The Jim Bakker Show

U.S. must step up support for operation against West Africa militants: France

French soldiers prepare their armoured vehicles at the Relay Desert Platform Camp (PfDR) in Ansongo, Mali, October 15, 2017, during the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

By John Irish and Yara Bayoumy

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must step up its support for a planned African force to fight Islamist militants in West Africa otherwise it could fail, leaving French troops to carry the burden alone, France’s defense minister said on Friday.

France intervened in Mali to ward off an offensive by Islamist militants that began in 2012 and 4,000 of its troops remain in the region as part of Operation Barkhane where they work alongside 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali.

France and West African countries are pushing for the creation of a regional force known as the G5 Sahel.

Washington provides bilateral assistance, intelligence and training for regional security operations, but it is cool toward the African force and has pushed back against U.N. support for it.

“In the Sahel, France is deploying in a high-intensity environment, with tremendous support from the United States. We are immensely grateful for that support,” Parly said in a speech at a Washington think tank monitored in Paris.

“But much more needs to be done. We can’t be, and don’t want to be, the praetorian (guards) of sovereign African countries. They must be made able to defeat terror on their own,” she said during a visit for meetings with her American counterpart James Mattis and White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

“I would be happy if you could help spread the word in the Beltway,” she said in a reference to the U.S. government.

Parly said the G5 Sahel force was meant to bolster the security capacity of Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, which are all former French colonies.

French officials see the success of the G5 Sahel as a long-term exit strategy for Paris. For decades, France has mounted military operations in its former African colonies but in recent years it has looked to spread the cost.

Until now the G5 force has only received a quarter of its estimated 423 million euro budget, according to a report by the U.N. Secretary General, who said financing the operation would “remain a significant challenge” for several years.

“It will start its first operations soon. It needs support. The U.N. wants to give support. I hope everyone can become convinced that a robust U.N. assistance is necessary,” Parly said.

French defense officials say they expect the first G5 patrols to begin this month and hope that will provide momentum ahead of a donor conference in December.

Parly said that militants could flourish if financial backing for the G5 was not forthcoming.

Her visit also aimed to ascertain the political fallout from an ambush in Niger in early October that saw four U.S. special forces soldiers killed by jihadists.

U.S. troops called in French fighter jets for air support and French helicopters to evacuate several wounded soldiers.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

EU leaders talk up Iran nuclear deal hoping to save it from Trump

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders on Thursday reaffirmed their full commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, hoping that the U.S. Congress would not let it collapse despite relentless criticism by President Donald Trump.

But the bloc, reluctant to isolate itself completely from Washington, is also stepping up criticism of Iran’s ballistic missile program and its role in what the West sees as fomenting instability in the Middle East.

Trump last week adopted a harsh new approach to Iran by refusing to certify its compliance with the nuclear deal, struck with the United States and five other powers including Britain, France and Germany after more than a decade of diplomacy.

“We fully stay committed to the complete implementation by all sides of the Iranian nuclear deal. We see this as a key security interest for the European Union and the region,” said the bloc’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini.

The EU leaders’ joint statement, agreed after talks in Brussels on Thursday, “reaffirms full commitment to the Iran nuclear deal”.

The bloc has been stepping up efforts to save the deal, saying it was crucial to regional and global security, and it has appealed to the U.S. Congress not to let it fall.

Trump has given Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran, lifted under the pact in exchange for the scaling down of a program the West fears was aimed at building a nuclear bomb, something Tehran denies.

The EU leaders also highlighted the need to protect their companies and investors dealing with Iran from any adverse effects should Washington reinstate the sanctions, officials said.

Should Trump walk away from the deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran would “shred” it.

The bloc sees the agreement as a chief international success of recent years, and fears tearing it apart would hurt its credibility as well as harming diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions around a nuclear stand-off with North Korea.

In outlining his tougher stance, Trump said Tehran must also be held accountable for advancing its ballistic missile program and its regional political role.

