By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve are expected to keep their key interest rate unchanged Wednesday for the fourth straight time. That’s likely to shift attention to how many interest rate cuts they forecast for this year.

It’s widely expected that the 19 Fed officials that participate in the central bank’s interest-rate decisions will project two rate cuts for this year, as they did in December and March. But some economists expect that one or both of those cuts could be pushed back to 2026.

The Fed will almost certainly keep the short-term rate it controls at about 4.3%, economists say, where it has stood since the central bank last cut rates in December. Since then, it has stayed on the sidelines while it evaluates the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other policy changes on the economy and prices.

Inflation has been cooling since January, and many economists say that without the higher import taxes, the Fed would likely be cutting its rate further. According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation dropped to just 2.1% in April, the lowest since last September. Core inflation — which exclude the volatile food and energy categories — was 2.5%.

Those figures suggest inflation is largely coming under control, for now. Yet the Fed’s short-term interest rate remains at an elevated level intended to slow growth and inflation. Some economists argue that with inflation cooling, the Fed could resume its rate reductions.

When the Fed reduces its rate, it often — though not always — leads to lower costs for consumer and business borrowing, including for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. Yet financial markets also influence the level of longer-term rates and can keep them elevated even if the Fed reduces the shorter-term rate it controls.

But Fed officials have said they want to see whether Trump’s tariffs boost inflation and for how long. Economists generally believe a tariff hike should at least lead to a one-time increase in prices, as companies seek to offset the cost of higher duties. Many Fed officials, however, are worried that the tariffs could lead to more sustained inflation.

“While theory might suggest that (the Fed) should look through a one-time increase in prices, I would be uncomfortable staking the Fed’s reputation and credibility on theory,” Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Fed’s Kansas City branch and a voting member of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, said earlier this month.

The Trump White House has sharply ramped up pressure on Powell to reduce borrowing costs, with Trump himself calling the Fed chair a “numbskull” last week for not cutting. Other officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, are also calling for a rate reduction.

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Pushing the Fed to cut rates simply to save the government on its interest payments typically raises alarms among economists, because it would threaten the Fed’s congressional mandate to focus on stable prices and maximum employment.

One of Trump’s complaints is that the Fed isn’t cutting rates even as other central banks around the world have reduced their borrowing costs, including in Europe, Canada, and the U.K. On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan kept its key short-term rate unchanged at 0.5%, after actually raising it recently.

But the European Central Bank, Bank of Canada, and Bank of England have reduced their rates this year in part because U.S. tariffs are weakening their economies. So far the U.S. economy is mostly solid, with the unemployment rate low.

The Bank of England has cut its rate twice this year but is expected to keep it unchanged at 4.25% when it meets Thursday.

By JONEL ALECCIA, AP Health Writer

A listeria food poisoning outbreak that has killed three people and led to one pregnancy loss is linked to newly recalled heat-and-eat chicken fettucine alfredo products sold at Kroger and Walmart stores, federal health officials said.

The outbreak, which includes at least 17 people in 13 states, began last August, officials said late Tuesday.

FreshRealm, a large food producer with sites in California, Georgia and Indiana, is recalling products made before June 17. The recall includes these products, which were shipped to retail stores:

— 32.8-ounce trays of Marketside Grilled Chicken Alfredo with Fettucine Tender Pasta with Creamy Alfredo Sauce, White Meat Chicken and Shaved Parmesan Cheese with best-by dates of June 27 or earlier.

— 12.3-ounce trays of Marketside Grilled Chicken Alfredo with Fettucine Tender Pasta with Creamy Alfredo Sauce, White Meat Chicken, Broccoli and Shaved Parmesan Cheese with best-by dates of June 26 or earlier.

— 12.5-ounce trays of Home Chef Heat & Eat Chicken Fettucine Alfredo with Pasta, Grilled White Meat Chicken and Parmesan Cheese, with best-by dates of June 19 or earlier.

The strain of listeria bacteria tied to the outbreak has been detected in sick people from August through May, health officials said. The same strain that made people sick was found in a sample of chicken fettucine alfredo during a routine inspection in March. That product was destroyed and never sent to stores. Officials said they have not identified the specific source of the contamination.

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Officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency is investigating the outbreak, and planned to release more details. It was not clear which states are involved or where the deaths and pregnancy loss occurred.

Consumers shouldn’t eat the products, which may be in their refrigerators or freezers. They should be thrown away or returned to place of purchase.

