The headline of the News Story. There are several symbols used in the DJ headlines that have special meaning:

The symbol "*" at the beginning of a headline indicates that the story is a leading headline.

The symbol "=" at the beginning of a headline indicates that the story is an in-depth Dow Jones editorial.

The symbol "+" at the beginning of a headline indicates that the story has additional follow-up articles.

Numbers embedded in the headline indicate that this is a follow-up article (e.g. "-2:" indicates that this is the second article in this thread.)