‘He fell a hero:” French praise policeman in hostage swap

TREBES, France — The French police officer who swapped places with a female supermarket employee being held hostage had already received a lifetime of accolades by the time he walked unarmed into the store under attack by an extremist gunman.

Known for his courage and sang-froid, Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame was acclaimed by neighbors, colleagues and French authorities as a hero Saturday after his death from wounds the day before. President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for a national ceremony to formally honor him.

After agreeing to the hostage swap, Beltrame surrendered his weapon — but kept his cellphone on, allowing authorities outside the Super U market in the southern French town of Trebes to hear what was happening inside.

Thanks to Beltrame’s quick thinking, special police units heard gunshots inside the store Friday and stormed the building immediately, killing the attacker.

“Beyond his job, he gave his life for someone else, for a stranger,” his brother, Cedric, told RTL radio in France. “He was well aware he had almost no chance. He was very aware of what he was doing … if we don’t describe him as a hero, I don’t know what you need to do to be a hero.”

Why Trump’s latest steps heighten risk of a global trade war

WASHINGTON — President Ronald Reagan once likened trade wars to the pie fights in old Hollywood comedies. One pie in the face leads to another. And then another.

Pretty soon, Reagan said in a 1986 radio address, “everything and everybody just gets messier and messier. The difference here is that it’s not funny. It’s tragic. Protectionism becomes destructionism. It costs jobs.”

Suddenly, the world’s financial markets are gripped by fear that an escalating trade rift between the United States and China — the two mightiest economies — could smear the world with a lot of splattered cream and broken crust. If it doesn’t prove tragic, as Reagan warned, it may still inflict far-reaching pain.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost a combined nearly 1,150 points Thursday and Friday after President Donald Trump set his administration on a path to restrict Chinese investment in the United States and impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese products.

“We should be very worried,” said Bryan Riley, director of the conservative National Taxpayer Union’s Free Trade Initiative. “It’s very possible this could escalate into something that neither country intends.”

Can Facebook restore public trust after privacy scandal?

CHICAGO (AP) — It’s a scandal of privacy, politics and an essential ingredient of business success — public trust.

Facebook is confronting a costly, embarrassing public relations debacle after revelations that Cambridge Analytica may have misused data from some 50 million users to try to influence elections. Among its marquee clients: President Donald Trump’s general election campaign.

Now a company known as much for reminders of a long-lost friend’s birthday and documentation of acquaintances’ every whim is grappling with outrage— and the possible loss of confidence — from users around the globe that have made the social media site a part of their daily routine.

“I trust somebody until they give me a reason not to trust them,” said Joseph Holt, who teaches business ethics at the University of Notre Dame. “And Facebook has increasingly given me reasons not to trust them.”

Losing that would be a disaster, not just for Facebook, but for any Silicon Valley company that relies on users to open up their private lives.

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GOP’s congressional stronghold is Democrats’ source of hope

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A longtime congressional stronghold for Republicans, Pennsylvania is emerging in dramatic fashion as a source of hope for Democrats in their quest to take control of the U.S. House in November’s mid-term elections.

This week cemented Democratic victories in two key battles: Republicans dropped talk of legal challenges to Democrat Conor Lamb’s improbable victory in a special election in southwestern Pennsylvania and federal courts rejected two GOP lawsuits seeking to block a state court-drawn map of more competitive districts.

For years, Pennsylvania has hosted one of the nation’s biggest Republican congressional delegations. Now, what had been a 13-to-5 Republican advantage in Pennsylvania’s 18-member delegation could get wiped out.

It’s been seven head-spinning months.

First, five Republican congressmen decided not to run again, including one — suburban Pittsburgh’s Tim Murphy — who resigned last October amid a sex scandal. Those openings created opportunities for Democrats.