By DANIEL NIEMANN, FANNY BRODERSEN and MICHAEL PROBST Associated Press
COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — On the eighth annual “World Bee Day,” the bees did not seem bothered.
They should be.
Bees and other pollinators have been on the decline for years, and experts blame a combination of factors: insecticides, parasites, disease, climate change and lack of a diverse food supply. A significant part of the human diet comes from plants pollinated by bees — not just honeybees, but hundreds of species of lesser-known wild bees, many of which are endangered.
On the eighth annual “World Bee Day,” around 400,000 bees in urban rooftop hives in Cologne, Germany, were busy at work making honey. They seemed oblivious to the threats that endanger their survival. Scientists and bee experts hope Tuesday’s World Bee Day can raise awareness. (AP video AP video shot by: Fanny Brodersen and Daniel Niemann)
In 2018, the U.N. General Assembly sponsored the first “World Bee Day” to bring attention to the bees’ plight. Steps as small as planting a pollinator garden or buying raw honey from local farmers were encouraged.
May 20 was chosen for “World Bee Day” to coincide with the birthday of Anton Janša, an 18th century pioneer in modern beekeeping techniques in his native Slovenia.
In Germany, where bees contribute 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in economic benefits, they’re key to pollinating the iconic yellow rapeseed fields that dominate the countryside in the spring.
On Tuesday, around 400,000 bees in urban rooftop hives in the western city of Cologne — where the yellow fields flower — were busy at work making honey.
They seemed oblivious to the threats that endanger their survival. Scientists and bee experts like Matthias Roth, chairman of the Cologne Beekeepers Association, hope World Bee Day can raise awareness.
For Roth, it’s crucial to protect both honey bees — like the ones in his rooftop hives — and wild species. His organization has set up nesting boxes in the hopes of helping solitary bees, which don’t form hives, but Roth fears that it’s not enough.
“We must take care of nature,” Roth said Tuesday. “We have become far removed from nature, especially in cities, and we must take care of wild bees in particular.”
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Fanny Brodersen reported from Berlin, and Michael Probst from Wehrheim, Germany. Kerstin Sopke and Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report from Berlin.
By MATTHEW PERRONE and LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Annual COVID-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a major new policy shift unveiled Tuesday by the Trump administration.
Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for yearly updates to COVID shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach that would make vaccines available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one health problem that puts them at higher risk.
But the FDA framework urges companies conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. In a framework published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, agency officials said the approach still could keep annual vaccinations available for between 100 million and 200 million adults.
The upcoming changes raise questions about people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fall into one of the categories.
“Is the pharmacist going to determine if you’re in a high-risk group?” asked Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available.”
The framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the culmination of a series of recent steps scrutinizing the use of COVID shots and raising major questions about the broader availability of vaccines under President Donald Trump.
For years, federal health officials have told most Americans to expect annual updates to COVID-19 vaccines, similar to the annual flu shot. Just like with flu vaccines, until now the FDA has approved updated COVID shots when manufacturers provide evidence that they spark just as much immune protection as the previous year’s version.
But FDA’s new guidance appears to be the end of that approach under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who has filled the FDA and other health agencies with outspoken critics of the government’s handling of COVID shots, particularly their recommendation for young, healthy adults and children.
Tuesday’s update, written by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and FDA vaccine chief Vinay Prasad, criticized the U.S.’s “one-size-fits-all” approach and states that the U.S. has been “the most aggressive” in recommending COVID boosters, when compared with European countries.
“We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” they wrote.
Outside experts say there are legitimate questions about how much everyone still benefits from yearly COVID vaccination or whether they should be recommended for people at increased risk. An influential panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to debate that question next month.
The FDA framework announced Tuesday appears to usurp that advisory panel’s job, Offit said. He added that CDC studies have made clear that booster doses do offer protection against mild to moderate illness for four to six months after the shot even in healthy people.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
By LISA MASCARO, KEVIN FREKING, LEAH ASKARINAM and JOE CAPPELLETTI Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill early Tuesday to try to seal the deal on his big tax cuts bill, using the power of political persuasion to unify divided House Republicans on the multitrillion-dollar package that is at risk of collapsing before planned votes this week.
Trump called himself a “cheerleader” for the Republican Party and praised the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson as he headed behind closed doors to rally Republicans.
