TheChek News Flow

American pursuit of long-term human missions to the moon hampered by budget cuts to bioregenerative technologies, paper says

Scientists have found critical gaps in Nasa’s development of space life support systems that could prevent the United States from competing with China in the pursuit of long-term manned space exploration and habitation.

While Beijing and Moscow have joined forces to establish a lunar research base, Washington’s limited support for bioregenerative life support research puts its space competitiveness at risk, a team of scientists including Nasa researchers has found.

The team said that past research and policy decisions – such as funding and programme cuts – had created “critical gaps” in Nasa’s current space habitation capabilities.

“Now on the verge of returning to the moon, Nasa needs to develop the critical capabilities required to build and operate a lunar outpost,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Microgravity on August 16.

The paper was written by researchers from Purdue University, Northeastern University, Utah State University, the University of Utah, and Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre and Ames Research Centre.

The existing approach to space life support systems in the US, including for the International Space Station (ISS), involves resupply trips to transport water, food and other consumable materials.

Long-term human missions past Earth’s orbit to the moon or Mars are limited by the massive costs and logistics issues associated with resupply launches, along with safety concerns about the impact of radiation and microgravity on the human body, the team said.

“If we were to execute a Mars mission right now, we would be facing many unknowns,” said D. Marshall Porterfield, corresponding author of the paper and a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue.

“The most significant of it is what’s going to happen to the human body in that radiation environment,” said Porterfield, who from 2012 to 2016 served as division director for space life and physical sciences at Nasa headquarters, where he oversaw the development of science for future human exploration.

Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) – or artificial ecosystems that leverage biological organisms to recycle and generate resources like oxygen, food and water – offer a better solution for long-term human missions in deep space.

These systems, also referred to as BLiSS, use plants, animals and microorganisms to create a sustainable, closed-loop environment that can provide essential survival needs such as food and waste management.

“The lack of availability of BLiSS technologies and systems – both at the governmental and commercial levels – currently limits the objectives of human-crewed lunar exploration programmes,” the team wrote.

Porterfield said that the US had the “completely wrong model for how we need to go to space”, with a focus on being a logistics transporter rather than a logistics provider.

A bioregenerative approach was the focus of earlier Nasa research, including the development of sustainable agricultural systems for space exploration in the 1990s, which helped to birth the controlled environment agriculture industry.

That next phase for Nasa was the Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex (BIO-Plex), a facility which aimed to evaluate life support systems that could supply food, water and a breathable atmosphere for future space missions.

In 2004, it was discontinued and physically demolished after a large-scale study led to budget cuts and a shift in research priorities, the team said.

“The budgets for Nasa to develop these bioregenerative technologies were cut and never restored,” Porterfield said.

Remaining bioregenerative technologies research is now facing further funding cuts under the Trump administration’s 2026 budget, he added.

While US support for bioregenerative life support research waned after the early 2000s, the team said that this research had been “embraced and advanced” by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) over the past two decades.

The team said that published BIO-Plex plans “supported CNSA’s efforts to swiftly establish a bioregenerative habitat technology programme for an operational human lunar outpost and, subsequently, to demonstrate its viability”.

The Lunar Palace 1 at Beihang University in Beijing is China’s first integrated experimental facility for a permanent artificial closed ecosystem life support system, which includes cabins for vegetation, facilities for waste disposal, dining and bedrooms, according to the university.

“Besides the Chinese efforts, there are currently no other official programmes pursuing a fully integrated, closed-loop bioregenerative architecture for establishing lunar or Martian habitats, or even for sustaining long-term human presence in space,” the researchers said.

They added that recently published plans from CNSA showed that the country “has surpassed the US and its allies in both scale and preeminence of these emerging efforts and technologies, especially as compared to Nasa’s current programmes”.

The US government invested heavily in science and technology programmes during the space race with the former Soviet Union, including the creation of Nasa.

But the tensions of the Cold War did not stop scientific cooperation in space between the two, which eventually led to the ISS programme that included the US, the Soviet Union – later Russia, Europe, Japan and other partners.

