AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EST

Dow drops over 1,000 as outbreak threatens global economy

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped more than 1,000 points Monday in the worst day for the stock market in two years as investors worry that the spread of a viral outbreak that began in China will weaken global economic growth.

Traders sought safety in U.S. government bonds, gold and high-dividend stocks like utilities and real estate. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to the lowest level in more than three years.

Technology companies, whose supply chains have been disrupted, accounted for much of the broad market slide, which wiped out all of the Dow’s and S&P 500’s gains for the year.

More than 79,000 people worldwide have been infected by the new coronavirus. China, where the virus originated, still has the majority of cases and deaths. The country's economy has been hardest hit as businesses and factories lie idle and people remain homebound because the government has severely restricted travel and imposed strict quarantine measures to stop the virus from spreading. Economists have cut growth estimates for the Chinese economy.

The ripple effects of the outbreak are being felt all around the world, as China is both a major importer of goods as well as a source of parts through intricate supply chains.

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As concern grows, China, South Korea report more virus cases

BEIJING (AP) — China and South Korea on Tuesday reported more cases of a new viral illness that has been concentrated in North Asia but is creating worrisome, increasing clusters in the Middle East and Europe.

China reported 508 new cases and another 71 deaths, 68 of them in the central city of Wuhan, where the epidemic began in December. The updates bring mainland China's totals to 77,658 cases and 2,663 deaths.

South Korea now has the second-most cases with 60 reported Tuesday morning, bringing its total to 893. South Korea has reported a near 15-fold increase in infections with the new coronavirus in a week, as health workers continue to find batches in the southeastern city of Daegu and nearby areas, where panic has brought towns to an eerie standstill.

Of the 60 new cases reported by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 49 came from Daegu and the surrounding areas of North Gyeongsang province.

The country also reported its eight fatality, a man in his 60s who was linked to a hospital in Cheongdo, where a slew of infections has been reported among patients at a mental ward.

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'A new day': Harvey Weinstein convicted, led away in cuffs

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and sexual assault against two women and led off to prison in handcuffs Monday in what his foes hailed as a landmark moment for the legal system and a long-overdue reckoning for the man vilified as the biggest monster of the #MeToo era.

The 67-year-old Weinstein had a look of resignation on his face as he heard the verdict: guilty on two charges, not guilty on a set of more serious ones.

While it was not the across-the-board victory prosecutors and his accusers had hoped for, it could put the stooped and feeble-looking Weinstein behind bars for the rest of his life. The charges carry up to 29 years in prison.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. saluted the women who came forward against the once-feared studio boss, saying they "changed the course of history in the fight against sexual violence" and “pulled our justice system into the 21st century.”

"This is the new landscape for survivors of sexual assault in America, I believe, and it is a new day. It is a new day because Harvey Weinstein has finally been held accountable for crimes he committed," Vance said.

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Public memorial service remembers the private Kobe Bryant

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kobe Bryant’s wife remembered him as a devoted father and husband who arrived early for school pickups and wrote heartfelt cards and letters.

Rob Pelinka, Bryant’s longtime agent and close friend, recalled his final texts from the NBA superstar minutes before he was killed last month in a helicopter crash. Bryant was attempting to secure an internship for the daughter of another friend who was sitting with him in the chopper.

Michael Jordan called Bryant “a little brother” and said that when he died, "a piece of me died.”

Bryant's athletic achievements were only part of the reason roughly 20,000 people gathered Monday for a public memorial service honoring him at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The event offered another chance to celebrate Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and the other seven victims of the crash with tears, memories and laughs.

Los Angeles already knew Bryant was much more than a basketball icon. His friends and family told the world.

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Worried Democrats rush to slow front-runner Sanders

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Worried Democrats on Monday intensified their assault against the party's presidential front-runner, Bernie Sanders, as the Vermont senator marched toward South Carolina's weekend primary eyeing a knockout blow.

At least three leading candidates, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg, reinforced their anti-Sanders rhetoric with paid attack ads for the first time. And a new political group was spending big to undermine Sanders' standing with African American voters.

“Socialist Bernie Sanders is promising a lot of free stuff,” says a brochure sent to 200,000 black voters in South Carolina by The Big Tent Project, a new organization trying to derail Sanders' candidacy. “Nominating Bernie means we reelect Trump. We can’t afford Bernie Sanders.”

