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Tense U.S.-China Trade Talks To Continue As Higher Tariffs Take Effect

A shopper browses digital products at a market in Beijing. Trade tensions between China and the United States have grown significantly this week, after the Trump administration accused Beijing of backing down from commitments it had made in trade negotiations.

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Updated at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday

U.S. and Chinese negotiators will resume their high-stakes trade negotiations in Washington on Friday, hours after a scheduled increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods took effect.

The Trump administration raised tariffs on $200 billion in imported products from China at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday, significantly raising the stakes in the ongoing trade dispute with Beijing.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with President Trump late Thursday to brief him on the negotiations, according to White House spokesman Judd Deere. Afterwards, Lighthizer and Mnuchin had a working dinner with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and agreed to continue talks Friday morning, Deere said.

The two countries are attempting to reach an agreement that would address U.S. concerns about Chinese business practices, including intellectual property theft and state-subsidized companies.

Until last weekend, it appeared that a deal was in sight. But U.S. officials said this week that China had backtracked on commitments it had made earlier. They didn’t specify what the commitments were.

As a result, the Trump administration said it would increase existing tariffs on $200 billion worth of consumer and business products to 25% from 10%.

It wasn’t the first time that Trump said tariffs would rise. The president threatened to increase tariffs in January and March, but the administration held off both times to give negotiators more time to make a deal.

Financial markets have fallen this week in response to the escalation of the trade dispute and the prospect of higher tariffs. The S&P 500 is on track for its biggest decline of the year. The Dow fell 138.97 points Thursday.

The tariffs are imposed when the products are brought into the United States, which means the cost is borne by importers, who can either pay it themselves or pass it on to customers. In some cases, Chinese exporters may also be persuaded to lower their prices before the goods are shipped.

Trump recently said the United States can take in $120 billion a year in tariffs, “paid for mostly by China,” but economists say much of it will be paid by U.S. businesses and consumers.

The tariffs will be applied only to goods shipped after Friday. That will provide some relief to U.S. businesses that have orders in transit.

On Thursday, Trump seemed to hold out hope that an agreement could still be reached to prevent the tariff hikes, noting that he had received a “beautiful” letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” Trump said.

In China, some economists said the trade war would slow the country’s economic growth and the government may need more economic stimulus to soften the blow.

The Chinese government controls media in the country and has been steadily working to prevent the public from seeing news that Trump threatened more tariffs by removing content from social media sites.

“I don’t know much about what’s going on,” a 45-year-old man named Jo Jiun Hwei told NPR this week. “I think it’s the American president’s fault. That’s what they’re saying on the news at least.”

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President Trump Defends Himself Against Report He Did Not Pay Taxes For 8 Years

President Donald Trump says he just did what other real estate developers were doing. He took enormous businesses losses for tax purposes. On Twitter, he described it as “sport.”



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President Trump is defending himself against a New York Times report that says he sustained more than a billion dollars in losses in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The Times based its report on summaries of federal taxes Trump paid during that period, but Trump said today that reporting big losses on your taxes is common in the real estate business. NPR’s Jim Zarroli explains.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The Times report says Trump lost so much money during the decade that he was able to completely avoid paying taxes in eight of the 10 years from 1985 to 1994, but Trump noted in a tweet this morning that big losses on paper, at least, were common in real estate at the time. He said developers got massive write-offs that allowed them to declare a loss in most cases. It was sport, he said. It’s called tax shelter. Tomasz Piskorski, who teaches real estate at Columbia Business School, says that was pretty much true. Real estate developers had lots of legal ways to avoid paying taxes.

TOMASZ PISKORSKI: So it was not uncommon to have a positive profit on your real estate business and at the same time declared to the tax authority that you have a loss. And there’s nothing illegal about that. This is completely allowed by the U.S. tax code.

ZARROLI: And Piskorski says the years between 1985 and 1994 were an especially bad time in real estate. A lot of developers lost money. Trump in particular had taken out a lot of loans that he would later default on. Steve Rosenthal is a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

STEVE ROSENTHAL: And he burned through money quickly. He lost spectacularly. Year after year, he lost spectacularly.