This changed in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea, which spelled the end of decades of successful cooperation.

The only remaining joint space programme between the two countries involves fulfilling their obligations to the ISS, which is scheduled for decommissioning in 2030.

In 2011, the US Congress passed the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits Nasa from using government funds to cooperate with CNSA and China without congressional approval.

Country’s defence minister calls Russia’s behaviour ‘reckless’ after second breach of Nato territory in a week

A Russian drone entered Romania’s airspace and was tracked by its air force for nearly an hour before leaving, the country’s defence minister said on Sunday, condemning Moscow’s second breach of Nato territory within a week.

The incident on Saturday came three days after a swarm of about 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting Nato fighter jets to shoot them down in the most serious incident between the US-led military alliance and Moscow since the all-out invasion of Ukraine.

The Polish incident pushed Nato to launch a new operation to bolster its eastern defences.

Romanian defence minister Ionuț Moșteanu said the country’s air force had tracked a Russian-made Geran drone flying over the east of the country on Saturday.

“Romania condemns Russia’s reckless behaviour, which threatens regional stability,” the minister said. “Together with our Nato allies, we remain vigilant and ready to defend every inch of allied airspace.”

In a separate statement on Sunday, Moșteanu said the government had analysed the situation and received a briefing from the pilot leading the F-16 formation that engaged the drone, but decided not to eliminate it.

“The pilots had the permission to shoot down the drone, but in the moments they had direct contact they assessed the collateral risks and decided not to open fire,” he said. “It’s a decision of professionalism and responsibility.”

The new Nato mission, called Eastern Sentry, began on Friday evening and will run for an undisclosed amount of time involving military assets from countries including Denmark, France, Germany and the UK.

“The Romanian army will continue its preparation and supply plans and the Eastern Sentry initiative announced on Friday by Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte will lead to the increase of defence and deterrence capacities on the eastern flank,” Moșteanu said.

Most European nations see the Russian breaches of Nato countries’ airspace as a direct challenge from Moscow, but the US has questioned whether Wednesday’s breach of Polish airspace was intentional.

US President Donald Trump has suggested the Polish incident “could have been a mistake”, prompting a sharp rebuke from Poland’s PM Donald Tusk, who wrote on X on Friday: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”

Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský on Sunday said the Romanian incident reinforced the idea that Russia’s breaches of Nato airspace were not accidental.

“Russia continues to provoke,” Lipavský wrote on X. “Last night, it was Romania. I do not believe in Russian ‘mistakes.’ As Nato allies, we remain vigilant. Russia must pay a concrete price for its provocations against Nato. That is why [the Czech Republic] supports further sanctions [on Russia].”

Romania has been alarmed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian facilities very near its border with Ukraine along the Danube delta.

These have occasionally led to drones or debris landing on Romanian soil, but the Black Sea nation had not, until Saturday, had to deal with a sustained presence of a drone in Romanian airspace before.

The league has instituted new rules to keep megabillionaires from using their bottomless pockets to tilt the NBA’s competitive balance. An imbroglio involving the Los Angeles Clippers owner could amplify the issue.

Earlier this week, a handful of the richest people in the world convened at a five-star hotel in midtown Manhattan to discuss typical titans-of-industry fodder: overseas expansion, the future of media, yadda yadda. But there was an elephant in the room: Did a billionaire in their ranks secretly siphon millions of dollars to an NBA star through a now-bankrupt tree-planting startup?

The billionaire on the minds of NBA team owners at the regularly scheduled meeting of the league’s Board of Governors was Steve Ballmer—former Microsoft CEO, current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and one of the world’s ten richest people. At issue was whether Ballmer circumvented the NBA salary cap by funnelling cash to Clippers player Kawhi Leonard by investing in the startup, Aspiration, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions by planting trees. Leonard signed an endorsement deal with the company, but doesn’t appear to have ever done any actual endorsement work for Aspiration, whose co-founder recently pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.

