DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford is recalling more than 870,000 newer F-150 pickup trucks in the U.S. because the electric parking brakes can turn on unexpectedly.

The recall covers certain pickups from the 2021 through 2023 model years with single exhaust systems. Ford’s F-Series pickups are the top-selling vehicles in the U.S.

The company says in documents posted by government safety regulators Friday that a rear wiring bundle can come in contact with the rear axle housing. That can chafe the wiring and cause a short circuit, which can turn on the parking brake without action from the driver, increasing the risk of a crash.

Drivers may see a parking brake warning light and a warning message on the dashboard.

Ford says in documents that it has 918 warranty claims and three field reports of wire chafing in North America. Of these, 299 indicated unexpected parking brake activation, and 19 of these happened while the trucks were being driven.

The company says it doesn’t know of any crashes or injuries caused by the problem.

Dealers will inspect the rear wiring harness. If protective tape is worn through, the harness will be replaced. If the tape isn’t worn, dealers will install a protective tie strap and tape wrap.

Owners will be notified by letter starting Sept. 11.

Owners with questions can call Ford customer service at (866) 436-7332.

If you go to the grocery store and wander to the bakery aisle, you’ll find it there. The cosmetics aisle? It’s there too. Same for the shampoo section, the deodorants section and the laundry aisle.

This product, palm oil, is not only highly versatile but also a highly efficient crop, beating other sources of vegetable oil in how much they produce on a given amount of land. So palm oil is the most widely used in the world: It’s 35% to 40% of vegetable oil consumed.

But it is also contributing to deforestation, climate change and abuse of workers.

Fortunately, there is an active global movement to make palm oil more sustainable and its production more ethical to the people who grow the trees and process the fruit for oil. Unfortunately, change can be slow and there is a long way to go, but steps are being taken.

Palm oil comes from the fruit of the African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis. The trees are native to southwestern Africa but have been introduced to other parts of the world, first as an ornamental tree, then as a commercial crop once harvesting and refining techniques were modernized. Today, Indonesia and Malaysia together produce about 85% of the global supply of palm oil, but many other countries produce it, too.

Its popularity results from many factors. It can be semi-solid at room temperatures; it resists oxidation, giving products a longer shelf life; it is stable at high temperatures, making it ideal for frying; and it can be odorless and colorless, making it a valuable food additive.

So you will find it everywhere in the supermarket, from margarines, doughnuts, cakes and other baked goods, to pizza and ramen, to cosmetics, shampoos and deodorants, and detergents. It’s in biofuels, too.

Another reason for its popularity: Acre for acre, African oil palms are the most efficient and productive crop grown for oil, producing many times more oil on the same amount of land than its nearest competitors. Most of the production occurs on large plantations, but smallholder and family farmers can also get high yields on small parcels. And that makes it an important cash crop.

But there are serious problems.

• Given that African oil palms grow only in the tropics — and grow especially well in Indonesia and Malaysia — large tracts of some of the most biodiverse lands in the world have been cleared for growing this one species. This clearing is often accomplished by slash-and-burn techniques that pollute the air and release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
• The sites of many palm plantations were once tropical peat forests. These peat forests, one of the Earth’s great carbon sinks (storing more carbon than they release into the atmosphere), are now out of service. This, too, worsens global warming.
• The clearing of these diverse lands can cause soil erosion and have a disastrous effect on water quality.
• Eliminating the forests removes important habitat for threatened wildlife, including orangutans, tigers, rhinos, elephants and many other species.
• And as if all this were not enough, many palm oil producers use exploitative and even abusive labor practices.

Yet our appetite for palm oil seems insatiable, and it grows every year. Read your supermarket labels, and you might be surprised by just how much palm oil you do consume.

People worldwide recognize that what we do and eat affects situations across the globe. If you would like to find out more about palm oil, and what you can do to encourage its sustainability and ethical production, visit the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil at rspo.org.

