AP News in Brief 12-22-18

A decade-long rally on Wall Street looks like it’s ending

NEW YORK — After almost 10 years, Wall Street’s rally looks like it’s ending.

Another day of big losses Friday left the U.S. market with its worst week in more than seven years. All of the major indexes have lost 16 to 26 percent from their highs this summer and fall. Barring huge gains during the upcoming holiday period, this will be the worst December for stocks since 1931.

There hasn’t been one major shock that has sent stocks plunging. The U.S. economy has been growing since 2009, and most experts think it will keep expanding for now. But it’s likely to do so at a slower pace.

As they look ahead, investors are finding more and more reasons to worry. The U.S. has been locked in a trade dispute with China for nine months. Economies in Europe and China are slowing. And rising interest rates in the U.S. could slow its economy even more.

Dysfunction in Washington isn’t helping the situation, with another Trump administration cabinet member announcing his resignation this week and the government Friday night on the brink of a partial shutdown.

Mattis resignation letter lays out challenges for successor

WASHINGTON — The extraordinary resignation letter that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis handed to a surprised President Donald Trump was not just a product of two years of accumulating frustration with an impulsive boss, but an outline of the strategic hazards facing the next Pentagon chief.

Mattis, who was quietly back at work Friday while stunned Pentagon staff soldiered on around him, implicitly warned in his letter to the president of the threat to the U.S. from allowing alliances to fray and of the risk that disrespecting allies will undermine U.S. credibility.

It was an outline of the challenges facing the nation and whoever takes over as defense secretary when Mattis leaves Feb. 28.

“As this Administration continues to implode, Secretary Mattis’ extraordinary resignation is a significant loss and a real indication that President Trump’s foreign policy agenda has failed and continues to spiral into chaos,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Mattis announced on Thursday his plan to resign, a move prompted by the decision by the president to pull all of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops from the fight against the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria.

Group backing private Medicare is funded by insurance giants

WASHINGTON — A group gaining influence in Washington as a champion for Medicare beneficiaries is bankrolled by major health insurance companies that are trying to cash in on private coverage offered through the federal health insurance program.

The Better Medicare Alliance claims a far-flung network of seniors, with a Facebook community of more than 380,000 and 110,000 signed up to receive email alerts. Its website displays profiles of “BMA Seniors” who describe private Medicare plans in glowing terms. The Associated Press found that one of the featured seniors, David Kievit, died in March at age 91.

The multimillion-dollar budget for the alliance isn’t supplied by seniors, but by UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Humana, according to the group’s president and its federal tax returns. The three insurance giants together account for close to 50 percent of all enrollees in private “Medicare Advantage” plans and stand to benefit as that part of Medicare keeps growing.

The organization’s website and Facebook page don’t say where its money comes from, making it easy to miss the industry tie.

Since its establishment in December 2014, the alliance has built its profile. It lobbies Congress and the administration and sponsors research. It has reported spending $370,000 so far this year on lobbying Congress primarily, according to disclosure records. Among other issues, the alliance is seeking the repeal of a tax on health insurers imposed by the Obama-era health care law.

A blow to morale: Afghan generals worry about US withdrawal

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban welcomed news of the U.S. plan to withdraw half its troops in Afghanistan by the summer, as Afghan generals warned Friday it would be a blow to the morale of the country’s beleaguered security forces, who come under daily attacks from the insurgent fighters.

The announcement seems certain to complicate efforts to reach a peace deal, mostly because it gives the Taliban leverage by allowing them to hold off until a total U.S. withdrawal, or step up their demands over a weakened Afghan government.

“I believe the Taliban will see this as a reason to stall, and therefore it disincentivizes the Taliban to actually talk to the Afghan government, which it has refused to do,” said Bill Roggio an Afghanistan analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Afghanistan’s security forces rely heavily on U.S. airpower against both Taliban and an upstart Islamic State affiliate, and Afghan military officials note the announcement by the Trump administration comes as the country’s security is at its worst since 2014, when more than 100,000 NATO troops pulled out of the country and handed off security to Afghans. The U.S. and NATO retreated into a training and advising role.

