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Here's your midday brief for Thursday, July 24th. I'm Alex O'Soula for the Wall Street Journal.

United Health Group said today that it was responding to requests from civil and criminal investigators at the Justice Department.

The disclosure follows a series of Wall Street Journal articles in recent months detailing Justice Department investigations of the company.

In a securities filing, United Health said it had contacted the Justice Department about the

reports and that 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.

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern said they are in advanced discussions about a potential

combination, which would create the largest rail operator in the country. Any deal would face

serious scrutiny from a series of regulators. The European Central Bank left its key deposit

rate at 2% today after eight

interest rate reductions since last June. The European economy has so far proven unexpectedly resilient

to Trump's tariff onslaught, though the bloc's goods could face higher levies next week when the

White House's tariff pause expires. And the militaries of Thailand and Cambodia exchanged heavy fire on their disputed border,

killing several Thai civilians and injuring others in a significant escalation

of long-running territorial tensions between the two Southeast Asian nations.

Officials from both countries blamed the other for initiating the clashes,

the heaviest along the jungle border since at least 2011.

We'll have more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast.

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