agricultural diesel and the farmers came out in protest.”

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller this week acknowledged that there had been an “improvement” in EU efforts to get all Nato members to hit the 2 per cent threshold. Washington has long wanted Europe to spend more on its own defence.

Last year, two-thirds of the total €1.2tn of Nato defence spending was by the US, more than double the €361bn spent by EU members, the UK and Norway combined.

New EU fiscal rules applying from next year are set to usher in more budget cuts as countries seek to comply with a 3 per cent limit on annual deficits and a 60 per cent debt-to-GDP threshold. More than 10 countries in the bloc are expected to breach the annual deficit limit, which will probably result in sanctions by the European Commission.

But during negotiations that ended last year, Poland, Baltic countries and Italy successfully campaigned to treat defence spending more favourably under the new rules. The commission will therefore regard military expenditure as a mitigating factor when assessing whether to take action against countries breaching the annual deficit limit.

In cases such as Poland, which in 2024 is set to spend more than 4 per cent of its output on defence — the highest level among Nato members — and thus breach EU fiscal limits, this is likely to lead to a more lenient assessment of its budget.

Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-general, told reporters on Thursday that two-thirds of members would meet the 2 per cent target this year, up from just three in 2014 when the defence investment pledge was agreed after Russia annexed Crimea.

Eurozone countries are on track to double their defence spending from €150bn in 2021 to €320bn in 2026, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics, which estimated this would boost sluggish growth by 0.2 to 0.3 per cent. This week, Norway became the latest European Nato member to say it would meet the alliance’s 2 per cent target in 2024, a year ahead of schedule.

Lorenzo Codogno, a former Italian treasury official and now an economic consultant, said it would be “difficult” for Italy, which had debt above 140 per cent of GDP last year, to reach the Nato target “if there is no special exemption within the rules or no EU money involved”.

“The Russian threat is not perceived as sufficiently dangerous to justify, say, welfare spending cuts to make room for weapons,” he said.

Nato polling found low public support for increasing defence spending in some countries with the largest shortfalls. Only 28 per cent of Italians think their country should raise military spending, while 62 per cent want it to spend the same or less.

Despite being home to Nato’s headquarters, Belgium’s defence spending was only 1.21 per cent of GDP last year, one of the lowest in the alliance, according to new figures it released on Thursday. Spain was not much higher at 1.24 per cent and Italy was at 1.47 per cent.

Excluding the seven European countries that have said they aim to reach Nato’s 2 per cent target this year, including new member Sweden, Ifo found the European shortfall would still be €35bn.

“We are moving in the right direction, yet too slowly and too late,” Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski said on Friday, pointing out Russian defence spending was set to reach 7 per cent of GDP this year. “The Russian economy is already operating on a war footing. European economies need to switch to at least a crisis mode.”

A WSJ reporter tried her hand at trading the explosive short-dated options bets that have made financial markets riskier than ever

There’s a hot new trade on Wall Street, blurring the line between investing and gambling like never before.

It involves contracts known as short-dated options, bets on everything from individual stocks to indexes that run for just a few days, or in some cases mere hours.

Part of their appeal, and risk, is that the contracts can be like placing chips at a roulette table, or buying a scratch-off lottery ticket. There is the potential for huge, nearly instantaneous gains, or the loss of everything you put down.

The options have drawn in scores of rookie investors, many who take to social media to tout staggering wins, or moan about losing thousands of dollars in the time it takes to shower.

In my time as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, I have never seen anything catch fire like this. I wanted to see what the hype was about and convinced my editors to let me get in on the game, something I never do as a reporter.

They gave me five days, and $500, to trade the contracts on Robinhood. Part of the deal was that any profits would be donated to charity. More importantly, the Journal wasn’t going to make me pay back any losses. And I expected to lose big.

That’s partly because I’m more of a buy-and-hold investor type. But it’s also because I went in knowing the odds are often stacked against individuals like me, with pros on the other side of these trades.

What I didn’t expect was just how easy it would be to get sucked in, or how much pressure I would put on myself to land a blockbuster trade. Most of all, I didn’t think I would fall prey to the idea that I had true trading talent rather than chalking it up to luck.

Hello, Robinhood

Armed with $500 of her employer’s money, Banerji went at it.

