Tech woes, worsening tensions with China sink US stocks

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell sharply on Monday as investors responded to rising trade tensions between the United States and China and mounting scrutiny of big technology companies from consumers and politicians.

China imposed $3 billion of tariffs on U.S. farm goods and other exports, bringing the world's two largest economies closer to a full-on trade conflict.

Amazon sank following weekend broadsides from President Donald Trump on Twitter, while Facebook tumbled as a widening privacy scandal continued to weigh on the company's stock.

The looming threat of tighter regulation of the tech sector in Europe and the U.S. prompted investors to pull money out of high-flying companies, such as Netflix, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Among other recent winners, Intel dove 6.1 per cent following a report in Bloomberg News that Apple plans to start using its own chips in Mac computers.

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Kentucky, Oklahoma teachers rally as rebellion grows

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The state capitol in Kentucky filled with teachers protesting pension changes and demanding generous school funding Monday, and thousands of Oklahoma educators walked out of classrooms in the latest evidence of teacher rebellion in some Republican-led states.

Many Oklahoma schools were closed Monday, and districts announced plans to stay shut into Tuesday with teacher demonstrations expected to last a second day.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed legislation last week granting teachers pay raises of about $6,100, or 15 to 18 per cent. But some educators — who haven't seen a pay increase in 10 years — say that isn't good enough and walked out.

The state's largest teachers union has demanded a $10,000 pay raise for educators over three years, $5,000 for support personnel and a $75 million increase in funding this year.

"If I didn't have a second job, I'd be on food stamps," said Rae Lovelace, a single mom and a third-grade teacher at Leedey Public Schools in northwest Oklahoma. Lovelace, among many teachers who moonlight for extra pay , works 30 to 40 hours a week at a second job teaching online courses for a charter school.

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10 Things to Know for Tuesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Tuesday:

1. TRUMP OPENS DOOR TO POTENTIAL MEETING WITH PUTIN

It would be the first time the Russian leader has been at the White House in more than a decade and come at a time of rising tensions between the two global powers.

2. WALL STREET GIVES BACK GAINS

Stocks tumble after China raises import duties on a number of U.S. exports, bringing the two economic giants closer to a full-on trade conflict.

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Michigan, Villanova bring wild NCAA Tournament to a close

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — College basketball's wild 2017-18 ride ends in San Antonio, where Villanova meets Michigan in the national championship game of the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats are playing for their second title in three years under coach Jay Wright. The Wolverines are vying for their first championship since 1989 and to make up for the one coach John Beilein lost in 2013, at least a little.

This meeting on Monday night will come down to strength against strength.

Villanova is one of the greatest 3-point shooting teams in college basketball history, breaking season and NCAA Tournament records. The Wildcats blasted Kansas in the national semifinals, hitting a record 18 from beyond the arc.

Michigan rode its defence into the title game. The Wolverines are the nation's third-most efficient team on defence and one of the best at defending the 3-point line.

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Trump pushes Republicans to use 'nuclear option' on border

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration officials said Monday they're crafting a new legislative package aimed at closing immigration "loopholes," hours after the president called on Republicans in Congress to immediately pass a border bill using the "Nuclear Option if necessary" to muscle it through.

"Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don't allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!" President Donald Trump wrote in a series of sometimes-misleading tweets, fired off after returning from a holiday weekend spent in Florida with several immigration hardliners.

Trump also declared protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants "dead," claimed the U.S. has "no effective border laws" and warned Mexico to halt the passage of "caravans" of illegal immigrants or risk retribution.

"They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!" he wrote.

Trump has been seething over immigration since realizing the major spending bill he signed last month barely funds the "big, beautiful" border wall he has promised his supporters. The $1.3 trillion funding package included $1.6 billion in border wall spending, but much of that money can be used only to repair existing segments, not to build new sections.

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Deadspin video illustrates Sinclair stations' messaging

NEW YORK (AP) — A video with dozens of news anchors reading a script about "fake stories" put in stark visual terms what for weeks had largely been an academic debate about media consolidation and the Sinclair Broadcast Group's efforts to promote a consistent message across its stations.

The 98-second video, posted on Deadspin Saturday, has already been viewed by millions of people and provoked a tweet by President Donald Trump supporting the corporation on Monday.

Sinclair owns nearly 200 local stations and had ordered its anchors to read a statement expressing concern about "the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing the country." Some outlets publish these "fake stories" without checking facts first and some people in the media push their own biases, the statement said.

