Your Evening Briefing

(Bloomberg) --

While Americans call for immigrant families to be reunited, Russia denies responsibility for another nerve agent poisoning, and the whole world frets about a trade war, it's worth remembering that there's something bigger brewing this summer. In Washington, the probe of whether Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Vladimir Putin to manipulate the 2016 election is accelerating. And the army of lawyers reporting to Robert Mueller is growing.

Here are today's top stories

Scott Pruitt resigns. The embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief, a subject of multiple ethics investigations, spent his tenure trying to unravel Obama-era efforts to slow climate change. 

President Trump's trade war on China begins tonight, barring a last-minute retreat. With $34 billion in tariffs planned for Chinese goods, America is set to suffer immediate retaliation.

But a tit-for-tat spat between rivals could be the first act of a longer drama, one in which China moves on multiple fronts to replace the U.S. as the world's leading power. 

Part of Beijing's long-game is in America's backyard. China National Petroleum Corp. plans to help complete a Brazil refinery that's already cost Petrobras $14 billion.

As the danger of global warming becomes increasingly apparent, new research shows one way to help fight it is under the sea.

Saudi Arabia lowered most of its oil pricing as Iran taunted Trump, saying his Twitter outbursts demanding more production and lower prices have the opposite effect.

What's Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director says tariffs can be seen as inflationary and deflationary in the short term, depending on your point of view. But in the long run, they can make it harder for companies to fight inflation, which is their natural tendency.  

What you'll need to know tomorrow

• Tesla is selling so many cars in Norway that its customer service operations can't keep up.
• Europe's largest trader of exchange-traded funds is moving into crypto.
• There's a ship filled with soybeans racing the clock to avoid tariffs.
• No one wants to live in Richard Nixon's old house, at least not for $75 million.
• Trump has narrowed his potential U.S. Supreme court nominees to three.
• Boeing makes a $4.75 billion move in the battle over smaller jetliners.
• Meanwhile, the era of the propeller-driven commercial plane is coming to an end.

What you'll want to read tonight

In Europe, where consumers have proven themselves decidedly climate conscious, a U.K. carmaker plans to start selling an electric version of the iconic black London cab in Germany, targeting a slice of that nation's taxi business dominated by Daimler's diesel vehicles.

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