Elon Musk served by the SEC earlier this month, filing says

(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks closed down slightly on Tuesday as investors weathered ongoing uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 156 points, or 0.3%, at the close of trading. The S&P 500 fell 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.05%.

The U.S. has received about 15 proposals for trade agreements, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. Trump issued a 90-day pause of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” last week, saying he plans to negotiate trade agreements with roughly 75 countries targeted by the levies.

The remarks from Leavitt came a day after Trump signaled a willingness to ease auto tariffs, while saying he plans to impose new tariffs on computer chips and pharmaceuticals

Trump’s administration said on Friday that many consumer electronics would be exempt from his wide-ranging reciprocal tariffs, an announcement that sent global markets higher on Monday.

Trump on Monday also indicated a willingness to further ease tariffs, saying he is looking to “help some of the car companies” in the aftermath of 25% auto levies.

The White House also took steps on Monday that may result in new tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, posting notices online about national security investigations into those products.

Markets in Europe also traded higher midday on Tuesday, after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 90-day pause on planned tariff countermeasures went into effect.

Germany’s DAX climbed about 1.21% midday and Britain’s FTSE 100 traded up about 0.90% midday.

South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 0.88% on Tuesday, posting its second day of gains. And Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.84%.

Markets in China, where Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are still in place, showed less enthusiasm. Shanghai’s Composite Index rose just 0.15% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.23%.

ABC News’ David Brennan contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — For the last 130 years, four generations of Ernest Lepore’s family have baked the pastries – cream puffs, cannoli, sfogliatelle – that have come to define Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood, withstanding wars, economic downturns and drastic changes to the neighborhood that his family calls home.

But with the soaring cost of eggs – a staple ingredient in nearly half their products – it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Ferrara Bakery to avoid raising their prices.

“We can’t keep passing on costs to our guests,” Ferrara’s president, Ernest Lepore, told ABC News. “As you move closer to Easter, eggs are just growing exponentially in price. I can’t do anything about it.”

Egg prices have skyrocketed over the last year, reaching historic highs, and wholesale shoppers like small businesses were paying over $8 for a dozen eggs last week. According to the latest USDA report, released Friday, the national average wholesale price has dropped slightly to $6.85 per dozen.

However, many grocery stores sell their eggs at a loss to get customers in the door, bringing the average retail price of a dozen eggs to just under $5. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price of a dozen eggs at the grocery store reached a record high of $4.95 in January 2025. More, the USDA predicted that prices might increase 40 percent this year, and experts are warning that those prices might stay high even if the supply of eggs in the U.S. rebounds.

But small businesses, unlike grocery shoppers, are tied to the market wholesale price, making these surging costs particularly devastating.

Theodore Karounos, owner of Square Diner in New York’s downtown neighborhood of Tribeca, said that translates into tens of thousands of dollars in additional yearly costs for him.

“If things hold up at this price, and we stay as busy as we were last year, I’ll pay $70,000 more for eggs than I did last year,” he told ABC News. “I can’t just absorb that hit for the next nine months.”

The exorbitant costs are a result of a nationwide shock to supply, brought about by a ravaging outbreak of the avian flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 166 million commercial poultry birds have been affected since 2022, when the outbreak began. But the last few months have been especially devastating.

“In just four months, we’ve lost 52 million layers and pullets within our nation’s egg supply, which is vastly different than any other outbreak that we’ve seen in the past.” Karyn Rispoli, managing editor of Expana, a firm that surveys and tracks the price of eggs, told ABC News. “The biggest difference of late is just that it has been more lethal and really devastated our nation’s egg supply.”

The avian flu has wreaked havoc on poultry flocks across the country. As a result, Rispoli says that the nation’s supply of egg-laying hens is at nearly a ten-year low. Once one chicken is infected, farmers are forced to cull the remainder, after which comes the challenge of repopulating their flocks.

