MIAMI (AP) — A company started by a Texas billionaire oilman announced a deal Wednesday with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company to rehabilitate five aging oil fields, days after the Biden administration put a brake on sanctions relief over concerns about the fairness of the country’s upcoming presidential election.

LNG Energy Group is a publicly traded company listed in Canada that produces natural gas in Colombia. It was created last year as a result of a merger with a company owned by Rod Lewis, a legendary Texas wildcatter who Forbes Magazine once called the “only gringo allowed to drill in Mexico.”

As part of the deal announced Wednesday, LNG was awarded contracts by state-run PDVSA to take over production and develop two oil fields in eastern Venezuela that currently produce about 3,000 barrels of crude per day.

LNG said the deal was executed within the framework of sanctions relief announced by the U.S. government last year in support of an agreement between President Nicolas Maduro and his opponents to hold a competitive presidential election this year. Last week, the Biden administration reimposed sanctions as hopes for a democratic opening in Venezuela fade.

However, the White House left open the possibility for companies to apply for licenses exempting them from the restrictions, something that could attract investment to a country sitting atop the world’s largest petroleum reserves at a time of growing concerns about energy supplies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Other than Chevron, which has operated in Venezuela for a century and was awarded its own license in 2022, few American companies have been looking to make major capital investments in the high risk South American country in recent years because of concerns about government seizure, U.S. sanctions and corruption.

“This will be a test of U.S. sanctions whether they get a license or not,” said Francisco Monaldi, an expert on Latin American energy policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

LNG said in a statement that it “intends to operate in full compliance with the applicable sanctions” but declined further comment

Lewis, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $1.1 billion, struck it rich in the 1980s as a wildcatter drilling for natural gas near his home in Laredo, Texas. His company, Lewis Energy Group, was the state’s fourth biggest natural gas producer last year.

In 2004, Lewis was awarded a contract by Mexico’s tightly controlled energy industry covering almost 100,000 acres (400 square kilometers) just across the border from his south Texas facility. He started investing in Colombia in 2003.

In October, the U.S. granted Maduro’s government relief from sanctions on its state-run oil, gas and mining sectors after it agreed to work with members of the opposition to hold a free and competitive presidential election this year.

While Maduro went on to schedule an election for July and invite international observers to monitor voting, his inner circle has used the ruling party’s total control over Venezuela’s institutions to undermine the agreement. Actions include blocking his main rival, ex lawmaker Maria Corina Machado, from registering her candidacy or that of a designated alternative. Numerous government critics have also been jailed over the past six months, including several of Machado’s aides.

DALLAS (AP) — Several relatives of patients who died while waiting for a new liver said Wednesday they want to know if their loved ones were wrongfully denied a transplant by a Houston doctor accused of manipulating the waitlist to make some patients ineligible to receive a new organ.

Officials at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center have said they are investigating after finding that a doctor had made “inappropriate changes” in the national database for people awaiting liver transplants. Earlier this month, the hospital halted its liver and kidney programs.

Susie Garcia’s son, Richard Mostacci, died in February 2023 after being told he was too sick for a transplant. He was 43. “We saw him slipping away, slipping away and there was nothing that we could do, and we trusted, we trusted the doctors,” Garcia said at a news conference.

She’s among family members of three patients who retained attorneys with a Houston law firm that filed for a temporary restraining order Tuesday to prevent Dr. Steve Bynon from deleting or destroying evidence. Attorney Tommy Hastings said that some interactions with Bynon had caused “concerns about maybe some personal animosities and that maybe he may have taken it out on patients.”

“Again, we’re very early in this investigation,” Hastings said.

Hermann-Memorial’s statement didn’t name the doctor, but the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, or UTHealth Houston, issued a statement defending Bynon, calling him ”an exceptionally talented and caring physician” with survival rates that are “among the best in the nation.”

Bynon is an employee of UTHealth Houston who is contracted to Memorial Hermann. He did not respond to an email inquiry Wednesday.