ZARROLI: So it’s reasonable to think that Trump had real, actual losses as well in addition to paper losses, which would cut his tax bill even more. Trump has never made a secret of the fact that he took advantage of tax laws whenever possible. During his campaign, he often argued that because he knew how to use the tax code, he was in a good position to reform it. He knew which loopholes to close.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s something I’ve been talking about for a long time despite, frankly, being a big beneficiary of the laws. But I’m working for you now. I’m not working for Trump.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

ZARROLI: But Steve Rosenthal says Trump hasn’t pushed through any reforms. Real estate still gets special treatment in the tax code.

ROSENTHAL: Now that he’s been president, he’s done nothing to close any of the loopholes. His tax bill only opened additional loopholes for real estate developers.

ZARROLI: For instance, Rosenthal says, the 2017 tax law made it harder for most businesses to sell assets without paying capital gains tax, but the real estate industry was exempt from the changes. Developers such as Trump have long benefited from the U.S. tax code, and there’s no sign that’s changing. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Food Fight: Trump Administration Levels Tariffs On Mexican Tomatoes

A worker dumps a bucket of tomatoes into a trailer at DiMare Farms in Florida City, Fla., in 2013. The Trump administration is preparing to level a new tariff on fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico in response to complaints from Florida growers.

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While the trade war with China is rattling financial markets around the world, another trade skirmish is about to play out in the supermarket — in particular, the produce aisle. The Trump administration is preparing to level a new tariff — or tax — on fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico.

The move comes in response to a growing outcry from Florida tomato growers, who have a lot of political leverage.

Florida used to dominate the American market for tomatoes sold in the winter and spring, but over the past two decades the state’s growers have been losing ground to Mexico. If you pick up a ripe, red tomato in the grocery store this time of year, the chances are good it was grown south of the border.

“Depending on where you are in the country, especially at the retail level, you’re going to see mostly Mexican tomatoes at this time of year,” said Michael Schadler, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, a growers trade group. Mexico now grows more than half the fresh tomatoes sold in the United States. Imports from Mexico have more than doubled since 2002.

“To me, the tomato industry is a model child of what has happened with NAFTA and free trade,” said Florida grower Tony DiMare, whose family is marking its 90th year in the business. The DiMare family used to raise 5,000 acres of winter tomatoes near Homestead, Fla. This year they grew less than 600.

Florida growers have long complained that Mexico is unfairly subsidizing its tomato crop and otherwise taking advantage of the United States. But under a series of agreements dating to 1996, the U.S. government chose not to pursue protectionist measures.

Now the Trump administration is changing course. The administration served notice in February that it would withdraw from the latest agreement on May 7, clearing the way for a 17.5% tariff on Mexican tomatoes.

“This is the day we’ve been waiting for for a while,” Schadler said.

Florida lawmakers, led by Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Ted Yoho, lobbied for the change. They complain that Mexico has been selling its tomatoes at artificially low prices.

“Our producers, they can’t get a box, a wrapper and the seeds in the ground for what Mexico is selling it for,” Yoho said.

“The Department of Commerce remains committed to ensuring that American domestic industries are protected from unfair trading practices,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. “We remain optimistic that there will be a negotiated solution.”

Tariffs could be refunded if a subsequent investigation finds no unfair pricing.

But Mexican growers and the companies that import their fruit insist price is not the biggest factor behind Mexico’s growing market share. Unlike Florida tomatoes that are mostly picked green, Mexican tomatoes are typically allowed to ripen on the vine. Advocates of the Mexican fruit say consumers are simply voting with their taste buds.

“Tomatoes that we see today have very good flavor. They have nice acidity. They pop when you bite into them,” said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, an importers group. “Back in the day, before the innovations, we had a lot of pink and mealy tomatoes that frankly didn’t keep consumers coming back.”

Jungmeyer argues that rather than update their farming procedures, Florida growers have sought refuge from a protectionist federal government. He warns the new import duties will raise prices and limit consumer choice.

“Duties are harmful to the American consumers,” Jungmeyer said. “It’s a tax on consumers. And that’s the wrong way to go with fruits and vegetables.”

The Trump administration has embraced tariffs on a wide variety of imports, from washing machines to solar panels. Now that Mexican tomatoes are being added to that list, Florida growers say they feel like they have an ally in the White House. And since Mexico has been expanding its exports during other times of year, growers say this is now a fight that extends well beyond Florida.