But even as the U.S. faces an egg shortage, demand for the commodity remains relatively constant, creating a perfect storm for egg prices to soar. Consequently, those small businesses that rely on eggs, like Ferrara Bakery and Square Diner, are forced to make difficult decisions.

Unlike larger restaurant chains like Denny’s and Waffle House, which have adjusted to the surging costs by adding an egg surcharge to their menu item prices, smaller businesses are less inclined to follow suit, according to Dartmouth College economics professor Bruce Sacerdote.

“In the case of a restaurant, they aren’t necessarily able to pass on the full price increase. We’re not talking about a simple commodity where the markets clear immediately and you just have to pass on the full price increase,” he told ABC News. “Restaurants may be taking a hit to their margins in order to not pass on the full price increase.”

At Tom’s Restaurant on New York City’s Upper West Side – famous as the setting for the fictional Monk’s Café in the TV series “Seinfeld” – the soaring cost of eggs means that co-owner John Ieromonahos is spending an additional $2,000 a week to pay for eggs to continue supplying the restaurant, where approximately 70 percent of their business is breakfast.

“Of course, we don’t want to charge extra to customers,” Ieromonahos said. “This is not our customer’s fault, but I don’t know how long we’re going to last without charging extra.”

At The Hungarian Pastry Shop in Manhattan, owner Philip Binioris told ABC News that he’s trying his best not to pass the higher cost of eggs on to consumers, though he, too, isn’t sure how long he can absorb the increasingly prohibitive cost.

“It’s frustrating. I would like to not raise our prices. I think that we have fair prices, and I like to be able to keep them stable,” he said. “I’m just kind of waiting to see how bad this gets before I make a decision on how I’m going to change prices. It’s tight.”

While consumers, small businesses and their customers continue to shell out more for eggs amid the avian flu outbreak, the nation’s largest producer and distributor of eggs has reported soaring profits.

Cal-Maine Foods, according to SEC filings, saw an over three-fold increase in their gross profits in their fiscal year 2023, at the dawn of the bird flu outbreak. And according to their most recent filing, their gross profits are up 342% through the second quarter of their fiscal year 2025 versus the previous fiscal year.

Rispoli also told ABC News that grocery shoppers could see increased prices even when the egg supply does begin to recover, as grocery stores may seek to recoup lost earnings. She said that happened when egg prices soared at the beginning of the current avian flu outbreak.

“In the aftermath of that, as the market corrected and came down substantially, retailers were then holding shelf prices higher to try and recapture some of the margin that they had previously forfeited,” she said.

Back at Ferrara in Little Italy, Lepore is searching everywhere to find other ways to save money so he doesn’t have to increase their prices. He recently upgraded his building’s cooling system and improved his refrigerators, saving money on electricity in the long term. He also is taking a lesson from his grandparents, who kept the business going through the Great Depression, by baking smaller batches of goods in order to more easily keep product fresh and avoid waste.

“Eggs are determining production,” he said. “As we are going into Easter, I am going to be baking at the last minute not to waste an egg, because there can’t be any left over.”

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(NEW YORK) — With more high-rise buildings than anywhere else in the U.S., New York City has long been a place where millions of people hope to achieve the American dream through careers in the construction industry.

While scores of construction workers are spending hours each day building the city’s newest apartment buildings, office towers and restaurants from the ground up, these properties have also become the locations of the city’s latest fraud scheme, according to some representatives of the construction and insurance industries.

“It isn’t a victimless crime,” Don Orlando of Tradesman Program Managers, which represents property owners and construction contractors, told ABC News. “These are small businesses that are getting victimized.”

Orlando alleges that hundreds of construction site incidents involving reported injuries were actually staged as part of a widespread conspiracy — and he said surveillance cameras are capturing some of these alleged fraudulent falls.

He pointed to a video that he says shows a man who “didn’t fall” and “just sat down” while an ambulance was on its way. The man filed a lawsuit claiming head and limb injuries, according to Orlando.

