By DAMIAN TROISE, Associated Press

New York (AP) — Companies from a wide range of industries are having trouble assessing the impact of tariffs because of the constant uncertainty over whether and where the taxes will be imposed next or postponed, sometimes on a daily or weekly basis. Some tariffs remain in place against key U.S. trading partners, but others have been postponed to give nations time to negotiate.

As a result companies have been giving somewhat shaky financial forecasts during their latest round of earnings updates.

Here’s how several big companies are dealing with the tariff confusion:

Kimberly-Clark

The Irving, Texas, company makes Huggies, Kleenex and other personal care and household staples. It expects tariffs to add $300 million of costs and has warned about flat earnings for the year.

“The current environment will now mean greater costs across our global supply chain versus our expectations at the beginning of the year,” said CEO Michael Hsu, in a statement Tuesday following the company’s latest earnings results.

Roughly 20% of Kimberly-Clark’s U.S. costs are exposed to tariffs. The bulk of its estimated $300 million cost impact is being driven by U.S. tariffs against China. The company is working to shift some of its supply chain to mitigate the costs.

3M

William Brown, CEO of 3M Co., the maker of adhesives, coatings, Scotch Tape and Post-it notes, acknowledged that “tariffs are going to be a headwind this year.”

The company stuck to a full-year forecast for profit of $7.60 to $7.90 per share, excluding the impact of tariffs. But 3M did include a slide in its presentation for analysts with a “tariff impact sensitivity,” that it said could lower earnings by 20 cents to 40 cents per share, after factoring in measures that will somewhat reduce the hit from tariffs. Those steps could include cost cuts and “selective price increases where feasible.”

Brown also said during a conference call that the company is looking at alternative production sites with different countries of origin to try and minimize the tariff impact.

RTX

Most of the RTX’s industrial base and supply chain is located inside the U.S., but tariffs are still poised to hurt the defense company behind missile and radar systems.

RTX expects up to $800 million in cost impacts from tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico, China and other nations. It hasn’t included the potential impact in its earnings forecast.

“Generally speaking, the aerospace and defense sector has operated in a duty-free environment,” said President Christopher Calio, in a conference call with analysts. “And that has been instrumental to the industry maintaining one of the largest trade surpluses across American manufacturing industries for decades.”

GE Aerospace

The maker of jet engines and aviation systems is also accustomed to low trade barriers within the aviation sector. The company now expects tariff costs of roughly $500 million after hopefully mitigating some of the impact through programs and strategies, such as expanding foreign trade zones.

“We’ll continue to advocate for an approach that reestablishes zero-for-zero tariffs in the aviation sector and ensures a level playing field for the U.S. aerospace industry,” said CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr., in a conference call with analysts. “In the meantime, heightened tariffs will result in additional costs for us and our supply chain.”

Flexsteel Industries

The furniture company could see much more damage from a mix of tariffs and a downturn in consumer spending.

Flexsteel has moved out of China, but Vietnam supports about 55% of its revenue, while operations in Mexico support almost 40% of sales, the company said.

If the 46% reciprocal tariff rate on Vietnam, which is currently delayed, goes into effect, “it will have wide-reaching implications both on Flexsteel’s business and the overall U.S. furniture industry,” said President and CEO Derek Schmidt, in a conference call with analysts.

Those wide-ranging impacts could include a weaker U.S. economy brought on by stunted consumer spending. The company expects sales between $109 million and $116 million during its current quarter, but that could change depending on shifts in tariffs and consumer demand.

By The Associated Press

Miami quarterback Cam Ward is still the favorite to be taken No. 1 overall when the Tennessee Titans kick off the NFL draft on Thursday night.

Related Articles

Why returning to the Vikings was an easy decision for Harrison Smith

J.J. McCarthy has no limitations as Vikings begin offseason program

Vikings mock draft: Will they trade back or take best player available?

How will the Vikings approach the 2025 NFL Draft?

Aaron Rodgers waiting on Vikings? ‘Not accurate,’ he says

After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

Colorado’s two-way star, Travis Hunter, and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Penn State’s Abdul Carter, Michigan’s Mason Graham and LSU’s Will Campbell are all expected to be selected early. There’s also a bit of a running back renaissance in the NFL these days, with teams eyeing Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton in the first round.

Ward has tried to solidify his status as the top pick over the last few months, working out for all 32 NFL teams at Miami’s on-campus pro day.