“A lot of growers who are in states that produce tomatoes in the summer — which is a lot of different states — are now saying, we certainly commiserate with our friends in Florida, because now we’re being impacted by the same Mexican competition,” Schadler said.

Still, Yoho says the administration might not have acted without pressure from lawmakers. Members of Congress had extra leverage because Trump needs all the support he can get to ratify his new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.

“We voiced our opinion that if we don’t get the seasonally grown vegetables straightened out, I can’t support the USMCA,” Yoho said, using the president’s preferred name for the trade deal.

In other words, the price of a new North American free trade agreement may be tariffs on Mexican tomatoes.

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China ‘Reneging’ On Trade Commitments, U.S. Officials Say

Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. U.S. stock markets fell sharply at the open but crept higher as the day wore on after President Trump threatened to raise tariffs on imports from China.

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Updated at 10:00 p.m. ET

In a significant escalation of rhetoric, senior Trump administration officials accused Beijing of reneging on commitments it had already made in its on-going trade dispute with China, and they said they plan to increase tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% starting on Friday.

“Over the course of the last week or so, we have seen an erosion in commitments by China — I would say retreating from specific commitments that had already been made in our judgment,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer at a briefing with reporters Monday afternoon. “That’s why the president referred to no re-negotiating in his tweet.”

Lighthizer said China’s attempts to re-negotiate were “in our view unacceptable. These were substantial and substantive changes and really, I would use the word ‘reneging’ on prior commitments.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it became particularly clear over the weekend “with some new information that they were trying to go back on language that had been previously negotiated, very clear language that had the potential of changing the deal dramatically.”

Mnuchin said President Trump “is determined to re-balance the trade relationship” with China.

Neither Lighthizer nor Mnuchin were willing to detail the specific areas where the Chinese sought changes.

The Treasury secretary said the trade deal was “90 percent complete,” but there were still significant issues remaining that trade officials had hoped would be resolved by the end of this week.

They said the Chinese delegation, including Vice Premier Liu He, is still expected to arrive in Washington this week for talks slated for Thursday evening and Friday. At the same time, Lighthizer said he would likely put out notice of the increased tariffs on Tuesday and that they would go into effect on Friday morning.

Earlier on Monday, Trump’s latest threat to set higher tariffs on imports from China sent global financial markets tumbling.

Stock prices opened sharply lower in the United States on Monday — with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 450 points — after Trump tweeted a vow Sunday to raise tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods as of Friday. The stocks of companies that trade heavily with China were especially hard hit.

The Shanghai composite index plunged 5.6% on Monday.

“The United States has been losing, for many years, 600 to 800 Billion Dollars a year on Trade. With China we lose 500 Billion Dollars. Sorry, we’re not going to be doing that anymore!” Trump said in a tweet Monday. (The goods trade deficit with China rose to a record $419.2 billion in 2018, but most economists say a deficit doesn’t say much about the health of the economy.)

But the stock markets crept higher as the day wore on, a sign that investors may be seeing Trump’s threat as a negotiating ploy that he is unlikely to follow through on. By the end of the day, the Dow was down only 66 points, or 0.25%.

Mnuchin said the prospect of stock market reaction was not a factor in the administration’s approach. He left open the possibility that the trade talks could get back on track if the Chinese were “prepared to meet the commitments they made to us previously.”

China and the United States have been locked in tough talks for months about trade, with the Trump administration demanding that Beijing address intellectual property theft, government business subsidies and currency manipulation.

Still, Trump’s tweets have “blindsided” Beijing officials, who were hoping the talks would lead to an elimination of tariffs, said Eswar Prasad, a senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

“But now it looks like the negotiations, at least on the U.S. side, will be about not imposing additional tariffs. So that changes the complexion of the negotiations quite significantly,” Prasad said.

The Chinese still have a strong incentive to strike a deal because their economy has been slowing, he said.

“The complication right now is that the Chinese cannot afford domestically to be seen as cravenly giving in to U.S. demands, which in the Chinese narrative are multiplying by the day,” Prasad added.