My experiment got off to a rough start—my first two plays were immediate busts. I scooped up options on a tiny shipping company called ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, whose shares had soared of late, and on the Invesco QQQ Trust, a fund tracking the Nasdaq-100 index.

Here’s how options trading works: You can buy a contract tied to a stock or exchange-traded fund that gives you the right to buy or sell 100 shares at a specific price, by a stated date. “Call options” offer the right to buy shares while “puts” grant the right to sell.

The contract can be exercised, or you can flip it in the secondary market. Often, the contract loses most of its value.

In my case, I made a long-shot bet that ZIM’s hot streak would continue. I shelled out $10 on a call option.

The math seemed straightforward: In the worst-case scenario, I’d lose just $10. If I was right, I imagined that initial investment could rapidly multiply to $50, $100 or even more.

No surprise—that didn’t happen. The contract almost immediately went south, and my Nasdaq bet zigzagged before ending up worthless.

I was amazed how easy it was to trade on Robinhood and how quickly—and effortlessly—I lost money. I spent much of the next few hours unable to concentrate on much else. I tried to do some research for another article, but I struggled to focus because it was too tempting to sneak a peek at the Robinhood tab on my browser to check my positions.

Maybe it was the frugal home I grew up in, but even declines on tiny trades gnawed at me. Thinking about rookies boasting about their wins on social media with rocket ship emojis made the flops sting. If they could do it, I mused, I could too.

I knew I needed to go bigger. I turned to one of the market’s riskiest plays, the ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ. It’s a triple-leveraged ETF designed to profit when the Nasdaq falls. My colleagues and I have written extensively about the danger these funds pose, yet here I was jumping right in.

Ultimately, my bold bet paid off. The position jumped around 70% within two days.

It was good. But it wasn’t a jackpot. Where were the 100%, 300% or 1,000% returns I’d heard about?

One trade away from a win

It’s no coincidence these trades are booming while online sports betting is taking the U.S. by storm. Americans flocked to DraftKings and FanDuel while stuck in isolation during the pandemic. Their popularity has only grown since.

Some customers find the platforms addictive. My colleague Katherine Sayre wrote a captivating story last month about a psychiatrist who, despite being familiar with human impulses and addiction, was unable to walk away from casino games until she lost a six-figure sum and her VIP status at DraftKings.

Robinhood and other brokers have drawn similar complaints from investors who say they are gamifying investing.

I got drawn into the game. When my account balance slumped below $500, my mood darkened, too. Fleeting gains gave me hope and kept me trading in case a more explosive return was right around the corner. And a barrage of mobile alerts from Robinhood about my positions and stocks on my watch list encouraged me to hunt for another trade.

Steve Quirk, Robinhood’s chief brokerage officer, said the firm has guardrails in place for options trading and offers contracts expiring the same day only to those who enroll. Traders can opt out of alerts, which Quirk says are designed to keep them informed.

He disagrees with comparisons drawn to gambling. Options have long allowed traders to hedge portfolios, speculate or generate income. Changing the time frame over which a trade is placed doesn’t make it gambling, he argues. Quirk compares buying a short-dated option on a stock to hedge a position around its earnings report to buying home insurance the exact week you know a hurricane is coming.

“If I buy something and hold it for a month, it’s not gambling. If I hold it for a week, it’s gambling? Or if I hold it for a day, it’s gambling?” he said.

Upping the ante

I kept chasing as the week progressed. I rode a brief rally in the Treasury market through a call option on the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, a position that more than tripled in two days. I fantasized about seeing the 311% return mushroom into something even bigger.

It was tempting to believe I had made a smart market call. I found myself falling into a common trap that psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman has called the illusion of skill, attributing my performance to investing savvy rather than sheer luck.

By Thursday, my portfolio had lost around a quarter of its value. The contracts that seemed cheap when I picked them up had instead littered my portfolio with losses.

But I wasn’t giving up. I had been fairly conservative most of the week, wary of going bust too soon. With 24 hours left, it was time to go big.

I picked up an expensive lottery ticket: A call option pegged to shares of Meta Platforms hitting $440, around 11% above where they ultimately closed that day. The contract expired within 24 hours.

Meta’s earnings report was imminent, and I put my faith in Mark Zuckerberg to deliver. I was sick to my stomach waiting for the numbers to cross the wires.

Shortly after 4 p.m., the mobile and email alerts poured in: Meta had smashed expectations. I watched my computer screen in awe as the stock rocketed 15% in after-hours trading, a head-spinning move for one of the biggest companies in the world. I felt lightheaded, like I’d had too much coffee in the morning.

