By DEE-ANN DURBIN

Coca-Cola reported better-than-expected earnings in the first quarter and said the impact of tariffs on its business are likely to be “manageable.”

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Coke and other beverage makers are facing a 25% tariff on the aluminum they use for cans, among other items. Last week, rival PepsiCo lowered its full-year earnings expectations due to the impact of tariffs.

“Based on what we know today, the dynamic tariff landscape could impact pockets of our system’s cost structure, as well as consumer sentiment in our markets,” Coke Chief Financial Officer John Murphy said Tuesday in a conference call with investors.

But Murphy said Coke has “numerous levers to help manage the impact.” The company has said previously that it may shift aluminum suppliers or rely more heavily on plastic or glass bottles.

Coke’s unit case volumes grew 2% in the first quarter, led by higher demand in China, India and Brazil. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar was a standout, with case volumes up 14%. Demand for sports drinks and coffee fell.

In North America, case volumes fell 3%. Prices rose 8%, partly because Coke sold a higher mix of premium beverages like Topo Chico sparkling water and Fairlife milk.

Coke Chairman and CEO James Quincey said a video that was circulating on social media in February hurt U.S. sales, particularly among Hispanic consumers in the South. The video claimed that Coke was reporting its own workers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and called for a boycott of the company.

Quincey said the claims in the video were false and the controversy has largely abated. Coke is trying to win back Hispanic sales by promoting the company’s local economic impact and offering targeted deals, he added.

The video aside, Quincey said there was a pullback in purchasing on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border due to consumer uncertainty.

“I think some of the geopolitical tension was just causing people to be a little more cautious with their spend,” he said “A little less going out, a little more keeping the money in the pocket.”

Revenue fell 2% to $11.1 billion in the January-March period, the company said Tuesday. Adjusted for one-time items, including currency fluctuations, Coke reported revenue of $11.2 billion. That beat Wall Street’s expectation of $11.15 billion, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Net income rose 5% to $3.3 billion for the quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, the Atlanta company earned 73 cents per share. That beat expectations of 72 cents.

Coke moderated expectations for its full-year profit Tuesday. The company said it now expects full-year adjusted earnings to grow 7% to 9%, down from 8% to 10% previously. Coke earned $2.88 per share in 2024.

Shares of Coca-Cola rose less than 1% in Tuesday morning trading.

By TARA COPP and FARNOUSH AMIRI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted on social media Tuesday that he had dismantled a program supporting women on security teams — and may not have realized the program he tried to break was not a “woke” Biden-era initiative but instead a celebrated program signed into law by his boss, President Donald Trump.

Hegseth in an agitated post on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, called the “Women, Peace & Security” program at the Department of Defense “a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it.”

It was, in fact, bipartisan legislation that Trump signed into law in 2017 that recognized the role women have in achieving security objectives, especially in situations overseas where their male counterparts may not for cultural reasons be able to question or would not for religious regions have direct access to women. Trump’s own Cabinet officials supported the program when it was working its way through the legislative process.

This month, Gen. Dan Caine, the new Joint Chiefs Chairman, told Congress that the program had helped troops in battle.

“When we would go out into the field after concluding an assault, we would have female members who would speak with those women and children who were on the objective and they would help us to understand the human terrain in a new and novel way,” Caine said during his April confirmation hearing. Trump met and became endeared to Caine when he was serving in Iraq, which was part of the reason Trump nominated him to the chairmanship.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who at the time represented South Dakota in the House, wrote the House version of the 2017 Women, Peace and Security Act alongside Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. And as recently as this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who as a senator co-sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said that it was “the first law passed by any country in the world focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society.”

That proposal stemmed from a U.N. resolution unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, the most powerful U.N. body, in October 2000, aimed at including women in peacebuilding efforts, as women and girls have historically borne the brunt of global conflict.