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New CBS News President Aims To Make Mark On Network With Staff Shake-Up

Susan Zirinsky, president of CBS News, hosts the CBS News and Politico 2019 White House Correspondents’ Dinner Pre-Party at the Washington Hilton in April.

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CBS News is expected to announce a major shake-up in the lineup of its flagship shows on Monday morning.

In what would represent the most significant changes under new CBS News President Susan Zirinsky, the network would be dropping chief evening anchor Jeff Glor in favor of one of Zirinsky’s morning stars, Norah O’Donnell, and rebuilding the morning show around CBS’s Gayle King.

CBS News would not comment on the changes, which have been the subject of media speculation and coverage in recent days, but a person knowledgeable with the plans confirmed them to NPR.

The moves stem from shrinking ratings for both CBS This Morning and the CBS Evening News, alongside reverberations of sexual harassment revelations that have rocked the news division.

Under the revamp, King will remain co-host of CBS This Morning, where Zirinsky plans for her to be joined by Anthony Mason, currently a correspondent and host of CBS’s Saturday morning news show, and correspondent Tony Dokoupil.

Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell attend The Hollywood Reporter‘s Most Powerful People In Media last April.

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Meanwhile, O’Donnell, the network’s former top White House correspondent, is slated to leave King’s side as co-host of CBS This Morning, to replace Glor on the CBS Evening News. Glor has been at the job for less than a year and a half.

John Dickerson, a highly regarded political reporter who was previously host of CBS’s Face The Nation, is expected to switch from co-hosting CBS This Morning to become a correspondent on the prestigious Sunday night news magazine 60 Minutes, which generates huge revenues for CBS with its high ratings.

CBS, the network of Eric Sevareid, Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Cronkite, has a proud tradition in the news business. CBS This Morning and the CBS Evening News enjoyed something of a comeback with a renewed focus on hard news under Zirinsky’s predecessors. Yet both started to sag and remain perennially third-rated shows behind major broadcasters ABC and NBC.

Back in 2012, Charlie Rose’s appointment to co-host of CBS This Morning breathed new life into the program, and the unlikely combination with King and O’Donnell yielded a lively chemistry.

But Rose’s career collapsed under scrutiny in fall 2017 as numerous women came forward in articles in The Washington Post and The New Yorker, among other outlets, to make accusations of sexual harassment. Scandals also knocked out former 60 Minutes executive producer and CBS News chairman Jeff Fager and CBS CEO and Chairman Les Moonves.

In the aftermath of those scandals, CBS in January named Zirinsky as head of the news division, replacing David Rhodes. Zirinsky, the first woman to head CBS News, came to the position after serving as senior executive producer of the true-crime-driven news magazine 48 Hours.

Before that, she held significant roles at almost every element throughout the news division. She was a producer of CBS Evening News and has led the network’s coverage of the White House.

Known as a tough leader who inspires loyalty, Zirinsky also inspired the lead character of the 1987 movie Broadcast News, played by Holly Hunter.

As CNN reported in January, staffers were largely excited about Zirinsky’s step into the leadership role. King celebrated Zirinsky on This Morning as the right person to take over the post. “I feel that she is somebody who can right the ship,” King said. “Because she gets us. She knows us. And by us I mean this organization.”

NPR’s Emma Bowman contributed to this report.

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The U.S. Gained 263,000 Jobs In April, Showing A Healthy Economy

The U.S. gained 263,000 jobs in April, exceeding expectations and providing fresh evidence that the economy is in good health. The unemployment rate tumbled to 3.6%, the lowest in nearly 50 years.



AILSA CHANG, HOST:

New numbers came out today showing unemployment last month fell to 3.6%. Or as President Trump put it…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The economy is unbelievable.

CHANG: It is certainly good news for a White House that’s been on the defensive for weeks because of the Mueller report.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Meanwhile, a host of Democratic candidates are crisscrossing the country saying they’re the ones who will fight for the middle class.

(SOUNDBITE OF MEDIA MONTAGE)

JOE BIDEN: The country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers, CEOs and hedge fund managers.

(CHEERING)

BERNIE SANDERS: Many people watching this program are working two or three jobs just to pay the bills.

KAMALA HARRIS: Middle-class working families in America today are losing.