“We will defend the nuclear deal and stand by the nuclear deal and implement the nuclear deal. But we also don’t want to be standing on a completely opposing side to the U.S.,” an EU official said.

“If they withdraw, we would be left in a rather interesting company with China and Russia. So there may be an issue of separating the nuclear deal from the ballistic program and Iran’s regional role, sending signals on the latter two.”

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Thursday the ballistic missile program would accelerate despite U.S. and EU pressure to suspend it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The EU, which has expressed “concerns related to ballistic missiles and increasing tensions” in the Middle East, has said these issues should be discussed without direct links to the nuclear deal.

“They were never very fond of the nuclear deal in the first place but now the situation has changed a lot. Both many Democrats as well as some Republicans feel like they need to play a more active role on foreign policy to restrain the president,” the official said.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by John Stonestreet, Toni Reinhold)

As battle rages, devastated Philippine city starts its long cleanup

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – War might still be raging in the ruins of the Philippine city of Marawi, but the cleanup has already began.

Under the guard of dozens of police and soldiers, about 100 of the 200,000 residents driven from their homes during 150 days of fighting have returned to start what will be a massive operation to clear the city of the debris of war.

Army trucks crawled through the deserted streets to take displaced people to safe areas of Marawi, where echoes of gunfire and explosions could still be heard as troops sought to finish off the remaining Maute group militants hemmed into a shrinking battle zone.

They swept away trash, rocks and belongings scattered on streets, among them toys of children who fled when the pro-Islamic State rebels ran amok on May 23, setting buildings ablaze and ransacking churches and schools.

Spray painted on the shutter of one abandoned building reads “Maute ISIS”, a term used for the militant alliance.

“This is very important for the normalization of Marawi because we are responding to the call for them to return back, so we need to prepare,” said Lieutenant Colonel Rosendo Abad of a joint task force.

Defense officials say it could take until January before rebuilding can start, with the heart of the city littered with unexploded bombs and booby traps and buildings on the brink of collapse after months of government air strikes.

Military operations have cost 5 billion pesos ($97 million) and the government estimates it could be 10 times that much to rebuild Marawi.

The government on Tuesday said 20-year “patriotic bonds” would be sold to generate 30 billion pesos.

Australia, the United States, Singapore, Russia, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are among the countries and organizations that have offered to help.

But already close to the front lines of the effort is China, which has donated 47 heavy-duty industrial vehicles, among them excavators, bulldozers, tractors, cement mixers and dump trucks.

Those vehicles are on standby at the port in nearby Iligan City, waiting for the guns to finally go silent before starting the task of restoring the country’s only designated Islamic City.

Omarshariff Yassin, an engineer in charge of equipment at the Department of Public Works and Highways, said there was enough skilled manpower, but a lack of machinery.

“Before the Chinese equipment arrived, we have 15 equipment in use. We have 17 units on standby,” he said.

“The more, the better. What’s happening is we lack equipment so we borrow from other regions. But we really need more.”

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Short on staff: Nursing crisis strains U.S. hospitals

Registered nurse Kara Salonga, pictured at nursing station at the West Virginia University Hospitals in Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S., September 6, 2017. Picture taken September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Wood

By Jilian Mincer

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia (Reuters) – A shortage of nurses at U.S. hospitals hit West Virginia’s Charleston Area Medical Center at the worst possible time.

The non-profit healthcare system is one of the state’s largest employers and sits in the heart of economically depressed coal country. It faces a $40 million deficit this year as it struggles with fewer privately insured patients, cuts in government reimbursement and higher labor costs to attract a shrinking pool of nurses.

To keep its operations intact, Charleston Medical is spending this year $12 million on visiting or “travel” nurses, twice as much as three years ago. It had no need for travel nurses a decade ago.

“I’ve been a nurse 40 years, and the shortage is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Ron Moore, who retired in October from his position as vice president and chief nursing officer for the center. Charleston Area Medical’s incentives include tuition reimbursement for nursing students who commit to work at the hospital for two years.

“It’s better to pay a traveler than to shut a bed,” he said.

