WSJ What’s News - The Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl Winners, Go Up for Sale

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

P.M. Edition for Feb. 18. A long-anticipated sale of the Seattle Seahawks is now underway—and the sale price could break NFL records. Plus, Stephen Hemsley, the leader of UnitedHealth Group, for years made private investments in healthcare startups. Journal senior editor Mark Maremont digs into how some of those companies also did business with, or competed against, UnitedHealth. And in his testimony at a landmark social media trial, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s practices. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Plus, the leader of United Health privately invested millions of dollars in companies, including firms that compete with United Health. His investment company, which is called Cloverfield's capital, has this public-facing side. They invest in publicly traded stocks. What we found is that there's this completely different side of Cloverfields, which was really doing this venture capital investing in the healthcare industry on the quiet. And who wants to buy a Super Bowl champion team?

It's Wednesday, February 18th. I'm Alex O'Sulloch for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand here. today in Los Angeles. Meta, along with Google, are the defendants in a lawsuit. It's the first of 3,000 cases against them, saying the companies should be held liable for making social media addictive for teens. Zuckerberg faced questions about his company's efforts to get more of its users' time and attention. In his testimony, Zuckerberg said meta's growth targets reflect

and aim to give users something useful, not addict them, and that the company doesn't try to attract children as users. The Food and Drug Administration said it would review Moderna's application to sell a new seasonal flu shot. It's a reversal from earlier this month when the FDA surprised the company, saying it wouldn't review Modernist flu shot application. I'm joined now by Peter Loftes, who covers the pharmaceutical industry for the journal. Peter, what's different about Moderna's proposed flu shot versus the standard dose flu shot? It's based on this messenger RNA technology, and that's the same technology moderni used to make the COVID-19 shots. The promise of MRNA technology is that things can be

modified more quickly and be closer to the most recently circulating strain. So why did the FDA reverse course here and now say that they will look at Moderna's application? So the FDA said that the main study that tested Moderna's flu vaccine wasn't an adequate or well-controlled trial. Moderna tested its vaccine against a standard dose flu vaccine. And they did show that it had advantages. However, in the U.S., people over 65 are recommended to get a high-dose vaccine. This original trial did not compare it to the high-dose vaccine. So Moderna had a meeting with the FDA, and they proposed changing their approach to address some of the concerns.

And one of them was that they would seek a conditional approval of its use in people 65 and older and do another study that compares their vaccine against the high-dose vaccine. So, of course, the FDA reviewing Moderna's application doesn't necessarily mean approving it. But what does this mean for Moderna? The demand for COVID-19 vaccines has really plummeted. And so they're not making as much money on their initial product. they would like to have new products. Initially, it looked like there was going to be this big delay in getting another product out. Now they're back on track.

And if the FDA does approve it, theoretically, they would have a supply available for this upcoming flu season. That was Wall Street Journal reporter, Peter Loftus. Thanks, Peter. Thanks for having me. Moderna shares rose about 6% today. In other health news, the journal has learned that the Trump administration named a new acting director of the CDC. It's Jay Batacharya, who has been leading the National Institutes of Health. The CDC hasn't had a Senate-confirmed leader since August.

Batacharya, an economist and medical doctor, gained prominence during the COVID pandemic. He was a critic of school closures and masking, and he's been a steady ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s make America healthy again movement. Coming up, why a weapons deal between the U.S. and Taiwan is up in the air, plus what minutes from the most recent Fed meeting show about the prospect of an interest rate cut, those stories and more after the break. Stephen Hemsley, the leader of the health conglomerate United Health Group, has for years made private investments in health care startups.

That includes firms that do business with or compete against United Health while he served as board chairman. The investments were part of an investment firm that Hemsley founded in 2019 and still owns. They weren't announced by the health care companies that he was investing in, and United Health never told its shareholders about. them. United Health says Hemsley abides by all of its disclosure and conflict of interest policies. For more on the investments, I'm joined now by WSJ Senior Editor, Mark Merrmont. Mark, what are some of the

kinds of companies that Hemsley's firm was investing in? His investment company, which is called Cloverfield's Capital, has this public-facing side that they disclose. And FCC filing is that they are an investment firm and they invest in publicly traded stocks like Otis Worldwide or Alphabet, which is the parent company at Google, what we found is that there's this completely different side of Cloverfields, which was really doing this venture capital investing in the healthcare industry on the quiet. One of them was a company that provided autism therapy services. Another one was a vaccine administration firm that United Health paid for its services. Another one was a company that provides a digital health space for employers to connect employees to potential health care options.

