AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Stocks soar on plans for more stimulus measures, Biden wins
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared more than 1,100 points, or 4.5%, Wednesday as governments and central banks around the globe took more aggressive measures to fight the virus outbreak and its effects on the economy.
The gains more than recouped the market's big losses from a day earlier as Wall Street's wild, virus-fueled swings extend into a third week.
Stocks rose sharply from the get-go, led by big gains for health care stocks after Joe Biden solidified his contender status for the Democratic presidential nomination. Investors see him as a more business-friendly alternative to Bernie Sanders.
The rally's momentum accelerated around midday after House and Senate leadership reached a deal on a bipartisan $8.3 billion bill to battle the coronavirus outbreak. The measure's funds would go toward research into a vaccine, improved tests and drugs to treat infected people.
Investors are also anticipating other central banks will follow up on the Federal Reserve’s surprise move Tuesday to slash interest rates by half a percentage point in hopes of protecting the economy from the economic fallout of a fast-spreading virus. Canada's central bank cut rates on Wednesday, also by half a percentage point and citing the virus' effect.
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Sanders refocusing his campaign after Biden's super Tuesday
WASHINGTON (AP) — His front-runner status slipping, Bernie Sanders refocused his Democratic presidential campaign on surging rival Joe Biden on Wednesday as the Vermont senator's allies grappled with the fallout from a Super Tuesday stumble that raised internal concerns about the direction of his White House bid.
Sanders targeted Biden's record on trade, Social Security and fundraising just hours after billionaire Mike Bloomberg suspended his campaign and Elizabeth Warren confirmed she was privately reassessing her future in the race. The dramatic shifts signaled that the Democrats' once-crowded nomination fight had effectively come down to a two-man race for the right to face President Donald Trump in November.
Sanders declared himself “neck and neck” with Biden as he faced reporters in his home state, Vermont, one of just four states he captured on the most consequential day of voting in the party's 2020 primary season. Biden won 10 states, assembling victories that transcended geography, race and class.
“What this campaign, I think, is increasingly about is, Which side are you on?” Sanders said.
The progressive candidate lobbed familiar attacks against the former vice president's record but ignored supporters' calls to be more aggressive and insisted his campaign would avoid any “Trump-type effort” that included personal criticism.
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China's virus slowdown offers hope for global containment
The slowdown in coronavirus cases out of China offers a sliver of hope that the global outbreak can be controlled, but whether that can happen anytime soon without drastic measures remains to be seen, public health authorities say.
With China accounting for the overwhelming majority of the world's 94,000 infections and 3,200 deaths since the virus first surfaced there in late December, it’s hard to see the country as a success story. But some experts believe the easing of the crisis — there are now more new cases being reported outside China than inside it — suggests containment is possible.
World Health Organization outbreak expert Maria Van Kerkhove, who recently traveled to China as part of a team from the U.N. health agency, said the international experts noted a drop in cases there since the end of January.
“We scrutinized this data and we believe this decline is real,” she said, adding that the extraordinary measures undertaken in China — including the unprecedented lockdown of more than 60 million people — had a significant role in changing the direction of the outbreak.
“We believe that a reduction of cases in other countries, including Italy, Korea, Iran, everywhere, that this is possible,” she said.
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In Italy and beyond, virus outbreak reshapes work and play
ROME (AP) — Italy closed all schools and universities Wednesday and barred fans from all sporting events for the next few weeks, as governments trying to curb the spread of the coronavirus around the world resorted to increasingly sweeping measures that transformed the way people work, shop, pray and amuse themselves.
With the virus now reported in more than 80 countries, Saudi Arabia barred citizens from making the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Iran canceled Friday prayers for a second week, and leader after leader pleaded with citizens to put an end to that traditional symbol of mutual trust, the handshake.
The Italian government decreed that soccer games and other sporting events will take place without fans present until at least April 3. Italy is is the epicenter of Europe's coronavirus outbreak. More than 3,000 have been infected and at least 107 have died, the most of any country outside China.
Italy also closed schools for 8.4 million students through March 15, after at least four other countries — Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Iraq — took similar action.
“I know it’s a decision with an impact. As education minister, I obviously want my students back in school as soon as possible," said Education Minister Lucia Azzolina.
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Cellphone alerts helped Tennessee couple escape to basement
BAXTER, Tenn. (AP) — Billy Dyer's cellphone blared out an emergency alert, then his wife Kathy's phone followed, giving them just enough time to get downstairs and flip on a TV to check the news.
Then the tornado hit.
When the sun rose Tuesday morning, the Dyers emerged to find the walls around their corner bedroom gone. Their mattress was perched precariously on their bed's headboard, with only sky all around.
“Thank God we had enough time to get downstairs to the basement or we would probably not be here,” Dyer said.
State emergency officials said 24 people died when fast-moving storms crossed Tennessee early Tuesday. Eighteen of them, including five pre-teen children, died in Putnam County, some 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Nashville. Eighty-eight more were injured in the county.
