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WASHINGTON — Oil and gas executives have watched wearily in recent years as the relationship between the United States and Russia deteriorated, steadily closing off their ability to drill the vast shale plays underlying Siberia and the deep-water oil fields off Russia’s Arctic coast.

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. logged a better than expected performance in the last quarter, reporting Aug. 3 that its quarterly profit jumped 7.2% to a record 657.3 billion yen ($5.9 billion), thanks to strong sales in the United States and other overseas markets.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit widened in June for the first time in four months as exports fell and imports grew. Politically sensitive trade gaps with China, Mexico and Canada increased.

China announced a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. imports it plans to apply tariffs on should the Trump administration follow through with its latest trade threats.

Legislation that would provide $1 billion in infrastructure grants and would extend the electronic logging device waiver for livestock haulers for the next fiscal year easily passed the Senate on Aug. 1.

Sacramento has signed a deal with a Silicon Valley firm to use downtown streets as a testing ground for self-driving vehicles that will be monitored by remote “drivers” sitting at computers.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is seeking individuals to serve on a special committee that will provide information, advice and recommendations on matters relating to human trafficking and recommended best practices for state and local transportation stakeholders in combating human trafficking.

Falling prices and government mandates are set to boost sales of electric vehicles globally, making owning and operating charging infrastructure an attractive area for investment.

The Federal Reserve described economic activity as “strong” in a statement Aug. 1, the first time it has done so since it called it “quite strong” in May 2006 — in the late stages of the last economic expansion, shortly before the housing market drove the economy into meltdown.