AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT
Oklahoma judge rules against drugmaker, orders $572M payment
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state's opioid crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million, more than twice the amount another drug manufacturer agreed to pay in a settlement.
Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman's ruling followed the first state opioid case to make it to trial and could help shape negotiations over roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio.
"The opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma," Balkman said before announcing the judgment. "It must be abated immediately."
An attorney for the companies said they plan to appeal the ruling to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Before Oklahoma's trial began May 28, the state reached settlements with two other defendant groups - a $270 million deal with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and an $85 million settlement with Israeli-owned Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
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G-7 achievement: Trump declares, 'We got along great'
BIARRITZ, France (AP) - Never mind his differences with world leaders on China, trade, Russia, Iran and more. President Donald Trump's takeaway message from the Group of Seven summit in France was "unity." In fact, "flawless" unity.
During this year's gathering of leaders of the world's wealthiest democracies, Trump went to great lengths to portray it as something of a lovefest, papering over significant disagreements on major issues.
"If there was any word for this particular meeting of seven very important countries, it was unity," Trump said at a news conference Monday closing out the two-day gathering in the French resort of Biarritz.
"We got along great," he said. "We got along great."
After Trump disrupted the last two G-7 summits with his erratic behavior, other world leaders seemed determined to play along this year in the interest of keeping any negative drama out of the headlines.
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Macron tries to arrange a Trump meeting with Iranian leader
BIARRITZ, France (AP) - U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday there's a "really good chance" he could meet with Iran's leader on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by the French president during the G-7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together after decades of conflict.
French President Emmanuel Macron orchestrated the high-stakes gamble to invite the Iranian foreign minister, whose plane landed at the locked-down airport of the coastal resort of Biarritz during the Group of Seven gathering of the world's major democracies. Relying on his carefully cultivated chemistry with Trump, Macron shuttled between high-level official meetings in a conference center barricaded by security to a small room in the town hall filled with European and Iranian diplomats.
Macron, who is known to exchange casual texts with Trump, kept him in the loop minute by minute, both men said as they stood together on stage, recounting the weekend. They embraced at least once before going their separate ways.
Their joint news conference capped an unexpectedly dramatic gathering normally known for bland public expressions of unity and no small amount of sharp exchanges behind closed doors.
Macron said he hoped Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani could meet within weeks in hopes of saving the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers, but which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from last year. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
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Trump's inconsistent messages on China trade heighten risks
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are going up. Wait, President Donald Trump says he's having second thoughts. No, no, Trump may actually raise tariffs even higher. He's also demanding that U.S. companies leave China. Well, maybe not.
The communications on China from Trump and his administration since late last week - erratic, sometimes contradictory - are complicating their high-stakes talks with Beijing and elevating the risks to the fragile global economy.
The messaging has been confusing not just for Chinese officials as they formulate a response to whatever stance the administration is taking. It's also a problem for American businesses. Trump alarmed U.S. companies on Friday by threatening to invoke his presidential authority to order them out of China - a market of 1.4 billion where many American companies have spent decades establishing operations and building relationships with suppliers and customers.
The shifting positions and threats could eventually weaken the U.S. and world economies by leaving businesses paralyzed by uncertainty over whether and where to situate factories, buy supplies and sell products.
"We are on Mr. Trump's Wild Ride," said Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun!, a toy company in Boca Raton, Florida, that imports from China. "Never have we ever experienced such an unhinged practice of governance. It's out of control and outrageous."
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Asian shares mostly up on optimism about US-China trade war
TOKYO (AP) - Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday as investors found reason to be cautiously optimistic again about the potential for progress in the costly trade war between the U.S. and China.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% in morning trading to 20,497.09. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.3% to 6,458.40, while South Korea's Kospi gained nearly 1.0% to 1,935.18. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose at first but reversed course and was down nearly 0.2% at 25,635.96. The Shanghai Composite was up 1.1% at 2,894.31.
"It remains all about trade as President Donald Trump's comments on the matter had once again been the primary driver for markets at the start of the week. Even though the sentiment had taken a positive turn on the latest update, uncertainty nevertheless persists to warrant a more cautious stance," said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore.
Monday's rally on Wall Street got its start early after President Donald Trump said his negotiators had received encouraging calls from China on Sunday, though China's foreign ministry denied knowledge of any such calls.
The S&P 500 rose 31.27 points, or 1.1%, to 2,878.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 269.93 points, or 1.1%, to 25,898.83. The Nasdaq, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, rose 101.97 points, or 1.3%, to 7,853.74. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up 16.52 points, or 1.1%, to 1,476.
