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Coca-Cola said Tuesday it will add a cane-sugar version of its trademark cola to its U.S. lineup this fall, confirming a recent announcement by President Donald Trump.

Trump said in a social media post last week that Coca-Cola had agreed to use real cane sugar in its flagship product in the U.S., which has been sweetened with high fructose corn syrup since the 1980s. Coke didn’t immediately confirm the change, but promised new offerings soon.

On Tuesday, Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey said Coke will expand its product range “to reflect consumer interest in differentiated experiences.”

“We appreciate the president’s enthusiasm for our Coca-Cola brand,” Quincey said in a conference call with investors Tuesday. “We are definitely looking to use the whole tool kit of available sweetening options.”

Quincey noted that Coke uses cane sugar in some other U.S. drinks, like its Simply brand lemonade and Honest Tea. Coke has also sold Mexican Coke, which is made with cane sugar, in the U.S. since 2005.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to innovate and see whether there’s an intersection of new ideas and where consumer preferences are evolving,” Quincey said. “It’s a good sign that the industry, including ourselves, are trying lots of different things.”

Rivals PepsiCo and Dr Pepper have been selling versions of their trademark colas sweetened with cane sugar in the U.S. since 2009.

Asked if Coke would also consider introducing a prebiotic version of its trademark cola — as PepsiCo did this week — Quincey said the company is currently selling a Coke with added fiber in Japan and is studying consumer response to it.

Quincey said consumer demand for its products improved in the second quarter in many markets, including China, Europe, Africa and North America.

“I would I would say overall that the global economy and the global consumer remains resilient,” Quincey said.

But early monsoons and conflict hurt demand in India, and Quincey said demand in Thailand and Indonesia was also weaker than expected. Quincey also said lower-income consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere have also pulled back on spending.

Global case volumes of Coca-Cola fell 1%. Juice, dairy and plant-based beverages fell 4%, Coke said. Sports drink case volumes were down 3%, as higher demand in North America was offset by declines in Latin America.

One bright spot was Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which saw case volumes grow 14%. Traditional Coca-Cola still far outsells the zero-sugar variety, but consumer demand for zero-sugar versions is growing much more quickly.

In North America, case volumes fell 1%, but that was an improvement from the first quarter, when they were down 3%.

Quincey said Hispanic sales in the U.S. returned to normal levels by the end of June. They had plummeted starting in February, when a social media video began circulating that claimed Coke was reporting its own workers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Quincey said the claim was false. The company has been trying to win back Hispanic consumers with targeted deals and ads touting the company’s local economic impact.

“It was still a headwind in the second quarter but the issue is now largely resolved,” Quincey said Tuesday.

Coca-Cola reported better-than-expected earnings in the second quarter as higher prices offset the weaker volumes. Coke said pricing rose 6% globally.

Revenue for the Atlanta company rose 1% to $12.5 billion. Adjusted for one-time items, quarterly revenue was $12.6 billion. That was in line with Wall Street’s forecast, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Net income jumped 58% to $3.8 billion. Coke’s adjusted net income was 87 cents, which was higher than the 83 cents Wall Street forecast.

Coke said it now expects full-year adjusted earnings to grow 8%. At the start of the year, Coke had expected earnings to grow 8% to 10%, but in April it lowered that range to 7% to 9%. Coke earned $2.88 per share in 2024.

Shares of Coca-Cola Co. were down 1% in early trading Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shares of drugmaker Sarepta Therapeutics continued to sink Tuesday after the company said it would comply with a Food and Drug Administration request to pause shipments of its gene therapy following several patient deaths.

The decision, announced late Monday, comes just days after the company rebuffed FDA regulators in an extremely unusual decision that alarmed investors and analysts.

Sarepta CEO Doug Ingram said the company seeks a “productive and positive” relationship with FDA and that “maintaining that productive working relationship required this temporary suspension.”

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company said it would “ temporarily pause all shipments” of its gene therapy Elevidys for muscular dystrophy at the close of business Tuesday.