“We have a very, very unified party,” Trump said in hallway remarks at the Capitol. “We’re going to have available one big beautiful bill.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledges there is still work to do as Republicans struggle to push ahead with President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks, spending cuts and border security funds. (AP Video)
The president arrived at a pivotal moment. Negotiations are slogging along and it’s not at all clear the package, with its sweeping tax breaks and cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs, has the support needed from the House’s slim Republican majority. Lawmakers are also being asked to add some $350 billion to Trump’s border security, deportation and defense agenda.
Conservatives are insisting on quicker, steeper cuts to federal programs to offset the costs of the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue. At the same time, a core group of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states want bigger tax breaks for their voters back home. Worries about piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt are stark.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to need more time,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
“These are complicated issues with trillions of dollars,” he said. “We’ve got to do this thing right.”
Trump’s visit to address House Republicans at their weekly conference will test the president’s deal-making powers. The Republican speaker, Johnson, is determined to push the bill forward and needs Trump to provide the momentum, either by encouragement or political warnings or a combination of both.
With House Democrats lined up against the package, GOP leaders have almost no votes to spare. A key committee hearing is set for the middle of the night Tuesday in hopes of a House floor vote by Wednesday afternoon.
Democrats argue the package is little more than a giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of health care and food programs Americans rely on.
“They literally are trying to take health care away from millions of Americans at this very moment in the dead of night,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
“If this legislation is designed to make life better for the American people, can someone explain to me why they would hold a hearing to advance the bill at 1 a.m. in the morning?”
Trump has been pushing hard for Republicans to unite behind the bill, which has been uniquely shaped in his image as the president’s signature domestic policy initiative in Congress.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates that the House bill is shaping up to add roughly $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
Republicans criticizing the measure argued that the bill’s new spending and tax cuts are front-loaded, while the measures to offset the cost are back-loaded.
In particular, the conservative Republicans are looking to speed up the new work requirements that Republicans want to enact for able-bodied participants in Medicaid. They had been proposed to start Jan. 1, 2029, but GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on CNBC that work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries would begin in early 2027.
At least 7.6 million fewer people are expected to have health insurance under the initial Medicaid changes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week.
Republican holdouts are also looking to more quickly halt green energy tax breaks, which had been approved as part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, and are now being used for renewable energy projects across the nation.
But for every change Johnson considers to appease the hard-right conservatives, he risks losing support from more traditional and centrist Republicans. Many have signed on to letters protesting deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs and the rolling back of clean energy tax credits.
At its core, the sprawling legislative package permanently extends the existing income tax cuts and bolsters the standard deduction, increasing it to $32,000 for joint filers, and the child tax credit to $2,500.
The New Yorkers are fighting for a larger state and local tax deduction beyond the bill’s proposal. As it stands, the bill would triple what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year. They have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.
If the bill passes the House this week, it would then move to the Senate, where Republicans are also eyeing changes.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Chop or shred pot roast; place in large microwave-safe dish. Cover, vent and microwave until heated through, stirring occasionally. Stir in spinach and hoisin sauce. Microwave until sauce is thickened and beef is coated with sauce. Set aside.
Dumplings:
Cut parchment paper to line basket of stove-top steamer, cutting hole in center as needed. Add water to steamer, making sure water level is below basket. Bring water to a boil.
Meanwhile, place biscuit dough pieces on cutting board. Flatten each piece of dough into 3-inch square, extending corners; press corners onto board with thumbs. Place about 1 tablespoon of beef mixture in center of dough square. Bring two opposite corners up and over filling and pinch together; bring remaining two corners up and over filling, pinching all seams and corners together to form square bun. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Turn buns over until ready to cook. Place buns into steam basket in batches, keeping at least 2 inches apart. Cover and steam 7 minutes or until dough reaches temperature of 190°F and the filling is 165°F. Gently remove buns from basket with long handled tongs; cool. Repeat until all buns are steamed. Serve bao buns with sauce as desired.
NEW YORK (AP) — After recovering from an initial jolt, U.S. stocks, bonds and the value of the U.S. dollar drifted through a quiet Monday following the latest reminder that the U.S government may be hurtling toward an unsustainable mountain of debt.