“They finally got to see me throw in person. That should be all they need to see,” Ward said. “At the end of the day, if they want to give me the pick or not, I’m going to be happy with whatever team I go to. I just want to play football.”

Advanced analytics have de-emphasized the running back position over the past decade, but the performances of stars like Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley and Baltimore’s Derrick Henry have front offices thinking more about spending a high pick on the position.

The three-day draft will be held at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is the home of the Green Bay Packers.

Here are a few things to know about the upcoming draft:

When is the NFL draft?

The first round will be on Thursday beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

The second and third rounds are on Friday beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

The fourth through seventh rounds are on Saturday beginning at noon ET.

How do I watch the NFL draft?

All three days will be televised on ESPN, ABC and NFL Network.

Who will be the top picks in the NFL draft?

Ward and Sanders are the top quarterback prospects, though they won’t necessarily be the first two picks like Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels in 2024 and Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud in 2023.

Carter and Hunter are also highly rated prospects, meaning that a non-QB could be the No. 1 overall selection for the first time since defensive end Travon Walker was the top pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2022.

For more information on the top picks, here is the mock draft by AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi.

What is the NFL draft order?

These were the selections in the first round of the 2024 draft. Here are the teams that currently possess the top 10 picks of the upcoming draft.

1. Tennessee Titans

2. Cleveland Browns

3. New York Giants

4. New England Patriots

5. Jacksonville Jaguars

6. Las Vegas Raiders

7. New York Jets

8. Carolina Panthers

9. New Orleans Saints

10. Chicago Bears

Advocacy groups Housing Justice for All and JustFix launched an online tool this week where tenants can enter their address and answer a series of short questions to help determine if their apartments are likely to qualify for protections under the ‘Good Cause’ law.

A rental building in Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

It’s been just more than a year since New York adopted “Good Cause” protections, giving eligible renters extra defense against eviction without cause, as well as a chance to challenge rent hikes over a certain threshold.

But that’s only if they’re actually covered by the law. The final version of Good Cause, adopted as part of last year’s state budget negotiations, included a number of carveouts, excluding tenants based on how many units their landlord owns or when the property was built, among other conditions.

That can make it hard for renters to tell if their units fall under the protections—though a new website is trying to help.

Advocacy groups Housing Justice for All and JustFix launched an online tool this week where tenants can enter their address and answer a series of short questions to help determine if their apartments meet the Good Cause criteria.

“Good Cause Eviction is a powerful tool to prevent evictions and price-gouging, but only if tenants know they have rights,” Joel Stillman, director of JustFix, said in a statement announcing the website Monday. “This tool uses public data gathered from multiple sources to sort through the law’s overlapping exemptions that make Good Cause hard to use, giving tenants the confidence that they have rights to stay in their homes.”

The site uses city building records as well as information supplied by the tenant to determine possible eligibility. Good Cause only applies to unregulated apartments (since rent stabilized units and other subsidized housing programs, like NYCHA, come with their own set of tenant protections) and those built after 2009. It exempts high-priced units renting for more than $6,005 a month, as well as smaller landlord-occupied buildings.

But perhaps the most difficult-to-determine criteria is portfolio size: the law only applies to tenants whose landlords own more than 10 apartments. This can be hard to gauge, since many owners register their properties under generically-named limited liability companies (LLCs). The Good Cause NYC tool advises renters to check the city’s property records database as well as search their landlord’s name on Who Owns What, another site created by JustFix which seeks out other properties an owner may be associated with.

Since going into effect in New York City, Good Cause enforcement has primarily played out in housing court. It’s generally on tenants to seek legal recourse if they’re covered by the law and facing eviction without sufficient reason, or subject to a rent increase higher than Good Cause allows.

“Good Cause Eviction is a historic expansion of tenants rights—but only informed and organized tenants are able to use it to defend their homes,” Cea Weaver, director of Housing Justice for All said in a statement.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Website Helps NYC Renters Tell If They’re Covered by ‘Good Cause’ Eviction Rules appeared first on City Limits.

When Colorado and other states began legalizing marijuana more than a decade ago, they faced a problem: how to guarantee a safe product, with little data about the long-term risks of pesticides and other contaminants.

“‘Safe’ is a funny word,” both because what is harmful to one person may not be for another, and because people vary in their risk tolerance, said Jeff Raber, CEO of marijuana consulting company The Werc Shop and an instructor in the University of Denver’s cannabis program.