It’s the latest in a series of highly irregular moves that have rocked company shares for weeks and forced it to lay off hundreds of staffers.

Elevidys is the first gene therapy approved in the U.S. for Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, the fatal muscle-wasting disease that affects boys and young men, resulting in early death. The one-time treatment was initially approved for boys age 4 and younger who could still walk. Last year, FDA expanded approval to older patients who are no longer able to walk.

The therapy was already under FDA scrutiny after two teenage boys died earlier this year from acute liver injury, a known side effect of the treatment. Then the company last week disclosed a third death with a different therapy: a 51-year-old patient who was enrolled in a company trial for another form of muscular dystrophy.

FDA responded on Friday by asking the company to immediately halt all shipments of Elevidys. Company executives initially refused, noting that the latest death was not tied to Elevidys, its best-selling product.

Wall Street analysts said the company made the right decision to cooperate.

Defying the FDA would have “irreparably damaged the company’s relationship with FDA under the current leadership and administration,” TD Cowen analyst Ritu Baral told investors in a note Tuesday.

Baral estimated the pause in distribution would last three to six months.

The FDA has the authority to pull drugs from the market, but the process can take months or even years. Instead, the agency usually makes an informal request and companies almost always comply. Even in the rare cases when drugmakers haven’t cooperated, the FDA has prevailed after public hearings and appeals.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under intense pressure from President Donald Trump’s own supporters, his administration now says it will push a court to unseal secret documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s case in an effort to put to rest for good a political crisis largely of its own making.

But even if those records become public, it’s far from certain they will appease critics enraged over the administration’s unfulfilled promises of full transparency about evidence against the wealthy financier. Meanwhile, the administration remains dogged by questions about its refusal to release other records in its possession after stoking conspiracy theories and pledging to uncover government secrets of the “deep state.”

Here’s a look at the ongoing Epstein files controversy and what may happen next:

How the case got here

Trump is desperately trying to turn the page on a crisis that has consumed his administration since the Justice Department announced last week that it would not release any more evidence about the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, who killed himself behind bars while awaiting trial in 2019.

The latest development came Thursday when the Wall Street Journal described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, calling it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

Shortly after the story was published, Trump said he had directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”

“This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!” the president wrote on social media.

Bondi then announced that the Justice Department would move Friday to ask the court to unseal the grand jury transcripts.

Courts are typically reluctant to release grand jury materials

Grand juries decide whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge, and their proceedings are secret to protect the reputations of people who end up not being charged and to encourage reluctant witnesses to testify.

Grand jury transcripts — which could show the testimony of witnesses and other evidence presented by prosecutors — are rarely released by courts, unless they need to be disclosed in connection with a judicial proceeding. In fact, grand jury secrecy is such a sacrosanct principle under the law that government officials who improperly disclose testimony are subject to prosecution. Witnesses are not bound by those rules.

Even with the Justice Department endorsement, it could take weeks or months of legal wrangling to decide what can be released and how to protect witnesses and other sensitive victim information.

And it’s unlikely the transcripts would shed any light on a major fascination of conspiracy theorists obsessed with Epstein’s case: the financier’s connections to other powerful figures whom some believe were involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme.

Court have blocked the release of grand jury materials in other high-profile investigations. House Democrats in 2019 sought grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while Congress was conducting its impeachment inquiry into Trump. But the Justice Department successfully fought for years to keep the material secret.

The administration could release other records right now

The Justice Department’s decision to seek grand jury transcripts gives the administration a reason to point to the courts to explain why more material hasn’t yet been released. But the uproar over the Epstein files was never about the grand jury transcripts — it was about the thousands of other pages in the government’s possession that the administration now says it won’t release.

Facing outrage after the first release of Epstein files flopped in February, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI. But after a monthslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

The Justice Department has yet to fully explain why none of that material could be released. It noted in its memo earlier this month that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

Since then, Bondi has largely refused to answer questions from reporters about the matter.

