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UnitedHealth Group says it is cooperating with federal criminal and civil investigations involving its market-leading Medicare business. The health care giant said Thursday that it had contacted the Department of Justice after reviewing media reports about investigations into certain elements of its business. (UnitedHealth) has a long record of responsible conduct and effective compliance, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal said federal officials had launched a civil fraud investigation into how the company records diagnoses that lead to extra payments for its Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans. Those are privately run versions of the governments Medicare coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and over. The companys UnitedHealthcare business covers more than 8 million people as the nations largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans. The business has been under pressure in recent quarters due to rising care use and rate cuts. The Journal said in February, citing anonymous sources, that the probe focused on billing practices in recent months. The paper has since said that a federal criminal health care-fraud unit was investigating how the company used doctors and nurses to gather diagnoses that bolster payments. UnitedHealth said in the filing Thursday that it “has full confidence in its practices and is committed to working cooperatively with the Department throughout this process.” UnitedHealth Group Inc. runs one of the nation’s largest health insurance and pharmacy benefits management businesses. It also operates a growing Optum business that provides care and technology support. UnitedHealth raked in more than $400 billion in revenue last year as the third-largest company in the Fortune 500. Its share price topped $630 last fall to reach a new all-time high. But the stock has mostly shed value since December, when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in midtown Manhattan on his way to the companys annual investor meeting. A suspect, Luigi Mangione, has been charged in connection with the shooting. In April, shares plunged some more after the company cut its forecast due to a spike in health care use. A month later, former CEO Andrew Witty resigned, and the company withdrew its forecast entirely, saying that medical costs from new Medicare Advantage members were higher than expected. The stock price slipped another 3%, or $10.35, to $282.16 in midday trading Thursday. That represents a 55% drop from its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, of which UnitedHealth is a component, also fell slightly. Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 rose. UnitedHealth will report its second-quarter results next Tuesday. Tom Murphy, AP health writer
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump took to social media Thursday morning to support Elon Musk’s car company, a startling development given their bitter public feud. I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, Trump wrote on Truth Social. The post wasn’t enough to help Tesla’s stock, which fell sharply after the company reported another quarter of lackluster financial results and Musk warned of some potentially rough quarters into next year. At midday, the stock was down around 9%. Late Wednesday, Tesla said revenue fell 12% and profit dropped 16% in the April-June quarter. Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musks foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China. Investors have been unnerved by Musk’s social media spat with the president because Trump has threatened to retaliate by ending government contracts and breaks for Musk’s various businesses, including Tesla. But Trump struck a starkly different tone Thursday morning. Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elons companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the U.S. Government. This is not so!” Trump wrote. The better they do, the better the USA does, and thats good for all of us. After Trump’s massive budget bill passed earlier this month, Tesla faces the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit and stands to make much less money from selling regulatory credits to other automakers. Trumps tariffs on countries including China and Mexico will also cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said on its earnings call. Musk has blasted the budget bill on his own social media platform X for adding to U.S. debt at a time when it is already too large. The Tesla CEO has called the budget pushed by the president a disgusting abomination and has threatened to form a new political party. On Wednesday’s call, Musk said the electric vehicle maker will face a few rough quarters as it moves into a future focused less on selling cars and more on offering people rides in self-driving cars. He also talked up the company’s business making humanoid robotics. But he acknowledged those businesses are a ways off from contributing to Teslas bottom line. Tesla began a rollout in June of its paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably half of the population of the U.S. by the end of the year thats at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals. Were in this weird transition period where well lose a lot of incentives in the U.S., Musk said, adding that Tesla probably could have a few rough quarters ahead. He added, though, Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I would be surprised if Teslas economics are not very compelling.”
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E-Commerce
After closing for five months due to smoke damage from the Palisades Fire, the Eames House (Case Study House #8) in Los Angeles has reopened to visitorsnow with a more determined mission to serve as a place of community. [Photo: Chris Mottalini, 2025/ 2025 Eames Office, LLC.] Nearly 7,000 buildings were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and though the Eames House was spared, cleanup efforts have been intensive. A crew took about a week to wipe away flame retardant that had been dropped to slow the fire from advancing from the outside of the home. They also dug up the property’s plantings beds so the soil could be replaced due to concerns about toxic materials. Eames Demetrios, Lucia Dewey Atwood, and Adrienne Luce outside the studio. [Photo: Chris Mottalini, 2025/ 2025 Eames Office, LLC.] “We were very fortunate,” says Lucia Atwood, the granddaughter of architects Charles and Ray Eames who built the Pacific Palisades home in 1949. The home is a model of resilience, but its stewards were also proactive. Atwood tells Fast Company interventions began in 2011 to better fire- and drought-proof the home, which is a National Historic Landmark and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Those efforts that took on greater urgency after the Getty Fire in 2019. Charles and Ray balancing on the steel framing of the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, 1949. [Photo: 2025 Eames Office, LLC.] “At that point it became very clear that there were going to be an increasing number of of extremely damaging fires,” says Atwood, the former executive director of the Eames Foundation. The foundation has worked to harden the landscape, a process that included clearing brush and removing some of the more than 250 trees that were on the property. [Photo: Chris Mottalini, 2025/ 2025 Eames Office, LLC.] Reopening events this month with local leaders, neighbors, and fire survivors have turned the Eames House into an Eames home for the community, as is the case for patrons of the Palisades Library, which was destroyed in the fires. After offering the library the use of the property, including the home’s studio, which is open to the public for the first time, for events like book clubs and sales, the head of the library got emotional, says Adrienne Luce, who was announced the Eames Foundation’s first non-family member executive director in April. “This place is for you,” Luce recalls telling the library’s head, and she says she started to choke up. “Being so close to the devastation actually is a wonderful opportunity to serve and support the local community and long-term community rebuilding efforts.” Reopening means “really engaging and serving the local community,” Luce says.
Category:
E-Commerce
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