By ERIC TUCKER and COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department officials were set to meet on Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The meeting in Florida, which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Tuesday he was working to arrange, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of President Donald Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.

In a social media post Tuesday, Blanche said that Trump “has told us to release all credible evidence” and that if Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the Justice Department “will hear what she has to say.”

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A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Thursday. The person who confirmed the meeting insisted on anonymity to describe a closed-door encounter to The Associated Press.

A lawyer for Maxwell confirmed on Tuesday there were discussions with the government and said Maxwell “will always testify truthfully.”

The House Committee on Oversight issued a subpoena on Wednesday for Maxwell to testify before committee officials in August.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.

Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, including royals, presidents and billionaires.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Bondi told Trump in May that his name was among high-profile people mentioned in government files of Epstein, though the mention does not imply wrongdoing.

Trump, a Republican, has said that he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy” but that they later had a falling out.

A subcommittee on Wednesday also voted to subpoena the Justice Department for documents related to Epstein. And senators in both major political parties have expressed openness to holding hearings on the matter after Congress’ August recess.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has introduced legislation with bipartisan support that would require the Justice Department to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his associates.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have said they will address whatever outstanding Epstein-related issues are in Congress when they return from recess.

Epstein, under a 2008 non-prosecution agreement, pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. That allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work release program. He was required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender.

In 2019, Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for nearly identical allegations.

Williams reported from Detroit.

NEW YORK (AP) — Tesla shares sank Thursday after CEO Elon Musk said the company could face a “few rough quarters” as it transitions to a future focused less on selling cars and more on offering people rides in self-driving cars.

Late Wednesday, the electric vehicle maker reported another quarter of lackluster financial results, with revenue dropping 12% and profit falling 16%. Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musk’s foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China.

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Tesla faces the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit and stands to make much less money from selling regulatory credits to other automakers after recent changes to federal tax law. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on countries including China and Mexico will also cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said on its earnings call.

Musk spent the call talking less about car sales and more about robotaxis, automated driving software and robotics, which he says is the future of the company. But he acknowledged those businesses are a ways off from contributing to Tesla’s bottom line.

Tesla began a rollout in June of its paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the U.S. by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

“We’re in this weird transition period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the U.S.,” Musk said, adding that Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters” ahead. He added, though, “Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I would be surprised if Tesla’s economics are not very compelling.”

In early trading Thursday, Tesla share were down 8% to around $305.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A man whose body was found in the Mississippi River south of St. Louis in 1994 has finally been identified after authorities exhumed his remains to collect new DNA samples.

In the latest cold case to be solved through advances in DNA technology, the sheriff’s office in Jefferson County, Missouri, announced Tuesday that the former John Doe was Benny Leo Olson from Edwardsville, a suburb on the Illinois side of the river about 15 miles northeast of St. Louis.

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Officials do not suspect any foul play in the case, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

After learning Olson had been dead more than three decades, his half-sister Catherine Heston told the newspaper, “We knew something must have happened, but you never really know.” If alive today, he would be 76.

She said Olson was a “perpetual student,” attending St. Louis Community College-Meramec, Western Illinois University in Macomb and at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

But mental illness also lurked in the background. In 1980, he was charged with trying to pay someone to burn down his stepmother’s house. His fingerprints were taken as part of that criminal case, and those prints ultimately helped confirm his identity following a partial DNA match to a distant relative.

Olson, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was deemed not competent to stand trial. He spent 11 years at a mental health facility in Illinois before being released in the early 1990s, Heston said.

Heston said the last time she heard from Olson would’ve been about a month before his body was found in the river, when he called during what she described as a “paranoid delusion.”

The family often wondered what happened. Over the years, her mother kept a box full of mementos, including his high school class ring, family photos and other keepsakes.

“This case resolution is a testament to the power of investigative genetic genealogy to give John and Jane Does their names back and provide answers to family,” Alyssa Feller, a forensic genetic genealogist who worked on the case, said in a news release.

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia announced it will reduce restrictions on U.S. beef imports in a move U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration claimed as a major victory over “non-scientific trade barriers.”

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said Thursday that relaxing the restrictions designed to keep Australia free of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, would not compromise biosecurity.

“Australia stands for open and free trade — our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this,” Collins said in a statement.

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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins responded to Australia’s annoucement by congratulating Trump on a “major trade breakthrough that gives greater access to U.S. beef producers selling to Australia.”

She issued a statemeant under the leadline: Make Agriculture Great Again Trade Wins.

“American farmers and ranchers produce the safest, healthiest beef in the world. It’s absurd that non-scientific trade barriers prevented our beef from being sold to consumers in Australia for the last 20 years,” Rollins said.

“Gone are the days of putting American farmers on the sidelines. This is yet another example of the kind of market access the President negotiates to bring America into a new golden age of prosperity, with American agriculture leading the way,” she added.

Australia has allowed imports of beef grown in the United States since 2019. But Australia has not allowed imports from the U.S. of beef sourced from Canada or Mexico because of the disease risk.

But the U.S. has recently introduced additional movement controls that identify and trace all cattle from Mexico and Canada to their farms of origin.

US cattle import controls satisfy Australian authorities

Australian authorities were “satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the U.S. effectively manage biosecurity risks,” Collins said.

The timing of the new, reduced restrictions has not been finalized.

Trump attacked Australian import restrictions on U.S. beef when he announced in April that tariffs of at least 10% would be placed on Australian imports, with steel and aluminum facing a 50% tariff.

“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef,” Trump told reporters then.

“Yet we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone. They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and, you know, I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now,” Trump added.

Lawmaker fears appeasing Trump endangers Australian cattle industry

Opposition lawmaker David Littleproud suspected the government was endangering Australia’s cattle industry to appease Trump.

“I want to see the science and it should be predicated on science. I’m suspicious of the speed at which this has been done,” Littleproud told reporters.

“We need to give confidence to the industry, but also to you (the public): this is not just about animal welfare, this is about human welfare, this is about BSE potentially coming into this country and having a human impact, so I think it’s important the government’s very transparent about the science and I don’t think it’s even beyond the question to have an independent panel review that science to give confidence to everybody,” he added.

Around 70% of Australian beef is exported. Producers fear that export market would vanish overnight if diseases including mad cow or foot-and-mouth disease infected Australian cattle.

Will Evans, chief executive of Cattle Australia who represents more than 52,000 grass-fed beef producers across the nation, said he was confident the agriculture department had taken a cautious approach toward U.S. imports.

“The department’s undertaken a technical scientific assessment and we have to put faith in them. They’ve made this assessment themselves. They’ve said: ‘We’ve looked at this, we’ve looked at the best science, this is a decision that we feel comfortable with,’” Evans said.

“When you have a $75 billion (Australian $50 billion) industry relying on them not making this mistake, I’m sure they’ve been very cautious in their decision-making,” he added.

US beef prices rise because of drought and a domestic cattle shortage

Beef prices have been rising in the U.S. due to factors that include drought and shrinking domestic herd numbers.

The average price of a pound of ground beef in the U.S. rose to $6.12 in June, up nearly 12% from a year ago, according to U.S. government data. The average price of all uncooked beef steaks rose 8% to $11.49 per pound.

Australian demand for U.S. beef is likely to remain low for reasons including a relatively weak Australian dollar.

Australia’s opposition to any U.S. tariffs will be high on the agenda when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secures his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

Albanese and Trump were to hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Canada last month, but the U.S. president left early.

Albanese expects the pair will meet this year, although no date has been announced.

The two countries have had a bilateral free trade deal for 20 years and the U.S. has maintained a trade surplus with Australia for decades.