“It’s no secret that women remain, largely on the periphery of formal peace processes and decision making, which is not good for the cause of peace,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in response to Hegseth’s comments Tuesday.

Dujarric added that “one of the real-life impacts of the Women Peace and Security program has been the increasing number of women peacekeepers who serve in U.N. missions, which has had a very clear, measurable and positive impact on the protection of civilians in conflict zones.”

Hegseth’s tweet drew immediate fire from Senate Democrats who are continuing to question Hegseth’s qualifications for the job amid the continuing fallout from his use of the commercial app Signal to share sensitive military operations on an unsecured channel with other officials, his wife and brother.

“Hegseth has absolutely no idea what he’s doing,” said New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

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“That tweet contains some glaring inaccuracies that are far beneath the standard we should expect from the Department of Defense,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said as he read the tweet aloud during a Congressional hearing Tuesday.

A spokesman for Hegseth did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the secretary’s tweet.

While Hegseth in his post called the program “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops” and pledged to do the bare minimum required by Congress to maintain it while working to eliminate it altogether, the program has been celebrated by Trump, his administration and his family.

It became a heralded part of the first Trump administration’s accomplishments for women, and in 2019, Ivanka Trump celebrated that the WPS program was starting a new partnership to help train female police cadets in Colombia.

Sagar Meghani contributed from Washington.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN

General Motors posted strong financial results for its first quarter Tuesday, but says it will reassess its expectations for 2025 due to auto tariffs.

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The automaker is pushing back its conference call to discuss its guidance and quarterly results until Thursday, so that it can assess potential tariff changes.

GM said that its initial full-year financial forecast doesn’t contemplate the potential impact of tariffs. In January the company announced that it anticipated 2025 adjusted earnings in a range of $11 to $12 per share.

Late Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump will possibly dial back automotive tariffs, with anonymous sources claiming that he’ll stop duties on foreign-made cars from piling on top of other tariffs he implemented and easing some levies on foreign parts used to make cars in the U.S.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday morning that Trump would sign an executive order relaxing some of his tariffs on cars and auto parts, though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the goal remained enabling automakers to create more domestic manufacturing jobs.

Bessent added that Trump is concerned with “jobs of the future, not of the past.”

It remains unclear what impact Trump’s broader tariffs will have on the U.S. economy and auto sales. Most economists say the tariffs — which could ultimately hit most imports — would raise prices and slow economic growth, possibly hurting auto sales despite the relief that the administration intends to offer on its previous policies.

Trump will be holding a rally in Michigan, the heart of the nation’s auto industry, on Tuesday. Michigan has been jolted by his steep trade tariffs and combative attitude toward Canada.

Trump is making an afternoon visit to Selfridge Air National Guard Base for an announcement alongside Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He’s expected to speak at a rally at Macomb Community College, north of Detroit.

Michigan was one of the battleground states Trump flipped from the Democratic column in his election. But it’s also been deeply affected by tariffs on imported cars and auto parts.

File – Vehicles move along the 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV assembly line at the General Motors Orion Assembly on June 15, 2023, in Lake Orion, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

Michigan’s unemployment rate has risen for three straight months, including jumping 1.3% from March to reach 5.5%, according to state data. That’s among the highest in the nation, far exceeding the national average of 4.2%.

Industry groups have urged the White House to scrap plans for tariffs on imported auto parts, warning that doing so would raise prices on cars and could trigger “layoffs and bankruptcy.”

General Motors earned $2.78 billion, or $3.35 per share, for the three months ended March 31. A year earlier it earned $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share.

Removing one-time charges and benefits, GM earned $2.78 per share, topping the $2.68 per share that Wall Street had expected, according to a survey by FactSet.

Revenue climbed to $44.02 billion from $43.01 billion.

GM’s stock declined about 2% in morning trading.

BALTIMORE — New research from the Johns Hopkins University found the hemp-derived Delta-8 THC to be less potent than Delta-9 THC, the main psychoactive component in cannabis, when orally ingested, though the former can still produce similar psychoactive effects.

