June 27 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- United States President Donald Trump's administration asked McKinsey, BCG and several other consulting firms with billions of dollars in federal contracts to justify their work and suggest cost cuts.

- Tesla TSLA.O executive and longtime Elon Musk confidant Omead Afshar has left the electric-vehicle maker as the automaker faces a sales slump due to competition and an aging vehicle lineup.

- Starbucks SBUX.O said it had elected economist Dambisa Moyo and Marissa Mayer, chief executive of an AI startup, to its board, effective June 25.

- CoreWeave CRWV.O is in talks to buy Core Scientific CORZ.O, after the bitcoin miner rejected an earlier deal from the cloud provider last year.

- BlackRock BLK.N is set to include private assets in its retirement plans as it expands into alternative investments, the world's largest asset manager.

- The U.S. and other countries reached an agreement to exempt U.S.-based companies from some corporate taxes that were part of a 2021 international minimum-tax agreement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday.

(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)

((globalnewsmonitoring@thomsonreuters.com))