Nation & World Glance
Asian shares fall after Wall Street plunge
BEIJING — China’s stock market benchmark plunged 5.5 percent on Friday and other Asian markets were off sharply after the Dow Jones industrials on Wall Street plummeted more than 1,000 points, deepening a week-long sell-off.
Asian markets followed Wall Street down after the Dow entered “correction” territory for the first time in two years.
The Shanghai Composite Index dipped 5.5 percent but recovered slightly to end morning trading down 4.1 percent at 3,127.91. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was off 3.2 percent at 21,180.28 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 4.2 percent to 29,142.87. Benchmarks in Australia, South Korea and Southeast Asia also retreated.
Financial analysts regard corrections as a normal market event but say the latest plunge might have been triggered by a combination of events that rattled investors. Those include worries about a potential rise in U.S. inflation or interest rates and whether budget disputes in Washington might lead to another government shutdown.
“Markets are down again today, maybe unnerved by fears that the U.S. Senate will not pass a budget bill in time to avoid a U.S. government shutdown,” said Rob Carnell of ING in a report. “With financial markets vulnerable at the moment, this was not great timing for such political brinksmanship.”
Kelly in harsh spotlight after senior aide’s resignation
WASHINGTON — Pressure mounted on White House chief of staff John Kelly Thursday as questions swirled about his defense of a senior aide he fought to keep in a highly sensitive West Wing job despite accusations of spousal abuse from two ex-wives.
White House staff secretary Rob Porter, a member of President Donald Trump’s inner circle and arguably Kelly’s closest aide, cleaned out his desk on Thursday. But the aftershocks of his resignation reverberated amid concerns about his access to classified information.
Kelly himself faced criticism for initially defending his aide — only to later shift course after the publication of photos showing one of Porter’s ex-wives with a black eye.
“It’s fair to say we all could have done better over the last few hours or last few days in dealing with this situation,” said White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, who faced a barrage of questions about Kelly during a press briefing.
Though the allegations against Porter became public this week, Kelly learned last fall that something was amiss with the staff secretary’s attempts to get a security clearance, according to an administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Syrian forces capture 2 members of Islamic State ‘Beatles’
WASHINGTON — The American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces captured two notorious British members of an Islamic State insurgent cell commonly dubbed “The Beatles” and known for beheading hostages, a U.S. military official said Thursday.
The official said that El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey were captured in early January in eastern Syria. The two men are among four members of the IS cell that captured, tortured and beheaded more than two dozen hostages including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and American aid worker Peter Kassig. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the Syrian capture.
The State Department has imposed sanctions on both men. They are believed to be linked to the British terrorist known as Jihadi John, the masked IS militant who appeared in several videos depicting the graphic beheadings of Western hostages.
Their capture was first reported by the New York Times.
According to the U.S., Elsheikh traveled to Syria in 2012 and first joined alQaida’s branch there, and then later joined IS.
Trump aims to reduce drug costs under Medicare
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will propose lowering prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries by allowing them to share in rebates that drug companies pay to insurers and middlemen, an administration official said Thursday.
A senior administration official outlined the plan on condition of anonymity ahead of the release of Trump’s 2019 budget plan next week.
Pharmaceutical companies now pay rebates to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to help their medications gain a bigger slice of the market.
Insurers apply savings from rebates to keep premiums more manageable.
Under Trump’s proposal, seniors covered by Medicare’s popular “Part D” prescription benefit would be able to share in the rebates for individual drugs that they purchase at the pharmacy.
Court rejects appeals by 47 Russians against Olympic bans
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Sports’ highest court rejected appeals by all 45 Russian athletes plus two coaches who were banned from the Pyeongchang Olympics over doping concerns in a decision announced Friday less than nine hours before the opening ceremony.
The International Olympic Committee had refused to invite the group of Russians, saying it had evidence of alleged doping in Russian sports.
After two days of hearings, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the IOC has the right to set its own standards for who is eligible.
CAS Secretary General Matthieu Reeb, reading from a statement and declining to take questions, said the IOC process “could not be described as a sanction but rather as an eligibility decision.”
“The CAS panel found that the applicants did not demonstrate that the manner in which the two special commissions — the Invitation Review Panel and the Olympic Athlete from Russia Implementation Group — independently evaluated the applicants was carried out in a discriminatory, arbitrary or unfair manner. The Panel also concluded that there was no evidence the (commissions) improperly exercised their discretion.”
Government challenges dismissal of Cliven Bundy’s case
Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to reconsider the dismissal of the criminal case against a Nevada rancher who led a 2014 armed standoff with government agents.
States’ rights activist Cliven Bundy and his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy have a right to their beliefs but don’t have a right to obstruct federal law enforcement officers, wrote Dayle Elieson, the interim U.S. Attorney in Nevada, in a court filing Wednesday.
Elieson said the Bundys sought all along to “deflect responsibility” and blame the federal government even though they risked the lives of more than 20 officers who were “simply doing what they were told to do.”
The Bundys and their supporters “demonized the uniformed men and women in the wash, conflated their jobs with their identities, and claimed that their work
w/ this ad
was immoral,” wrote.
Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro last month dismissed the criminal case against Bundy, his two sons and a Montana militia leader. The judge cited what she called flagrant misconduct by federal prosecutors who failed to fully share evidence with defendants.
Elieson doesn’t say in the filing if her office will appeal to 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and Trisha Young, a spokeswoman for the office, declined to answer the question.
Bundy’s attorney, Bret Whipple, didn’t return request for comment to The Associated Press but told the Las Vegas Review Journal that prosecutors may be trying to buy more time to decide on an appeal. Whipple told the Review Journal Elieson the filing contains no new information and is without merit.
After the case was dismissed and Cliven Bundy was let out of jail, the rancher who has become an icon in conservative and antigovernment circles said that it’s up to the states, not the federal officials, how to manage vast expanses of rangeland in the U.S. West
“I don’t recognize the federal government to have authority, jurisdiction, no matter who the president is,” Bundy said last month.
Elieson argues in the new filing that Judge Navarro should have dismissed individual counts rather than the entire case.
She contends that the dismissal sets a dangerous precedent for law enforcement by encouraging the public to disrespect the law.