Hospitals nationwide face tough choices when it comes to filling nursing jobs. They are paying billions of dollars collectively to recruit and retain nurses rather than risk patient safety or closing down departments, according to Reuters interviews with more than 20 hospitals, including some of the largest U.S. chains.

In addition to higher salaries, retention and signing bonuses, they now offer perks such as student loan repayment, free housing and career mentoring, and rely more on foreign or temporary nurses to fill the gaps.

The cost nationwide for travel nurses alone nearly doubled over three years to $4.8 billion in 2017, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, a global advisor on workforce issues.

The burden falls disproportionately on hospitals serving rural communities, many of them already straining under heavy debt like the Charleston Area Medical Center.

These hospitals must offer more money and benefits to compete with facilities in larger metropolitan areas, many of them linked to well-funded universities, interviews with hospital officials and health experts show.

Along West Virginia’s border with Pennsylvania, university-affiliated J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown is spending $10.4 million in 2017 compared with $3.6 million a year earlier to hire and retain nurses.

But these costs are part of the facility’s expansion this year, including adding more than 100 beds as it grows programs and takes over healthcare services from smaller rural providers that have scaled back or closed.

J.W. Ruby, the flagship hospital for WVU Medicine, offers higher pay for certain shifts, tuition reimbursement, $10,000 signing bonuses and free housing for staff who live at least 60 miles away.

Next year, the hospital is considering paying college tuition for the family members of long-time nurses to keep them in West Virginia.

“We’ll do whatever we need to do,” said Doug Mitchell, vice president and chief nursing officer of WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals.

NOT LIKE OTHER SHORTAGES

Nursing shortages have occurred in the past, but the current crisis is far worse. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be more than a million registered nurse openings by 2024, twice the rate seen in previous shortages.

A major driver is the aging of the baby boomer generation, with a greater number of patients seeking care, including many more complex cases, and a new wave of retirements among trained nurses.

Industry experts, from hospital associations to Wall Street analysts, say the crisis is harder to address than in the past. A faculty shortage and too few nursing school slots has contributed to the problem.

Hospitals seek to meet a goal calling for 80 percent of nursing staff to have a four-year degree by 2020, up from 50 percent in 2010. They also face more competition with clinics and insurance companies that may offer more flexible hours.

Healthcare experts warn that the shortfall presents risks to patients and providers. Research published in August in the International Journal of Nursing Studies found that having inadequate numbers of registered nurses on staff made it more likely that a patient would die after common surgeries.

UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, has invested millions to attract nurses, but still has 300 jobs to fill. At times, nursing vacancy rates in some of its departments has hit 20 percent or higher.

“We’ve rarely canceled a surgery or closed a bed because of lack of staffing,” said Terri Poe, chief of nursing at the hospital, the state’s largest, which serves many low income and uninsured residents.

Last year, the medical center covered nearly $200 million in unreimbursed medical costs for patients. It spent $4.5 million for visiting nurses during fiscal 2016, including $3 million for post-surgery services, compared with $858,000 in 2012.

Healthcare labor costs typically account for at least half of a facility’s expenses. They jumped by 7.6 percent nationally last year, after climbing at a rate closer to 5 percent annually in recent years, said Beth Wexler, vice president non-profit healthcare at Moody’s. The spending has proven a boon for medical staffing companies like AMN Healthcare and Aya Healthcare.

Missouri’s nursing shortage reached a record high in 2017, with almost 16 percent – or 5,700 – of positions vacant, up from 8 percent last year. Thirty-four percent of Missouri registered nurses are 55 or older.

“Our biggest challenge is getting the pipeline of experienced nurses,” said Peter Callan, director of talent acquisition and development at the University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia, which is expanding. “There are fewer and fewer as people retire.”

Last year, the academic medical center hired talent scouts to identify candidates, Callan said. It spends $750,000 a year on extras to attract and keep nurses, including annual $2,000 bonuses to registered nurses who remain in hard-to-fill units and up to five years of student loan repayment assistance. It offers employee referral bonuses and a chance to win a trip to Hawaii.