Listeria infections can cause serious illness, particularly in older adults, people with weakened immune systems and those who are pregnant or their newborns. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

About 1,600 people get sick each year from listeria infections and about 260 die, the CDC said. Federal officials in December said they were revamping protocols to prevent listeria infections after several high-profile outbreaks, including one linked to Boar’s Head deli meats that led to 10 deaths and more than 60 illnesses last year.

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 GEOFF MULVIHILL

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma ’s latest plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids could soon move forward after every U.S. state involved agreed to it.

A judge on Wednesday is being asked to clear the way for local governments and individual victims to vote on it next.

Government entities, emergency room doctors, insurers, families of children born into withdrawal from the powerful prescription painkiller, individual victims and their families and others would have until Sept. 30 to vote on whether to accept the deal, which calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years.

The settlement is a way to avoid trials with claims from states alone that total more than $2 trillion in damages. Thousands of local governments and other groups have also sued Purdue.

FILE – Protesters who have lost love ones to the opioid crisis protest outside a courthouse in Boston, Aug. 2, 2019, where a judge heard arguments in a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Every state but Oklahoma is involved in the case. Oklahoma reached a separate settlement with Purdue in 2019.

If approved, the settlement would be among the largest in a wave of lawsuits over the past decade as governments and others sought to hold drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies accountable for the opioid epidemic that started rising in the years after OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The other settlements together are worth about $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to combat the crisis.

In the early 2000s, most opioid deaths were linked to prescription drugs, including OxyContin. Since then, heroin and then illicitly produced fentanyl became the biggest killers. In some years, the class of drugs was linked to more than 80,000 deaths, but that number dropped sharply last year.

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The request of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane comes about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a previous version of Purdue’s proposed settlement. The court found it was improper that the earlier iteration would have protected members of the Sackler family from lawsuits over opioids, even though they themselves were not filing for bankruptcy protection.

Under the reworked plan hammered out with lawyers for state and local governments and others, groups that don’t opt in to the settlement would still have the right to sue members of the wealthy family whose name once adorned museum galleries around the world and programs at several prestigious U.S. universities.

Under the plan, the Sackler family members would give up ownership of Purdue. They resigned from the company’s board and stopped receiving distributions from its funds before the company’s initial bankruptcy filing in 2019. The remaining entity would get a new name and its profits would be dedicated to battling the epidemic.

Most of the money would go to state and local governments to address the nation’s addiction and overdose crisis, but potentially more than $850 million would go directly to individual victims. That makes it different from the other major settlements.

The payouts would not begin until after a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10, during which Lane is to be asked to approve the entire plan if enough of the affected parties agree.

By MARC LEVY

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said Wednesday they have finalized their “historic partnership,” a year-and-a-half after the Japanese company first proposed its deal to buy the iconic American steelmaker for nearly $15 billion.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, delaying the transaction for more than a year after U.S. Steel shareholders approved it. It also forced Nippon Steel to expand the deal, including adding a so-called “golden share” provision that gives the federal government a say in some matters.

“Together, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel will be a world-leading steelmaker, with best-in-class technologies and manufacturing capabilities,” the companies said.

The combined company will become the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker, and bring what analysts say is Nippon Steel’s top-notch technology to U.S. Steel’s antiquated steelmaking processes. In exchange, Nippon Steel gets access to a robust U.S. steel market, strengthened in recent years by tariffs under President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden, analysts say.

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel did not list the full terms of the deal, and did not release a national security agreement struck with Trump’s administration.

But in a statement Wednesday, the companies said the federal government will have the right to appoint an independent director and “consent rights” on specific matters. Those include reductions in Nippon Steel’s capital commitments in the national security agreement, closing or idling of U.S. Steel’s existing domestic facilities and changing U. S. Steel’s name and headquarters.

Nippon Steel announced in December 2023 that it planned to buy the steel producer for $14.9 billion in cash and debt, and committed to keep the U.S. Steel name and Pittsburgh headquarters.

The United Steelworkers union, which represents some U.S. Steel employees, opposed the deal, and Biden and Trump both vowed from the campaign trail to block it.

Biden used his authority to block Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel on his way out of the White House after a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

After he was elected, Trump changed course and expressed openness to working out an arrangement and ordered another review by the committee. That’s when the idea of the “golden share” emerged as a way to resolve national security concerns and protect American interests in domestic steel production.

As it sought to win over American officials, Nippon Steel also made a series of bigger capital commitments in U.S. Steel facilities, tallying $11 billion through 2028, it said.

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