You can, for example, be informed about what you’re thinking about buying, and favor goods made by more-sustainable companies. You can find a scorecard by the World Wildlife Fund — one ranking the sustainability practices and commitments of corporations that buy palm oil — at palmoilscorecard.panda.org.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER (AP Economics Writer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A measure of consumer prices that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve fell last month to its lowest level since March 2021, the latest sign that inflation in the United States is steadily cooling from its once-painful highs.

Prices rose just 3% in June from 12 months earlier, down from a 3.8% annual increase in May, though still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.2% from May to June, up slightly from 0.1% the previous month.

Last month’s sharp slowdown in year-over-year inflation largely reflected falling gas prices, as well as milder increases in grocery costs.

Still, a measure of “core” prices, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, remained elevated even though it also eased last month. Those still-high underlying inflation pressures are a key reason why the Fed raised its short-term interest rate Wednesday to a 22-year high. The Fed’s policymakers consider core prices a better measure of where inflation might be headed.

Core prices were still 4.1% higher than they were a year ago, well above the Fed’s target, though down from 4.6% in May. From May to June, core inflation was just 0.2%, down from 0.3% the previous month, an encouraging sign.

Friday’s report from the Commerce Department also showed that Americans’ willingness to keep spending, despite two years of high inflation and 11 Fed rate hikes over 17 months, remains a powerful driver of the economy. Consumer spending rose 0.5% from May to June, up from 0.2% the previous month.

The latest data underscores the unusual nature of the economy: A healthy job market is bolstering hiring, driving up wages and keeping unemployment near a half-century low. Yet inflation is weakening rather than rising, as it typically does when unemployment is low. That suggests that the Fed may be able to achieve a difficult “soft landing” for the economy, in which inflation falls toward the Fed’s 2% target without triggering a deep recession.

The Fed’s policymakers, though, still appear concerned that the steadily growing economy could help perpetuate inflation. This can occur as persistent consumer demand enables more companies to raise prices, thereby keeping inflation above the Fed’s target and potentially causing the central bank to raise rates even higher.

The latest evidence of the economy’s resilience came Thursday, when the government reported that it grew at a 2.4% annual rate in the April-June quarter — faster than analysts had forecast and an acceleration from a 2% growth rate in the first three months of the year.

At a news conference Wednesday, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate, now at about 5.3%, was high enough to restrain the overall economy and likely tame inflation over time. But Powell added that the Fed would need to see more evidence that inflation has been sustainably subdued before it would consider ending its rate hikes.

Powell declined to offer any signal of the central bank’s likely next moves. In June, Fed officials had forecast two more rate hikes this year, including Wednesday’s.

Fed officials are also closely tracking measures of U.S. wages. They have said they believe that rising pay helps fuel inflation, in part because businesses often raise prices to cover their higher labor costs.

The inflation gauge that was issued Friday — the personal consumption expenditures price index — is separate from the government’s better-known consumer price index, or CPI. For June, the CPI reached its lowest point since early 2021 — 3% in June compared with a year earlier, down sharply from a 4% annual rate in May, though still above the Fed’s 2% target.

The Fed prefers the PCE index because it accounts for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps — when, for example, consumers shift away from pricey national brands in favor of cheaper store brands. And rents, which are among the biggest inflation drivers but which many economists think aren’t well-measured, carry only about half the weight in the PCE that they do in the CPI.

Friday will be the hottest day of 2023 and potentially the hottest since 2020, according to the National Weather Service.

The day’s forecast calls for temperatures in the upper 90s near 100 degrees, and heat indices ranging from 105 to 112 degrees. This heat is expected for the entire southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina regions.

A heat advisory is in effect until 10 a.m. Friday, and an excessive heat warning will be in effect until 8 p.m. Saturday due to the “extreme heat and humidity” which can increase the risk of heat-related illness.

“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances,” reads the heat advisory. “Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening.”