CORNISH: We’re going to get to the politics of all this in a moment. But first, NPR’s Jim Zarroli is going to take us back to the time when this was the hottest new tune.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “EVERYDAY PEOPLE”)

SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE: (Singing) I am everyday people.

CORNISH: Jim, an unexpected start to my economic interview…

(LAUGHTER)

CORNISH: …Why are we playing this song?

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: ‘Cause the unemployment rate in April was groovy. It was 3.6%. That’s the lowest it’s been since December 1969. There were 263,000 jobs created during the month, so the job market is now as good as it was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I spoke to Austan Goolsbee, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. He says you can’t really compare the job market today to the job market 50 years ago. The labor force is different. We have a lot more retirees today, a lot more women in the workforce.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE: So it can be hard to compare across decades. But however you want to measure it, it’s still very low. And the job market has been strongly improving for many years now, and it has continued. And that’s great.

CORNISH: At the same time, it was just a few months ago when it seemed like the economy was slowing down, right? I mean…

ZARROLI: Yeah.

CORNISH: …The stock market fell towards the end of last year. Does this jobs report, the April jobs report, mean things are better than they appeared?

ZARROLI: I think it probably means that concerns were kind of overblown. I mean, there have been two big issues – economic issues to worry about. One is that the impact of last year’s big tax cuts has been fading. You know, they stimulated a lot of short-term spending, and then they kind of petered out. The other big problem was a slowdown in Europe and Asia, which sooner or later affects the U.S. economy.

So if you talk to most economists now, they will say those are still problems. The growth rate is slowing. It was 3.2% in the first quarter of this year, probably down to about 2% now. But it is not slowing as much as we thought.

CORNISH: People also used to talk about wages a lot. Now that the unemployment rate is falling, is there evidence that that’s affecting how much workers get paid?

ZARROLI: Yeah, there actually is. I mean, this has been an issue for a while. The unemployment rate has been kind of creeping lower for, like, a decade. But that didn’t really seem to be affecting people’s wages, and a lot of economists didn’t know what to make of that. You know, if workers were becoming scarce, why weren’t employers paying more?

We are now finally starting to see pay rising. Average hourly earnings are up about 3.2%, which is higher than the rate of inflation, which means, you know, overall, average workers are finally starting to come out ahead. And that includes people at the lower end of the pay scale. I spoke with economist Ben Herzon at Macroeconomic Advisers, and here’s what he said.

BEN HERZON: The big picture there is that labor markets have tightened, and so businesses don’t have a choice but to raise wages at the rates that we’ve seen to attract the labor that they need.

CORNISH: Before I let you go, any red flags in this jobs report?

ZARROLI: Yeah. We saw the unemployment rate fall to 3.6%, which is very low. Now, there are two ways unemployment falls. One is more people get hired; the other is people stop looking for work. And these numbers tell us that the latter happened. The rate of what we call labor force participation fell. People fell out of the labor force. This is kind of at odds with the very good numbers that we saw otherwise. Economist Austan Goolsbee says it may be something of an aberration.

GOOLSBEE: So let’s hope that that was just a blip. But that’s at least a tiny bit of caution light in what is otherwise, as they say, a nice, fat, juicy jobs number report.

ZARROLI: So this is just something – the labor force participation rate is something that’s worth looking at in the months to come.

CORNISH: That’s NPR’s Jim Zarroli. Thank you.

ZARROLI: You’re welcome.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Opioid Executive John Kapoor Found Guilty In Landmark Bribery Case

Insys Therapeutics founder John Kapoor departs federal court in Boston earlier this year.

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Updated 5:30 p.m. ET

A jury in Boston has found onetime billionaire and drug company executive John Kapoor and his four co-defendants guilty of a racketeering conspiracy. The verdict came Wednesday after 15 days of deliberation.

The federal government accused Kapoor, the founder of Insys Therapeutics, and his co-defendants of running a nationwide bribery scheme. Between 2012 and 2015, Insys allegedly paid doctors to prescribe its potent opioid medication and then lied to insurance companies to ensure that the expensive fentanyl-based painkiller would be covered.

Kapoor is among the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executives to face trial amid a national opioid epidemic. By pursuing this case, the federal government was seen as sending a message that it is holding drug companies accountable for their role in the epidemic.