“A complete withdrawal of U.S. forces would very likely cause the Taliban to make gains in key areas throughout Afghanistan,” Roggio said. “This likely would cause the general collapse of the (Afghan National Security and Defense Force) as a cohesive fighting force and lead to the return of the warlords.”

From wire sources

North Carolina asked feds to open vote fraud case last year

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s top elections official issued an urgent plea nearly two years ago for the Trump administration to file criminal charges against the man now at the center of ballot fraud allegations that have thrown a 2018 congressional race into turmoil.

N.C. Board of Elections Executive Director Kim Strach warned in a January 2017 letter first obtained by The Associated Press that those involved in illegally harvesting absentee ballots in rural Bladen County would likely do it again if they weren’t prosecuted.

Josh Lawson, the top lawyer for the elections board, said Friday that Strach’s memo was followed less than a month later with the first of several in-person meetings during which state investigators provided FBI agents and federal prosecutors with evidence accusing Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. and others of criminal activity.

“Our findings to date suggest that individuals and potentially groups of individuals engaged in efforts to manipulate election results through the absentee ballot process,” Strach wrote in the letter, dated 10 days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. “The evidence we have obtained suggest that these efforts may have taken place in the past and if not addressed will likely continue for future elections.”

At the time, there was only an acting U.S. attorney in office. Later in 2017, Trump’s appointee arrived, but took no action to prosecute the matter. Instead, he assigned his staff to focus on a different priority — prosecuting a handful of non-citizens who had allegedly voted.

Pope tells abusive priests to turn themselves in

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis demanded Friday that priests who have raped and molested children turn themselves in and vowed that the Catholic Church will “never again” hide their crimes.

Francis dedicated his annual Christmas speech to Vatican bureaucrats to abuse, evidence that a year of devastating revelations of sexual misconduct and cover-up around the globe has shaken his papacy and caused a crisis of confidence in the Catholic hierarchy.

Francis acknowledged that the church in the past had failed to treat the problem seriously, blaming leaders who out of inexperience or short-sightedness acted “irresponsibly” by refusing to believe victims. But he vowed that going forward the church would “never again” cover up or dismiss cases.

“Let it be clear that before these abominations the church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes,” he said.

Francis urged victims to come forward, thanked the media for giving them voice and issued a stark warning to abusers: “Convert and hand yourself over to human justice, and prepare for divine justice.”

Kasich veto sets up Ohio showdown over abortion limit

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has moved again to impose some of the most far-reaching abortion restrictions in the nation, after Republican Gov. John Kasich signed a ban Friday on dilation and evacuation terminations and set up a showdown with lawmakers over his veto of the so-called heartbeat bill.

Kasich had previously signed 20 abortion-limiting proposals into law in this politically divided state since taking office in 2011, including a 20-week ban that both sides agree is unconstitutional. The number of full-service Ohio abortion clinics has shrunk from 16 to seven since he took office.

But the heartbeat bill has twice proven too extreme for Kasich, a potential 2020 presidential candidate who’s spent the past two years in a quest for bipartisan consensus.

The measure calls for banning the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected. That can happen as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Kasich vetoed a similar bill two years ago and did so again Friday.

In a veto message, he said the heartbeat bill is likely to be struck down as unconstitutional — but only after a costly court fight.

Justice Ginsburg has surgery to remove cancerous growths

WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Friday to remove two malignant growths in her left lung, the third time the Supreme Court’s oldest justice has been treated for cancer since 1999.

Doctors found “no evidence of any remaining disease” and scans taken before the surgery showed no cancerous growths elsewhere in her body, the court said in a statement . No additional treatment is currently planned, it said.

The 85-year-old Ginsburg is the leader of the court’s liberal wing. She has achieved an iconic status rare for Supreme Court justices, and is known as the Notorious RBG to some of her most ardent fans. In recent days, Ginsburg has basked in the warm applause of audiences that turned out for screenings of a new feature film about her life.

Her health is closely watched by liberals and conservatives alike. If she were to step down now, President Donald Trump would choose her replacement, and further shift the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction.

The growths were found incidentally during tests Ginsburg had after she fractured ribs in a fall in her Supreme Court office on Nov. 7, the court said.