Good morning. Democratic-led congressional committees are seeking records from Eastman Kodak and the government office that last week announced a potential $765 million loan to the onetime photography giant, the latest sign of scrutiny of the company and its part in a U.S. plan to rebuild domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In a letter to Kodak Chief Executive Jim Continenza sent Tuesday, the committees highlighted concerns about Kodak’s “lack of pharmaceutical experience” and stock-option grants made to executives and board members including Mr. Continenza in the run-up to the announcement. Kodak says it will fully cooperate with the inquiry.

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The Trump administration said it would give Kodak a loan under the Defense Production Act, the first of its kind. Administration officials said the goal is to help restore domestic production of drugs that can treat a variety of medical conditions and loosen the country's reliance on foreign sources.

The loan is from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a government agency akin to a bank. A spokeswoman for the DFC, which also received a congressional letter seeking records, said the agency was reviewing the inquiry. The Securities and Exchange Commission also is investigating the circumstances around Kodak’s announcement.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on a Zimbabwean businessman and a company he leads for alleged corruption and assisting Zimbabwean government officials involved in public corruption, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday.

The sanctions on Kudakwashe Regimond Tagwirei and energy and infrastructure company Sakunda Holdings come as the U.S. ramps up pressure on the government of Zimbabwe, which the U.S. says launched a violent crackdown on citizens protesting against flawed elections and delayed results about two years ago.

Steven Peikin, the co-chief of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, will leave the government on Aug. 14, the first high-profile director to leave the agency as it readies for turnover among its top personnel around the November presidential election.

Mr. Peikin managed enforcement at a time when the SEC battled a flood of fraudulent cryptocurrency deals and had to contend with losing several cases before the Supreme Court that pared back its enforcement authority. Stephanie Avakian, who serves as co-director with Mr. Peikin, will continue to manage the nearly 1,300 people assigned to enforcement.

• A group of Democratic attorneys general has urged Facebook to take more steps to combat harassment and hate speech. In a letter to Facebook executives, the group called on the social-media platform to offer live, real-time assistance so users can report intimidation and harassment.
   
• A federal appeals court said the Dakota Access pipeline can continue​ carrying oil for now, a win for operator Energy Transfer LP and North Dakota oil producers.
   
• Five members of Congress from New York are asking their state’s attorney general to probe whether investment firms that hold billions of dollars in Puerto Rico bonds concealed aspects of their investments to manipulate prices and profit unfairly.
   
• New York’s governor ordered an investigation into the state’s utilities after Tropical Storm Isaias downed trees and power lines throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
   
• The acting State Department inspector general has resigned and plans to return to the private sector, stepping down as the agency’s internal watchdog as a congressional inquiry into President Trump’s ouster of his predecessor in May gains steam.

The world’s largest miners published global standards for building and managing mine-waste dams, including guidelines aimed at making the safety auditing of the giant structures more independent.

The International Council on Mining and Metals, an industry body of over two dozen of the world’s biggest miners, hired experts to draft the new guidelines in the wake of a 2019 mine-waste dam failure near Brumadinho, Brazil, which killed 270 people. Authorities there have, in part, blamed a conflict of interest between the dam owner, Vale SA, and an outside auditor for masking structural faults that led to the dam's collapse.

The guidelines seek to address potential conflicts of interest, saying, for instance, that independent auditors and review boards hired to check the structures’ safety shouldn’t also have worked on the dams’ design, construction or operation. The guidelines also say mining companies should have a mine-waste expert reporting directly to the chief executive, rather than to site managers, and recommend formal whistleblowing channels.

• Some Miners Undercount Deaths, Boosting Executive Bonuses

Election Systems & Software LLC, the top U.S. seller of voting-machine technology, is calling a truce in its feud with computer-security researchers over the ways they probe for vulnerabilities of the company’s systems.

With the U.S. presidential election less than three months away, the company said that Chief Information Security Officer Chris Wlaschin plans to unveil an outreach effort to security researchers at the annual Black Hat hacker convention, taking place virtually this year. Mr. Wlaschin also was expected to detail a new vulnerability disclosure policy, which spells out, for example, the “safe harbor” protections that ES&S will provide legitimate researchers if they identify and notify the company of bugs in its systems.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said he expects the economy to grow in the third quarter, adding that activity could return to prepandemic levels by the end of 2021. Mr. Clarida said Wednesday on CNBC that “it will take some time” for economic activity to return to its level in February, the month before the pandemic forced parts of the economy to shut down.

Mr. Clarida said the economy’s path depends on the course of the coronavirus and mitigation efforts. The pandemic hasn’t yet inflicted long-term damage to the U.S. economy, he said, but the risk will grow the longer it lasts.

Meanwhile, many economists expect last week’s expiration of $600 in enhanced weekly unemployment benefits to lead to a sharp drop-off in household spending and a setback for the U.S. economy’s near-term recovery, even if the lapse turns out to be temporary.

New applications for unemployment benefits have held persistently at high levels in recent weeks, suggesting layoffs remain elevated as the coronavirus pandemic continues and the labor market’s momentum is easing.

• NYC to Set Up Checkpoints to Enforce Quarantine Order
• U.K. Economy Won’t Make Up Lost Ground Until End of 2021

• The death toll from an enormous blast in Lebanon’s capital surged past 100, as public anger over the explosion mounted and Lebanese authorities investigated why thousands of tons of explosives were stored for years in Beirut’s heavily populated city center. Meanwhile, shipping companies are diverting vessels from the port, one of Lebanon’s key trading gateways.

Facebook’s Instagram has launched a short-video feature in the U.S., challenging the empire that Chinese social-media upstart TikTok has built on user-generated dance videos, comedy skits and viral challenges.

The home-market debut of Reels continues a practice within Facebook—and elsewhere in Silicon Valley—of taking inspiration from competitors and launching similar features. Reels is a major investment for Instagram, showcased prominently within the app and buttressed by video creators being paid to participate in its launch.

The U.S. launch of Reels comes at a difficult time for TikTok, which has been banned in India amid geopolitical tensions with China, and which had faced a similar threat from President Trump.