AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

As concern grows, China, South Korea report more virus cases

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — China and South Korea on Tuesday reported more cases of a new viral illness that has been concentrated in North Asia but is causing global worry as clusters grow in the Middle East and Europe.

China reported 508 new cases and another 71 deaths, 68 of them in the central city of Wuhan, where the epidemic was first detected in December. The updates bring mainland China’s totals to 77,658 cases and 2,663 deaths.

South Korea now has the second-most cases in the world with 893 and has had a near 15-fold increase in reported infections in a week, as health workers continue to find batches in the southeastern city of Daegu and nearby areas, where panic has brought towns to an eerie standstill.

Of the 60 new cases reported by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 49 came from Daegu and the surrounding areas of North Gyeongsang province.

The country also reported its eight fatality from COVID-19, a man in his 60s who was linked to a hospital in Cheongdo, where a slew of infections has been reported among patients at a mental ward.

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Asian shares extend losses after Dow drops more than 1,000

Shares are mostly lower in Asia on Tuesday after Wall Street suffered its worst session in two years, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumping more than 1,000 points on fears that a viral outbreak that began in China will weaken the world economy.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index lost 3%, to 22,686.61 after it reopened from a holiday on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.2% lower to 26,777.88 and the Shanghai Composite index sank 1.6% to 2,984.19. In Australia, the S&P ASX/200 shed 1.2% to 6,896.10.

South Korea’s Kospi rebounded from a steep loss on Monday, adding 0.6% to 2,091.80. Shares also rose in Singapore but fell elsewhere in the region.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s main benchmark dropped 2.7% amid a political upheaval after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad offered his resignation to Malaysia’s king while his political party quit the ruling alliance.

Overnight on Wall Street, traders sought safety in U.S. government bonds, gold and high-dividend stocks like utilities and real estate. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to the lowest level in more than three years.

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‘The sky is blue again’: Weinstein’s accusers express relief

NEW YORK (AP) — Actress Mira Sorvino broke down in tears as she described her reaction to the guilty verdict against Harvey Weinstein: relief, that the fallen movie mogul would not go unpunished. A tinge of disappointment, that he was acquitted of the most serious charges, two counts of predatory sexual assault. But most of all gratitude, to the six accusers who were brave enough to testify — and the jurors who believed them.

“Harvey Weinstein has haunted many of our lives, even our nightmares, long after he initially did what he did to each one of us,” Sorvino said shortly after Monday’s verdict, in an emotional phone call with reporters and fellow accusers. “We’ve finally taken that power back, we have exposed his evil,” she said, her voice breaking.

“He will rot in jail as he deserves, and we will begin to have some closure,” she said.

For accuser Zoe Brock, the relief was palpable: She’d “expected the worst,” she said from New Zealand, “because for sexual assault victims, the worst keeps happening.” Brock said she’d feared Weinstein would not only be totally acquitted, but that he’d “make a comeback and he’d go to the Oscars and win again.”

“But that’s not gonna happen,” Brock said, “because now Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist, and right now he’s sitting in … jail, and I’m so happy about it.”

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Public memorial service remembers the private Kobe Bryant

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kobe Bryant’s wife remembered him as a devoted father and husband who arrived early for school pickups and wrote heartfelt cards and letters.

Rob Pelinka, Bryant’s longtime agent and close friend, recalled his final texts from the NBA superstar minutes before he was killed last month in a helicopter crash. Bryant was attempting to secure an internship for the daughter of another friend who was sitting with him in the chopper.

Michael Jordan called Bryant “a little brother” and said that when he died, “a piece of me died.”

Bryant’s athletic achievements were only part of the reason roughly 20,000 people gathered Monday for a public memorial service honouring him at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The event offered another chance to celebrate Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and the other seven victims of the crash with tears, memories and laughs.

Los Angeles already knew Bryant was much more than a basketball icon. His friends and family told the world.

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Sanders comments on Castro could pose hurdles in Florida

MIAMI (AP) — Like many young voters in Florida, Jared Machado is concerned about rising sea levels, college tuition and landing a job when he graduates from the University of Florida in a few months. But the political science and history major can’t ignore how his father and grandparents came to the United States: as refugees fleeing communist Cuba.

As he considers his options for president in Florida’s March 17 primary, Machado was disappointed and disturbed when U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, seemed to praise former Cuba dictator Fidel Castro in a recent interview.