The next morning, I cashed in—and, wildly, the payoff was even bigger than I’d thought. Right after the opening bell, a contract I’d bought for $101 fetched $2,210. I quickly sold, locking in a 2,088% profit. In less than 60 seconds, my remaining account balance had more than quintupled to $2,410.61.

In truth, I’m not sure that I’m a natural at this. I lost money on 10 of the 15 trades I placed that week. I felt increasingly desperate to figure out why I couldn’t score in a game being played by millions—or, at times, why they were trying at all. Then I got lucky with one, and I understood.

After the market closed, I told two friends about my jackpot over drinks at an Upper West Side bar. I said I wished I could keep trading.

Generally, pretty safe, security experts say. But it pays to take precautions.

Board almost any flight these days, and the airline will offer Wi-Fi service. That can be a big help if you want to get some work done or have a broader range of entertainment options during your flight. But is airline Wi-Fi secure?

Experts say the risk of being hacked while using Wi-Fi on a plane or in an airline terminal is similar to that of any other unsecured public Wi-Fi—but in some cases with a level of vulnerability unique to fliers. Fortunately, they also say there are ways to limit your exposure.

One problem with Wi-Fi in the sky is that you can’t always rely on a virtual private network, or VPN, to function smoothly or at all with the Wi-Fi service on your flight. A VPN can protect you by routing a device’s internet connection through a secure server, thus encrypting your traffic and shielding your device’s unique IP address.

So that’s one layer of protection you can usually use in, say, a coffee shop, that might not be available in the air. And without that protection, a hacker sharing the airline’s Wi-Fi with you might be able to eavesdrop on any data flowing between you and the network and gain access to your devices, leaving you vulnerable to all sorts of trouble.

Among other things, hackers can access your personal information like account numbers, passwords and contacts, says Arjun Bhatnagar, chief executive of Cloaked, a consumer privacy and security company. “They can log into your personal accounts and spread malware to your friends and family,” he says.

Protect yourself

One step you can take to partially protect yourself is to visit only websites that start with “https,” which means they are encrypted, Bhatnagar says. That way, a hacker could only see what sites you visit, not anything you do there, such as logging in with a password or entering a credit-card number.

But you could still be in trouble if an attacker manages to trick you into downloading a type of malware called a key logger, which records anything you type. That allows a hacker to capture information users are exchanging with secure websites, including sensitive data such as passwords or a Social Security number that’s required to open an encrypted file. The best way to avoid this is to not follow any links or download anything from sources you’re not certain of, especially unsolicited AirDrops, which are so prevalent among Apple users during the boarding process.

Another threat to be aware of is fake Wi-Fi networks. A hacker can create a fake network with a name that is very similar to, or even the same as, the airline’s. Users who connect to the fake network give the hacker access to all the personal data that flows between them and the network.

If you see multiple Wi-Fi networks with the same or similar names, ask the airline steward to identify the proper network for you before you sign on. To be extra cautious, configure your devices to “forget” public Wi-Fi network connections that don’t require a password. “If you ‘forget’ a network that you’ve previously connected to, your device won’t automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks with the same name when it finds them in the future,” says Anand Oswal, senior vice president and general manager of network security at global cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks.

That protection extends beyond your flights, Oswal says. For instance, if you connect to a legitimate airline Wi-Fi network on a flight and don’t set the device you used on the plane to forget that network, your device could automatically connect to a fake network with the same name set up by a hacker at your hotel or another public site, he says.

Do the basics

The bottom line is that if you take the precautions you would when using any public Wi-Fi network, the risk of being hacked while logged into a plane’s Wi-Fi is pretty low. “I would not say airplane Wi-Fi is terribly risky,” says Amir Tarighat, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Agency. “Make sure you have proper security tools on your device, update your software all the time, and use multifactor authentication for sensitive websites like your bank, and you won’t have much to worry about.”

Security tools from trusted companies include antivirus and malware-protection software and apps that encrypt your sensitive data as it moves from one end point to another. On an airplane, experts also say to consider using a privacy screen to fend off potential snoopers in the seats behind you, and consider waiting to access financial accounts until you can do so on a private network.