Congress’ Epstein files resolution carries no legal weight

House Republicans may vote next week on a resolution that seeks to appease GOP demands for more transparency on the Epstein case, The resolution calls on the Justice Department to publicly release records, but it carries no legal force.

“The House Republicans are for transparency, and they’re looking for a way to say that they agree with the White House,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday. “We agree with the president. Everything he said about that, all the credible evidence should come out.”

Democrats, with the support of nine Republicans, have advanced their own legislation that would require the Justice Department to release more information about the case.

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Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump met five African leaders in Washington this month, his lack of familiarity with the continent was on display. He praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai’s English — Liberia’s official language — and gestured at another leader to wrap up remarks.

But the bigger takeaway was Trump’s pledge to transform U.S.-Africa relations: a shift from aid to trade, even as the region reels from his steep tariffs and sweeping aid cuts.

African leaders offered minerals from manganese to uranium and possibly lithium. Senegal’s president even sought to leverage Trump’s love of golf by inviting him to build a course. Yet many nations are anxious about Washington’s new path.

Here’s a look at Trump’s new ‘trade not aid’ policy toward African nations:

A commercial diplomacy approach

After slashing billions in foreign aid, including shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development — which provided over $12 billion in humanitarian assistance in 2024 alone — the Trump administration says it is forging a new approach: “commercial diplomacy.” Trade, not aid, is the order of the day.

“It is now truly our policy for Africa,” said Troy Fitrell, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, when announcing the strategy in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in May. Ambassadors will now be judged not by aid projects but on “how well they support” local businesses and “how effectively they advocate for U.S. business and the number of deals they facilitate,” he said.

Africa accounts for less than 1% of U.S. goods trade, but Fitrell called it “the world’s largest untapped market,” projecting its purchasing power could surpass $16 trillion by 2050.

Early deals, lingering doubts

Washington touts quick progress: 33 agreements worth $6 billion in Trump’s first 100 days, plus $2.5 billion in commitments at a U.S.-Africa business summit in June. Projects span grain storage and digital infrastructure in Angola, energy ventures in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Congo, and tourism in Ethiopia.

Still, many worry about the costs. Job losses and economic pain from tariffs are mounting even as Washington celebrates these wins.

Trump did not invent the idea of trade over aid. African leaders have pushed for this since the 1970s. The problem, critics say, is the caveat of tariffs and uncertainty over the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the U.S. flagship program for trade with the continent.

“In reality, these tariffs are not about trade balances. It’s economic warfare,” said the Alternative Information and Development Centre, a South African NGO.

Fears that jobs could go

Trump has imposed a 30% tariff on selected South African goods and threatens another 10% for nations aligned with the BRICS bloc of developing economies. South Africa’s Automotive Business Council says vehicle exports to the U.S. have plunged over 80%, warning that tariffs “strike at the heart of South Africa’s industrialization agenda.” More than 100,000 jobs, mostly in auto and agriculture, are at risk, the council says.

Smaller nations are also reeling. Lesotho declared a state of disaster after being hit with 50% duties — the second-highest rate after China — before Trump announced a 90-day pause. About 12,000 textile jobs in Lesotho hang in the balance, according to its Minister of Trade, Industry, and Business Development, Mokhethi Shelile. From vanilla farmers in Madagascar to cocoa growers in Ivory Coast and oil exporters in Nigeria, tariffs have shaken economies and raised doubts about Washington’s intent.

“The U.S. certainly can’t have it both ways,” said Brendon Verster, an economist at Oxford Economics Africa. “The ‘aid to trade’ stance risks leaving Africa behind once the U.S. has gotten what it wanted, which will probably be critical minerals.”

An agreement on the brink

AGOA, enacted in 2000 and renewed in 2015, allows duty-free U.S. access for nearly 2,000 goods from 32 African nations. It expires in September, with no clear sign that it will be renewed.

South Africa’s trade minister warned it will be “very difficult” to keep AGOA under current conditions. Fitrell said he is a “big fan” of the deal but told African leaders they must do more to lobby Congress. Future arrangements may require “much greater attention toward some form of reciprocity” to reflect Trump’s push for U.S. economic interests, he said.