And that company actually competes with a similar offering from United Health. Hemsley founded Cloverfields in 2019 when he was the chair of United Health's board. And board members of large public companies do sometimes hold investments in other companies in the same industries. So is there a conflict of interest here? A lot of board members of publicly traded companies that invest in small startups or other companies in that industry, these sorts of situations can be managed, typically through the close board oversight. Board members typically disclose every investment before they make such an investment and get approval for them. Oftentimes, companies voluntarily disclose what is going on so that the public at least knows about it. One of, UnitedHealthcare's big rivals, a company called Humana, its chairman of the board, has been a long-time private equity executive.

And they disclose his company invests in health care. And if you go to the private equity firm's website, you can see which investments they've made. What has Hemsley said? He hasn't said anything about it. United Health said Hemsley abides by all of its policies. They admitted that he had made these health care investments, said in most cases that he owned less than percent of these companies, and that he put them into a independent trust that was managed outside of his control when he became CEO again in May of 2025, and that he recused himself

from any discussions or internal corporate decisions around his personal health care investments. Ethics specialists we talked to said that that improves the situation, but they also suggested that the same conflicts of interest existed in the years when he was chairman of the Board of United Health in doing these investments. And there were no such trust arrangements at that point. That was WSJ Senior Editor, Mark Mermont. Thanks, Mark. Glad to be here.

The minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting were published today after their customary three-week lag. And they show that the Fed doesn't have much appetite for lowering interest rates anytime soon. In U.S. markets, tech stocks are shining again. The NASDAQ led the gains in the major indexes, closing up 0.8%. We're exclusively reporting that a major U.S. arms deal for Taiwan is in limbo. Some people in the Trump administration are worried that a new weapons sale would derail President Trump's visit to Beijing set for April. White House reporter Alex Leary says China has waged a pressure campaign on the arms sale.

The uncertain nature of this next arms deal shows that President Trump is weighing carefully how much to push Beijing in his relationship with Xi Jinping over longtime support for Taiwan. Certainly he's contemplating President Xi's pressure not to make it go through. President Trump and Xi Jinping had a phone call on February 4th, and according to Chinese side, arms sales to Taiwan were a major topic of discussion. We know that Beijing was angered over the December sale of weapons to Taiwan, although some $11 billion, a huge package. They were angered over that in future sales, which are being contemplated by the U.S.

It is not sitting well with Xi Jinping who wants to squeeze off Taiwan and its support from the U.S. Alex says President Trump is trying to pull off a balancing act. He's not saying that China isn't a threat, and yet Trump wants to deal with China. He wants to preserve a trade truce and build on that with China. And that's going to be a major topic in their summit in Beijing in April. So that's kind of his top priority here. Certainly a bipartisan group in Congress wants him to be even harder on China and especially to support Taiwan.

And he's also causing some friction with some of U.S. allies that want to see the U.S. lead the charge against China. In another exclusive, we're reporting that the U.S. is withdrawing all of its roughly 1,000 troops from Syria, ending a decade-long military operation in the country. The military would finish its withdrawal over the next. two months. The Trump administration has decided that a U.S. military presence in Syria is no longer necessary. Two U.S. officials said that was due to the near collapse of Kurdish-led forces that were the main U.S. partner there against Islamic State. One senior official said the Syrian government

was taking the lead on counterterrorism operations. A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment. And finally, this isn't any old victory parade. It's the Seahawks being cheered in Seattle last week after winning the Super Bowl. And now these champions are officially available to the highest bidder. The team was supposed to be sold off after the death of its owner, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, in 2018. Since then, it's been in a trust overseen by his sister, an unusual ownership structure that's out of compliance with NFL rules. Under pressure from the NFL, the team's sale is now finally underway, and a record-breaking sale price of more than $6 billion could be in store.

And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Additional sound today from Reuters. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname, Anthony Bansy, and Alexis Moore, with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex Ocelo for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.