Good morning. UnitedHealth Group said Thursday it was responding to requests from civil and criminal investigators at the Justice Department following media reports of probes into its Medicare business.

• Why? The disclosure follows a series of Wall Street Journal articles in recent months detailing Justice Department investigations of the company. The Journal most recently reported that the Justice Department’s criminal healthcare-fraud unit is investigating the healthcare conglomerate’s Medicare billing practices, including how the company deployed doctors and nurses to gather diagnoses that bolstered its payments.
   
• Revealed in filings: UnitedHealth in a securities filing Thursday said it had contacted the Justice Department about the reports. The company said it has “now begun complying with formal criminal and civil requests” from the Justice Department. It added that it has full confidence in its practices and is committed to working cooperatively through the process.
   
• First confirmation: The disclosure, which didn’t include the timing of the Justice Department requests to UnitedHealth, is the first time the company has publicly confirmed the investigations.

Chevron is regaining the ability to pump oil in Venezuela from the Trump administration, people familiar with the move said, in an abrupt reversal in the White House’s policy toward the socialist dictatorship.

Details of the agreement were still unclear, but it follows recent discussions involving President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and comes amid last week’s prisoner swap that released all 10 remaining Americans who were detained by the Venezuelan government, people familiar with the matter said.

• The potential merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, which could create the largest rail operator in the country, is likely to face serious scrutiny from regulators as well as from the Justice Department, investors, Amtrak and labor unions.
   
• U.K. cryptoasset firms have almost certainly violated U.K. financial sanctions by working with designated Russian and Iranian crypto entities, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a report published this week.
   
• The European Union opened an investigation into whether KKR supplied the bloc’s merger regulator with false or misleading information before the investment firm’s multibillion-dollar purchase of Telecom Italia unit NetCo was unconditionally cleared by officials last year.
   
• An Arizona woman was sentenced Thursday to 8½ years in prison for running a "laptop farm" for North Korean agents earning money for the regime, the latest example of the U.S. crackdown on the practice. 
   
• The U.S. Treasury also announced new sanctions against a North Korean information-technology business and three associated individuals for evading sanctions in an effort to generate revenue for their home country’s government.

Beijing’s trade tactics, Ukraine stance cast pall over Europe-China ties.

China and Europe face a common threat from President Trump’s tariffs. That isn’t enough to bring the two economies closer.

Instead, European frustration is mounting over Beijing’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and what officials view as a flood of low-cost products on global markets. Those frustrations dominated a summit in Beijing between top leaders from the two sides on Thursday, which produced few tangible results.

• Asia-U.S. Trade Deals Pick Up as Tariff Deadline Nears
• Trump Is Shifting to Dealmaking Mode on China

Global economies show resilience despite tariff fears, surveys show.

The U.S. economy and its peers in Europe and Asia continued to show resilience in the face of high levels of uncertainty about the future of trade and international relations, although export orders weakened.

The U.S. composite purchasing managers’ index—a measure of activity across the private sector—jumped to 54.6 in July from 52.9 in June. July’s reading marked the fastest rate of expansion this year. A reading over 50 points to growing business activity.

• Trump’s Tariffs Are Being Picked Up by Corporate America

• President Trump is touring the Federal Reserve’s construction site Thursday afternoon in what amounts to political theater designed to amplify pressure on the central bank—part of an unconventional campaign to tarnish Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s public image and push for lower interest rates.
   
• The European Central Bank paused its most aggressive interest-rate cutting campaign since the global financial crisis as it awaits clarity on President Trump’s tariffs.
   
• The militaries of Thailand and Cambodia exchanged heavy fire on their disputed border, killing several Thai civilians and injuring others.
   
• U.S. Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff said he is recalling the U.S. negotiating team from Doha, Qatar, for consultations, saying Hamas showed a “lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”
   
• Investors are taking a more cautious approach to buying and selling warehouses amid rapidly shifting trade policy, an uncertain economic outlook and an abundance of available space.
   
• Street protests here sparked by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s gutting of his country’s anticorruption agency are exposing long-dormant divisions between the government and society at a critical moment in Ukraine’s more than three-year war against Russia.

• A top Justice Department official met Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned longtime confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• New York City’s sanctuary city policies are unconstitutional and limit local police and corrections officers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, the Justice Department said in a federal lawsuit Thursday.
   
• Robotaxis driving around Austin. A humanoid robot serving popcorn in Los Angeles. A Tesla delivering itself to a customer. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is telling investors the carmaker’s future is closer than ever—and it doesn’t depend on selling electric vehicles.
   
• President Trump’s efforts to secure a trade deal with the European Union have the help of an old, powerful friend: luxury titan Bernard Arnault.

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