Moody’s pointed to how the U.S. government continues to borrow more and more money to pay for its expenses, with political bickering making it difficult to either rein in Washington’s spending or raise its revenue in order to get its ballooning debt under more control.
They’re serious problems, but nothing Moody’s said is new, and critics have been railing against Washington’s inability to control its debt for many years. Standard & Poor’s lowered its credit rating for the U.S. government in 2011.
Because the issues are so well known already, investors have likely already accounted for them, according to Brian Rehling, head of global fixed income strategy and other analysts at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. They’re expecting “limited additional market impact” following the initial reactions to the Moody’s move.
Stocks and U.S. government bond prices at first fell sharply early in Monday’s trading, but they trimmed their losses as the day progressed. The S&P 500 went from a loss of 1.1% to a modest gain of 0.2% before drifting through the afternoon.
The move by Moody’s essentially warns investors globally not to lend to the U.S. government at such low interest rates, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury briefly jumped above 4.55% early Monday morning. That number shows how much in interest the U.S. government has to pay in order to borrow money for 10 years, and it was up sharply from 4.43% late Friday. But it later regressed to 4.45% as more calm returned to the market.
The yield on a 30-year Treasury bond briefly leaped above 5% before likewise receding, up from less than 4% in September.
The downgrade by Moody’s comes ahead of a tense period for Washington, where it’s set to debate potential cuts in tax rates that could suck away more revenue, as well as the nation’s limit on how much it can borrow.
If Washington has to pay more in interest to borrow cash to pay its bills, that could filter out and cause interest rates to rise for U.S. households and businesses too, in everything from mortgage rates to auto loan rates to credit cards. That in turn could slow the economy.
The downgrade adds to a long list of concerns that have already weighed on the market. Chief among them is President Donald Trump’s trade war, which itself has forced investors globally to question whether the U.S. bond market and the U.S. dollar still deserve their reputations as some of the safest places to park cash during a crisis.
The U.S. economy seems to be holding up OK so far despite the pressures of tariffs, and hopes are high that Trump will eventually relent on his tariffs after striking trade deals with other countries. That’s a major reason the S&P 500 has rallied back within 3% of its all-time high after falling roughly 20% below that market last month.
But big companies have been warning recently they’re uncertain about the future. Walmart, for example, said recently that it will likely have to raise prices because of tariffs. That caused Trump over the weekend to criticize Walmart and demand it and China “eat the tariffs.”
Walmart’s stock slipped 0.1% Monday.
Other big retailers on the schedule to report their latest quarterly results this upcoming week include Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and TJX Cos.
On the winning end of Wall Street was Novavax, which rose 15% after it said U.S. regulators approved its COVID-19 vaccine under some conditions. The approval triggered a $175 million milestone payment under the company’s collaboration agreement with Sanofi.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 5.22 points to 5,963.60. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 137.33 to 42,792.07, and the Nasdaq composite rose 4.36 to 19,215.46.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia.
Indexes were close to flat in both Shanghai and Hong Kong after the Chinese government said retail sales rose less in April than expected. Growth in industrial output slowed to 6.1% year-on-year from 7.7% in March.
In the foreign currency markets, the value of the U.S. dollar fell against everything from the euro to the Australian dollar.
By ZEKE MILLER, JOSH BOAK and KATIE MARIE DAVIES Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” begin ceasefire negotiations, President Donald Trump said Monday after separate calls with the leaders of both countries meant to spur progress toward ending the three-year war. The conversations did not appear to yield a major breakthrough.
It was not clear when or where any talks might take place or who would participate. Trump’s announcement came days after the first direct engagement between Russian and Ukrainian delegations since 2022. Those negotiations Friday in Turkey brought about a limited exchange of prisoners but no pause in the fighting.
Ahead of the calls, the White House said Trump had grown “frustrated” with both leaders over the continuing war. Vice President JD Vance said Trump would press Russian President Vladimir Putin to see if he was truly interested in stopping the fighting, and if not, that the U.S. could disengage from trying to stop the conflict. Trump later told reporters that he believed Putin was serious about wanting peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Moscow is ready to work towards ending the fighting in Ukraine, following a two-hour phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump. (AP Video)
“The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” Trump said in a social media post.
Trump said the call with Putin was “excellent,” adding, “If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.”
