Shares, oil prices sink after Trump tests positive for virus
Washington: US stock futures and Asian shares fell Friday after President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The future contracts for both the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials lost 1.9 per cent. Oil prices also slipped.
Trump tweeted news of his test results just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had come down with the virus after travelling with the president several times this week.
To say this potentially could be a big deal is an understatement, Rabobank said in a commentary. Anyway, everything now takes a backseat to the latest incredible twist in this US election campaign.
Trading in Asia was thin, with markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong closed. The Nikkei 225 index shed strong early gains, losing 0.8 per cent to 22,999.75 after the Tokyo Stock Exchange resumed trading following an all day outage due to a technical failure.
Reports that the Japanese government is preparing new stimulus measures to help the economy recover from a prolonged downturn worsened by the coronavirus pandemic provided only a temporary lift. Prices fell further after Trump's announcement.
Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1 per cent to 5,815.90. Shares in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia also fell.
On Thursday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended the day 0.5 per cent higher, at 3,380.80, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1 per cent to 27,816.90 and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.4 per cent to 11,326.51, as big tech-oriented stocks propped up the market, much as they have through the pandemic.
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UP: Woman arrested for killing man during rape attempt
Banda (PTI): An 18-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly killing a middle-aged man with a sharp-edged weapon after he attempted to sexually assault her in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh, police said on Friday.
The incident took place in Murwal village on Thursday afternoon.
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Station House Officer (SHO) Rajendra Singh Rajawat said the body of Sukhraj Prajapati (50) was found in a house with fatal head injuries inflicted by a sharp-edged weapon around 3.30 pm.
Based on a complaint lodged by the victim's family members, police registered a murder case and arrested the woman later in the night along with the weapon of offence, identified as a 'farsa', the SHO said.
During interrogation, the accused told police that the man had entered her house and tried to sexually assault her. In an attempt to defend herself, she struck him with the 'farsa' kept in the house, resulting in his death, he said.
The accused will be produced before a court later on Friday, police added.