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Food stamp change fuels anxiety as states try to curb impact
CHICAGO (AP) — Having food stamps offers Richard Butler a stability he’s rarely known in his 25 years. He was in state custody at age 2, spent his teen years at a Chicago boys’ home and jail for burglary, and has since struggled to find a permanent home.
The $194 deposited monthly on his benefits card buys fresh produce and meat.
“It means the world to me,” said Butler, who shares a one-bedroom apartment with two others. “We can go without a lot of things, like phones and music. We can’t go without eating.”
But that stability is being threatened for people like Butler, who are able-bodied, without dependents and between the ages 18 and 49. New Trump administration rules taking effect April 1 put hundreds of thousands of people in his situation at risk of losing their benefits. They hit particularly hard in places like Illinois, which also is dealing with a separate, similar change in the nation's third-largest city.
From Hawaii to Pennsylvania, states are scrambling to blunt the impact of the new rules, with roughly 700,000 people at risk of losing benefits unless they meet certain work, training or school requirements. They've filed a multi-state lawsuit, expanded publicly funded job training, developed pilot programs and doubled down efforts to reach vulnerable communities, including the homeless, rural residents and people of color.
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Noose placed on Wisconsin brewery shooter's locker in 2015
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Someone placed a noose several years ago on the locker of a Wisconsin brewery employee who last week opened fire on his co-workers, the brewery operator said Wednesday, confirming at least one instance of racial harassment against the shooter as police continue to piece together his motive.
Anthony Ferrill, an electrician at the sprawling Molson Coors brewery in Milwaukee, fatally shot five co-workers before killing himself on the campus last week. His motive remains unknown. Milwaukee police say they're still investigating and have released almost no details about the incident aside from identifying the shooter and victims.
“At this time, it is undetermined if race played a factor in this incident,” Sgt. Sheronda Grant, a spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
Local media have reported over several days on speculation that the attack was racially motivated, interviewing current and former Molson Coors employees anonymously complaining about longstanding discrimination against black workers. Ferrill was black. Four of the shooting victims were white. The fifth was Latino.
The company on Wednesday confirmed that a noose was placed on Ferrill's locker in 2015. Ferrill wasn't working that day but was told about it, the company said.
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Twitter preps ephemeral tweets, starts testing in Brazil
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter is starting to test tweets that disappear after 24 hours, although initially only in Brazil.
The company says the ephemeral tweets, which it calls “fleets” because of their fleeting nature, are designed to allay the concerns of new users who might be turned off by the public and permanent nature of normal tweets.
Fleets can't be retweeted and they won't have “likes.” People can respond to them, but the replies show up as direct messages to the original tweeter, not as a public response, turning any back-and-forth into a private conversation instead of a public discussion.
Despite having high-profile users such as President Donald Trump, Twitter has lagged behind other tech powerhouses like Facebook and Google in terms of user growth and advertising revenue. Twitter is hoping that by offering disappearing tweets, people will be more likely to share casual, everyday thoughts — and to do so more often.
The new feature is reminiscent of Instagram and Facebook “stories” and Snapchat's snaps, which let users post short-lived photos and messages. Such features are increasingly popular with social-media users looking for smaller groups and and more private chats.
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Critics of Oprah book club title put new novel on trial
TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — When Oprah Winfrey chose the novel “American Dirt” for her book club, she imagined engaging in an impassioned television dialog about the narrative, which follows a Mexican mother and her son fleeing to the United States.
Instead, Winfrey ended up organizing a show that put the book, author Jeanine Cummins and Winfrey herself on trial. After critics complained about the novel's portrayal of Latinos, she turned the forum into a debate about the marginalization of Latino voices, the lack of diversity in publishing and the question of who is best suited to tell a given story.
Just a few months ago, the book was one of 2020's most welcome releases, described as a modern-day version of John Steinbeck's classic “The Grapes of Wrath.” But criticism quickly mounted and made it Exhibit A in grievances against the industry. The Mexican-American writer Myriam Gurba condemned the novel as a “Trumpian” charade crammed with Mexican stereotypes.
Winfrey and Cummins were joined on the show by three prominent critics of the book. The Associated Press was allowed to attend the taping of the highly anticipated program last month in Tucson, not far from where Cummins wrote and researched parts of the novel. The program airs Friday on Apple TV Plus.
Speaking to the AP after the show, Winfrey lamented the controversy.
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Doctors try 1st CRISPR editing in the body for blindness
Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone's body for the first time, a new frontier for efforts to operate on DNA, the chemical code of life, to treat diseases.
A patient recently had it done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for an inherited form of blindness, the companies that make the treatment announced Wednesday. They would not give details on the patient or when the surgery occurred.
It may take up to a month to see if it worked to restore vision. If the first few attempts seem safe, doctors plan to test it on 18 children and adults.
“We literally have the potential to take people who are essentially blind and make them see,” said Charles Albright, chief scientific officer at Editas Medicine, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company developing the treatment with Dublin-based Allergan. “We think it could open up a whole new set of medicines to go in and change your DNA.”
Dr. Jason Comander, an eye surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, another hospital that plans to enroll patients in the study, said it marks “a new era in medicine” using a technology that “makes editing DNA much easier and much more effective.”