Last week, the journalist Pablo Torre broke the news of these allegations about Ballmer on his podcast. Then he expanded his reporting this week with new details that a Clippers minority owner, Dennis Wong, allegedly wired nearly $2 million to Aspiration just nine days before the startup sent an overdue check for $1.75 million to Leonard.

Ballmer has denied he violated the NBA’s salary cap rules. Spokespersons for the Clippers did not respond to requests for comment.

If true, the allegations—which the NBA is investigating—go to the very integrity of sports ownership. To participate in that elite club, owners agree to abide by the same spending limits on player salaries. Without such rules, the richest owners in the league could simply buy up all the top players and tip the scales of competition.

That risk is magnified by the ever-widening gap between the wealthiest and least-wealthy, which has more than tripled over the past six years, according to our analysis of Forbes’ estimates of the wealth of team owners. The biggest reason for that growing gulf is Ballmer, who has become so wealthy that he makes other team owners look almost poor by comparison.

Indeed, Ballmer is the richest owner in all of U.S. pro sports, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $152 billion as of Thursday, up from $118 billion just six months ago. That increase is largely due to his sizable stake in Microsoft, which has seen its shares rise 22% this year as it rides the artificial intelligence boom. Ballmer has said that about 80% of his investment portfolio is Microsoft stock.

His net worth is more than four times that of the next-wealthiest NBA ownership group—the Dallas Mavericks’ Adelson-Dumont family ($36.7 billion)—and stratospherically richer than the NBA owner with the smallest purse to still make the Forbes wealthiest people list—the Golden State Warriors’ Peter Guber ($1.5 billion).

Since 2019—the year Leonard signed with the Clippers in free agency—the gap between the wealthiest and least-wealthy NBA owners among those who made the Forbes list has more than tripled to over $150 billion in 2025. Over the same period, NBA valuations have exploded: The Brooklyn Nets sold to Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai in 2019 for $2.35 billion, a then-record for any U.S. sports franchise. This year, the Los Angeles Lakers became the first-ever $10 billion sports club, its valuation in a pending sale to Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter.

While the league has embraced owners from a lot of different backgrounds and wealth levels, they’ve also put new rules in place to keep the deepening pockets of owners from skewing the league’s competitive balance.

The current league’s collective bargaining agreement—the document that governs the salary cap and was signed by owners and the players’ union in 2023—was constructed with more progressive, if somewhat confusing, spending rules. In effect, owners are allowed to spend over the player salary cap to certain thresholds but will incur a range of painful penalties for doing so, including the loss of some draft picks and limitations on player trades.

Speaking on Wednesday about the revelations in Torre’s reporting on the Clippers, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that “the stakes have gotten much higher, the salaries much higher, the team values are much higher,” he said. He conceded the league could do more to monitor potential conflicts when companies like Aspiration sponsor players who have an existing relationship with the team. “Maybe there needs to be a new level of scrutiny on some of these things,” he added.

Which brings us back to Ballmer, at the center of it all—the lone centibillionaire in the roster of NBA owners. Leagues like the NBA increasingly need to cater to the wealthiest of the wealthy, as they require a network of deep-pocketed individuals to continue to buy in at escalating prices. (Also in the planning stages: a potential NBA league in Europe.)

But if Ballmer or any of his Clippers associates are confirmed to have circumvented the salary cap, Silver may have to confront sanctioning the highest-profile techie in the sports world.

As such, the NBA has tapped white-shoe law firm Wachtell Lipton to helm an independent investigation of Torre’s reporting, a standard practice by sports leagues amid any alleged misconduct. Silver told reporters that as commissioner, his “powers are very broad” to hand down suspensions, fines, or removal of the Clippers’ draft picks, if the investigation yields conclusive proof of cheating.

Heavy emphasis on the “if.” Silver said that the burden of proof is on the league to demonstrate wrongdoing by Ballmer and the Clippers. “We and our investigators look at the totality of the evidence,” he said. “As a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety. The goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety.”

Ballmer, for his part, told ESPN this week he welcomed the NBA investigation and said he was “conned” by the Aspiration founders, to whom he made a $50 million investment during an early funding round, and to whom he introduced Leonard. Aspiration allegedly later signed Leonard to a $28 million “no-show” endorsement contract.