“He doesn’t understand the traumatizing experience endured by the Cuban people,” said Machado, 22, whose grandparents left the island more than a half century ago, carrying his father, then just a few months old.

Making inroads into Latino communities has been a priority among Democrats and Republicans alike — and Sanders’ big win in the Nevada caucuses Saturday demonstrated his progress toward that goal. But the 78-year-old senator’s remarks, aired Sunday as the candidate was still celebrating, may also show where Sanders’ outreach hits a speed bump.

Sanders’ socialist identification and his willingness to praise leftist regimes have given his Democratic opponents ammunition to question his electability in a state with a large Cuban American population that remains fiercely skeptical of leftist governments.

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Crackdown on immigrants who use public benefits takes effect

PHOENIX (AP) — Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighbourhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid.

No more.

“You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighbourhood to show how long the lines got.

But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside.

With new rules taking effect Monday that disqualify more people from green cards if they use government benefits, droves of immigrants, including citizens and legal residents, have dropped social services they or their children may be entitled to out of fear they will be kicked out of the U.S., said Velazquez and other advocates.

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Italian hikers rescued in Alaska after visiting infamous bus

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Italian man suffering from frostbite and four other tourists were rescued in the Alaska wilderness after visiting an abandoned bus that has become a lure for adventurers since it was featured in the “Into the Wild” book and movie.

Alaska State Troopers say the five Italians were rescued Saturday from a camp they set up after visiting the dilapidated bus on the Stampede Trail near the interior town of Healy.

The hikers were found 13 miles from the trailhead, Trooper spokesman Tim DeSpain said. He didn’t know how far they were from the bus.

One of the hikers had frostbite to his feet and was transported to Fairbanks for treatment, DeSpain said. The hiker’s injuries are not considered life-threatening. The other four hikers were picked up by friends in Healy.

Rescuers were alerted by the hikers with a satellite-based emergency device that notified the International Emergency Response Coordination Center of a medical emergency, troopers said. That international group then notified rescuers, who reached the site by snowmobile, DeSpain said.

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Generational split among SC black voters could hurt Biden

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For James Felder, the question of which presidential candidate to support in the South Carolina primary has never been terribly complicated. The 80-year-old civil rights activist has always backed Joe Biden, appreciative of the eight years he spent as the No. 2 to the first black president.

But when Felder opened a recent forum at historically black Benedict College to questions, students in the room weren’t so convinced.

J’Kobe Kelley-Mills, a junior English major, said he was torn between Biden and Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont senator who is now the Democratic front-runner after strong performances in the first three primary contests.

“They both have decades of political experience,” Kelley-Mills said of Biden and Sanders, adding that most of his friends were siding with the senator. “They’re going to really know how to communicate with people on the other side of the aisle in the Senate and I think that if we can get them in there, we can finally start to see the government start to move forward.”

Faith Dupree, a senior psychology major and member of Benedict’s NAACP student chapter, said she was backing Sanders, and sophomore Luis Gonzalez said he would likely vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

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Pioneering black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson dies

Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101.

Johnson died Monday of natural causes at a retirement community in Newport News, Virginia, family attorney Donyale Y. H. Reavis told The Associated Press.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that Johnson “helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of colour.”

Johnson was one of the “computers” who solved equations by hand during NASA’s early years and those of its precursor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

Johnson and other black women initially worked in a racially segregated computing unit in Hampton, Virginia, that wasn’t officially dissolved until NACA became NASA in 1958. Signs had dictated which bathrooms the women could use.

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Altuve nicked by pitch, Astros stars booed on road vs Tigers

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — José Altuve insisted he tuned out the hecklers. He couldn’t avoid a pitch that grazed him.

“He was hit in the foot. That ain’t nothing, you know what I mean?” Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker said Monday after an 11-1 win over Detroit at half-empty Joker Marchant Stadium. “It wasn’t intentional.”

Altuve was loudly booed when he was introduced for his spring training debut, cheered when he struck out and called a cheater by several fans. Quite a difference from past years, when the diminutive All-Star second baseman was among the most popular players in the majors.

But that was before Altuve and his Houston teammates were implicated in the sign-stealing scandal that’s rocked baseball.

“We just heard a lot of noise, and that’s it,” Altuve said.