“That $200 or $300 investment in that camera saved that employer millions of dollars,” Orlando said.

Others said these claims are being blown out of proportion.

“If there was this rampant fraud going on, these cases would be dismissed by a judge or a jury,” New York personal injury attorney Nicholas Warywoda told ABC News. “That’s just not happening.”

‘The cost of doing work skyrockets’

Steve Katz has worked in the construction industry in the New York metropolitan area for more than 50 years, but said the last few years have been unlike anything he has ever experienced.

According to Katz, his concerns over fraud started eight years ago when one of his employees claimed to have fallen from a fire escape. After doctors said the employee was fine and could return to work, the man never came back, according to Katz, adding that his insurance company settled for $3.6 million.

“That’s when I went crazy,” Katz said. “I found out that I wasn’t the only one. My competitors told me they were all getting hit with these fake falls.”

Two years later, Katz said another construction worker sued him, alleging a fall on one of the properties where Katz’s crews were working. However, Katz said the employee’s colleagues told him that the employee told them that he was planning the fall in advance and was willing to teach them how to fake falls as well.

“Since then, I’ve had a total of eight of these phony lawsuits,” Katz said, adding that the extensive costs associated with fraudulent claims are being passed along to customers.

“We just raise our rates. The insurance companies raise their rates, and the cost of doing work skyrockets.”

Orlando explained that fraudulent construction accident cases can have financial implications for insurance customers throughout the U.S., even outside the nation’s largest city.

“If this was true, then why are the insurance companies not showing the proof that it’s actually lawsuits that are raising premiums and insurance costs?” Warywoda, whose firm frequently represents construction workers injured on construction sites in New York, said.

“One could say if the owners of the construction sites would just provide the appropriate safety measures that they’re required to, there wouldn’t be as many lawsuits,” he added.

One address, multiple lawsuits

Allegations of widespread fraud have caused increased scrutiny on lawsuits being filed by people claiming to be construction workers who were hurt on job sites.

In New York City’s outer boroughs, miles from the high-rise towers of Midtown Manhattan, reporting by ABC station WABC-TV found some claims coming from multiple people living at the same address.

One apartment building in the Bronx was home to 30 plaintiffs, while a two-story building nearby was listed as the home of 21 plaintiffs, according to WABC-TV’s report. In Queens, at least half a dozen people living in a six-unit apartment building said in court documents that they were injured on the job at construction sites.

“If you think about it, the law of averages tells you it’s really unlikely that there’s going to be this large number of people living at the same address, who are all in the same business, work for the same employer, have the same injury, have the same medical treatment and are going through the exact same things,” Michelle Rafield, the executive editor for Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, told ABC News.

Orlando’s company, Tradesman, claimed undocumented migrants are being recruited to participate in the scheme.

“They’re told, ‘Listen, we can teach you how to make millions. This is all you have to do. You have to fake a fall on a construction site,'” Katz said.

Katz and Orlando claim that some doctors and lawyers are in on the scheme, and that after the construction accidents are reported, the migrants undergo unnecessary surgeries and then become plaintiffs in slip-and-fall lawsuits

“I would call the plaintiffs in this case victims, because they are the ones being taken advantage of,” Orlando said.

Tradesman has now filed lawsuits of its own, taking over 100 defendants, including law firms and doctors, to federal court on accusations of racketeering.

“It’s morally wrong,” Orlando said. “Take out the fraud element. You’re taking advantage of someone who’s deprived as it is, and America is supposed to be the land of opportunities.”

Attorneys for dozens of the defendants say the allegations have no merit and that they intend to seek dismissals of the claims against them.

“The insurance industry and the industry lobby is very wealthy and very strong. They’re doing everything they can to tarnish and to change the civil justice system, which is only going to make it less safe for construction workers,” Warywoda, who isn’t among those accused in Trademan’s lawsuits, said. “It’s about putting profits over people.”

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