Good morning. A financial meltdown has wiped out more than $250 billion in market capitalization at UnitedHealth. It is a plunge that has left investors asking how the healthcare giant, which had earnings and shares that rose steadily for decades, could have reversed fortunes so rapidly.

Aggressive business practices left the company vulnerable to regulatory change and scrutiny, including three investigations from the Justice Department. Higher costs for Medicare patients slammed a key sector. And former Chief Executive Andrew Witty, a British executive whose background wasn’t in the U.S. insurance industry, didn’t delve deeply into operational details, striking an optimistic tone with investors and employees even as problems stacked up, according to interviews with current and former employees, industry officials and analysts and internal documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

• The timeline: On April 17, Witty announced disappointing profits and cut UnitedHealth’s earnings projection for the rest of 2025. Weeks later, the company withdrew its financial guidance altogether, saying costs were accelerating. With that, Witty was out, replaced by UnitedHealth’s chairman and former longtime chief, Stephen Hemsley.
   
• Under review: Hemsley said he has a “fresh perspective on some of the most publicly discussed matters,” and UnitedHealth will bring in independent experts for a comprehensive review of some of the company’s more controversial practices, including in Medicare billing, an area highlighted by a Wall Street Journal investigation last year.
   
• ‘Personal reasons’: A UnitedHealth spokesman said Witty’s departure was for personal reasons, and that he “led UnitedHealth Group with compassion and dignity through some of the most challenging times any company has ever faced.” He said Witty, who is now a company adviser, wasn’t available for comment.

Bitcoin goes all in on MAGA, shedding its antigovernment slant.

The cryptocurrency world was once the province of libertarians who kept their distance from the government. These days, it is in the midst of an all-out MAGA takeover.

The industry is optimistic that with Trump’s backing, legislation to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins—tokens that are pegged to real currencies such as the dollar—will accelerate the mainstreaming of crypto.

Big banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup are exploring whether to issue their own joint stablecoin, The Wall Street Journal reported. And new Labor Department guidance could make it easier to bring cryptocurrency into 401(k) plans.

Apple challenges EU order to increase compatibility with rivals’ products.

Apple is challenging an order from the European Union’s antitrust watchdog specifying how it needs to make its iOS operating system more compatible with rival tech companies’ products under the Digital Markets Act.

The EU executive last March told Apple what it thinks it should do to make its iOS devices more compatible with rivals’ products, from apps to headphones to virtual reality headsets, to comply with the DMA’s interoperability rules designed to curb Big Tech’s market power. Apple has now filed an appeal against that decision to the European Union’s General Court in Luxembourg.

• A Florida man accused of helping a Georgia-headquartered police equipment manufacturer launder bribes to Honduran officials is set to plead guilty on Thursday.
   
• German antitrust officials said tools that Amazon.com uses to highlight competitively priced goods and filter out overpriced listings in its online marketplace could be in breach of competition law, the latest salvo from a European regulator against a U.S. giant.
   
• Major music companies are negotiating licensing deals with two startups that could set a new precedent for how songs are used and artists are paid for remixes generated by artificial intelligence.
   
• The federal government has proposed removing restrictions on oil and gas development at a 23 million-acre natural reserve in Alaska.

Top U.S. cyber agency faces staff and funding cuts in new budget.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would have its funding slashed by $495 million to a $2.38 billion allocation in President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2026. The falloff marks a stark reversal in budgetary trends for CISA, which saw its funding either climb or stay relatively flat over the past five years, from $2 billion in 2020 to almost $3 billion last year.

Under the proposed budget, CISA will be a far leaner organization than in previous years. Along with funding cuts for various programs, the budget proposes a head-count reduction of approximately 1,000 positions, or around one-third of its workforce.

Some of the steepest cuts in personnel and funding are to CISA’s outreach programs, which handle the agency’s liaisons with public and private sector partners.

Ukraine defaults on sovereign bond payment.

Ukraine has incurred a sovereign credit default after electing not to make payments owed Monday to holders of $2.6 billion of its debt securities.

Ukraine’s Finance Ministry said last week the planned nonpayment was part of the nation’s broader strategy as it aims to complete a comprehensive restructuring of its sovereign obligations that will “ensure long-term debt sustainability without threatening Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction.”

• Ukraine’s Stunning Assault Roils Russia’s Global Military Strategy

• Israeli troops shot at Palestinians in southern Gaza making their way to an aid distribution site after some ignored warning shots and approached troops, the Israeli military said Tuesday.
   
• U.S. manufacturing activity sank a little deeper into contraction in May, reflecting persistent worries over the impact of the Trump administration’s whipsawing trade policy.
   
• South Koreans vote Tuesday to elect their next president and end months of leadership tumult that have followed the country’s short-lived imposition of martial law late last year.
   
• Winning Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki got what was perhaps his biggest boost from more than 4,000 miles away, when President Trump gave him a nod of approval.
   
• Inflation in the eurozone fell below the European Central Bank’s target in May, a big step on the way to becoming the first major central bank to secure victory over the spiraling inflation that followed the pandemic and the start of the war in Ukraine.
   
• Swiss consumer prices were in deflationary territory in May, a milestone that raises the prospect the Swiss National Bank will cut interest rates further later this month.
   
• The world economy will lose pace this year, hamstrung by uncertainty stemming from a whipsawing U.S. trade policy, according to new forecasts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

• JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon isn’t leaving his post anytime soon.
   
• Consumers are becoming choosier, cutting back on discretionary snack purchases and cooking more meals at home, according to Campbell’s Chief Executive Mick Beekhuizen.
   
• Walt Disney Co. is laying off several hundred people globally across multiple divisions, including marketing for film and television, TV publicity, casting and development, and corporate financial operations, the entertainment conglomerate said Monday.
   
• The man accused of using a flamethrower in an attack on a Jewish group in Boulder, Colo. told investigators he had been planning it for a year because he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” according to new court documents.

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