US benchmark equity indexes ended lower Wednesday as markets tracked developments around President Donald Trump's proposed tax-cut bill.

* Certain House of Representatives Republicans were headed to the White House amid concerns that the bill doesn't adequately lower spending, Reuters reported. House Speaker Mike Johnson will join a meeting scheduled for 3 pm, the report said, citing the White House.

* Mortgage applications in the US dropped last week as macro concerns pushed rates to the highest since February, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

* July West Texas Intermediate crude oil closed down $0.45 to settle at $61.58 per barrel, while July Brent crude, the global benchmark, was last seen down $0.51 to $64.87 as OPEC+ prepares to add a second tranche of 411,000 barrels per day of new production on June 1.

* Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) shares rose 2.9%, a day after Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said at a developer conference that the Google search engine is rolling out an AI mode that answers queries in a chatbot-style conversation.

* UnitedHealth Group (UNH) shares fell 5.8%. The health insurance giant allegedly paid thousands of dollars in bonuses to nursing homes where it installed its own medical teams and pressured them to help cut care expenses for residents, the Guardian reported.