Later, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he noted the process has “got very big egos involved, I tell you.”
“Big egos involved. But I think something’s going to happen and, if it doesn’t I’d just back away and they have to keep going,” Trump said. “This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.”
Trump also said he told Putin, “We’ve got to get going.”
Trump has struggled to end a war that began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, a setback for his promises to quickly settle the conflict once he was back in the White House, if not before he took office.
‘Weary and frustrated’
“He’s grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday before the calls.
The Republican president is banking on the idea that his force of personality and personal history with Putin will be enough to break any impasse over a pause in the fighting. He dangled the prospect of reduced sanctions and increased trade with Russia should the war end.
After the call, Putin said Russia was ready to continue discussing an end to the fighting after a “very informative and very frank” conversation with Trump. Putin said the warring countries should “find compromises that would suit all parties.”
Moscow, he said, will “propose and is ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”
But indicating that little had fundamentally changed about his demands, Putin said: “At the same time, I would like to note that, in general, Russia’s position is clear. The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he reaffirmed to Trump that Ukraine is ready for a full and unconditional ceasefire. He urged the international community to maintain pressure on Moscow if it refuses to halt its invasion.
“Ukraine doesn’t need to be persuaded — our representatives are ready to make real decisions. What’s needed is mirrored readiness from Russia for such result-oriented negotiations.” Zelenskyy said.
Trump and Putin addressed each other by first names
Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov, who previously served as Russian ambassador to the U.S., described the conversation as friendly, with Trump and Putin addressing each other by their first names.
“Trump said, ‘Vladimir, you can pick up the phone at any time, and I will be happy to answer and speak with you,’” he said.
Ushakov also said Trump and Putin could meet face-to-face at some point, but no timeline was set.
Putin and Trump also talked about a Russia-U.S. prisoner exchange, which Ushakov said was “in the works” and envisioned Moscow and Washington releasing nine people each. Ushakov did not offer any other details.
Speaking before the call, Vance said Trump could walk away from trying to end the war if he feels Putin isn’t serious about negotiation.
“I’d say we’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters before leaving Rome after meeting with Pope Leo XIV. Vance said Trump has been clear that the U.S. “is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.”
Zelenskyy, who spoke to Trump one-on-one before the Putin call and then jointly with European leaders after, told reporters that he emphasized to Trump that no decisions should be made about Ukraine without involving Kyiv. He also said that he discussed the potential for “serious sanctions” on Russia.
Trump said the Vatican expressed interest in hosting the negotiations, but there was no immediate confirmation that any talks had been scheduled.
Trump tries the carrot — and stick — with Putin
Trump sought to use financial incentives to broker some kind of agreement after Russia’s invasion led to severe sanctions by the United States and its allies that have steadily eroded Moscow’s ability to grow.
“Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree,” he said in a social media post. “There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.”
Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump had made it clear that a failure by Putin to negotiate “in good faith” could lead to additional sanctions against Russia.
Bessent suggested the sanctions that began during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden were inadequate because they did not stop Russia’s oil revenues, due to concerns that doing so would increase U.S. prices. The United States sought to cap Russia’s oil revenues while preserving the country’s petroleum exports to limit the damage from the inflation that the war produced.
Trump and Zelenskyy spoke with leaders from France, Italy and Finland, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who have threatened tougher sanctions on Russia in a bid to force Putin into negotiations.
Putin recently rejected an offer by Zelenskyy to meet in-person in Turkey as an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including Washington. Instead, Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul for talks, the first such direct negotiations since March 2022.
Those talks ended Friday after less than two hours, without a ceasefire in place. But both countries committed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, with Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, saying on Ukrainian television Saturday that the exchanges could happen as early as this week.
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Davies reported from Manchester, England. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price and Will Weissert in Washington; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Hanna Arhirova and Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood’s actors’ union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Llama Productions on Monday, alleging the company replaced actors’ work by using artificial intelligence to generate Darth Vader’s voice in Fortnite without notice.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said Llama Productions, a subsidiary of gaming giant Epic Games, “failed and refused to bargain in good faith with the union” in the last six months. The company made unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment “without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain” by using AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work, SAG-AFTRA said.
Epic Games did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA said the union supports the rights of members and their estates to control the use of their digital replicas.