Meanwhile, China is leveraging zero-tariff policies to expand its influence. In June, China — already Africa’s biggest trading partner — said it plans to grant duty-free market access to 53 African nations. Still, Verster said some African nations might be cautious about strengthening ties with China, for fear of triggering retaliation from the U.S.

“Aligning with China … could possibly bring about more economic punishment from the U.S.,” he said.

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This story has been corrected to show that the U.S. Agency for International Development provided over $12 billion in humanitarian assistance in 2024, not 2025.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has looked to the marble finishes and hefty price tag of the Federal Reserve headquarters to claim grounds to fire Chair Jerome Powell, with whom he has tussled for years over interest rates. But the extensive use of marble in the building is, at least in part, the result of policies backed by Trump himself.

As the Fed moved forward with plans to renovate its Great Depression-era headquarters in Washington during Trump’s first term, it faced concerns in 2020 during a vetting process involving Trump appointees, who called for more “white Georgia marble” for the facade of the building.

The Fed’s architects said the central bank wanted glass walls, to reflect the Fed as a transparent institution, but three Trump appointees to a local commission felt marble best fit the building’s historic character. While most of the proposed glass exterior was kept, some marble was added as a result, according to the minutes of the Commission of Fine Arts, which advises the federal government on architecture.

The marble does not explain the roughly $600 million in cost overruns for the project, now budgeted to cost $2.5 billion, which also includes the addition of an underground parking garage and new glass atria in the building’s courtyards. But the roots of its extensive use further muddies the White House’s attempts to use the renovation to paint the central banker as a profligate spender as a possible pretext to removing him.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the result costs more” because of the added marble, said Alex Krieger, a Harvard University emeritus professor who was a member of the commission and participated in hearings on the Fed’s proposal.

Russ Vought, Trump’s top budget adviser, cited “premium marble” in a letter to Powell last week as an example of the “ostentatious overhaul.”

In a response late Thursday, Powell wrote that the project would “use new domestic marble” for several reasons, including “to address concerns raised by external review agencies.”

The National Capital Planning Commission, which also reviewed and approved the Fed renovation project, has started an inquiry into how Powell oversaw the updates.

“The Federal Reserve’s extravagant multi-billion dollar renovation happened on the watch of the Fed’s leadership, and the Fed’s leadership needs to own up for this mismanagement of taxpayer dollars – as well as its botched coverup job,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment.

There is an uncomfortable possibility that the fate of the U.S. central bank and its foundational role in the economy hinges on a dispute about renovation costs and architecture, one that could lead a broader legal battle as to whether Trump can dismiss a Fed chair he dislikes after the Supreme Court in May described the institution as having protections against an abrupt firing.

Trump White House investigating renovation

Trump, who has redecorated the Oval Office in gold leaf, has argued that inflation is not a concern, so the Fed can dramatically slash its rate to encourage more borrowing. But Powell and other Fed committee members are waiting to see whether Trump’s tariffs lift inflation, which higher interest rates could help blunt.

The Fed chair pushed back against criticism during a June congressional hearing that the renovation was lavish by saying some features were removed due to cost, leading the White House to speculate as to whether Powell deceived lawmakers or made changes to the renovation plans without getting additional approvals. At that hearing, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also cited “white marble” as an example of extravagance.

James Blair, a White House deputy chief of staff who was recently added to the planning commission, said Wednesday that he would send a letter to the Fed requesting any revisions to the project. His goal is to see whether Powell was accurate in his congressional testimony.

“He’s either telling the truth or he isn’t,” Blair told The Associated Press. “If he’s telling the truth, he can prove it by just submitting all the plans and revisions.”

Trump said Wednesday that he’s “highly unlikely” to try to fire Powell unless there was what he deemed as “fraud.”

The attempt to remove Powell before his May 2026 term as chair ends could unleash a devastating financial blowback, as financial markets expect the Fed, with its mission of stabilizing prices and maximizing employment, to be free of White House politicking. The perception that the central bank would use its powers to serve Trump’s political ends could lead to higher interest rates on the U.S. debt and mortgages, instead of the declines being promised by the president.