The hospital has said the inappropriate changes were only made to the liver transplant program, but since he shared leadership over both the liver and kidney transplant programs, they inactivated both.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also said it’s conducting an investigation, adding it is “working across the department to address this matter.”

Neither Hermann Memorial nor UTHealth or HHS had additional comments Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a woman using a different law firm filed a lawsuit last week in Harris County against Memorial Hermann and UTHealth alleging negligence in the death of her husband, John Montgomery, who died in May 2023 at age 66 while on the waitlist for a liver transplant. The lawsuit says that Montgomery was told he wasn’t sick enough, and subsequently, that he was too sick before ultimately being taken off the list.

The death rate for people waiting for a liver transplant at Memorial Hermann was higher than expected in recent years, according to publicly available data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, which evaluates U.S. organ transplant programs. The group found that in the two-year period from July 2021 through June 2023, there were 19 deaths on the waitlist, while models would have predicted about 14 deaths.

While the hospital’s waitlist mortality rate of 28% was higher than expected “there were many liver programs with more extreme outcomes during the same period,” Jon Snyder, the registry’s director, said in an email.

He said that the hospital’s first-year success rates for the 56 adults who received transplants between July 2020 through December 2022 was 35% better than expected based on national outcomes.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Boeing said Wednesday that it lost $355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.

CEO David Calhoun said the company is in “a tough moment,” and its focus is on fixing its manufacturing issues, not the financial results.

Company executives have been forced to talk more about safety and less about finances since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane.

The accident halted progress that Boeing seemed to be making while recovering from two deadly crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019. Those crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, are now back in the spotlight, too.

About a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash met with government officials for several hours Wednesday in Washington. They asked the officials to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement, but left disappointed.

Boeing officials made no mention of the meeting, but talked repeatedly while discussing the quarterly earnings of a renewed focus on safety.

“Although we report first-quarter financial results today, our focus remains on the sweeping actions we are taking following the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident,” Calhoun told employees in a memo Wednesday.

Calhoun ticked off a series of actions the company is taking and reported “significant progress” in improving manufacturing quality, much of it by slowing down production, which means fewer planes for its airline customers. Calhoun told CNBC that closer inspections were resulting in 80% fewer flaws in the fuselages coming from key supplier Spirit AeroSystems.

“Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,” he wrote to employees. “Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials. But safety and quality must and will come above all else.”

Calhoun, who will step down at the end of the year, said again he is fully confident the company will recover.

Calhoun became CEO in early 2020 as Boeing struggled to recover from the Max crashes, which led regulators to ground the planes worldwide for nearly two years. The company thought it had sidestepped any risk of criminal prosecution when the Justice Department agreed not to try the company for fraud if it complied with U.S. anti-fraud laws for three years — a period that ended in January.

Boeing has been reaching confidential settlements with the families of passengers who died, but the relatives of those killed in the Ethiopia crash are continuing to press the Justice Department to prosecute the company in federal district court in Texas, where the settlement was filed. On Wednesday, department officials told relatives that the agency is still considering the matter.

Leaving the meeting, Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, called it “all for show.” He said the Justice Department appears determined to defend the agreement it brokered in secret with Boeing.

“We simply want that case to move forward and let the jury decide if Boeing is a criminal or not,” he said.

It was an emotional meeting, according to Nadia Milleron, whose daughter Samya Stumo died in the 2019 crash.

“People are angry. People are shouting. People are starting to talk over other people,” said Milleron, who watched online from her home in Massachusetts while her husband attended in person. Relatives believe the Justice Department is “overlooking a mountain of evidence against Boeing. It’s mystifying,” she said.