Smaller hospitals find it much harder to compete in this climate. More than 40 percent of rural hospitals had negative operating margins in 2015, according to The Chartis Center for Rural Health.

In rural Missouri, 25-bed Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital had to offer signing bonuses, tuition reimbursement and pay differentials when staffing is “critically low” in units such as obstetrics.

They haven’t closed beds, but have hired less experienced nurses, raised salaries and turned away at least one patient who would have been in its long term care program.

“We’ve had to try whatever it takes to get nurses here,” said Rita Brumfield, head of nursing at the hospital. “It’s a struggle every day to get qualified staff.”

To see the entire graphic on the U.S. nursing shortage, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2xQ9Y0K

(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Edward Tobin)

Netanyahu lobbies world powers to stem Iraqi Kurd setbacks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Abir Sultan/Pool

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lobbying world powers to prevent further setbacks to Iraqi Kurds as they lose ground to Baghdad’s army, Israeli officials say.

Israel has been the only major power to endorse statehood for the Kurds, partly, say analysts, because it sees the ethnic group – whose population is split among Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran – as a buffer against shared adversaries.

Iraqi armed forces retook the oil-rich Kirkuk region this week, following a Sept. 25 referendum on Kurdish independence that was rejected by Baghdad, delivering a blow to the Kurds’ statehood quest.

Israeli officials said Netanyahu raised the Iraqi Kurds’ plight in phone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week and with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

It has also come up in his contacts with France and the Israeli national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, has been discussing the matter with Trump administration officials in Washington this week, the officials said.

A Netanyahu government official, who declined to be named, given the sensitivity of Israel-Kurdish ties, suggested Israel had security interests in Kurdistan, given its proximity to Israel’s enemies in Tehran and Damascus.

“This (territory) is a foothold. It’s a strategic place,” the official said without providing further detail. He said Israel wanted to see Iraqi Kurds provided with the means to protect themselves, adding:

“It would be best if someone gave them weaponry, and whatever else, which we cannot give, obviously.”

Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with Kurds since the 1960s, in the absence of open ties between their autonomous region in northern Iraq and Israel.

Netanyahu’s recent lobbying has focused on Kurdish ambitions in Iraq, where the central Baghdad government has grown closer to Israel’s foe Iran.

“The issue at present is … to prevent an attack on the Kurds, extermination of the Kurds and any harm to them, their autonomy and region, something that Turkey and Iran and internal Shi’ite and other powers in Iraq and part of the Iraqi government want,” Netanyahu’s intelligence minister, Israel Katz, told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM on Friday.

It was not clear to what extent Netanyahu’s outreach may have been solicited by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, which shies away from public engagement with Israel, worried about further alienating Arab neighbours.

The United Nations has voiced concern at reports that civilians, mainly Kurds, were being driven out of parts of northern Iraq retaken by Iraqi forces and their houses and businesses looted and destroyed.

“The prime minister is certainly engaging the United States, Russia, Germany and France to stop the Kurds from being harmed,” Katz said.

Another Israeli official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, framed Netanyahu’s efforts as a moral imperative.

“They (Kurds) are a deeply pro-Western people who deserve support,” he said.

(Editing by Maayan Lubell and Andrew Heavens)

Obamacare whiplash leaves states, insurers with dueling price plans

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump smiles after signing an Executive Order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bone health insurance plans and circumvent Obamacare rules at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

By Caroline Humer

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s reversals in the past week on maintaining Obamacare subsidies to insurers are sowing new confusion over what kind of health insurance will be available to consumers, and at what price, when enrollment for 2018 begins in two weeks.

Trump said last week his administration would stop paying billions of dollars in subsidies that help insurers give discounts to low-income households, one of several moves to dismantle the signature healthcare law of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

Since then, Trump has alternately supported, and dismissed, an effort by Republican and Democratic senators that would reinstate the subsidies for two years, until a broader replacement to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, can be negotiated.