Trump appointees push for more marble

The 115-year old Commission of Fine Arts reviewed the plans for the renovation three times in 2020.

Duncan Stroik, who was appointed to the commission in 2019 during Trump’s first term, “proposed an amendment requesting that the next submission include an alternative design in white Georgia marble, the same material used for the five existing buildings along the north side of Constitution Avenue,” the minutes of a Jan. 16, 2020, meeting said.

Stroik “does not think the proposed additions defer to the historic buildings as great marble edifices on an important street,” the minutes added.

Stroik’s amendment was voted down, but the commission didn’t fully endorse the Fed’s plans. The architects presented new plans in May 2020, though those didn’t appear to satisfy Trump’s appointees.

Some commissioners “continued to object to the addition as a glass box that is reminiscent of a commercial office building, glowing at night, that would present an unacceptable contrast to the solid masonry architecture of the historic building in its monumental context,” the commission wrote in a May 2020 letter to a Fed official.

By July 2020, however, the Fed’s architects came back with a new proposal, which included “panels of white Georgia marble” which would be used for the “base, cornice, and other details, consistent with the historic building,” the commission’s minutes said.

Neoclassical vs. modern designs

Stroik, now a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, said in an interview that “stone buildings don’t necessarily have to cost a fortune.” But he acknowledged that the commission had not discussed expenses, which has not been part of its mission.

“If they wanted to play the cost game, you do a marble facade and you do the glass facade and you compare the cost,” Stroik said. “And you know, they never did that.”

Krieger, the former commission member, noted that the body’s discussions became much more contentious after the Trump administration removed several members and replaced them with Stroik and James McCrery, a professor at Catholic University, whom he said often echoed the sentiments in a then- draft executive order from Trump that extolled classical architecture.

“At the time, it was a fierce battle over how literal to the original design should the renovations be,” Krieger said. “Normally, that attitude does add costs to the construction project.” McCrery declined to comment.

Trump issued the executive order in December 2020, which criticized modernist architecture and expressed a preference for “beautiful” classical buildings with more traditional designs. Biden revoked the order, and Trump reissued it the first day of his second term.

The commission did not fully approve the Fed’s project until September 2021, after McCrery and another Trump appointee, Justin Shubow, had been removed by then President Joe Biden.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda.

The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won’t be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.

“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.

No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats’ push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.

The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure.

The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump’s tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the U.S. debt by about $3.3 trillion over the coming decade.

“No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending,” said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming.

Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are “not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”

As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.

But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was “at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save.”

Inside the cuts to foreign aid

Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and family reunification for refugees and $496 million to provide food, water and health care for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a $4.15 billion cut for programs that aim to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations.

Democrats argued that the Republican administration’s animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America’s standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill.

“This is not an America first bill. It’s a China first bill because of the void that’s being created all across the world,” Jeffries said.

The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.

“The money that we’re clawing back in this rescissions package is the people’s money. We ought not to forget that,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee.

After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took out a $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under Republican President George W. Bush.

Looking ahead to future spending fights

Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the nation’s priorities.

Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House, the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to pass it along party lines.

Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other Republicans also raised concerns about the process.

“Let’s not make a habit of this,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn’t providing enough information on what exactly will be cut.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows “enthusiasm” for getting the nation’s fiscal situation under control.

“We’re happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done,” he said during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts — $9 billion — Vought said that was because “I knew it would be hard” to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package is ’likely to come soon.”

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Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

HOUSTON (AP) — Chevron has scored a critical ruling in Paris that has given it the go-ahead for a $53 billion acquisition of Hess and access to one of the biggest oil finds of the decade.

Chevron said Friday that it completed its acquisition of Hess shortly after the ruling from the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Exxon had challenged Chevron’s bid for Hess, one of three companies with access to the massive Stabroek Block oil field off the coast of Guyana.