“However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games,” the union said.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein urged state lawmakers Monday to allocate hundreds of millions more dollars toward western North Carolina’s ongoing recovery from Hurricane Helene instead of waiting on “uncertain federal assistance.”
The money requested — $891 million — would go toward critical needs in Helene’s aftermath, such as revitalizing local economies, repairing town infrastructure and providing housing assistance, Stein said during a news conference in still-recovering western North Carolina. Stein released the Helene proposal as the GOP-led North Carolina General Assembly prepares to finalize its state budget this summer.
More than 100 people died as Helene tore through western North Carolina in September, destroying homes, businesses and roadways. The storm’s record-breaking devastation totaled $59.6 billion in damages and recovery needs. Recovery has been slow in parts of the region as some hard-hit mountain towns still appear ravaged by the storm nearly eight months later.
Navigating Helene recovery is one of the chief issues Stein has been tasked with handling upon his first few months in office. Some of the first actions his administration took focused on rehabilitating the western part of the state, as well as establishing the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina.
“This recovery is going to take a long time,” Stein said Monday. “My administration, though, is in this for the long haul. I know that the legislature is as well.”
Last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved a $1.4 billion grant that would facilitate western North Carolina’s long-term recovery. The Federal Emergency Management Agency — the federal organization responsible for addressing some of the immediate needs in Helene’s aftermath — has also provided more than $700 million to state and local governments, as well as directly to North Carolinians.
Stein has called on the federal government to reform the agency but not to get rid of it, which he reiterated during his budget proposal announcement Monday.
More than a quarter of Stein’s proposal would go toward restoring local economies and their tourism industries. Another quarter would fund infrastructure repairs, debris cleanup and resiliency projects to better protect the region from future storms. Other allocations include addressing recovery needs such as housing assistance, fixing waterways and farmlands, and food insecurity.
The state Senate has already approved its budget proposal and now awaits the House to release its plan this week. Then, state lawmakers can decide whether to incorporate some of Stein’s requests on Helene aid as the two chambers work out differences, with the goal of having a final budget enacted by July 1.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WPTF) — Ongoing issues with outdated technology and staffing shortages continue to disrupt operations at Newark Liberty International Airport, and officials are now exploring short-term solutions to ease the impact ahead of the busy summer travel season.
Aviation Analyst Jay Ratliff says one proposed measure includes increasing the spacing between arriving flights to help reduce delays.
“But imagine if you were United Airlines and that’s one of your hubs,” said Ratliff. “The FAA shows up and says ‘Hey, I know you’re planning on making this much money through your profitable hub, but because we haven’t really upgraded technology in about 58 years and we don’t have enough air traffic controllers, you’re going to have to accept reduced revenue.'”
According to Forbes, major U.S. airlines met with Federal Aviation Administration officials this week to discuss potentially capping the number of flights at Newark. The talks come after weeks of severe disruptions caused by equipment failures and a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Ratliff points to decades of inaction from lawmakers as a root cause of the current situation.
“And all those useless people in Washington D.C. started pointing at the President who had only been in office a few weeks,” said Ratliff. “You guys are the ones for 30 or 40 years who’ve done nothing to upgrade this technology, and you have the audacity to point your finger—of course you do—at somebody else.”
According to The New York Times, the FAA announced it will begin limiting the number of hourly arrivals at Newark Airport starting May 28. Meanwhile, 6ABC Philadelphia reports the FAA is also pursuing technical repairs and a broader plan to manage air traffic with fewer available controllers.
Ratliff says an aggressive, coordinated solution—similar in urgency to the Manhattan Project—may be the only path forward.
“[If we’re] all hands on deck for [the next] two or three years, we can knock this out,” said Ratliff.
As federal officials work to address flight delays and air traffic issues, Boeing is facing renewed scrutiny over its legal troubles. The company is seeking to withdraw its guilty plea in a criminal fraud case stemming from two fatal crashes involving its 737 Max aircraft.
“All those years ago, we had two horrific crashes where 346 people died, and they finally reached an agreement where Boeing last year agreed to plead guilty to defraud,” said Ratliff.
According to CNN, some families of the crash victims have called on the Department of Justice to reject Boeing’s effort and push for a trial instead.
