By MATTHEW PERRONE and LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Annual COVID-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a major new policy shift unveiled Tuesday by the Trump administration.

Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for yearly updates to COVID shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach that would make vaccines available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one health problem that puts them at higher risk.

But the FDA framework urges companies conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. In a framework published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, agency officials said the approach still could keep annual vaccinations available for between 100 million and 200 million adults.

FILE – A vial of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine rests on a table at an inoculation station in Jackson, Miss., on July 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

The upcoming changes raise questions about people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fall into one of the categories.

“Is the pharmacist going to determine if you’re in a high-risk group?” asked Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available.”

The framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the culmination of a series of recent steps scrutinizing the use of COVID shots and raising major questions about the broader availability of vaccines under President Donald Trump.

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For years, federal health officials have told most Americans to expect annual updates to COVID-19 vaccines, similar to the annual flu shot. Just like with flu vaccines, until now the FDA has approved updated COVID shots when manufacturers provide evidence that they spark just as much immune protection as the previous year’s version.

But FDA’s new guidance appears to be the end of that approach under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who has filled the FDA and other health agencies with outspoken critics of the government’s handling of COVID shots, particularly their recommendation for young, healthy adults and children.

Tuesday’s update, written by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and FDA vaccine chief Vinay Prasad, criticized the U.S.’s “one-size-fits-all” approach and states that the U.S. has been “the most aggressive” in recommending COVID boosters, when compared with European countries.

“We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” they wrote.

Outside experts say there are legitimate questions about how much everyone still benefits from yearly COVID vaccination or whether they should be recommended for people at increased risk. An influential panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to debate that question next month.

The FDA framework announced Tuesday appears to usurp that advisory panel’s job, Offit said. He added that CDC studies have made clear that booster doses do offer protection against mild to moderate illness for four to six months after the shot even in healthy people.

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

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press Health Writer

U.S. health officials are investigating a new outbreak of salmonella illnesses tied to a Florida grower whose tainted cucumbers were linked to more than 550 illnesses last year.

Cucumbers grown by Florida-based Bedner Growers and distributed by Fresh Start Produce Sales have been linked to illnesses in at least 26 people in 15 states, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported late Monday. At least nine people have been hospitalized; no deaths have been reported.

The cucumbers were sold to restaurants, stores and food service distributors between April 29 and May 19 and may still be within their shelf life this week. Illnesses were reported between April 2 and April 28, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The outbreak was detected as part of a follow-up inspection in April to a 2024 outbreak that sickened 551 people and led to 155 hospitalizations in 34 states and Washington, D.C. In that outbreak, investigators found salmonella bacteria linked to many of the illnesses in untreated canal water used at farms operated by Bedner Growers and Thomas Produce Company.

In the current outbreak, officials found salmonella bacteria from samples on the farm that matched samples from people who got sick.

Health officials are investigating where the potentially contaminated cucumbers were distributed. Several people who fell ill ate cucumbers on cruise ships leaving ports in Florida, according to the CDC. Organic cucumbers are not affected, officials said.

Retailers should notify consumers who may have bought the tainted produce. If consumers don’t know the source of cucumbers, they should throw them away, officials said.

Symptoms of salmonella poisoning include diarrhea, fever, severe vomiting, dehydration and stomach cramps. Most people who get sick recover within a week. Infections can be severe in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, who may require hospitalization.

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

Minnesota United vs. St. Louis City

What: U.S. Open Cup Round of 16

When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Allianz Field

Stream: Paramount+

Weather: Rain, 48 degrees, 6 mph south wind

Form: MNUFC blew out St. Louis 3-0 in MLS play on Saturday. Both teams beat USL Championship sides in the Round of 32 on May 7 to reach this stage of the national tournament. Loons topped Louisville City 1-0; St. Louis beat Union Omaha 2-0.

Update: After St. Louis’s MLS winless streak reached 10 matches Saturday, reports out of Sweden on Monday had head coach Olof Mellberg being fired. MLS insider Tom Bogert said that news was premature.

Another update: Other reports out of Sweden had club Malmo pursuing Loons’ attacker Sang Bin Jeong. Before the primary transfer window closed in May, at least one other MLS Eastern Conference team was looking into the South Korean.

Absences: Joseph Rosales (suspension) and Kipp Keller (hamstring) are out.

Starting XI: Against Louisville, the Loons used a 5-4-1 formation: FW Darius Randell; MF Sam Shashoua, MF Curt Calov, MF Hoyeon Jung, MF Sang Bin Jeong; LWB Kieran Chandler, CB Devin Padelford, CB Morris Duggan, CB DJ Taylor, RWB Julian Gressel; GK Wessel Speel.

Milestone: Against Louisville, Randell became the youngest United player to score a first-team goal in its MLS history. He was 17 years and 255 days old.