“We are worried that consumers on (Obamacare) plans will be confused by all the back and forth and proposed policy changes and that this will cause them to not seek out assistance,” said Bryna Koch, special projects coordinator at the Arizona Center for Rural Health, which helps consumers choose and sign up for individual health plans offered under Obamacare.

Trump, who promised during his election campaign to repeal and replace Obamacare, which he has called a “disaster,” has said the subsidies amount to a bailout for insurance companies.

By law, health insurers must still offer the discounts on deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs, even if the government stops reimbursing them. Insurers say they do not profit from the subsidies.

Anticipating Trump’s move, insurers proposed higher prices on monthly premiums in 2018 to recoup the money. In all but a handful of states, they submitted two sets of premium rates – a lower rate to use if the subsidies remained, and a higher rate to use if the funding was cut.

LAST WORD ON SUBSIDIES?

The fate of the subsidies remained in limbo on Thursday. A senior White House aide said that Trump would demand steps toward repealing Obamacare in any healthcare legislation, comments that cast doubt on the prospects for the bipartisan effort to shore up insurance markets.

A California court is expected to consider on Monday a request by Democratic attorneys general to keep the subsidies flowing until a legal challenge to Trump’s decision is resolved.

If the funding is not restored when 2018 enrollment opens on Nov. 1, many consumers will see premium rates that are on average 20 percent higher than they would have been otherwise.

Even before Trump’s decision on the subsidies, the Congressional Budget Office said the Republican president’s policies to roll back Obamacare enrollment efforts would lead to 4 million fewer people signing up for insurance in 2018 than previously forecast. The CBO still expects 11 million people to sign up for next year – an increase from this year’s enrollment of 10 million.

The federal government has already halted a subsidy payment to the insurance industry for October. But leading insurers are not yet sure whether that is the last word.

Anthem Inc Chief Executive Officer Joseph Swedish told Reuters he could not yet predict how ending the subsidies or restating them through “potential congressional action” would affect pricing next year. Anthem has submitted premium rates that account for the subsidies being cut.

Should the subsidies be restored at any time after Nov. 1, insurers may be able to revert to the lower monthly premium rates, or provide rebates for consumers.

“A midyear change in premiums would be highly unusual, but this would be the right thing to do,” said Marc Harrison, CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, a Utah-based health plan and hospital chain. “Intermountain Healthcare would pursue this.”

Washington state’s insurance regulator said it would allow insurers to change rates as soon as practical – even the next month – if lawmakers reinstate the funding, an approach backed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. But that could run up against federal government objections.

The Affordable Care Act does not allow for changes to premium rates after they have been finalized, an official for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. At the same time, the administration is working to approve higher rates in several states that did not take into account Trump’s cut in subsidies for 2018.

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Peter Cooney)

Leaders of Venezuela’s bruised opposition to travel abroad to denounce ‘voting fraud’

By Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons

CARACAS (Reuters) – Key members of Venezuela’s opposition, divided and dispirited after losing gubernatorial elections over the weekend, will travel abroad to denounce what it says is a “fraudulent” voting system under leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

Congress president Julio Borges said in a press conference on Thursday that the opposition coalition will try to stir up international support, which could result in further sanctions against Maduro’s administration.

His unpopular government unexpectedly swept to victory in Sunday’s regional vote, pocketing 18 of 23 states in the midst of a debilitating economic crisis that has millions skipping meals as soaring inflation destroys salaries.

Polls had forecast the opposition easily beating the ruling socialists. Maduro’s rivals say a mix of dirty tricks, like moving hundreds of voting centers in opposition areas at the last minute and including the names of opposition politicians who lost in primaries on ballots, worked against them.

“We made a huge effort, we aimed to overcome all the obstacles, and what the government did was upgrade its fraud and its cheating,” said Borges, adding that politicians were due to travel to fellow Latin American countries and other supportive nations shortly.

“We have the full records of this electoral process and we’re going to submit them to various international bodies, so that … they can be audited,” added Borges, who did not provide further details on the trips.