(The Athletic on Friday reported that a former Aspiration CEO denied that Leonard had a no-show deal and that his contract called on the Clippers player to participate in various Aspiration projects. His contract also allowed Leonard to opt out of those efforts, according to The Athletic.)

Before Aspiration-gate, there had long been a sense within NBA circles that any criticism of the Clippers is essentially punching down: Los Angeles’ second team toils in the shadow of their glittering crosstown rival, the Lakers.

Lately, Ballmer has demonstrated his willingness to lift the Clippers out of their second-class status by spending big in ways that aren’t limited by the collective bargaining agreement. At the start of last season, he presided over the opening of the Intuit Dome, a new state-of-the-art home court for the Clippers that cost $2 billion—and is currently set to host the 2026 All-Star Game. And this spring, he paid to fly a coterie of Clippers fanatics to attend playoff games on the road.

Indeed, if there’s one constituency that doesn’t mind having an uber-rich owner it’s the fans of pro sports teams. For example, fans of the New York Mets—another second banana team in a major U.S. city—have largely embraced their owner, the formerly embattled hedge fund manager Steve Cohen (net worth: $23 billion), as “Uncle Steve,” since he bought the team in 2020.

Ultimately, the outcome of the Aspiration-Clippers investigation will be a test of the guiding principles of U.S. sports ownership, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.

As Commissioner Silver himself said, the “mere appearance of impropriety” may not be enough for sanctions within this cohort. But if the investigation yields a smoking gun, Silver has a difficult choice to make: discipline the richest owner in sports, or risk undermining the integrity of the league.

The majority of the planned bid for Warner will be made up of cash

Paramount Skydance PSKY 7.62%increase; green up pointing triangle is preparing a majority cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery WBD 16.70%increase; green up pointing triangle that is backed by the Ellison family, according to people familiar with the situation.

The bid will be for the entire company, including its cable networks and movie studio, the people said. Warner said late last year it planned to restructure into two operating divisions, one focused on the legacy cable-television business and the other on streaming and studios.

Warner Bros. had a nearly $33 billion market capitalization early Thursday, prior to The Wall Street Journal’s report on the potential bid, more than double that of Paramount Skydance. A bid hasn’t yet been submitted and the plans could still fall apart.

Warner shares rallied in premarket trading Friday. They jumped nearly 30% on Thursday afternoon after The Wall Street Journal’s report on the potential bid, while Paramount Skydance shares rose nearly 16%.

By preparing a play for the company before Warner’s planned split, Paramount Skydance is attempting to pre-empt a potential bidding war for the studio and streaming unit that could include deep-pocketed technology companies such as Amazon.com and Apple.

If successful, such a deal would bring together two of Hollywood’s most storied studios and the parent companies of streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+. Warner is home to “Barbie,” DC Comics, Harry Potter and TV shows such as “The White Lotus,” as well as cable networks CNN, TBS and TNT.

The scale of the potential combination could bring antitrust and regulatory scrutiny.

Skydance, run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, weeks ago closed its deal to merge with Paramount, wh

U.S. president has leverage with both leaders, but analysts say he isn’t using it

President Trump’s foreign policy is marked by a reluctance to use U.S. leverage with Israel and Russia.

Israel recently struck Hamas officials in Qatar, while Russia escalated attacks in the war against Ukraine.

WASHINGTON—One is a close U.S. ally. The other is an adversary. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin both have consistently disregarded President Trump’s wishes, often without major consequences.

His perceived passivity highlights a revealing paradox about Trump. Frequently claiming to have ended half a dozen wars, he portrays himself as an unmatched peacemaker. Yet in the two conflicts he has most often vowed to stop—Gaza and the Ukraine war—he has often been reluctant to exert U.S. leverage with Israel and Russia.

