Nation and World briefs for August 26

Another losing day on Wall Street as early rally fades

NEW YORK (AP) — A rally in U.S. stocks evaporated in the minutes before the closing bell Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 200 points and extending Wall Street’s losing streak to six days.

For most of the day, it appeared that the market had shaken off some of its worries about the slowdown in China, and at one point the Dow was up by as much as 441. But sell orders began pouring in in the last 15 minutes of trading.

The Dow ended with a loss of 204.91 points, or 1.3 percent, at 15,666.44. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 25.59 points, or 1.4 percent, to 1,867.62. The Nasdaq composite declined 19.76 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,506.49.

The rally came after China lowered interest rates to try to boost the world’s second-biggest economy. Other world markets surged on the news out of Beijing, and for a while, it appeared that U.S. stocks would follow suit and that the global sell-off might stop. But Wall Street quickly swung from positive to negative territory.

“The return to a more traditional stimulus from China helped excite many investors,” said Jeff Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “But, in fact, this is more likely the start of a longer-term period of volatility.”

Suspect watched jihadi video on train, French prosecutor says in opening terror investigation

PARIS (AP) — Minutes before he slung an assault rifle across his chest and walked through a high-speed train, the Moroccan suspect in the foiled attack watched a jihadi video on his cellphone, the French prosecutor said in formally opening a terrorism investigation Tuesday.

The actions by Ayoub El-Khazzani on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train Friday night and information from other European authorities on his travels and apparent links to radical Islam prompted the investigation, said prosecutor Francois Molins.

El-Khazzani, 26, was tackled and tied up by five passengers, including three Americans and a Briton, averting what President Francois Hollande said “could have degenerated into monstrous carnage.”

During questioning by authorities, El-Khazzani said he had no terrorism plans and had found a bag of weapons Thursday in a Brussels park and planned to use them to rob passengers, Molins said. But the suspect grew less and less lucid as he gave his explanation, the prosecutor added, and eventually stopped talking to investigators altogether.

One reason investigators suspect a premeditated attack was that El-Khazzani, who claimed to be homeless and living in a Brussels park, used a first-class ticket, Molins said. The suspect refused to take an earlier train, he added, although there were seats available — “the sign of a planned project.”

Hezbollah, allies throw weight behind Lebanon protests, deepening crisis

BEIRUT (AP) — The powerful Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah threw its weight Tuesday behind mass protests calling for the government’s resignation, deepening a crisis that started over piles of uncollected garbage in the streets of the capital but has tapped into a much deeper malaise.

The explosion of anger targets the endemic corruption, hapless government and sectarian divisions of a brittle country once torn by civil war and now struggling with a wave of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.

A grassroots youth movement calling itself “You Stink” mobilized thousands of people in two rallies over the weekend, and has called for another large protest on Saturday. The Hezbollah announcement of support for the protests is likely to fuel concerns the Iranian-backed group will try to hijack a rare, non-political movement for its own political gain.

Hezbollah ministers and their allies walked out of a Cabinet meeting Tuesday meant to discuss the worsening garbage crisis. Prime Minister Tammam Salam called the emergency session after the weekend clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting corruption and poor public services.

The six ministers withdrew four hours into the meeting. Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, whose Free Patriotic Movement is aligned with Hezbollah, said he was pulling out because of the political “theater” surrounding the trash issue.

Budget report sees smallest deficits of Obama presidency, dangerous shortfalls in later years

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unforeseen flood of revenue is shrinking federal deficits to the lowest level of President Barack Obama’s tenure, Congress’ nonpartisan budget adviser said Tuesday. But in a report that will fuel both parties in their autumn clash over spending, the analysts also warned that perilously high shortfalls will roar back unless lawmakers act.

Two weeks before Congress returns from recess, the Congressional Budget Office said it expects this year’s federal deficit to fall to $426 billion. That’s $60 billion less than it expected in March, thanks to greater-than-expected individual and corporate income tax collections, and less than a third of the record $1.4 trillion gap of 2009 as the government tried fighting off the Great Recession.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Congress should prevent cuts in agency budgets and fund highways and other projects, saying, “We need to stay focused on this route and avoid self-inflicted wounds” like a government shutdown.

Annual deficits should fall to $414 billion next year before an aging population and swelling health care costs ignite shortfalls that should sail past $1 trillion in 2025, the budget office said. That would push the government’s accumulated debt that year to $21 trillion, or 77 percent the size of the country’s economy, threatening higher interest rates, surging government debt costs and other problems.

“That’s 77 percent and growing,” budget office director Keith Hall told reporters. “This is an unsustainable path here for federal debt.”

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Fox News chief calls on Donald Trump to apologize to Megyn Kelly for ‘crude’ Twitter attack

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News chief Roger Ailes said Tuesday that Donald Trump owes the network’s Megyn Kelly an apology for an unprovoked Twitter attack that “is as unacceptable as it is disturbing,” but Trump isn’t backing down.

The Republican presidential front-runner-turned-TV-critic had welcomed Kelly back from a vacation Monday night by tweeting that he liked her show better while she was away. Trump said Kelly “must have had a terrible vacation” because “she’s really off her game.” He retweeted a message that referred to her as a bimbo.

“Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at Fox News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise,” said Ailes, the Fox News Channel chairman. “I could not be more proud of Megyn for her professionalism and class in the face of all of Mr. Trump’s verbal assaults.”

Trump, in a statement, said he disagreed with Ailes and that he doesn’t think Kelly is a quality journalist. “Hopefully in the future I will be proven wrong and she will be able to elevate her standards to a level of professionalism that a network such as Fox deserves.”

Trump has been attacking Kelly ever since her tough questioning of him during the first GOP presidential debate, seen by 24 million people on Fox on Aug. 6. A day after the debate, he said Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Obama puts people on notice: He’s feeling ‘feisty’ — and ready to take on the ‘crazies’

LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Barack Obama is putting people on notice: He’s back from vacation feeling “refreshed, renewed, recharged” — and “a little feisty.”

He immediately showed his feisty side.

At a Democratic fundraiser Monday night in Nevada, Obama declared himself ready for the challenges he faces this fall in dealing with a Republican Congress that disagrees with him on the budget, energy policy, education and much more.

Obama said that as he’d ridden to the fundraiser with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, they’d done some reminiscing and spent some time “figuring out how we are going to deal with the crazies in terms of managing some problems.”

He didn’t identify exactly who the two of them had defined as “crazies.”

Gay and straight couples alike say ‘I do’ with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words

WASHINGTON (AP) — Emily Smith and Jillian Levine had already chosen a venue, booked a band and written the first draft of the ceremony for their wedding when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gay couples nationwide have a right to marry. Within minutes of the June 26 ruling, Levine texted her fiancée a rainbow emoji and a question about their ceremony.

“Are there any good quotes from this Supreme Court ruling that we could change the reading to?” wrote Levine, 30.

“Yup, already saved it,” Smith, 29, typed back, sending a screen shot from Facebook with words that had made her cry.

It was the concluding paragraph of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 28-page majority opinion — now making its way into wedding ceremonies for both gay and straight couples.

“No union is more profound than marriage,” Kennedy’s opinion says, “for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”