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The DOJ turns to a fraud law to target corporate DEI efforts.

Plus, Lulu Lemons founder launches a proxy fight to shake up the struggling retailers' board

and facing new and evolving threats, Western militaries prepare to spend big on new defense technology.

We track and monitor incidents of suspected Russian hybrid warfare, and so these are acts

of sabotage, subversion, provocations, disinformation, cyber attacks, and we've seen a significant

increase.

It's Monday, December 29th.

I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in your feed once

a day over the holidays with top headlines and business stories moving the world today.

We are exclusively reporting that Google and Verizon are among the targets of Justice Department investigations into DEI initiatives in the workplace.

The civil probes are being carried out under the False Claims Act. While the law is typically used in health care fraud cases,

the DOJ contends that holding a federal contract while still considering diversity in hiring and

promotions is in effect fraud against the government.

Google and Verizon declined to comment.

People familiar with the investigations say the government is also looking at companies in the auto-pharmaceutical, defense, and utilities industries.

I asked the journal's Lydia Wheeler how to interpret the new investigations.

These civil probes are proceeding under the umbrella of an anti-fraud law called the False Claims Act,

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