The signs of heat exhaustion include: passing out, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, muscle cramps, cold and clammy skin, a fast but weak pulse, and tiredness or weakness. Heat stroke is evidenced by a fast, strong pulse, a high body temperature of 103 degrees or more, passing out and many of the same symptoms of heat exhaustion.

Those experiencing heat stroke should not be given anything to drink, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Instead others should try to help lower their body temperature with cool cloths or a cold bath.

Cooling centers have opened throughout Hampton Roads. Call the local health department for information on the closest cooling center.

The forecast also shows a possibility for strong to severe storms in the afternoon and evening.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, [email protected]

By ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump met Thursday with members of special counsel Jack Smith’s team ahead of a potential indictment over the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Trump himself confirmed the meeting in a post on his Truth Social network, writing, “My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country.”

He added that “no indication of notice was given during the meeting.”

It was not immediately clear what was discussed at the meeting, though a similar sit-down with lawyers occurred in the days before Trump was indicted last month on charges of illegally retaining classified documents. Thursday’s meeting included Trump attorney John Lauro, said the person familiar with the case, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering. Lauro said in a Fox News television interview last week that his client had done “nothing wrong.”

The status of the secretive grand jury proceedings remained unclear despite building speculation that a criminal case could be near. No indictment was filed Thursday, though Trump did face new charges in the classified documents case, with prosecutors accusing him of asking a staffer to delete security camera footage in an apparent effort to obstruct the investigation.

Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, was informed earlier this month by Smith’s office that he was a target of the Justice Department’s investigation, suggesting that an indictment could be soon.

The investigation has focused on the turbulent two-month period after the November 2020 election in which Trump refused to accept his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and spread lies that victory was stolen from him. The turmoil resulted in the riot at Capitol, when Trump loyalists violently broke into the building, attacked police officers and disrupted the congressional counting of electoral votes. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to that assault.

In between the election and the riot, Trump urged local election officials to undo voting results in their states, pressured Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen — despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even his own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment on Thursday’s meeting. Lauro, Trump’s lawyer, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Trump was charged by Smith’s team last month with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate, Mar-a-Lago, and concealing them from investigators. He was also indicted in New York in March on charges of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. And prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are preparing to announce charging decisions in the coming weeks related to efforts to subvert the election in that state.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP.

By JIM GOMEZ (Associated Press)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A small Philippine ferry turned upside down when passengers suddenly crowded to one side in panic as fierce winds pummeled the wooden vessel, leaving at least 26 people dead while 40 others were rescued, officials said Friday.

Coast guard and police said search and rescue efforts had resumed after a pause Thursday night. Officials said it remained unclear how many people were aboard the M/B Princess Aya, which capsized Thursday in Laguna de Bay in Rizal province east of Manila.

When people rushed to one side of the vessel amid severe winds, the boat tilted and its outrigger broke, then the boat capsized shortly after leaving a wharf in the town of Binangonan for nearby Talim island, police and the coast guard said.

The accident happened only about 46 meters (150 feet) from shore, officials said at a news conference.

The Rizal provincial police said that they immediately launched a rescue operation with the help of the coast guard and other local authorities, but that at least 26 people drowned. Forty others were saved.

“This is really a tragic event that has to be investigated,” coast guard Rear Adm. Hostillo Arturo Cornelio told reporters.

The ferry was supposed to carry a maximum of 42 passengers and crewmembers but was overloaded, Cornelio said. He said investigators would also look into reports that the passengers were not wearing life vests as required by safety regulations.

Asked how many people were on the boat, Cornelio said it was unclear if there were more than the 66 who died or were save. “We assume there could be more,” he said.

The search was continuing Friday.

A video released by the coast guard showed rescuers on a local government boat pulling a body out of the lake. Another video showed local fishermen aboard vessels approaching the overturned boat.

Typhoon Doksuri blew away Thursday after battering the northern Philippines and whipping up seasonal monsoon rains in a large swath of the archipelago.