Experts also warn travelers not to let their guard down in the airline terminal, where public Wi-Fi networks are just as dangerous as they are anywhere else. And there’s an extra potential danger here: Hackers can install malware into public charging stations that allows them to steal data from your device as it’s charging. The FBI’s Denver bureau released a warning about this issue in April.

Cloaked’s Bhatnagar says travelers should use their own cords and plugs and charge their devices in a traditional outlet while traveling.

Federal prosecutors are looking into whether platforms including Facebook facilitate and profit from illicit sale of drugs

Federal authorities are investigating Meta Platforms for its role in the illicit sale of drugs, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.

U.S. prosecutors in Virginia have been sending subpoenas and asking questions as part of a criminal grand jury probe looking into whether the company’s social-media platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs, the people familiar with the matter said. Meta is the owner of Instagram and Facebook META -1.57%decrease; red down pointing triangle.

The prosecutors have requested records related to “violative drug content on Meta’s platforms and/or the illicit sale of drugs via Meta’s platforms,” according to copies of subpoenas reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The subpoenas were delivered last year.

The Food and Drug Administration has been helping with the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said. Investigations don’t always result in formal charges of wrongdoing. The prosecutors’ office and a spokeswoman for the FDA declined to comment.

“The sale of illicit drugs is against our policies and we work to find and remove this content from our services,” a spokesman for Meta said in a statement. “Meta proactively cooperates with law enforcement authorities to help combat the sale and distribution of illicit drugs.”

On Friday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the company has joined an effort alongside the State Department and others to help disrupt the sale of synthetic drugs online and educate users about the risks. “The opioid epidemic is a major public health issue that requires action from all parts of US society,” he wrote in a tweet.

Meta has enlisted outside entities to screen advertisers and content that might violate rules regarding the promotion and sale of drugs. A company called LegitScript helps determine which companies can advertise and promote prescription medication on its platforms. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham had a partnership with Facebook to help flag problematic content related to drug sales. A spokeswoman for the university said it isn’t a current service provider for Meta.

Social-media companies have recently come under scrutiny from members of Congress for content that has harmed young people, particularly children.

Lawmakers have been discussing the need to hold the technology companies responsible for what third parties post on their platforms. Efforts to do so have been complicated by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that online platforms aren’t liable for what third parties post, with a few exceptions. The Supreme Court left core elements of Section 230 unchanged after deciding on two cases involving the law in 2023.

The Justice Department in the past has tried to extend the reach of federal drug laws to make an internet platform culpable when companies use it to break the law. In 2011, Google agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place ads targeting U.S. consumers, resulting in the unlawful importation of prescription drugs in the U.S.

Gretchen Peters, executive director of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, confirmed that her organization had received a federal subpoena in the Meta investigation but declined to comment further.

As part of the investigation, prosecutors also subpoenaed the Algorithmic Transparency Institute, a project of the nonprofit National Conference on Citizenship, for research related to violative drug content on Meta Platforms. A special agent from the FDA’s criminal-investigations division delivered the subpoena, said Cameron Hickey, the conference’s chief executive. The group turned over to prosecutors thousands of telehealth company ads from Meta’s ad library, many featuring prescription drugs, which researchers collected at the request of the Journal in 2022, Hickey said.

The Justice Department in the past has tried to extend the reach of federal drug laws to make an internet platform culpable when companies use it to break the law. In 2011, Google agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place ads targeting U.S. consumers, resulting in the unlawful importation of prescription drugs in the U.S.

Gretchen Peters, executive director of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, confirmed that her organization had received a federal subpoena in the Meta investigation but declined to comment further.

As part of the investigation, prosecutors also subpoenaed the Algorithmic Transparency Institute, a project of the nonprofit National Conference on Citizenship, for research related to violative drug content on Meta Platforms. A special agent from the FDA’s criminal-investigations division delivered the subpoena, said Cameron Hickey, the conference’s chief executive. The group turned over to prosecutors thousands of telehealth company ads from Meta’s ad library, many featuring prescription drugs, which researchers collected at the request of the Journal in 2022, Hickey said.

Last month, a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the FDA, requesting that the agency take action against the marketing of prescription drugs on social media, citing the Journal’s previous reporting about telehealth company ads promoting easy access to prescription drugs.

A Journal investigation in 2021 found that TikTok served minors thousands of videos containing drug and other adult content; TikTok didn’t respond as to whether it also received a subpoena.