“We disagree with the ICC panel’s interpretation but respect the arbitration and dispute resolution process,” Exxon Mobil said in a statement on Friday.

Guyana is a country of 791,000 people that is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of Qatar, the United States, Mexico and Norway. It has become a major producer in recent years.

Oil giants Exxon Mobil, China’s CNOOC, and Hess squared off in a heated competition for highly lucrative oil fields in northern South America.

With Chevron getting the green light on Friday, it is now one of the major players in the Stabroek.

“We are proud of everyone at Hess for building one of the industry’s best growth portfolios including Guyana, the world’s largest oil discovery in the last 10 years, and the Bakken shale, where we are a leading oil and gas producer,” former Hess CEO John Hess said in a statement. “The strategic combination of Chevron and Hess creates a premier energy company positioned for the future.”

Chevron also said that on Thursday the Federal Trade Commission lifted its earlier restriction, clearing the way for John Hess to join its board of directors, subject to board approval.

Chevron announced its deal for Hess in October 2023, less than two weeks after Exxon Mobil said that it would acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for about $60 billion.

Chevron said at the time that the acquisition of Hess would add a major oil field in Guyana as well as shale properties in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota.

“Given the significant value we’ve created in the development of the Guyana resource, we believed we had a clear duty to our investors to consider our preemption rights to protect the value we created through our innovation and hard work at a time when no one knew just how successful this venture would become,” Exxon Mobil said Friday. “We welcome Chevron to the venture and look forward to continued industry-leading performance and value creation in Guyana for all parties involved.”

Chevron’s stock rose more than 3% before the market open, while shares of Hess surged more than 7%. Exxon’s stock climbed slightly.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and Britain on Friday ramped up pressure on Russia over its war on Ukraine, targeting Moscow’s energy sector, shadow fleet of aging oil tankers and military intelligence service with new sanctions.

“The message is clear: Europe will not back down in its support for Ukraine. The EU will keep raising the pressure until Russia ends its war,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after the bloc agreed its new measures, including a new oil price cap.

Kallas said it’s “one of its strongest sanctions packages against Russia to date” linked to the war, now in its fourth year. It comes as European countries start to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine to help the country better defend itself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the new measures, describing them as a “timely and necessary” step amid intensified Russian attacks.

“All infrastructure of Russia’s war must be blocked,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine will synchronize its sanctions with the EU and introduce its own additional measures soon.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov brushed off the EU move, saying that “we consider such unilateral restrictions unlawful.”

“At the same time, we have acquired certain immunity from sanctions. We have adapted to living under sanctions,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “We will need to analyze the new package in order to minimize negative consequences from it.”

The U.K. has Russia’s spies in its sights

The U.K., meanwhile, imposed sanctions on units of Russia’s military intelligence service, GRU. Also added to the list were 18 officers the U.K. said helped to plan a bomb attack on a theatre in southern Ukraine in 2022 and to target the family of a former Russian spy who was later poisoned with a nerve agent.

Hundreds of civilians sheltering in the theatre in Mariupol were killed in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.

“GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilize Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.

NATO also condemned Russia’s cyberattacks, saying in a statement that “we will respond to these at a time and in a manner of our choosing, in accordance with international law, and in coordination with our international partners including the EU.”

Targeting Russian energy interests

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had proposed to lower the oil price cap from $60 to $45, which is lower than the market price, to target Russia’s vast energy revenues. The 27 member countries decided to set the price per barrel at just under $48.

The EU had hoped to get major international powers in the Group of Seven countries involved in the price cap to broaden the impact, but the Trump administration could not be brought onboard.

Oil income is the linchpin of Russia’s economy, allowing President Vladimir Putin to pour money into the armed forces without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse.

A new import ban was also imposed in an attempt to close a loophole allowing Russia to indirectly export crude oil via a number of non-EU countries.

The EU also targeted the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany to prevent Putin from generating any revenue from them in future, notably by discouraging would-be investors. Russian energy giant Rosneft’s refinery in India was hit as well.

The pipelines were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany but are not in operation.