The capsizing brought the death toll from a week of stormy weather across the main island of Luzon to 39. At least 13 people were reported killed earlier due to Doksuri’s onslaught, mostly due to landslides, flooding and toppled trees and thousands were displaced, disaster response officials said.

Sea travel was suspended in many ports during Doksuri’s onslaught from Tuesday to Wednesday, stranding thousands of passengers and cargo trucks. The no-sail orders were gradually lifted Thursday as weather improved in many areas.

Coast guard Rear Adm. Armand Balilo said the boat that capsized had set out after a no-sail order was lifted for Binangonan town. Only 22 passengers were listed on the ferry’s manifest and criminal complaints may be filed against the vessel’s owner, skipper and two crewmen, he said.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and weak enforcement of safety regulations. In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

By MATTHEW BROWN and RIO YAMAT (Associated Press)

HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — An Arizona teenager who disappeared days before her 15th birthday nearly four years ago is safe after walking into a small-town police station in Montana this week, authorities announced Wednesday.

Police in Havre, Montana, said Alicia Navarro, now 18, showed up alone Sunday morning in the town of about 9,200 people near the Canadian border and identified herself as a missing teenager from the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.

Navarro’s disappearance on Sept. 15, 2019, sparked a massive search that included the FBI. Glendale police spokesperson Jose Santiago said over the years, police had received thousands of tips.

Investigators are now trying to determine what happened to Navarro after vanishing at age 14 and how she ended up in Montana, more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) away from her hometown.

When she disappeared, Navarro left a signed note that read: “I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.”

But her mother, Jessica Nunez, raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, may have been lured away by someone she met online.

Law enforcement officers took a man into custody at an apartment just a few blocks from the Havre police station on Wednesday night, according to several witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press.

As many as 10 heavily-armed uniformed and undercover officers showed up about 8 p.m. and took away in handcuffs the man who had been living in the apartment, said Rick Lieberg, who lives across the street.

A young woman later emerged from the apartment who Lieberg said he had not previously seen. He said the woman resembled a photograph of Navarro that has been released by police.

“She came out, talked to the officers, then two ladies pulled up and then she got into a car with them and they left,” Lieberg said.

Officers remained on the scene for several hours, taking pictures and doing other work inside the apartment, Lieberg said. He said the young woman returned to the apartment building with the two women on Thursday, but he did not see her go into the apartment.

A second witness, Jonathan Michaelson, who lives next door, said he was questioned at the scene by a plainclothes police officer who said he was from Arizona and asked if Michaelson had ever seen a girl at the apartment. He said he had not.

“If she was in that apartment, I’m surprised I never saw her,” Michaelson said.

Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite, the lead investigator, said they were looking into all the possible scenarios that could have led to Navarro’s disappearance, including kidnapping.

“As much as we’d like to say this is the end,” Waite said, “we know this is only the beginning of where this investigation will go.”

Police said Navarro told them after her arrival at the station she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.

In a short video clip that police said was taken shortly after Navarro arrived at the police station this week, she can be heard telling authorities, “No one hurt me.”

In another short video, Navarro thanked the police.

“Thank you for offering help to me,” she said.

Authorities in both Montana and Arizona haven’t said how long Navarro had been in Havre before walking into the police station. Havre is surrounded by farmland and is north of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

Waite described Navarro’s reunion this week with her mother as “emotionally overwhelming” and that Navarro said she was sorry for “what she has put her mother through.”

In an emotional video posted Wednesday to a Facebook account titled “Finding Alicia,” Nunez told her tens of thousands of followers, “I want to give glory to God for answering prayers and for this miracle.”

Nunez had been documenting her efforts to find her daughter on the Facebook page throughout the years. The account features hundreds of posts with photos of Navarro as a young child and pictures of Nunez holding up signs that read, “Children don’t just disappear!”

“For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example,” Nunez said in the video, which had been viewed more than 200,000 times. “Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”

___

Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed.