Since Delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, has a similar chemical structure to Delta-9 THC, it has grown in popularity as cannabis laws across the country have become less restrictive, allowing many smoke shops and dispensaries to legally sell additional products made from hemp.

Published this month by the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors, the clinical trial focused on 19 healthy adults with no past-month exposure to cannabinoids. Participants each ingested a brownie containing various doses of Delta-8 or Delta-9, or a placebo, with researchers recording cannabinoid concentration in blood, subjective drug effects, cognitive and psychomotor performance, and vital signs.

Delta-8 resulted in significantly lower ratings of drug effect than Delta-9 at a dose of 20 milligrams, the study found. Delta-8 was found to also have significantly lower cognitive impairment, negative subjective effects and impact on heart rate.

However, doubling the dose of Delta-8 to 40 milligrams resulted in the same rates of drug effects as 20 milligrams of Delta-9.

“This is noteworthy considering people who consume cannabis products generally perceive Delta 8-THC as less harmful or intoxicating than Delta 9-THC,” the study reads.

Both 20 milligrams and 40 milligrams of Delta 8 produced comparably positive subjective effects — referred to as “drug liking,” which is the pleasurable feeling a user gets when consuming a drug — to 20 milligrams of Delta-9, suggesting similar “misuse potential,” according to the research.

The clinical trial found also that cannabinoid blood concentration peaked between two and four hours post-dose and that psychoactive metabolites — chemical substances produced by the body to break down and process psychoactive drugs — were significantly lower in Delta-8 users than those of Delta-9 users at the same dose.

Psychoactive metabolites can have their own psychoactive effects that are different from the effects of the ingested THC, meaning they can lead to a different experience for someone with more of them present.

“These findings inform regulatory decisions and public education, though further research on emergent cannabinoids is needed,” the study reads.

The sale of Delta-8 products in Maryland was legalized in 2023 after a state judge ordered a temporary injunction, lifting a law that formerly banned retailing it.

Compared to 20 mg of Delta 9-THC, 20 mg of Delta 8-THC resulted in significantly lower ratings of drug effect, the study found. The 20 mg dose of Delta 8-THC was found to also have significantly lower drug effect, cognitive impairment and lower negative subjective effects and a lower impact on heart rate.

However, the study found that 40 mg of Delta 8-THC and 20 mg of Delta 9-THC did not have any differences in drug effects – meaning that less Delta 9-THC was equally as potent as double the amount of Delta 8-THC, making it a more potent drug.

There are more than 100 other cannabinoids found within the hemp plant. Through chemical treatments, processors can extract and synthesize some cannabinoids from hemp while removing others, allowing for a variety of different cannabinoids, such as Delta-8, Delta-10, and Cannabidiol. Cannabis has more than O.3% THC by dry weight, and hemp has less than 0.3% THC.

The Hopkins research was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a Maryland-based agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Hopkins is among the many research and educations institutions across the country facing funding cuts from the Trump administration‘s Department of Government Efficiency, potentially jeopardizing scientific research. The Baltimore institution, which receives more money from the National Institute of Health than any other institution — more than $1 billion last year alone — has joined litigation challenging the federal cuts.

From the salaries it pays to the local businesses that construct its buildings or stock its supply closets, Hopkins says it accounts for more than $15 billion in economic output in the state.

Any cuts in federal funding will have an outsized effect on Hopkins, which comes in first of all universities in federally funded research – and by extension, Baltimore and Maryland, where it is the city and state’s largest private employer.

Already, Hopkins researchers have been hit by the dismantling of the USAID agency, which has also led to layoffs and cutbacks at the multiple global humanitarian groups that are headquartered in Baltimore.

Funding cuts to Hopkins could jeopardize future research. The institution, which receives more money from the National Institute of Health than any other institution, has joined litigation challenging the federal cuts.