According to Milleron, the head of the fraud section of the Justice Department’s criminal division, Glenn Leon, said his agency could extend its review beyond this summer, seek a trial against Boeing on the charge of defrauding regulators who approved the Max, or ask a judge to dismiss the charge. She said Leon made no commitments.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

A federal judge and an appeals court ruled last year that they had no power to overturn the Boeing settlement. Families of the crash victims hoped the government would reconsider prosecuting Boeing after the Jan. 5 door-plug blowout on the Alaska Airlines jetliner as the plane flew above Oregon.

Investigators looking into the Alaska flight say bolts that help keep the door plug in place were missing after repair work at a Boeing factory. The FBI told passengers that they might be crime victims.

Boeing stock has plunged by about one-third since the blowout. The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up its oversight and given Boeing until late May to produce a plan to fix problems in manufacturing 737 Max jets. Airline customers are unhappy about not getting all the new planes that they had ordered because of delivery disruptions.

The company said it paid $443 million in compensation to airlines for the grounding of Max 9 jets after the Alaska accident.

Several former and one current manager have reported various problems in manufacturing of Boeing 737 and 787 jetliners. The most recent, a quality engineer, told Congress last week that Boeing is taking manufacturing shortcuts that could eventually cause 787 Dreamliners to break apart. Boeing pushed back aggressively against his claims.

Boeing, however, has a couple things in its favor.

Along with Airbus, Boeing forms one-half of a duopoly that dominates the manufacturing of large passenger planes. Both companies have yearslong backlogs of orders from airlines eager for new, more fuel-efficient planes. And Boeing is a major defense contractor for the Pentagon and governments around the world.

Richard Aboulafia, a longtime industry analyst and consultant at AeroDynamic Advisory, said despite all the setbacks Boeing still has a powerful mix of products in high demand, technology and people.

“Even if they are No. 2 and have major issues, they are still in a very strong market and an industry that has very high barriers to entry,” he said.

And despite massive losses — about $24 billion in the last five years — the company is not at risk of failing, Aboulafia said.

“This isn’t General Motors in 2008 or Lockheed in 1971,” Aboulafia said, referring to two iconic corporations that needed massive government bailouts or loan guarantees to survive.

All of those factors help explain why 20 analysts in a FactSet survey rate Boeing shares as “Buy” or “Overweight” and only two have “Sell” ratings. (Five have “Hold” ratings.)

Boeing said the first-quarter loss, excluding special items came to $1.13 per share, which was better than the loss of $1.63 per share that analysts had forecast, according to a FactSet survey.

Revenue fell 7.5%, to $16.57 billion.

Moody’s downgraded Boeing’s unsecured debt one notch to Baa3, the lowest investment-grade rating, citing the weak performance of the commercial-airplanes business.

Boeing Co. shares closed down 3%. They have dropped 34% since the Alaska blowout.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. companies would no longer be able to bar employees from taking jobs with competitors under a rule approved by a federal agency Tuesday, though the rule is sure to be challenged in court.

The Federal Trade Commission voted Tuesday 3-2 to ban measures known as noncompete agreements, which bar workers from jumping to or starting competing companies for a prescribed period of time. According to the FTC, 30 million people — roughly one in five workers — are now subject to such restrictions.

The Biden administration has taken aim at noncompete measures, which are commonly associated with high-level executives at technology and financial companies but in recent years have also ensnared lower-paid workers, such as security guards and sandwich-shop employees. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that more than one in 10 workers who earn $20 or less an hour are covered by noncompete agreements.

When it proposed the ban in January 2023, FTC officials asserted that noncompete agreements harm workers by reducing their ability to switch jobs for higher pay, a step that often provides most workers with their biggest pay increases. By reducing overall churn in the job market, the agency argued, the measures also disadvantage workers who aren’t covered by them because fewer jobs become available as fewer people leave their positions. They can also hurt the economy overall by limiting the ability of other businesses to hire needed employees, the FTC said.

The rule, which doesn’t apply to workers at non-profits, is to take effect in four months unless it is blocked by legal challenges.

“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas and rob the American economy of dynamism,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. “We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces.”