By SCOTT SONNER and FELICIA FONSECA (Associated Press)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona woman who pleaded guilty to murder in the starvation death of her 6-year-old son was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday after witnesses described the horrors of the tiny closet that reeked of urine where he and his young brother were kept and denied food.

Elizabeth Archibeque’s lawyer had asked that her sentence include the possibility of parole after 35 years partly because she had agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder and child abuse in the 2020 death of Deshaun Martinez.

But Coconino Superior Court Judge Ted Reed said that while her expression of remorse was genuine, her “heinous, cruel and depraved behavior” warranted imprisonment for “the rest of your natural life.”

One police detective testified Thursday that she had never seen anything as horrific in her entire life — a nightmare for the emaciated boys crammed in a 21-by-25-inch (53-by-63-centimeter) closet for 16 hours a day.

Archibeque, 29, who briefly took the witness stand to testify on her own behalf on Thursday, said she blamed herself for her son’s death and fully accepted whatever sentence she received.

“A huge part of me died along with my beautiful child,” she said. “Not a day goes by that I do not grieve … I am so sorry.”

Archibeque was charged along with the boy’s father, Anthony Martinez, and grandmother, Ann Martinez, who have pleaded not guilty and are being tried separately on murder and child abuse charges.

Archibeque’s public defender, Christine Brown, suggested Thursday the other two were primarily to blame for the abuse of the boys.

An autopsy determined Deshaun Martinez, who weighed just 18 pounds (8.1 kilograms), died of severe starvation. Authorities found him unresponsive after Ann Martinez called 911 on March 2, 2020, and said she thought her grandson was dead. The manner of death later was listed as homicide.

The boy’s parents initially attributed their son’s malnourished state to a medical condition and to ingesting diet or caffeine pills. Eventually, they told police they kept him and his older brother in a closet for 16 hours a day and gave them little to eat. The brother survived.

The boys’ confinement was punishment for stealing food while the parents slept, police said. Their two sisters, ages 4 and 2, were found healthy in the apartment where they all lived.

Flagstaff police Detective Melissa Seay testified during Thursday’s sentencing hearing that on the day Deshaun’s body was found in the family’s Flagstaff apartment, she examined the tiny closet where the boys slept with an orange piece of plastic on the floor and a “foul, awful smell of urine.”

“I have never seen something so horrific in all my life,” Seay said. She said Deshaun “was just bones.”

“His face was completely sunken in. It was just like a skeleton,” Seay said. She said his brother didn’t fare much better.

“His bones were protruding from his back. I could see his ribs,” she said.

Deputy County Attorney Michael Tunink said he decided not to show the evidence photos during the sentencing hearing because they were so “disturbing it is hard on anyone who has to see them.”

Brown said Archibeque was addicted to methamphetamine at birth, had a traumatic upbringing and suffered from mental issues. She said her husband and mother-in-law inflicted physical and emotional abuse on her and she “felt powerless” to do anything about the situation.

Brown said Archibeque told her during one visit to the jail that “I feel more free in here than I did with him.”

She said Archibeque “is very aware she will spend the rest of her life in prison” but feels a “huge sense of relief” knowing her children now live in a better place.

Lawyers for both sides requested and the judge agreed to seal all pre-sentencing documents because of their sensitive nature in an effort to protect the other children’s privacy.

The foster mother who took in Deshaun’s siblings said his brother was “so traumatized about food and eating” that he would “ask every five minutes” when they would eat next and kept a “special little lunch box with snacks that would never leave his side.”

She said it has taken three years for one of the sisters to begin to talk and that the other one “holds the belief she carried both brothers on her back and saved them.”

“So much has been taken from these children,” she said.

Lawyers for Ann Martinez are scheduled to appear at a case management conference Sept. 18, with her trial currently set to begin in January 2024. Anthony Martinez had been scheduled to go to trial earlier this year, but the trial date was vacated and has not been reset.