The multi-pronged broadside just five days before South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary represents the Democrats' most aggressive attempt to knock Sanders down. It reflects growing concern within his party that the self-described democratic socialist is tightening his grip on the presidential nomination while they fear he's too extreme to defeat President Donald Trump this fall.

It also underscores the precarious state of Biden's campaign. The former vice president has long been viewed as the unquestioned front-runner in South Carolina because of his support from black voters. But as the contest nears, Sanders is also making a strong play here. If he can eat into Biden's base of support, that would raise fundamental questions about the future of Biden's candidacy.

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Crackdown on immigrants who use public benefits takes effect

PHOENIX (AP) — Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid.

No more.

“You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got.

But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside.

With new rules taking effect Monday that disqualify more people from green cards if they use government benefits, droves of immigrants, including citizens and legal residents, have dropped social services they or their children may be entitled to out of fear they will be kicked out of the U.S., said Velazquez and other advocates.

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Generational split among SC black voters could hurt Biden

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For James Felder, the question of which presidential candidate to support in the South Carolina primary has never been terribly complicated. The 80-year-old civil rights activist has always backed Joe Biden, appreciative of the eight years he spent as the No. 2 to the first black president.

But when Felder opened a recent forum at historically black Benedict College to questions, students in the room weren't so convinced.

J'Kobe Kelley-Mills, a junior English major, said he was torn between Biden and Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont senator who is now the Democratic front-runner after strong performances in the first three primary contests.

“They both have decades of political experience,” Kelley-Mills said of Biden and Sanders, adding that most of his friends were siding with the senator. “They're going to really know how to communicate with people on the other side of the aisle in the Senate and I think that if we can get them in there, we can finally start to see the government start to move forward.”

Faith Dupree, a senior psychology major and member of Benedict's NAACP student chapter, said she was backing Sanders, and sophomore Luis Gonzalez said he would likely vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

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Pioneering black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson dies

Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101.

Johnson died Monday of natural causes at a retirement community in Newport News, Virginia, family attorney Donyale Y. H. Reavis told The Associated Press.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that Johnson “helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color.”

Johnson was one of the “computers” who solved equations by hand during NASA’s early years and those of its precursor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

Johnson and other black women initially worked in a racially segregated computing unit in Hampton, Virginia, that wasn’t officially dissolved until NACA became NASA in 1958. Signs had dictated which bathrooms the women could use.

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Italian hikers rescued in Alaska after visiting infamous bus

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Italian man suffering from frostbite and four other tourists were rescued in the Alaska wilderness after visiting an abandoned bus that has become a lure for adventurers since it was featured in the “Into the Wild” book and movie.

Alaska State Troopers say the five Italians were rescued Saturday from a camp they set up after visiting the dilapidated bus on the Stampede Trail near the interior town of Healy.

The hikers were found 13 miles from the trailhead, Trooper spokesman Tim DeSpain said. He didn’t know how far they were from the bus.

One of the hikers had frostbite to his feet and was transported to Fairbanks for treatment, DeSpain said. The hiker’s injuries are not considered life-threatening. The other four hikers were picked up by friends in Healy.

Rescuers were alerted by the hikers with a satellite-based emergency device that notified the International Emergency Response Coordination Center of a medical emergency, troopers said. That international group then notified rescuers, who reached the site by snowmobile, DeSpain said.

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Altuve nicked by pitch, Astros stars booed on road vs Tigers

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — José Altuve insisted he tuned out the hecklers. He couldn't avoid a pitch that grazed him.

“He was hit in the foot. That ain’t nothing, you know what I mean?” Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker said Monday after an 11-1 win over Detroit at half-empty Joker Marchant Stadium. “It wasn’t intentional.”

Altuve was loudly booed when he was introduced for his spring training debut, cheered when he struck out and called a cheater by several fans. Quite a difference from past years, when the diminutive All-Star second baseman was among the most popular players in the majors.

But that was before Altuve and his Houston teammates were implicated in the sign-stealing scandal that’s rocked baseball.

“We just heard a lot of noise, and that's it,” Altuve said.