The anchors give no specific examples. Sinclair, whose corporate leadership leans right, uses terminology familiar to Trump and his criticisms of "fake news." In the message, the anchors say they "work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced and factual."

Timothy Burke, a video editor at Deadspin, said he read a CNN story last month about the script being sent to local stations and contacted a media monitoring service to collect examples of the statement being read on the air. After receiving more than 50, he fashioned them into a video that shows anchors reading different portions of the text, either simultaneously or one after the other.

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US opens door to possible Trump-Putin White House meeting

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration opened the door to a potential White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, raising the possibility of an Oval Office welcome for Putin for the first time in more than a decade even as relations between the two powers have deteriorated.

The Kremlin said Monday that Trump had invited the Russian leader to the White House when they spoke by telephone last month. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that the White House was among "a number of potential venues" discussed. Both sides said they hadn't started preparations for such a visit.

If it happens, Putin would be getting the honour of an Oval Office tete-a-tete for the first time since he met President George W. Bush at the White House in 2005. Alarms rang in diplomatic and foreign policy circles over the prospect that Trump might offer Putin that venue without confronting him about Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election or allegations that Russia masterminded the March 4 nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent.

"It would confer a certain normalization of relations and we're certainly not in a normal space," said Alina Polyakova, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Nothing about this is normal."

Much has happened since Trump and Putin spoke in the March 20 phone call. Trump said afterward he hoped to meet with Putin "in the not too distant future" to discuss the nuclear arms race and other matters. But their call was followed by reports that Trump had been warned in briefing materials not to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election but did so anyway.

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Dashboard video shows Sacramento sheriff's car hit protester

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Video shown Monday that was taken by a dashboard camera inside a sheriff's vehicle shows it hitting a protester and driving away — the latest flashpoint following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Sacramento.

The law enforcement official behind the wheel likely didn't know he hit someone, Sheriff Scott Jones said at a news conference where the video was shown, noting that he hasn't spoken to the driver, whose name has not been released.

The Sheriff's Department said the woman who was hit had minor injuries. The California Highway Patrol is investigating.

The woman, 61-year-old Wanda Cleveland, is considering her legal options, her attorney Mark Reichel said in a statement.

The demonstration on Saturday night followed two weeks of protests over the March 18 death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was shot by Sacramento police responding to a call of someone breaking car windows.

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An atypical terror case comes to close with 20-year sentence

BALTIMORE (AP) — It was July 2015 when the FBI, scrambling to contain a surge in Islamic State group propaganda, first visited an Egyptian-American newspaper deliveryman in Maryland.

Agents needed to ask Mohamed Elshinawy why his phone number had surfaced in an investigation involving ISIS extremists and how he came to receive a $1,000 Western Union transaction from Egypt.

During hours of questioning, Elshinawy first suggested the money was from his mother. Next he said it was for an iPhone purchase for a friend. After being reminded it was a crime to lie to federal agents, he proceeded to tell a whole new story — that he had indeed received money from the Islamic State but that he was actually scamming the group instead of planning an attack.

It was a pivotal moment in a monthslong FBI investigation that ended Friday with Elshinawy being sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges.

The investigation stretched from a modest townhome northeast of Baltimore across multiple continents, unveiled a shadowy network of illicit payments and shell companies, and revealed a direct link to an ISIS hacker who was killed in Syria just before Elshinawy's arrest. It also had a chilling twist: Officials say that among the roughly 150 IS-linked cases U.S. authorities have brought since 2014, this is the only prosecution they're aware of in which money was transmitted from IS group operatives abroad to someone in the U.S.. The far more common model involves money from America being sent to fighters in Syria.

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US Rep. Esty won't seek re-election amid harassment queries

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty announced on Monday she will not seek re-election this year amid calls for her resignation over her handling of the firing of a former chief of staff accused of harassment, threats and violence against female staffers in her congressional office.

Esty, a Democrat from Connecticut and an outspoken #MeToo advocate, made the announcement not to seek a fourth term in the November election days after apologizing for not protecting her employees from the male ex-chief of staff.

Since her Friday apology, which came after two news organizations published articles about her handling of the matter, a growing number of fellow Democrats, including the top two in the Connecticut Senate, had urged her to resign.

The congresswoman, who insisted last week she would not resign, said Monday she determined "it is in the best interest of my constituents and my family to end my time in Congress at the end of this year and not seek re-election." She added how "too many women" have been harmed by workplace harassment.

"In the terrible situation in my office, I could have and should have done better," she said in a statement.

News from © The Associated Press, 2018