On top of that, the new EU sanctions targeted Russia’s banking sector, with the aim of limiting the Kremlin’s ability to raise funds or carry out financial transactions. Two Chinese banks were added to the list.

Agreeing sanctions is getting harder

The EU has slapped several rounds of sanctions on Russia since Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine in February 24, 2022.

More than 2,400 officials and “entities” — often government agencies, banks, companies or organizations — have been hit with asset freezes and travel bans.

But each round of sanctions is getting harder to agree, as measures targeting Russia bite the economies of the 27 member nations. Slovakia held up the latest package over concerns about proposals to stop Russian gas supplies, which it relies on.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had spoken to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico “almost daily” in recent days to convince him to change his mind. “But it took a very long time again — the processes are too sluggish,” he told reporters in Berlin.

The last raft of EU sanctions, imposed on May 20, targeted almost 200 ships in Russia’s sanction-busting shadow fleet of tankers. On Friday, 105 more ships were blocked from European ports, locks and from ship-to-ship transfers, bringing the total number of vessels now sanctioned to more than 400.

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Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) —

Former Missouri congressman Billy Long will be ceremonially sworn in as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, taking over a beleaguered agency that he once sought to abolish and that has since been beset with steep staffing cuts and leadership turnover.

Long won confirmation in a 53-44 Senate vote last month despite concerns from Democrats about his connection to a tax credit scheme and campaign contributions he received after then President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for the top IRS job in December.

Long’s commissionership comes after months of acting leaders and massive staffing cuts that have threatened to derail next year’s tax filing season. Tens of thousands of workers have voluntarily retired or been laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency.

“In my first 90 days I plan to ask you, my employee partners, to help me develop a new culture here,” Long wrote in a message to IRS employees. “I’m big on culture, and I’m anxious to develop one that makes your lives and the taxpayers’ lives better.”

While in Congress, where he served from 2011 to 2023, the Republican sponsored legislation to get rid of the IRS. A former auctioneer and real estate broker, Long has no background in tax administration. He also hosted a radio talk show from 1999 to 2006 “on which the IRS was always a hot topic,” according to his biography on the agency’s website.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News in February that Trump’s “goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” referring to tariffs imposed on other countries. The president has also floated the idea of getting rid of the federal income tax and using tariffs to make up the difference.

The nearly 900-page tax and spending bill Trump signed earlier this month contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. They include new tax deductions on tips, overtime and auto loans, as well as scores of business-related cuts.

Long has toed the Trump party line for years. In 2022, during an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, he released a 30-second ad that falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” from Trump — claims the president frequently touts himself.

During his Senate bid, Long worked with a firm that distributed fraudulent, pandemic-era employee retention tax credits. He appeared before the Senate Finance Committee in May and denied any wrongdoing related to his involvement in the scheme.

Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to other alleged tax loopholes. They have also written to Long and his associated firms detailing concerns with what they call unusually timed contributions made to Long’s defunct 2022 Senate campaign committee shortly after Trump nominated him.

Long is not the only Trump appointee to support dismantling an agency he was assigned to manage.

Linda McMahon, the current education secretary, has repeatedly said she is trying to put herself out of a job by closing the federal department and transferring its work to the states. FBI Director Kash Patel has proposed radical overhauls to the 117-year-old agency. And Rick Perry, Trump’s energy secretary during his first term, called for abolishing the Energy Department during his bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a matter of months, it has become a regular sight around the country — immigration enforcement agents detaining people and taking them into custody, often as public anger and outcry unfold around them. But in the process, something has disappeared: the agents’ faces, covered by caps, sunglasses, pulled-up neck gaiters or balaclavas, effectively rendering them unidentifiable.

With the year only half over, the covered face — as deployed by law enforcement in a wave of immigration crackdowns directed by President Donald Trump’s White House — has become one of the most potent and contentious visuals of 2025.

The increase in high-profile immigration enforcement was already contentious between those opposed to the actions of Trump’s administration and those in support of them. The sight of masked agents carrying it out is creating a whole new level of conflict, in a way that has no real comparison in the U.S. history of policing.