The same amount of a chemical in a batch of cannabis could be benign or harmful, depending on the size of the person using it, how often they smoke and how much they take at one time, among other factors, he said.

Colorado requires growers to test their harvest for yeast, mold, aspergillus (a type of fungus), E. coli and some other bacteria, pesticides and heavy metals, such as lead. Manufacturers also have to test for residual solvents and chemicals used to create their products.

Regulators had to work with limited existing information on the possible risks of pesticides and contaminants in marijuana, because few, if any, studies have examined what levels might be safe in a smokeable or vapeable product, Raber said. Rules for tobacco aren’t a particularly helpful starting place, since growers use different pesticides, he said.

“With edibles, we at least can fall back on food safety standards,” he said.

A 2013 study that Raber co-authored found that significant amounts of pesticides could pass through water pipes or glass pipes to the user. Filtration reduced the amount the user could have inhaled, though some residues still made it through. The study predates states’ current pesticide limits, though, so the risk to people using regulated cannabis now could be lower, Raber said.

Colorado based its updated 2023 pesticide regulations on rules in place in Canada, after a group of researchers and stakeholders considered various sets of standards used in other places with legal marijuana.

Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division referred questions about the standards used for different contaminants to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which said it couldn’t comment.

Ideally, more studies would settle what chemicals are risky in smokeable marijuana and whether any cannabinoids offset some of that risk, but most research is still trying to sort out how the plant itself affects people who use it, Raber said. And, of course, federal law limits researchers’ ability to grow and study cannabis, though Colorado scientists have ongoing projects looking at pesticide residues and heavy metal contamination.

The lack of direct data matters because not everything present on the bud makes it into the user’s body, said Mark Lefsrud, an associate professor who studies medical cannabis at McGill University in Canada.

For example, contamination with heavy metals would cause a problem in a concentrated or edible product, but lead and cadmium don’t turn into particles that users can easily inhale when smoking, he said.

“As a recreational consumer, I’d say it’s very low odds” that heavy metals in a smoked product would be dangerous, Lefsrud said.

The same goes for E. coli, which doesn’t fair well when set on fire, Lefsrud said. E. coli outbreaks periodically sicken and occasionally kill consumers — most recently, when contaminated onions showed up in McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers — but the state of Colorado hasn’t had any marijuana recalls attributed to bacteria since at least 2020. (Two of 61 recalls in those years mentioned unspecified microbial contamination, which could refer to bacteria or fungi.)

The biggest risk for an average marijuana consumer is from fungi, Lefsrud said. People with lung diseases or compromised immune systems can become seriously ill or die from inhaling mold spores, but even generally healthy people are at risk from toxins that aspergillus and other types of mold generate, he said.

Colorado allows growers to kill excess fungus on their product, but that process doesn’t destroy any toxins that the mold has already produced. Just because a bud looks and smells normal doesn’t mean it couldn’t contain toxins, Lefsrud said.

“In most cases, it’s the things you don’t see” that are dangerous, he said.

Lab equipment at SC Labs analyzes marijuana samples for potency in Denver, on April 7, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

The state does require testing if a batch fails mold testing and the grower wants to remediate it for use in products such as concentrates, according to the Marijuana Enforcement Division. The division hasn’t issued any recalls or taken any actions against marijuana businesses over products that failed toxin testing.

States differ in what kind of contaminants they regulate and the limits they set, but overall, they erred on the side of caution, Raber said. Ultimately, they had to make judgment calls based on imperfect evidence, like American and European food regulators who came to different conclusions about whether certain dyes are OK to eat, he said.

“It’s an evolving picture, but it’s evolving to get better,” he said.

States are relatively well-positioned to catch if a batch makes consumers sick in the short term, Raber said. Effects from long-term use will be tough or impossible to sort out, though, because most people use multiple products, and other differences between groups of people make it hard to pin down how much to attribute to cannabis, let alone to pesticides used on it, he said.

Raber works in the cannabis industry and isn’t interested in telling adults not to smoke, but said people should understand the uncertainties around safety.

Consumers can somewhat reduce their risk by switching up the products they use — so they don’t consistently expose themselves to a contaminant that happens to be high on one type of marijuana — and by not overdoing their use, he said.

“I think that’s the best you can do today,” he said.