___

Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Three men convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting have been ordered freed from prison by a judge who deemed their lengthy sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” and decried the FBI’s role in radicalizing them in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.

Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the men known as the “Newburgh Four” — were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” caught up more than a decade ago in a scheme driven by overzealous FBI agents and a dodgy informant, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in her ruling Thursday.

“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote in granting the men’s request for compassionate release, effective in three months.

She said that it was “heinous” of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made for TV movie.” But, the judge added, “the sentence was the product of a fictitious plot to do things that these men had never remotely contemplated, and that were never going to happen.”

She excoriated the government for sending “a villain” of an informant “to troll among the poorest and weakest of men for ‘terrorists’ who might prove susceptible to an offer of much-needed cash in exchange for committing a faux crime.”

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the judge’s decision. A message seeking comment was sent to the FBI.

Citing concerns for the men’s health and her own qualms about the case, McMahon cut the 25-year mandatory minimum sentences she imposed on them in 2011 to time served plus 90 days. She said that would allow time for probation officials to prepare and for Payen’s lawyer to line up supportive housing for the man, who has a severe mental illness.

“We are tremendously pleased that our clients are on their way home — even if it’s fourteen years too late,” said Amith R. Gupta, part of a group of lawyers representing Payen and the Willamses, who are not related. Gupta in his statement described the three as destitute men “entrapped for their race, religion, and working-class backgrounds by a government looking to spread fear of Muslims and justify bloated budgets.”

Kathy Manley, who represented Payen, said the prosecution “should never have happened, but now at least the men will soon be out of prison.” Samuel Braverman, who represented Payen at trial, called the ruling “incredibly brave and just.”

The fourth man, James Cromitie, wasn’t part of the compassionate release request and is expected to complete his prison sentence in 2030.

Payen, Cromitie and the Williamses were arrested in 2009, during a period of heightened public and law enforcement concern about the threat of terror strikes hatched within the U.S. by supporters of foreign extremists.

Officials portrayed Cromitie as the ringleader of a “chilling plot” among “extremely violent men” loyal to a Pakistani terrorist group — though the government later decided not to present any evidence about foreign terrorist organizations at trial. A court complaint described him as a man seething with anti-American and antisemitic sentiment and eager to translate those feelings into bloody action.

Prosecutors said the defendants had spent months scouting targets and securing what they thought were explosives and a surface-to-air missile, aiming to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up synagogues in Riverdale, a heavily Jewish part of the Bronx. They were arrested there after allegedly planting bombs that were, in fact, packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI.

From the start, relatives said the four were men who were down on their luck after doing prison time.

The men’s lawyers soon raised questions about entrapment — a legal defense that argues that people were enticed into illegal conduct they wouldn’t have otherwise committed.

The defense lawyers said federal informant Shaheed Hussain tried to stir up the men with rhetoric and went on to choose the targets, offer hefty payment, buy the defendants groceries, and provide the fake bombs and missile. The defense portrayed Hussain as a self-serving manipulator who was trying to please the government after his own, unrelated fraud conviction.

Jurors deliberated for eight days before convicting the men in 2010. Three years later, they lost an appeal.

A possible phone number for Hussain rang unanswered Thursday night.

Hussain also worked with the FBI on other stings, including one that targeted an Albany pizza shop owner and an imam — and involved a loan using money from a fictitious missile sale. Both men, who said they were tricked, were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid a terrorist group.

A few years later, Hussain was in the public eye again when a stretch limo crashed in rural Schoharie, New York, killing 20 people. Hussain owned the limo company, operated by his son Nauman Hussain.

After it emerged that the limo had failed a safety inspection a month before the crash and that the slain driver didn’t have a commercial license, Nauman Hussain was charged with criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter. His lawyer blamed a repair shop for the vehicle’s problems and said his client was being treated like a scapegoat.

Nauman Hussain was convicted this May and is serving five to 15 years in prison.