Some doctors, she added, have been prevented from practicing medicine after leaving practices.

Business groups have criticized the measure as casting too wide a net by blocking nearly all noncompetes. They argue that highly paid executives are often able to win greater pay in return for accepting a noncompete.

“It’ll represent a sea change,” said Amanda Sonneborn, a partner at King & Spalding in Chicago who represents employers that use noncompetes. “They don’t want somebody to go to a competitor and take their customer list or take their information about their business strategy to that competitor.”

But Alexander Hertzel-Fernandez, a professor at Columbia University who is a former Biden administration Labor Department official, argued that lower-income workers don’t have the ability to negotiate over such provisions.

“When they get their job offer,” he said, “it’s really a take-it-or-leave-it-as-a-whole,” he said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday that it will file a lawsuit to block the rule. It accused the FTC of overstepping its authority.

“Noncompete agreements are either upheld or dismissed under well-established state laws governing their use,” said Suzanne Clark, the chamber’s CEO. “Yet today, three unelected commissioners have unilaterally decided they have the authority to declare what’s a legitimate business decision and what’s not by moving to ban noncompete agreements in all sectors of the economy.”

Two Republican appointees to the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the proposal. They asserted that the agency was exceeding its authority by approving such a sweeping rule.

Noncompete agreements are banned in three states, including California, and some opponents of noncompetes argue that California’s ban has been a key contributor to that state’s innovative tech economy.

John Lettieri, CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, a tech-backed think tank, argues that the ability of early innovators to leave one company and start a competitor was key to the development of the semiconductor industry.

“The birth of so many important foundational companies could not have happened, at least not in the same way or on the same timeline and definitely not in the same place, had it not been for the ability of entrepreneurs to spin out, start their own companies, or go to a better company,” Lettieri said.

The White House has been stepping up its efforts to protect workers as the presidential campaign heats up. On Tuesday, the Labor Department issued a rule that would guarantee overtime pay for more lower-paid workers. The rule would increase the required minimum salary level to exempt an employee from overtime pay, from about $35,600 currently to nearly $43,900 effective July 1 and $58,700 by Jan. 1, 2025.

Companies will be required to pay overtime for workers below those thresholds who work more than 40 hours a week.

“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday when doctors can provide abortions during medical emergencies in states with bans enacted after the high court’s sweeping decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

The case comes from Idaho, which is one of 14 states that now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy with limited exceptions. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has considered a state ban since Roe was reversed.

The Biden administration argues that even in states where abortion is banned, federal health care law says hospitals must be allowed to terminate pregnancies in rare emergencies where a patient’s life or health is at serious risk.

Idaho contends its ban has exceptions for life-saving abortions but allowing it in more medical emergencies would turn hospitals into “abortion enclaves.” The state argues the administration is misusing a health care law that is meant to ensure patients aren’t turned away based on their ability to pay.

The Supreme Court has allowed the Idaho law to go into effect, even during emergencies, as the case played out.

Doctors have said Idaho’s abortion ban has already affected emergency care. More women whose conditions are typically treated with abortions must now be flown out of state for care, since doctors must wait until they are close to death to provide abortions within the bounds of state law.

Meanwhile, complaints of pregnant women being turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Anti-abortion groups blame doctors for mishandling maternal emergency cases. Idaho argues the Biden administration overstates health care woes to undermine state abortion laws.

The justices also heard another abortion case this term seeking to restrict access to abortion medication. It remains pending, though the justices overall seemed skeptical of the push.

The Justice Department originally brought the case against Idaho, arguing the state’s abortion law conflicts with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, known as EMTALA. It requires hospitals that accept Medicare to provide emergency care to any patient regardless of their ability to pay. Nearly all hospitals accept Medicare.

A federal judge initially sided with the administration and ruled that abortions were legal in medical emergencies. After the state appealed, the Supreme Court allowed the law to go fully into effect in January.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.