OPPOSITION FRAYING

While the opposition first cried fraud, without providing proof, it later scaled back its accusations and is now focusing on the minerals-rich state of Bolivar where it says its losing candidate was robbed of decisive votes.

Maduro blasted his opponents as sore losers who cry fraud when convenient. On Thursday, he inaugurated Hector Rodriguez, a rising star in the Socialist Party, as governor of Miranda state in a ceremony filled with song and dance.

Opposition politicians have acknowledged that demoralization in their own ranks hurt turnout. Many opposition supporters are exhausted after four months of protests earlier this year and were loath to participate in what some saw as a rigged vote that would legitimize Maduro as a dictator.

They were even more downbeat after the vote, however, as it casts doubt on whether they can remove the ruling Socialist Party in next year’s presidential election.

“The government’s handling of (Sunday’s) vote suggests that it is not even willing to entertain anything close to free and fair presidential elections in 2018, even if it prompts growing international isolation, renewed unrest, and increased outward migration,” consultancy Eurasia wrote in a note to clients this week.

(Additional reporting by Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Dow, S&P 500 eke out record highs, turn up after Fed Powell report

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Dow and S&P 500 eked out record closing highs on Thursday, turning higher at the last minute after a Politico report that Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell is the leading candidate for the nominee for Fed chair.

Investors have been anxious to hear who President Donald Trump will pick as the nominee. A decision like Powell would likely be a continuation of the current stock market-friendly monetary policy that has helped fuel the market’s more than eight-year bull run.

Stocks had been recovering from early losses for much of the afternoon but the S&P 500 and Dow were still a tad lower just before the Powell report.

“Clearly at the end it had everything to do with the speculation about Jerome Powell,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. “I can’t observe any other reason for why we ended up.”

“He’s viewed to be sort of an extension of (current Fed Chair) Janet Yellen by way of being a policy dove … and, with the market loving more of the same with regard to uber-accommodative monetary policy, as more welcome than the alternative,” he said.

Powell was among several names circulating as possible picks, including Yellen. Others include Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and Stanford University economist John Taylor.

The White House on Wednesday said Trump will announce his decision on the matter in the “coming days.”

Tech shares were among the day’s biggest drags, led by Apple <AAPL.O>, which fell 2.4 percent in its biggest daily percentage decline since Aug. 10 as doubts about its double 2017 iPhone release strategy weighed on investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 5.44 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 23,163.04, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 0.84 point, or 0.03 percent, to 2,562.1 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 19.15 points, or 0.29 percent, to 6,605.07.

Stocks have posted a string of record highs in recent weeks, and the Dow closed above 23,000 for the first time on Wednesday.

The day also marked the 30th anniversary of the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash. Most traders see a repeat of the crash as unlikely because of modern trading technology and other changes.

Investors also took profits in the broader tech sector, which has had a strong run so far this year, gaining about 30 percent and helping drive the market’s recent record run. The tech index <.SPLRCT> was down 0.4 percent on the day.

Weighing on the market early as well was some disappointing news on the earnings front.

United Airlines <UAL.N> tumbled 12.1 percent, weighing on other airlines stocks after the third-largest U.S. carrier’s profit fell due to flight cancellations during the hurricane season. American Airlines <AAL.O> fell 1 percent.

Shares of eBay <EBAY.O> were down 1.8 percent a day after it reported results.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.04-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.33-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

About 5.8 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges. That compares with the 5.9 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish)

Spain plans new elections in Catalonia to end independence bid: opposition

By Sonya Dowsett and Inmaculada Sanz

MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish government has secured opposition support for dissolving Catalonia’s parliament and holding new elections there in January in its bid to defuse the regional government’s push for independence.

The Socialists, the main opposition, said on Friday they would back special measures to impose central rule on the region to thwart the secessionist-minded Catalan government and end a crisis that has unsettled the euro and hurt confidence in the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who wants opposition support to be able to present a united front in the crisis, has called an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday to pave the way for Madrid establishing central control in the region.

The government on Friday would not confirm whether January elections formed a part of the package, with Rajoy saying only that the measures would be announced on Saturday.