The guilty verdict could strengthen the cases against other pharmaceutical executives implicated in the opioid crisis.

“Today’s convictions mark the first successful prosecution of top pharmaceutical executives for crimes related to the illicit marketing and prescribing of opioids,” U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling said in a statement. “Just as we would street-level drug dealers, we will hold pharmaceutical executives responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic by recklessly and illegally distributing these drugs, especially while conspiring to commit racketeering along the way.”

“This is a landmark prosecution that vindicated the public’s interest in staunching the flow of opioids into our homes and streets,” he continued.

Brad Bailey, a criminal defense attorney in Boston and a former federal prosecutor, who has been following this case, said the 10-week trial represented a rare instance in which the federal government used criminal charges to go after corporate executives.

“That’s always unusual. That’s always an attention grabber,” said Bailey. “The big issue is the use of racketeering charges, which had been originally designed to go after the Mafia.” By charging Kapoor and his co-defendants with racketeering, Bailey said, the federal government was essentially saying that the practices at Insys Therapeutics resembled organized crime.

While the criminal charges set this case apart, the schemes detailed in this trial mirror the aggressive tactics that other pharmaceutical companies have allegedly used to push the sale of opioids.

Bribes and lies, or an unknowing executive?

Calling 39 witnesses, federal prosecutors argued that Kapoor was motivated by money and willing to put patients’ lives at stake to improve his bottom line. They depicted Insys Therapeutics as a struggling company under intense pressure from Kapoor to succeed.

Prosecutors outlined a two-step approach that Insys followed to boost sales of its opioid painkiller, Subsys: first, bribe doctors and, then, lie to insurance companies.

Insys allegedly targeted doctors with a track record of liberally prescribing opioids, inviting them to participate in a “speakers program.” According to the government, doctors were paid handsomely even if nobody showed up for the lectures, but only if the doctors wrote a lot of prescriptions for Subsys. Often, prosecutors say, this meant patients who didn’t need the medication were prescribed it anyway.

Insys then allegedly set up a call center where drug company employees pretended to be from doctor’s offices. Jurors heard phone calls in which Insys employees made up diagnoses to ensure that insurance companies covered Subsys, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars a month.

The defense attorneys for Kapoor and his four co-defendants called only a handful of witnesses. One was a patient who vouched for Subsys, saying it significantly reduced his pain after a car accident. The defense also emphasized Kapoor’s personal story, arguing that he was motivated to create Subsys only after seeing his now-deceased wife struggle with severe pain.

However, the crux of the defense’s argument was that Kapoor was unaware of the illegal schemes. They blamed several former employees, in particular Alec Burlakoff, the former vice president of sales at Insys. Burlakoff and several other former Insys executives pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution in the hopes of getting a more lenient sentence. The defense emphasized Burlakoff’s history of lying and his hatred of Kapoor, which was captured on tape by federal investigators.

In closing arguments, defense attorneys highlighted contradictions in the testimony of several star government witnesses.

While Kapoor has been on trial in Boston’s federal courthouse, the company he founded has been facing financial troubles and management turmoil. Arizona-based Insys Therapeutics said in a statement that “there is substantial risk surrounding our ability to continue … primarily due to mounting legal costs and uncertain legal settlement exposures.”

Last year, the pharmaceutical company agreed to pay at least $150 million to end a Justice Department investigation into the bribery and kickback scheme. The insurance company Aetna, as well as patients, shareholders and state attorneys general, have also sued Insys.

On April 15, Insys replaced its CEO, Saeed Motahari, with the company’s chief financial officer, Andrew Long. Since their high point in 2015, Insys shares have tumbled. Bloomberg News reported that shares had fallen 90 percent.

Bailey, the former federal prosecutor, says other pharmaceutical companies may see Insys’ woes as a cautionary tale. However, some worry that the trial didn’t strike at the root of the opioid crisis.

Leo Beletsky, a professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University, says, “A lot of what pharmaceutical companies did in the context of the opioid crisis that we are dealing with now was not, in fact, illegal. It was maybe unethical, but it was not illegal.”

