Good morning! Ex-NPR chief talks federal funding, economists are backing Carolina Toha for Chile’s next president, and Land O’Lakes’ CEO is leading one of the most complex issues facing businesses in the Trump era.

– Hard work. Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford has long been an advocate for farmers and rural American communities. At the beginning of this year, her advocacy portfolio became even higher-stakes: Just as President Donald Trump took office, Ford took over from Apple CEO Tim Cook as chair of the Business Roundtable’s immigration committee.

While the Trump administration has enacted its immigration policy—including mass-scale deportations and questions of legality that have already reached the Supreme Court—Ford has been working to provide the business community’s perspective on long-term immigration questions.

The Business Roundtable supports Trump’s efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Ford told me last week. “That’s where the American public is,” she said of the issue. But the highly influential business interest group, whose members also include GM chief Mary Barra, Citi CEO Jane Fraser, and TIAA chief Thasunda Brown Duckett, is preparing to bring other perspectives in front of the Trump administration after it determines its efforts at the border are near-complete. That’s when the group will “be able to provide information from the business community to help them understand the needs of immigration flow in terms of workers that will help build the American economy.” “[We aim to] help them understand where there are potential gaps, whether it be in construction workers or agricultural workers,” Ford says.

Ford took over Land O’Lakes in 2018; the job made her the first openly gay woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. Land O’Lakes is more than 100 years old, structured as a member-owned farmer cooperative. It’s ranked No. 245 on the Fortune 500 with $16.8 billion in revenues.

For the farmers and members who make up Land O’Lakes, immigration is a “primary issue,” Ford says. “If you’re a dairy farmer, that’s a 24/7, 365 business. And it’s very difficult, pumping the manure pits that are broken at 3 in the morning. It’s freezing out there. This is hard work,” she says. “They’ve got to have folks to fix the tractor. Many of them have had people working with them for 20 years who without them, you don’t have a business. You can’t do it without them. They’re grateful for folks who want to do that hard work that many are not willing to do…Some have mentioned to me, ‘I’m really nervous, Beth. I’ve got to have staffing. I’ve got to have labor.'”

Ford says the Trump administration has conveyed a willingness to “do something on farm workers.” Her government affairs team has spent the past several months getting to know the new administration—and, in some cases, waiting for those people to get confirmed or read up to speed on these issues, which range from industry-specific needs to visas and DACA. These discussions reach across the White House, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Homeland Security, and the Department of Commerce. (Meanwhile, Land O’Lakes is focused on the upcoming tax bill and the impact the expiration of the 199A benefit would have on farmers.)

Ford acknowledges that this work is complicated. “It’s going to be hard—yeah, it might be,” she says. “I sign up for that, because I think it’s so critically important to the economy, not just for agriculture, but for all these businesses.”

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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A Vietnamese property tycoon who was jailed for life in a $17-billion money laundering case had her sentence cut to 30 years on appeal on Monday after she claimed what happened was “an accident”.

Property developer Truong My Lan had already lost a challenge against the death penalty in a separate case in which she was found guilty in April last year of stealing money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and fraud amounting to $27 billion.

The appeal court ruled there was no basis to reduce her sentence but said she could still escape the death penalty if she returned three-quarters of the stolen assets.

Four months later, an appeal court in Ho Chi Minh City ruled on Monday that a life sentence she was handed for three crimes during a second trial in October would be reduced to 30 years.

“Lan played the major role… (but) we also take into consideration the amount of money that Lan has spent on overcoming the consequences,” judge Pham Cong Muoi said following discussions during the appeal about how her assets may be used to compensate victims of her crimes.

Prosecutors said she had repaid a quarter of the $1.2 billion she defrauded from thousands of bond investors.

Lan’s husband Chu Lap Co did not appeal, but the judging panel concluded that his two-year sentence should be cut by half after he paid back the $1.2 million he was found to have laundered.

In her final words before the court last week, Lan described what happened as “an accident”.

“Since being jailed, I have tried my best… to seek the best solutions to (deal with my) projects and properties,” she was quoted as saying by state media.

“Please acknowledge my effort,” she added.

‘Mastermind’

The 68-year-old was found guilty in October of laundering $17.7 billion and illegal cross-border trafficking of $4.5 billion.

She was also found guilty of bond fraud.

The court determined during the trial that Lan was “the mastermind, committed the crime with sophisticated methods, many times, causing especially serious consequences”.

During her first trial in April 2024, Lan was found guilty of embezzling $12.5 billion but prosecutors said the damages caused by the scam totalled $27 billion — equivalent to around six percent of Vietnam’s 2023 GDP.

Lan owned just five percent of shares in SCB on paper but the court concluded that she effectively controlled more than 90 percent through family, friends and staff.

Tens of thousands of people who had invested their savings in the bank lost money, prompting rare protests in the communist nation.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com