However a government spokesman saw regional elections as likely. “The logical end to this process would be new elections established within the law,” said government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo at a weekly government press conference.

It will be the first time in Spain’s four decades of democracy that Madrid has invoked the constitution to effectively sack a regional government and call new elections.

Rajoy wants as broad a consensus as possible before taking the step, which has raised the prospect of more large-scale protests in Catalonia, where pro-independence groups have been able to bring more than one million people out onto the streets.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, a former journalist who is spearheading the secession campaign, has refused to renounce independence, citing an overwhelming vote in favor of secession at a referendum on Oct.1.

Catalan authorities said around 90 percent voted for independence though only 43 percent of voters participated. Opponents of secession mostly stayed home.

ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE HURT

Spanish courts have ruled the referendum unconstitutional, but Puigdemont says the result is binding and must be obeyed.

The prolonged standoff has caused hundreds of companies to move their headquarters outside Catalonia and prompted the Spanish government to cut its economic growth forecast. The region accounts for a fifth of Spain’s economy.

Later on Friday, Moody’s was scheduled to review Spain’s sovereign rating, days after warning that political tensions between Madrid and the rebel leadership in Catalonia were credit-negative for the sovereign.

In a test of investor appetite for Spanish stocks, housebuilder Aedas <AEDAS.MC> dropped over 6 percent in its debut on the Madrid stock exchange on Friday, although it later regained losses to trade close to its listing price.

The uncertainty surrounding the future of the region has rattled the euro. On Thursday, European Union leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron offered their support for Rajoy at an EU leaders summit in Brussels.

The EU says it will not act as a mediator and the crisis is for Madrid and Barcelona to resolve.

After Rajoy announces the direct control measures on Saturday, Spain’s upper house will have to approve them in a session which could take place on Oct. 27, a Senate spokeswoman said on Friday.

Actions could range from dismissing the Catalan parliament and government, to a softer approach of removing specific heads of department. Direct rule from Madrid would be temporary while regional elections are held to form a new government.

Madrid on Friday stressed the move was not about taking autonomy away from Catalonia but temporarily imposing direct rule until a government was elected that would act within the law.

Socialist politician Carmen Calvo, a member of cross-party talks to establish what measures the government should take to impose direct rule on Catalonia, told TVE state television that January regional elections would form part of the package.

She gave no further details apart from saying the Socialists wanted a light-touch intervention.

(Additional reporting by Raquel Castillo and Isla Binnie; Writing By Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Trial wraps up for pharmacist in deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – Closing arguments are set for Friday in the trial of a Massachusetts pharmacist accused of murder and fraud for his role in a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds more across the United States.

Federal prosecutors in Boston contend that Glenn Chin, a former supervisory pharmacist at New England Compounding Center, cut corners while overseeing the production of drugs the company produced in filthy conditions.

Those drugs included steroids tainted with mold that were shipped out to healthcare facilities nationally and then injected into patients, leading to an outbreak that sickened 778 people nationally, prosecutors said.

They said that Chin, 49, recklessly failed to ensure the compounding pharmacy’s drugs were produced in sanitary conditions to keep up with demand from hospitals for its products.

Prosecutors claim Chin directed staff in NECC’s so-called clean rooms where the drugs were made, to skip cleaning, despite the presence of insects, mice and mold.

Chin has pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering and mail fraud. He faces up to life in prison if he is convicted of second-degree murder charges brought under racketeering law.

Defense lawyers counter that Chin did nothing to kill the 25 people who are the subject of those murder allegations and say blame instead lies with Barry Cadden, NECC’s co-founder and former president.

They say that Cadden directed the corner-cutting at NECC, and note that at his trial earlier this year, prosecutors said people died because Cadden decided to put profits before patient safety.

Cadden was sentenced in June to nine years in prison after he was found guilty of racketeering and fraud charges but cleared of murder.

Lesser charges were filed against 12 other people. Three have pleaded guilty, while a federal judge dismissed charges against two defendants in October 2016. Charges remain pending against the other seven.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show