Stocks surge on Wall Street, snapping 6-day losing streak; experts warn rough days lie ahead
Stocks surge on Wall Street, snapping 6-day losing streak; experts warn rough days lie ahead
The Dow Jones industrial average rocketed more than 600 points Wednesday, its biggest gain in seven years, snapping a six-day losing streak that had Americans nervously checking their investment balances.
While the surge came as a relief to many, Wall Street professionals warned that more rough days lie ahead, in part because of weakness in China, where signs of an economic slowdown triggered the sell-off that has shaken global markets over the past week.
Heading into Wednesday, the three major U.S. stock indexes had dropped six days in a row, the longest slide in more than three years. The Dow lost about 1,900 points over that period, and more than $2 trillion in corporate value was wiped out.
On Tuesday, a daylong rally collapsed in the final minutes of trading. On Wednesday, the market opened strong again, and the question all day was whether the rally would hold. It did, and picked up speed just before the closing bell.
The Dow vaulted 619.07 points, or 4 percent, to 16,285.51. It was the Dow’s third-biggest point gain of all time and its largest since Oct. 28, 2008, when it soared 889 points.
Classified information in Clinton emails is consistent with State Department’s recent pattern
WASHINGTON (AP) — The transmission of now-classified information across Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email is consistent with a State Department culture in which diplomats routinely sent secret material on unsecured email during the past two administrations, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Clinton’s use of a home server makes her case unique and has become an issue in her front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But it’s not clear whether the security breach would have been any less had she used department email. The department only systematically checks email for sensitive or classified material in response to a public records request.
In emails about the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, department officials discuss sensitive matters in real time, including the movement of Libyan militias and the locations of key Americans. The messages were released last year under the Freedom of Information Act and are posted on the State Department’s website.
An email from diplomat Alyce Abdalla, sent the night of the attack, appears to report that the CIA annex in Benghazi was under fire. The email has been largely whited out, with the government citing the legal exemption for classified intelligence information. The existence of that facility is now known; it was a secret at the time.
In an email sent at 8:51 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2012, Eric J. Pelofsky, a senior adviser to then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, gives an update on efforts to locate U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who died in the attack.
Judge sentences Colorado theater shooter to life in prison, then orders him out of courtroom
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — The man who unleashed a murderous attack on a packed Colorado movie theater was ordered Wednesday to serve life in prison without parole plus 3,318 years — the maximum allowed by law — before the judge told deputies, “Get the defendant out of my courtroom, please.”
The gallery applauded the remark by Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. as he gaveled the hearing to a close, ending a grueling three-year wait to see the gunman brought to justice. Survivors, relatives and a handful of jurors who were in the courtroom cheered and then hugged prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Some wiped away tears.
Samour ordered 28-year-old James Holmes to serve 12 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, one for each of the people he killed in the July 20, 2012, attack on a crowded movie theater.
He then added another 3,312 years for 70 convictions of attempted murder, and six years for an explosives charge.
“The defendant does not deserve any sympathy,” the judge said. “And for that reason, the court imposes the maximum sentence it can impose under the law.”
Univision’s Ramos came to Trump confrontation with different view of journalism’s role
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s onscreen confrontation with Univision’s Jorge Ramos on Tuesday over the Republican presidential candidate’s immigration plan should only be a surprise to those who don’t know Ramos.
The 57-year-old news anchor has a history of sharply questioning politicians and not hiding his opinions. Days before a security guard forced Ramos out of Trump’s Iowa news conference on Tuesday — he was later let back in and continued a contentious exchange — he had denounced Trump on CNN. Ramos said the immigration issue “is personal” and when Trump voices his views that include mass deportations and revoking the citizenship of children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents, “he’s talking about me” and all the other American Latinos born in another country.
Ramos is generally considered the most influential television journalist among Latinos living in the United States. He and Maria Elena Salinas co-anchor a weeknight newscast on Univision, the country’s most-watched Spanish-language network. A syndicated columnist, he also hosts a Sunday morning political panel for Univision and a weekly newsmagazine on Fusion, an English-language network geared to Latinos.
A Mexican native who came to the United States as a young journalist when the Mexican government censored one of his reports, Ramos said that Trump’s immigration plan was full of “empty promises. What he’s trying to sell the American public simply doesn’t work. It’s impossible,” he told CNN.
Univision said Ramos had earlier requested an interview with Trump, which the candidate rejected before distributing Ramos’ cell phone number on social media. So the Miami-based Ramos traveled to Iowa for the news conference.
Bowfishing tournament in Mississippi River refuge draws complaints, calls for tighter rules
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The teams of fishermen arrived with a seemingly unusual array of equipment — loud airboats, powerful searchlights and scores of bows and arrows.
Since their tournament on the Mississippi River ended last month, it’s drawn enough complaints that regulators are considering tighter restrictions on the fast-growing but little-known sport of bowfishing, in which anglers shoot fish with arrows attached to fishing line. The competition took place at night, with teams using bright lights to spot their prey.
“It turned night into day and blasted our eardrums like we were on an airport runway,” said Tim Mason, an environmental activist from McGregor, Iowa, who spends summers with his wife on a houseboat in the area.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday that it is investigating the event after a legal review determined organizers failed to obtain a required permit.
Members of the Bowfishing Association of America gathered late last month for a world tournament in western Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa, home to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.