While bribing doctors to write prescriptions and fabricating diagnoses is illegal, paying physicians to promote products to their peers is a common practice in the pharmaceutical industry. Off-label prescribing is also legal and common, although sales representatives are not technically supposed to advocate for off-label uses of a medication.

Beletsky says by focusing on individuals and their illegal schemes, this trial overlooked broader issues, such as drug companies legally spending billions of dollars to maximize the use of their medications.

For Beletsky, the answer lies in regulation. “We need to think much more deeply about how we regulate the pharmaceutical industry and how we prevent these kinds of practices from occurring in the first place,” says Beletsky.

However, experts say, there are currently no major legislative efforts to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. For now, the pushback against marketing strategies that allegedly fueled the opioid crisis remains in the courts.

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President Trump’s Foxconn Promise, So Far Unfulfilled

President Trump participates in a groundbreaking for the Foxconn campus in Mount Pleasant, Wis., in June 2018. With him are Christopher “Tank” Murdock (from left), the first Wisconsin Foxconn employee; former Gov. Scott Walker, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

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Nearly two years ago, President Trump stood in the East Room of the White House and announced that Taiwan-based Foxconn — a major supplier of Apple technology — was going to build its first U.S. manufacturing facility, outside Milwaukee.

“This is a great day for American workers, and manufacturers, and for everyone who believes in the concept, and the label, ‘Made in the USA,’ ” the president boasted.

But last summer, the agreement with Foxconn started to crack. The company first said it would reduce the size of the LCD display screens it would make, meaning fewer promised manufacturing jobs. And Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who had enticed the company with up to $3 billion in state tax credits, lost his reelection bid.

Then, over the winter, another shocker — the company said it might not build a manufacturing plant after all. Trump hurriedly intervened, and within days he got Foxconn to recommit to building the facility, he says.

The company says it is in early phases of construction of the advanced manufacturing plant. But the project has gone through so many changes that nearly everyone involved with it has more questions than answers. Wisconsin’s new Democratic governor, Tony Evers, says he doubts Foxconn will ever create the 13,000 jobs that were promised by 2032.

“I truly believe that they believe at some point in time they’ll have 13,000 employees here. I’m not sure about that. It’s a smaller footprint. It’s a different type of job,” Evers told news reporters in Milwaukee last week. “But we’ll see. I mean, if they create 1,000 jobs, that’s 1,000 jobs we didn’t have.” He added that Foxconn now wants to change its agreement with the state.

That same day, Foxconn’s U.S. director of strategic initiatives, Alan Yeung, tweeted that people should “Calm down” about the job target. At a Milwaukee awards ceremony for innovative technology, he stressed that the company is still committed to making Wisconsin a global technology hub.

Calm down. Probably fake news ? Who has the crystal ball ? to predict if 13,000 jobs will be created by the year 2032?
Esp in April ‘19 ? ??? https://t.co/P94H9V6Kw6

— Alan S. Yeung (@alansyeung) April 25, 2019

“So, I think we need to take a deep breath and say tax credits are important. But we don’t make decision solely based on tax credits,” Yeung told reporters.

There are unconfirmed reports that Terry Gou, the Foxconn chief, is heading to the White House for meetings this week. Foxconn officials also say they are ramping up building the manufacturing plant in Racine County.

An existing Foxconn building on the new manufacturing property outside Milwaukee.

Chuck Quirmbach/WUWM


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Chuck Quirmbach/WUWM

From the edge of the 1,200-acre Foxconn manufacturing property, an observer can see that the farms once on this land are gone. A lot of the ground is bare. Foxconn has put up only one building, what it calls a multipurpose structure. Earth movers, sometimes in groups of three or four, are hauling around piles of dirt.

Around the perimeter of the property, roads are being widened. Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave says he is happy with the pace of construction. “Look, you can see the transformation happening. And, it’s really … I think a great thing for us, ” he said.

But some residents here remain skeptical that the jobs will ever come. Recently, Gou said he is scaling back his company duties as he runs for Taiwan’s presidency. Resident Jeff Loken says that could be a problem. “He was the main pipeline for President Trump to get this agreement. So what happens now? Terry Gou isn’t going to be in charge. Someone else is, presumably. Is he going to go along with the same thing?” Loken asked.