Israel on Tuesday carried out missile strikes on Hamas political officials in Qatar, who had gathered to discuss Trump’s proposals for ending the Gaza fighting and securing the release of the hostages held by the U.S.-designated terrorist group. And Putin, after meeting with Trump in Alaska last month, escalated drone and missile attacks on Ukraine. This past week, forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s European members shot down Russian drones infiltrating Poland.

Trump has done little publicly to respond to either event. He held a tense phone call with Netanyahu, followed by a second and friendlier conversation about the results of Israel’s operation. He recently said that the attack “hopefully” wouldn’t endanger the roughly 48 hostages Hamas still holds, despite fears from their families that the strike might disrupt the tenuous diplomacy. About 20 of the hostages are thought to still be alive, Trump said Friday on Fox News.

Trump posed a vague question Wednesday about the Russian drone incursion over Poland—the first time NATO ever shot down Russian aircraft venturing over its eastern flank—despite having a powerful intelligence apparatus at his beck and call. “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Trump posted on social media. The next day he suggested the incursion “could have been a mistake, but regardless I’m not happy about anything to do with the whole situation.”

When European NATO members said Friday they were sending planes and other military forces to bolster the alliance’s eastern-flank defenses against Russian drones, no U.S. assets were announced.

On Saturday, Trump added fresh conditions for imposing what he described as major sanctions on Russia—a move that some former officials said appeared to be calculated to put off White House decisions on stepped-up economic pressure.

Trump wrote in a social-media post that all nations in Europe, which has substantially reduced its import of Russian oil, would need to stop buying oil from Moscow. And he insisted that NATO nations put tariffs of 50% to 100% on China, which has provided support to Russia’s defense industry, until the conflict in Ukraine has ended.

“This is not TRUMP’S War,” Trump wrote. “It is Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s WAR.”

Trump administration officials insist the president has a firm grip on foreign policy, citing instances in which U.S. efforts helped pause or de-escalate fights abroad since taking office, including a brief conflict between India and Pakistan and border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand.

His rapport with Netanyahu and Putin provides him with a diplomatic opening, according to the president’s aides, and damaging those relationships would prove counterproductive to Trump’s peace efforts and longer-term strategies in Europe and the Middle East.

But some observers insist one-on-one relationships alone won’t end the wars, especially the one between Moscow and Kyiv.

“For Putin, the ambition to destroy Ukraine goes beyond any U.S. president,” said Alina Polyakova, president and chief executive of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank. “He sees it as his historical fate to restore Russia, and no amount of personal sway will change that.”

Trump’s influence with Israel was at its height in June after American B-2 bombers armed with 30,000 pound bunker-busting bombs struck Iran’s Fordow nuclear complex, which is buried inside a mountain, and two other sites, finishing a military operation that would have been challenging for Israeli forces to complete successfully. Those military gains in Iran have added to the diplomatic leverage that Trump still has, said Dennis Ross, who served as a top official on Mideast issues in past GOP and Democratic administrations.

Israel’s military is broadly equipped by the U.S. to the tune of $3 billion a year and other packages. Slowing some of the deliveries, or restricting the use of some weapons, according to some former U.S. officials, could send a strong signal that Netanyahu should try harder to find a way to end the fighting in Gaza. There is less concern about Israel’s security after its major adversaries—Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran—were severely weakened by Israel, said current and former U.S. officials.

Trump isn’t eager to risk a major confrontation with Netanyahu, officials said, adding that the Israeli leader has used flattery to remain in the president’s good graces.

Trump has mainly directed his ire toward Hamas, which launched the war in Gaza by killing 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and taking around 250 people hostage. Hamas has refused to agree to Israel’s terms for peace—which include the immediate release of all hostages and the group’s disarmament—and Trump has continued to support Israel’s military campaign against the group, with the exception of additional attacks in Qatar, which Trump said in a social-media post “will not happen again.”

Israel is preparing to launch a renewed offensive in the enclave’s capital, Gaza City, which Netanyahu has said is needed to take control of Hamas’s “last important stronghold” and complete the defeat of a group that has balked at Israeli’s negotiating demands. In 2024, Netanyahu said that “victory is within reach” ahead of Israel’s assault on Rafah.