Context: One Cinderella; 15 MLS teams. The USL Championship’s Pittsburgh Riverhounds are the only non-MLS team remaining in the competition. They play Philadelphia Union on Wednesday.

Look-ahead: If the Loons advance, the quarterfinals are July 8-9. The semifinals are Sept. 16-17 and the final is Oct. 1.

Scouting report: St. Louis is the more desperate team, while the Loons are in better form and have worked to build up players outside its first-choice starting XI with more minutes against Louisville and in the MLS loss at Houston last Wednesday.

Prediction: More first-team-type players are expected be in the mix on Wednesday and the Loons will be able to keep St. Louis down and out. Defense leads to cup runs. Minnesota wins 1-0.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV and YEHOR KONOVALOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Kyiv’s European allies slapped new sanctions Tuesday on Moscow, a day after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough on ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.

“We have made clear again and again that we simply expect one thing from Russia now: namely, a ceasefire, unconditional and immediate,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in addressing the sanctions. “We welcome the fact that Ukraine is still prepared to do this. We note with disappointment that Russia has not yet taken this decisive step, and we will have to react to this.”

Diplomatic efforts have seen little progress in halting the fighting, including Monday’s phone call between Trump and Putin, and Friday’s direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul. In the phone call, Putin promised Trump that Russia is “ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU defense ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

“It appears that Putin has devised a way to offer Trump an interim, tangible outcome from Washington’s peace efforts without making any real concessions,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, in a post on X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel that “it is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time to continue the war and occupation. We are working with partners to put pressure on the Russians to behave differently.”

The new European Union sanctions targeted almost 200 ships from Russia’s “shadow fleet” illicitly transporting oil to skirt Western restrictions It also imposed asset freezes and travel bans on several officials as well as on a number of Russian companies.

Ukrainian officials have said about 500 aging ships of uncertain ownership and safety practices are dodging sanctions and keeping oil revenues flowing to Moscow.

The U.K. also targeted the shadow fleet with 100 new sanctions and also aimed at disrupting the supply chains of Russian weapons, officials said.

“Putin’s latest strikes once again show his true colors as a warmonger,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.

Trump has threatened to step up sanctions and tariffs on Russia but hasn’t acted so far.

Ukraine has offered a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire, which Moscow has effectively rejected by imposing far-reaching conditions, and Zelenskyy proposed a face-to-face meeting with Putin last week but the Russian leader spurned that offer.

Trump, who had pledged during his campaign to end the war in one day, said his personal intervention was needed to push peace efforts forward. He held separate phone calls with both Putin and Zelenskyy, and said the two countries would “immediately” begin ceasefire negotiations, but there were no details on when or where such talks might take place.

“The status quo has not changed,” Mykhailo Podoliak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday.

Russia launched 108 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. One drone dropped explosives on a passenger bus in the Dniprovskyi district of the Kherson region, injuring two people, the local administration said.

Putin wants Ukraine to renounce joining NATO, sharply cut its military, and withdraw its forces from the four Ukrainian regions Moscow has seized but doesn’t fully control, among other demands to curb the country’s sovereignty.

Many Russian news outlets struck a triumphal tone in reporting Putin’s conversation with Trump.

State news agency RIA Novosti published an article headlined, “Europe’s hopes crushed: Trump refuses to go to war with Putin.”

In the pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, columnist Mikhail Rostovsky also portrayed the call as a blow for Ukraine’s European allies.

“Kyiv will agree to a serious, fully fledged conversation with Russia only if it has no other options left. Trump is gradually cutting off these other options for Zelenskyy,” he wrote. “And this is very, very good.”

Since Trump took office, Washington has urged Russia and Ukraine to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

After Monday’s phone calls, European officials remained skeptical about Russia’s intentions.

“Putin has never changed his position,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said in Brussels. “Russia actually doesn’t want to end this war.”

EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Russia’s failure to negotiate in good faith should trigger the threatened U.S. sanctions.

“We really haven’t seen, you know, the pressure on Russia from these talks,” she said.

In Kyiv, there was skepticism about Putin’s motives.

Peace “is not possible now. Only when (the Russians) run out of resources and army manpower. They are ready to fight, at least for this summer,” Svitlana Kyryliuk, 66, told The Associated Press. Putin will “stall for time, and that’s it,” she said.

Volodymyr Lysytsia, a 45-year-old serviceman visiting the capital for rehabilitation, said Putin has made the front lines in eastern Ukraine a wasteland, with “nothing there, only scorched earth, everything bombed.”

Some were unconvinced by Putin’s promise to Trump that Russia is “ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”

The first direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks since the early weeks of Moscow’s 2022 invasion ended after less than two hours Friday, and while both sides agreed on a large prisoner swap, they clearly remained far apart on key conditions to end the fighting.

Lorne Cook in Brussels, Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.