There’s even uncertainty among Wisconsin business leaders who have supported Foxconn, like Tim Sheehy, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce president. Sheehy says it’s time for some real benchmarks to be met. “That at some point this summer, the [manufacturing] building starts to go up, the capital equipment comes in and the jobs start to flow. Up until that point, everybody will be at some point of unease,” he said.

It’s that unease that has surrounded this ambitious plan from the very beginning.

Over the weekend, as Trump held a rally in Wisconsin, his campaign press secretary told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she doesn’t know why the state’s governor isn’t more “optimistic and hopeful” that Foxconn will bring the promised 13,000 jobs to the state. She encouraged him to work with the president and company to “make sure those jobs come here.”

But with up to $3 billion in state tax credits on the table, officials and residents across Wisconsin are still looking for the jobs that money was supposed to lure.

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Boeing CEO Defends 737 MAX Jets Against Angry Shareholders

Boeing executives gave an update on their 737 MAX jetliners Monday. The planes have remained grounded since the company’s second crash.



AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was in the hot seat today. He defended the 737 Max aircraft at the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Chicago. The 737 Max remains grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed a total of 346 people. Muilenburg faced tough questions about the plane’s design and whether it was rushed into production. NPR’s Russell Lewis has more.

RUSSELL LEWIS, BYLINE: Normally, a company’s shareholder meeting isn’t filled with tension, anger and frustration. But even before Boeing executives took to the stage today, protesters were outside in a cold, driving rainstorm. They stood, quietly clutching pictures of people who died in last month’s Ethiopian Airlines crash. Among the protesters was Tarek Milleron from California. His 24-year-old niece, Samya Stumo, worked for a global health nonprofit. He’s mad at Boeing.

TAREK MILLERON: They’re not going to get away with this ridiculous notion that they’re super-safety conscious and now they’re going to be ultra-safety conscious. That just doesn’t fly.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GRANT DIXTON: Good morning. And welcome to the Boeing Company’s 2019 annual meeting of shareholders. My name is Grant Dixton, and I’m the company’s corporate secretary.

LEWIS: At the meeting, Boeing’s CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, opened with a moment of silence and expressed regret for the 346 deaths. In both accidents, a sensor fed erroneous data into the jet’s flight computers. Pilots lost control after takeoff when the nose of each plane pitched down uncontrollably. But Muilenburg is standing by the process to get the system fixed.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DENNIS MUILENBURG: With a certified software update implemented, the 737 Max will be one of the safest airplanes ever to fly.

LEWIS: As Muilenburg guides the aerospace giant through this crisis, saying Boeing owns the responsibility, there are other questions, including, why was the 737 MAX initially certified as safe, and why wasn’t the plane grounded after the first accident in Indonesia? Muilenburg survived a shareholder vote today that would have split his CEO and chairman roles. But in a testy news conference afterwards, he was asked if he’d thought about resigning.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MUILENBURG: It’s important that, as a company, we have those clear priorities, that we’re taking the right actions, that we have the right culture. I am strongly vested in that. And my clear intent is to continue to lead on the front of safety and quality and integrity.

LEWIS: Muilenburg also defended Boeing and the 737 Max. He said the plane’s design is not the problem, even though that’s the very thing the company is fixing.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MUILENBURG: We’ve confirmed that it was designed per our standards, certified per our standards. And we’re confident in that process.

LEWIS: Muilenburg wouldn’t answer if the original design was flawed. He took only a handful of questions and walked out as reporters shouted for him to stay. Boeing is the subject of several congressional investigations, whistleblower complaints and lawsuits filed by family members killed in the accidents. Muilenburg gave no timeline when the 737 Max might be flying again. But whenever that happens, Boeing will need to rebuild the trust of a jittery public and aviation industry, says Dennis stager. He’s a 737 captain for American and a union representative.

DENNIS TAJER: Just like in any relationship repair, you kind of have to go through the past to understand how to get to the future. Sometimes the past is very uncomfortable and painful, but we’re doing that now.

LEWIS: The 737 Max is key to Boeing’s financial future. It is the company’s bestselling plane, with pending orders of 5,000, putting more pressure on Boeing to get the planes fixed and soon. Russell Lewis, NPR News, Chicago.

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