“President Trump keeps saying he wants to end the war in Gaza, but he has done very little to bring about that result, and a lot that has contributed to its extension, such as loose talk of moving Palestinians out of Gaza, insufficient attention to the humanitarian crisis, and acquiescence to the Israeli operation in Gaza City that puts hostages at risk,” said Daniel Shapiro, a former Pentagon official during the Biden administration who is now at the Atlantic Council.

The economy of Russia is suffering under significant U.S.-led sanctions. Yet some observers have said the Trump administration hasn’t done enough to enforce the ones already on the books while resisting congressional plans to impose newer and tougher penalties on Russia’s energy sector. Trump targeted India, a U.S. ally, with increased tariffs for purchasing Moscow’s oil without imposing similar measures on China, Russia’s largest energy customer.

While Trump is selling weapons to European nations that plan to send them to Ukraine, he has held back on donating American arms to Kyiv. Nor has his Pentagon authorized the Ukrainians to use the Atacms missiles that they have left to fire into Russian territory, as President Joe Biden did during his final months in office.

Trump allies including Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is leading a Senate effort to punish Russia’s economy with new sanctions, are openly calling for the president to change course.

White House officials said this past week that Trump has in recent days engaged in numerous talks with lawmakers about supporting the legislation, with the caveat that the president should have the authority to decide how and when to apply sanctions.

But on Saturday Trump signaled in his social-media post the new conditions for imposing “major Sanctions on Russia,” which some former officials saw more as a rationale for delay than a rousing call for collective action.

“They have flushed some of their leverage away,” said Eric Green, who served as a top expert on Russia on the National Security Council under Biden. “The bottom line is that they are willing to press weaker nations and allies rather than adversaries.”

The largest U.S. health insurer’s Medicare business faces investigations and policy threats

As UnitedHealth Group UNH -0.31%decrease; red down pointing triangle faces government investigations and changes in federal payments that have hurt its results, it is turning to an increasingly common Washington playbook: hiring Donald Trump’s allies and trying to plead its case directly with top officials in his administration.

After The Wall Street Journal first reported in May that UnitedHealth faced a criminal investigation into its key Medicare business, it secured a meeting with senior Justice Department officials, including the attorney general’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, where they discussed probes of the company, people familiar with the meeting said. Such meetings are unusual for a company facing an early-stage criminal investigation, former prosecutors said.

UnitedHealth Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hemsley recently met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to discuss Medicare and other issues, though the government investigations didn’t come up in their conversation, a White House official said.

And in the summer, Hemsley had dinner with the official overseeing Medicare, Chris Klomp, and discussed Medicare-plan billing policies and supplemental benefits offered under the private Medicare plans, among other topics, people familiar with the matter said.

UnitedHealth generated more than $100 billion in revenue in 2023 from Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare data show. In Medicare Advantage, private insurers oversee federal benefits for seniors and disabled people.

UnitedHealth, parent of the largest U.S. insurer, has lost about 40% of its market value since April, in part over changes to Medicare-billing rules from the Biden administration that began to hurt its results. In May, Hemsley, the company’s longtime chair and former chief executive, returned to the CEO job to help reverse the slide.

The company also was grappling with the aftermath of the public murder of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of its insurance unit, in December.

Since then, Hemsley has sketched out plans for a business recovery and has seen some nascent improvement in the stock price, though the Washington issues remain an overhang for the company.

UnitedHealth’s effort to address those issues underscores the changing landscape for Washington influence in the Trump era. In the first half of this year, UnitedHealth spent more money on lobbying than it ever has in a comparable time frame, the company’s disclosures show. It increased its spending on lobbyists and lawyers with deep ties to President Trump’s administration, including Brian Ballard, a top fundraiser for the president, and Jesse Panuccio, who was a senior Justice Department official in Trump’s first term.

Its $7.7 million in spending in the first half of 2025 about doubled its lobbying budget for the same period last year, while the spending of such rivals as Humana and Cigna Group rose slightly. Ballard’s firm, which began representing UnitedHealth in 2024, became its highest-paid outside lobbyist, disclosure records show.