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Lawsuit filed over rollback of child immigrant protections
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Nineteen states and the District of Columbia sued on Monday over the Trump administration's effort to alter a federal agreement that limits how long immigrant children can be kept in detention.
"We wish to protect children from irreparable harm," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said as he announced the lawsuit he is co-leading with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Both are Democrats.
A 1997 agreement known as the Flores settlement says immigrant children must be kept in the least restrictive setting and generally shouldn't spend more than 20 days in detention.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said last week it would create new regulations on how migrant children are treated. The administration wants to remove court oversight and allow families in detention longer than 20 days. About 475,000 families have crossed the border so far this budget year, nearly three times the previous full-year record for families.
A judge must OK the Trump administration's proposed changes in order to end the agreement, and a legal battle is expected from the case's original lawyers.
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GOP Trump challengers won't get much help from their party
WASHINGTON (AP) - "Never Trump" Republicans are eager to see the president confront a credible primary adversary. But the party will likely erect structural barriers that make that kind of challenge exceedingly difficult.
And for good reason: Every incumbent president for four-plus decades who has faced a serious primary opponent was weakened enough to ultimately lose reelection.
Joe Walsh, a former tea-party-backed, one-term congressman from Illinois, on Sunday joined Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, on the lonely road to try to unseat President Donald Trump.
Other Republicans may join them. Mark Sanford, former governor and Republican congressman from South Carolina, has flirted with a 2020 presidential bid, and Republican ex-Ohio Gov. John Kasich is set to visit New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first presidential primary, in September.
So far, none of them seems to pose a serious threat. The president's supporters note that the ranks of outspoken "Never Trumpers" have dwindled substantially since Trump stormed a deep, 2016 presidential primary field of establishment Republicans and then toppled Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the White House.
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G-7 nations pledge $40 million to fight Amazon fires
PORTO VELHO, Brazil (AP) - The Group of Seven nations on Monday pledged tens of millions of dollars to help fight raging wildfires in the Amazon and protect its rainforest, even as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro accused rich countries of treating the region like a "colony."
The international pledges at a G-7 summit in France included $20 million from the group, as well as a separate $12 million from Britain and $11 million from Canada. Ottawa has also offered to send firefighting planes to Brazil.
Other groups are contributing support for a region whose rainforests are a major absorber of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Earth Alliance, a new environmental foundation backed by Leonardo DiCaprio, is pledging $5 million in aid, saying the Amazon is one of the "best defenses" against climate change.
The funds are widely seen as critical support, but a relatively small amount for dealing with an environmental crisis of such scale threatening what French President Emmanuel Macron called "the lungs of the planet."
More than $1 billion, for example, has been paid into a fund to help the Amazon in the past decade. And major donors Germany and Norway recently cut donations to Brazilian forestry projects, saying Bolsonaro's administration isn't committed to curbing deforestation.
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Ethics outcry as Trump touts 'magnificent' Doral for next G7
MIAMI (AP) - President Donald Trump was in full sales mode Monday, doing everything but pass out brochures as he touted the features that would make the Doral golf resort the ideal place for the next G-7 Summit - close to the airport, plenty of hotel rooms, separate buildings for every delegation, even top facilities for the media.
There's just one detail he left out: He owns the place.
Government ethics watchdogs have long railed against the perils of Trump earning money off the presidency and hosting foreign leaders at his properties. But they say Trump's proposal to bring world leaders to his Miami-area resort takes the conflict of interest to a whole new level because, unlike stays at his Washington, they would have no choice but to spend money at his property.
"It's ethics violation squared," said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.
Added Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, "This is him making it perfectly mandatory that they stay at his resort."
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Missy Elliott honored at MTV VMAs; Swift wins top prize
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - The incomparable career of Missy Elliott, the rapper-singer-songwriter-producer-dancer whose music videos have moved the needle over the last two decades, was honored at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, where Taylor Swift also took center stage with her gay pride anthem, "You Need to Calm Down."
Elliott earned the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award and brought her colorful, eccentric and groundbreaking music videos to life, from "Work It" to "Lose Control," on Monday at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
She even sported the inflated trash bag she wore with confidence and charisma in the video for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" in 1997 during the performance.
"I've worked diligently for over two decades and I never thought I would be standing up here receiving this award," Elliott said.
The 48-year-old game-changer also dedicated her award to the dance community and said her music video inspirations included Janet Jackson, Madonna, Peter Gabriel and Busta Rhymes.