Good morning. For decades, China powered its economy by investing in factories, skyscrapers and roads. The model sparked an extraordinary period of growth that lifted China out of poverty and turned it into a global giant whose export prowess washed across the globe. 

Now the model is broken.

• Struggling with debt: What worked when China was playing catch-up makes less sense now that the country is drowning in debt and running out of things to build. Parts of China are saddled with under-used bridges and airports. Millions of apartments are unoccupied. Returns on investment have sharply declined.
   
• Lagging indicators: Economists now believe China is entering an era of much slower growth, made worse by unfavorable demographics and a widening divide with the U.S. and its allies, which is jeopardizing foreign investment and trade. Rather than just a period of economic weakness, this could be the dimming of a long era.
   
• What does the future look like? “We’re witnessing a gearshift in what has been the most dramatic trajectory in economic history,” said Adam Tooze, a Columbia University history professor who specializes in economic crises.

Also see:

• Investors Fear a Financial Contagion in China
• China’s Fertility Rate Dropped Sharply, Study Shows
• Rates in China Cut Again, but by Less Than Expected

America’s tech giants rush to comply with new curbs in Europe.

The hammer is about to come down on some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

EU kicks regulation into high gear. Meta Platforms, Apple, Alphabet’s Google and other large—and largely American—tech companies will by next week start facing the first of new European Union tech rules set to come into effect over coming months, marking the largest expansion in digital regulation ever in the West.

Impact wide ranging. While the new laws apply only in Europe, their effect will ripple globally. Brussels’ regulations are often templates for others, which typically leads tech platforms to implement some changes worldwide. And the breadth of the rules is feeding a shift toward a compliance culture within some companies that originated in the techno-libertarian hothouse of Silicon Valley.

Colombian prosecutors to charge 60 people with graft tied to Odebrecht building scandal.

Prosecutors in Colombia on Thursday announced criminal indictments against 60 people, including dozens of former government officials, on graft charges tied to the transnational corruption scandal involving disgraced Brazilian contractor Odebrecht.

Thursday’s announcement from the Colombian attorney general’s office came after President Gustavo Petro in recent days asserted that the country’s justice system hadn’t aggressively prosecuted politicians and banks allegedly tied to Odebrecht corruption in Colombia.

Petro criticized Colombia’s business establishment after an $80 million settlement was reached last week between the U.S. Justice Department and Colombian financial conglomerate Grupo Aval, an Odebrecht partner in the road project, for its violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

• Hawaiian Electric is speaking with firms that specialize in restructuring advisory work, exploring options to address the electric utility’s financial and legal challenges arising from the Maui wildfires, said people familiar with the matter.
   
• Donald Trump is likely to push for the Georgia charges against him to be heard in federal court, a tactic that could delay the proceeding and, if successful, give the former president a potentially more sympathetic jury.

Why Russia’s war in Ukraine could run for years.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is in danger of becoming a protracted struggle that lasts several more years. The reason isn’t just that the front-line combat is a slow-moving slog, but also that none of the main actors have political goals that are both clear and attainable.

War without clear end? Ukraine’s central war aim—restoring its territorial integrity—is the clearest, but appears a distant prospect given the limits of Western support. The U.S. and key European allies such as Germany want to prevent Russia from winning, but fear the costs and risks of helping Ukraine to full victory. Some Western officials are sketching out grand bargains to end the war, but they fit neither Kyiv’s nor Moscow’s goals.

• Should the West Fear Putin’s Fall?

Tropical Storm Hilary makes landfall in Southern California.

Southern California was hit with rain, wind and even a series of earthquakes Sunday as the first tropical storm in nearly a century roared in, knocking out power, flooding streets and prompting at least one water rescue in a region that normally is bone dry this time of year.

Adding to the drama was a series of short earthquakes between 2.8 and 5.1-magnitude that occurred near Ojai, Calif., at about 2:40 p.m., the strongest of which was felt in Los Angeles, about 80 miles away. There was no tsunami threat to Southern California. Social media quickly took to dubbing the events a “hurriquake.” There were no reports of major damage from the quakes.

• China’s military launched fresh drills around Taiwan, in an expression of its displeasure at two stopovers in the U.S. this week by Lai Ching-te, the island democracy’s vice president and front-runner to the presidency.
   
• If this isn’t another Cold War, it certainly resembles one: On the one side, leaders of the U.S., Japan and South Korea, pledged cooperation in confronting China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior.” On the other, Chinese leader Xi Jinping was traveling to South Africa for a summit with developing nations open to Beijing’s wooing.
   
• Many countries have followed a similar economic trajectory: As they develop, women increasingly enter the workforce, further fueling the country’s upward climb. India, which overtook the U.K. last year as the world’s fifth largest economy, hasn’t followed that path.
   
• A flotilla of ships is stuck on both sides of the Panama Canal, waiting for weeks to cross after the waterway’s authorities cut transits to conserve water amid a serious drought.
   
• Local authorities are rushing to build football-field-sized fire breaks and are deploying miles of water-carrying pipe around Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, to help firefighting crews dealing with wildfires that threaten to hit the city this weekend.

Williams, who will take on the new role on Sept. 1, currently serves as the general counsel for Cleveland Clinic’s Akron General, Mercy and Union hospitals. She previously served as the general counsel for Cardinal Health at Home and as healthcare regulatory counsel for law firm Baker & Hostetler.

• Despite the Federal Reserve’s raising interest rates to a 22-year high, the economy remains surprisingly resilient. It is one of the factors leading some economists to question whether rates will ever return to the lower levels that prevailed before 2020.
   
• Former President Donald Trump plans to skip Wednesday’s Republican debate and is considering joining Tucker Carlson for an interview among other counterprogramming options, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• Russia’s first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years ended in a disaster as its unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the unexplored south pole, Russian authorities said Sunday.
   
• IKEA thinks it can succeed where a string of other retailers have given up—in San Francisco’s beleaguered downtown district.
   
• A growing niche investment has caught the attention of investors who are committed to ESG and impact investing: the public-benefit corporation.
   
• The owner of Peet’s Coffee is making a series of changes to its business to keep selling in Russia, offering a rare example of how some companies are charting a new normal as the Ukraine war rages on.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

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