Ratliff believes the political shift in Washington may impact how the case proceeds.
“I knew one thing—the Trump administration is very aviation friendly,” said Ratliff. “And all of the things that the Biden administration did to hold airlines accountable, which I was so thankful for, was going to stop. Sadly, I think that this thing could actually happen. What will probably happen is they will be allowed to walk back the guilty plea if they pay more money.”
CNBC reports Boeing’s original plea agreement was tied to a 2021 deal with the DOJ, which the company is now seeking to modify.
Ratliff says the move is likely devastating for the families seeking justice.
“Because they want justice, and we’re not getting anything close to that because of the games that are being played here,” said Ratliff. “What a horrible way to tarnish the memories of those that were lost.”
According to TheLayoff.com, the victims’ families have spent years demanding a public trial and harsher penalties for Boeing and its executives.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke Monday in North Carolina against the Trump administration’s zealous efforts to impose tariffs on trading partners worldwide — another effort that shows his willingness to split at times with his former boss.
The education arm of Pence’s political advocacy group kicked off in Raleigh a series of events nationwide that was also billed as building support to extend individual income tax reductions enacted by Trump and fellow Republicans in 2017 but set to expire at year’s end.
In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pence praised congressional Republicans for pushing ahead President Donald Trump’s bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, saying “there should be no higher domestic priority” than making permanent the tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term. But much of the meeting focused on Pence and key conservative business leaders in North Carolina opposing Trump’s recent tariff efforts.
Monday’s event marked another step by Pence to try to distinguish himself among the small group of Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize policies sought by the second Trump administration.
Pence and others said protectionism would ultimately harm the U.S. economy in the form of higher prices and employment losses.
“It is ultimately for the most part American consumers that will pay the price of higher tariffs,” Pence said at the event assembled by Pence’s Advancing American Freedom Foundation and the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation.
The massive 1,116-page budget bill, which also contains additional tax breaks that Trump campaigned for in the 2024 election — as well as spending reductions and beefed-up border security — initially failed to pass the House Budget Committee late last week.
A handful of conservatives who voted against the bill want further cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax breaks. House Speaker Mike Johnson aims to send the bill to the Senate by Memorial Day. The bill cleared the committee in a rare Sunday night meeting, but Johnson told reporters afterward that negotiations were ongoing.
“I’m encouraged,” Pence told the AP after Monday’s event. ”I’m grateful that conservatives in the House have been pressing for more common sense reforms in Medicaid.”
Three days ago, Moody’s Ratings mentioned the 2017 tax cuts as it stripped the U.S. government of its top credit rating, citing the inability of policymakers to rein in debt.
Conservatives see the tax cuts as providing fuel for the economy while putting more money in taxpayers’ pockets. Democrats say the wealthiest Americans benefit the most from them.
Pence told the AP the larger issue is the unwillingness of politicians to consider “commonsense, compassionate” entitlement reforms for Medicare and Social Security that would address the nation’s nearly $37 trillion of debt and “set us back on a path of fiscal integrity.”
Pence said at the roundtable that he’s proud of Trump’s first-term efforts to use the tariff threat to reach new free-trade agreements with trading partners. And Pence agreed that China is an exception for retaliatory tariffs, citing intellectual property theft and dumping products like steel onto world markets. But Trump’s second-term effort, seeming to make tariffs large and permanent, are very different and misguided, he said.
Trump has said broad tariffs on foreign goods are needed to narrow the gap with taxes other countries place on U.S. goods.
Trump said that countries “have to pay for the right to sell here,” Pence said in recalling first-term conversations. “Any time I’d remind him that actually it’s American importers that pay the tariff, he would look a little annoyed at me from time to time and say, ‘I know how it works.’ And then he’d say, ‘but they have to pay.’”
While the former Indiana governor and U.S. House member refused to break with Trump during their time serving together, the two had a falling out over his refusal to go along with Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. Trump had tried to pressure Pence to reject election results from swing states where the Republican president falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud.
A 2024 presidential campaign by Pence — and potentially against Trump — ended early. He committed to invigorating Advancing American Freedom by promoting conservative principles as Trump’s brand of populism has taken hold in the GOP.
Pence’s group spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. And Pence also has spoken in favor of Trump standing with long-standing foreign allies.