In ongoing litigation with a major shareholder, UnitedHealth in July also swapped out a team of lawyers at WilmerHale, a law firm Trump has criticized, for the president’s personal lawyer, securities litigator Robert Giuffra, and colleagues from his firm, Sullivan & Cromwell.

Investors are specifically worried about how the Trump administration will treat billing practices for the Medicare business, which is central to UnitedHealth’s hopes of improved profits and growth. Mehmet Oz, chief of the agency that oversees Medicare, has promised a crackdown on some of the tactics used by insurers, including UnitedHealth, on top of the earlier changes.

UnitedHealth also has sought meetings with Trump himself, though it hasn’t secured one yet. The company is seeking in particular to resolve the government investigations, people familiar with the matter said.

“The Administration routinely meets with insurers to deliver on the President’s mandate of improving healthcare and lowering costs for everyday Americans,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said.

In a statement, UnitedHealth said: “Public policy shapes healthcare across America, and it’s our responsibility to engage with the administration and Congress at all levels to improve patient access and affordability,” it said, adding that is especially true now “as critical decisions are being made.” A spokesman also said its lobbying spending varies from year to year.

UnitedHealth executives told Wall Street analysts that they have “been engaged and collaborative with the administration giving management a sense of having a seat at the table,” according to an investor note to Morgan Stanley clients last week. UnitedHealth notched a Washington victory in August when the Justice Department allowed its long-delayed deal to acquire the home-health provider Amedisys to close after divestitures.

Lobbying spending often increases from year to year, but 2025 is setting a record, with many companies spending far more and hiring lobbyists close to Trump as they try more-aggressive strategies to get results, said Anna Massoglia, a researcher who tracks such spending.

“It’s a bit more nuanced now that you can curry favor with the president, the president’s family and their allies directly,” she said. “Companies and other organizations are trying to court the new administration and figure out a strategy to win them over.”

When the Journal reported in May that the Justice Department’s criminal-fraud unit was examining UnitedHealth’s Medicare business, the company initially said it hadn’t been notified of a probe and defended the integrity of its Medicare Advantage program.

UnitedHealth then arranged the meeting with senior Justice Department officials including Mizelle. Panuccio, the former senior Justice Department official whom UnitedHealth had hired, helped set it up, people familiar with the matter said. The discussion covered a number of topics including ongoing probes, the people said. UnitedHealth also faces civil and antitrust investigations.

In a July 24 securities filing, the company said it had proactively contacted the Justice Department and “begun complying with formal criminal and civil requests” from the agency. UnitedHealth said it had full confidence in its practices and was committed to working cooperatively through the process.

Former Justice Department officials said it was unusual for senior leaders in the department to discuss ongoing investigations with the companies or people under investigation. “You don’t want to give anyone a heads-up,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for eastern Michigan.

Panuccio, now a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The criminal investigation into UnitedHealth is ongoing, people familiar with the matter said.

Mutual-fund giant Capital Group is known for a disciplined approach. One of its top portfolio managers can’t get enough bitcoin.

• Capital Group, known for disciplined investing, has made a significant bet on bitcoin, thanks to portfolio manager Mark Casey.
• Mark Casey and his firm have turned less than $1 billion into more than $6 billion with bitcoin investments. He views the cryptocurrency as a modern store of value replacing gold.
• Capital Group’s bitcoin investments include Strategy, Metaplanet and Mara Holdings.

Capital Group is a 94-year-old mutual-fund juggernaut known for its disciplined investing style. Mark Casey, a portfolio manager with 25 years of experience at the firm, quotes pioneering value-investor Benjamin Graham and says his “approach is very informed by Warren Buffett.”

That is why it is so surprising that Capital Group has placed a huge bet on bitcoin—one of the largest by a mainstream investment firm—and that Casey has emerged as one of most outspoken backers of the digital currency in the so-called TradFi world.

“I just love bitcoin, I just think it is so interesting,” Casey, 54, said on a podcast interview hosted by venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz last year, calling it “one of the coolest things that has ever been created by people.”