Trump administration officials have consistently defended the practice, saying that immigration agents have faced strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they have gone about their enforcement in service of Trump’s drive toward mass deportation, and hiding their identities is for their and their families’ safety to avoid things like death threats and doxing, where someone’s personal information is released without their permission on the internet.

“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons said last month.

There’s pushback, as expected

Democrats and others, including the several state attorneys general, have pushed back, saying the use of face masks generates public fear and should be halted.

In a letter to Lyons last week, a group of Democratic senators said the stepped-up immigration enforcement in workplaces, restaurants and other sites was already causing dismay and the increasingly common sight of masked agents “represents a clear attempt to compound that fear and chaos – and to avoid accountability for agents’ actions.”

In American culture, covering one’s face has often gone hand in hand with assumptions of negative behavior. Think bandits donning bandanas in cowboy movies, or robbers putting on ski masks before pulling a heist on a bank. Even comic-book superheroes who cover their faces have been swept up in storylines in recent years that derisively refer to them as “masks” and say their decision to hide their identities while enforcing justice is transgressive.

And the presence of masked police or paramilitary forces in other countries has been seen by Americans as antithetical to promised democracy and justice for all — and to the common-law principle of being able to face your accusers.

Mask-wearing overall in American life took another hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Trump supporters scoffed at notions that protective masks would insulate people from the deadly virus and scorned people who wore them. More recently, Trump has come out against masks, at least when they’re being worn by protestors. He posted on social media last month that demonstrators wearing masks should be arrested.

Given all that cultural context, it’s even more problematic that those enforcing laws be the ones with their faces covered, said Tobias Winright, professor of moral theology at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland. He has worked in law enforcement in the U.S. and writes frequently about policing ethics.

If “what you’re doing is above board and right,” he said, “then why conceal your identity?”

Power gives different symbols different meanings

For those who question why it’s different for law enforcement to wear masks if protestors and non-law enforcement personnel are doing it, it’s because symbols have different meanings based on the power and position of the people using them, said Alison Kinney, author of “Hood,” a book about that clothing item and the various ways people have used it.

“ICE agents are agents of the state. and they’re invested with not only power but also with protections in carrying out their job,” she said. “But that job is also supposed to be public service. It’s also supposed to be accountable and responsible to the public.”

“And so they have a greater responsibility for transparency and accountability and making themselves known so that we can hold them accountable for the justice or injustice of their actions,” she said.

Concerns over how law enforcement is held accountable to the public have come up before. Advocates pushed for officers to wear body cameras and demanded that police officers have visible names and badge numbers. But there hasn’t previously been much discussion around police masking because there isn’t a history of it being done in any kind of official widespread way in the United States, outside of SWAT- or undercover-type operations, Winright said.

The most high-profile example of mask-wearing in American history for the purpose of hiding identity is also its most negative one — racist attacks carried out by the members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The masks served a purpose, of course, of keeping the wearers’ identities secret, said Elaine Frantz, a history professor at Kent State University and author of “Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction.” But they also made it easier for those wearing them to commit violent acts against others, she said.

“One thing about a mask is it kind of works like being behind a riot shield,” Frantz said. “When you have more of separation from the person you’re attacking, it’s easier to dehumanize that person.”

Winright said he hoped law enforcement mask-wearing wouldn’t be normalized. There has been at least one expansion into local policing. In Nassau County, on Long Island just outside New York City, County Executive Bruce Blakeman last week signed an executive order allowing police officers to wear masks during certain types of work, including working with immigration agents.

Winright is concerned, though, that the move could strain police-community relations even more, thus putting officers at even more risk.

“Wearing a mask seems to increase fear and decrease trust, and policing from federal to local in America needs trust and transparency and community relations that are positive,” he said.

He added: “The harms, the risks, are greater by wearing masks, not only to the individual officers, but to the profession itself, as well as to the United States society. It’s just going to further exacerbate the us-versus-them polarization, the lack of trust, and that’s the probably the last thing we need right now.”