In the past four years, Casey and his firm have turned less than $1 billion into more than $6 billion with investments in Strategy and other so-called bitcoin treasury companies whose sole focuses are loading up on the cryptocurrency.

Behind the bullishness: A view that bitcoin is replacing gold as a modern-day means of storing value—and will prove more useful than gold. Over time, bitcoin’s price will rise, Casey and some others at Capital Group argue, catching up to or even exceeding the value of gold, which currently accounts for roughly 2% of global wealth according to some estimates. By contrast, Casey is dubious other cryptocurrencies will ever prove valuable, even as rivals pile into ether.

Some analysts and others at mainstream financial firms doubt bitcoin will ever rival gold, which has held value for thousands of years and has been soaring lately. Other mainstream investors have struggled to place a value on companies focused on bitcoin, raising questions about Capital Group’s enthusiasm.

“The investment in bitcoin-related stocks is surprising,” says Morningstar analyst Stephen Welch. “Typically, you are investing in a company with assets and cash flows, and in this case, you are investing in a relatively untested currency, expecting the value to increase.”

Casey says he and some colleagues evaluate Strategy and other companies buying up bitcoin the same way they scrutinize those that mine, refine and trade physical commodities like gold and oil.

“We view bitcoin as a commodity,” Casey says.

Capital Group is one of the oldest and largest “active” investment managers. The Los Angeles firm, whose American Funds have been a staple in brokerage accounts for nearly a century, manages $3 trillion. Each of its mutual funds has as many as 12 portfolio managers, like Casey, who independently manage parts of the funds.

The firm spurned some past investing frenzies, such as the dot-com craze in the late 1990s, even as some clients clamored for those stocks. But it was early to the bitcoin craze, in large part due to Casey’s fervor.

In 2013, Casey joined a group of investors in a meeting with Wences Casares, an early bitcoin advocate. Casey became a believer but as a mutual-fund manager didn’t have a way to invest in the digital currency until Michael Saylor turned his software company MicroStrategy, now known as Strategy, into a bitcoin whale.

In 2021, Capital Group spent over $500 million to buy a 12.3% stake in Strategy. That made the firm Strategy’s second-largest holder after Saylor, its founder. The mutual fund’s stake—which has shrunk to 7.89% after some sales but mostly because the company issued new shares—is now valued at $6.2 billion after a more than 2,248% surge of the stock over the past five years.

Strategy shares have run into headwinds, though, falling roughly 16% in the past month. Some investors question the need for a stockholding bitcoin when bitcoin exchange-traded funds and other vehicles offer other ways to bet on the digital currency.

This year, Casey and some colleagues also purchased 5% of Metaplanet 3350 -8.37%decrease; red down pointing triangle, a Japanese hotel operator that last year began buying up bitcoin and counts Eric Trump as an adviser. That stock is up nearly 70% so far in 2025, though its shares have fallen about 39% in the past month. Capital Group also owns shares of Mara Holdings MARA 3.82%increase; green up pointing triangle, a bitcoin mining company that is down 2.74% this year.

The bitcoin investments are small relative to the firm’s assets but offer a powerful endorsement. Casey appears at bitcoin conferences and attended a New Year’s Eve party at Saylor’s home in Miami celebrating bitcoin topping $100,000.

Casey is a graduate of Yale University, where he demonstrated a quirky sense of humor. In November, when daylight-saving time transitioned back to standard time, he would throw a one-hour party that started and ended at 2 a.m., which he called “The Party That Never Happened.” He received an M.B.A. at Harvard University, educating himself about investing by reading all of Buffett’s investor letters and joining Capital Group in 2000 in Silicon Valley.

Some established business figures, including BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink, have softened their stance on crypto. Others, though, including Buffett, remain wary. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, who has called bitcoin a useless “pet rock,” remains personally skeptical of cryptocurrencies.

As for Casey, he hasn’t wavered in his own belief. Lately, he has told people he’s looking for new ways to invest in bitcoin.