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8A Daily News – Friday, June 22, 2012 Investors yanked money out of stocks Thursday after new reports from the U.S. and China pointed to a sharp slowdown in manufac- turing. NEW YORK (AP) — Dow loses 251, it second-biggest drop of the year Wall Street The Dow Jones industrial plunged 251 points, the second- biggest drop this year. Losses in energy and materials companies led a widespread rout on the stock market. The Dow started sinking after 10 a.m., when the Philadelphia branch of the Federal Reserve reported a sharp contraction in manufacturing in the Northeast. The losses acceler- ated throughout the day. ''The news has been horrible out there,'' said Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners. ''The U.S. economy is slowing down. And China's growth is def- initely under question.'' over Romney WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting a swell of economic anxiety, Presi- dent Barack Obama has lost much of the narrow lead he held just a month ago over Mitt Romney and the two now are locked in a virtually even race for the White House, according to a new Asso- ciated Press-GfK poll. Obama loses advantage The bad news kept piling up as the day went on. Mining and other companies that made basic mate- rials fell hard after prices for com- modities such as copper and oil dropped. Goldman Sachs analysts advised their clients to bet that stocks would fall, and speculation swirled that Moody's would cut the credit ratings of 17 banks. The Dow lost 250.82 points to close at 12,573.57, a drop of 2 per- cent. Alcoa lost 37 cents to $8.55. A new report that manufacturing slowed in China was troubling since that country's economy has helped drive global economic growth over the past four years. China is a major importer of cop- per and other basic materials. The Standard & Poor's 500 The survey also found a majority of Americans disapproving of how the Democratic president is handling a national econ- omy that fewer people think is improving. Less than five months before the election, 47 percent say they will vote for the president and 44 percent for Romney, a dif- ference that is not statisti- cally significant. The poll also shows that Romney has recovered from a bruising Republican pri- mary, with more of his index lost 30.18 points to 1,325.51, a decline of 2.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite fell 71.36 points, 2.4 percent, to 2,859.09. All three indexes lost their gains for the week. investor confidence were just the latest reasons for people to pull money of out stocks. Earlier Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the four-week aver- age of applications for unemploy- ment benefits, a figure closely watched by economists, jumped to the highest level since Septem- ber. The National Association of Realtors also reported that sales of previously occupied homes dropped 1.5 percent in May. All this came a day after the Federal Reserve slashed its esti- mates for U.S. economic growth and said it would extend a bond- The late-morning blows to supporters saying they are certain to vote for him now. Obama's top liability. Only 3 out of 10 adults say the country is headed in the right direction and 55 percent disapprove of his handling of the econo- my, the highest level detected in AP-GfK polls this year. ''I'm not going to vote for Obama,'' said Ray- mond Back, a 60-year-old manufacturing plant man- ager from North Olmsted, The economy remains buying program through the end of the year, disappointing investors who had hoped for bold- er steps from the central bank to get the economy going again. ''What's worse is that things are getting weaker without the Fed coming in,'' said Rex Macey, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors. ''We had a run-up in the market this month because people had been expecting Fed action. Today, the market is giving it back.'' A manufacturing survey for countries that use the European currency also showed a contrac- tion. The reports out of China and Europe helped sink commodity prices. Copper and platinum fell 2 percent. Benchmark U.S. crude hit its lowest level in almost nine months, $78.20 a barrel. That's down almost 30 percent from a WORLD BRIEFING Ohio, one of the most competitive states in this election. ''It's just the wrong thing to do. I don't know what Romney is going to do, but this isn't the right way.'' Yet, in a measure of Romney's own vulnera- bilities, even some voters who say they support Romney believe the presi- dent will still be re-elect- ed. Of all adults polled, 56 percent believe Obama will win a second term. And despite three months of declining job creation that have left the public increasingly glum, Rom- ney has not managed to seize the economic issue from the president, with registered voters split vir- tually evenly on whether Romney or Obama would do a better job improving it. Boehner takes — Speaker John Boehner demanded Thursday that the Obama administration give in and turn over doc- uments related to a botched gun-tracking operation, insisting that's the only way to stop a House vote to hold the attorney general in con- tempt. hard line WASHINGTON (AP) documents. While a confrontation between the legislative and executive branches of government would be an academic dispute to most voters, Boehner on Thurs- day injected a human ele- ment into the dispute over documents related to Operation Fast and Furi- ous. He said the family of slain border agent Brian Terry deserved answers about the guns that killed him. allowed to ''walk'' from Arizona to Mexico in the failed effort to track weapons were found near Terry after he was killed. ''The Terry family Two guns that were stitutional ruling, however, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs on Fox stations and a brief dis- play of nudity on an episode of ABC's ''NYPD Blue'' could give rise to penalties. ABC and 45 affiliates had been hit with proposed fines totaling nearly $1.24 mil- lion. peak in February. The Philadelphia Fed index pushed Treasury prices up and yields down as traders shifted money into the their favorite hid- ing spot. The yield on the 10-year note slipped to 1.61 percent, down from 1.63 percent late Wednesday. Material and energy compa- nies, whose fortunes are closely tied to economic swings, led all 10 industry groups within the S&P 500 index lower. Just 12 of the 500 companies in the index rose. In Europe, auditors calculated that Spain's troubled banks need as much as (euro) 62 billion ($78.76 billion). A Bank of Spain official said this scenario was much less than the (euro) 100 bil- lion that the 17 countries in the euro currency union said they would provide for Spain's banking sector. Broadcasters had argued that the revolution in tech- nology that has brought the Internet, satellite television and cable has made the rules themselves obsolete. The regulations apply only to broadcast channels. deserves answers about why their son was killed as a result of an operation run by the United States government,'' Boehner told his weekly news con- ference. Court sidesteps broadcast Romney vows to tackle Boehner took a hard line against the Obama administration and Attor- ney General Eric Holder despite a willingness by House Republicans and Holder to negotiate a set- tlement before the matter becomes a constitutional crisis. The president has invoked executive privi- lege, a legal principle used to avoid disclosure of internal presidential indecency WASHINGTON (AP) — Broadcasters anticipat- ing a major constitutional ruling on the government's authority to regulate what can be shown and said on the airwaves instead won only the smallest of Supreme Court victories Thursday. ly threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Com- munications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on televi- sion airwaves. Forgoing a broader con- The justices unanimous- VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Backing off the harsh rhetoric of the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney pledged Thursday to address illegal immigra- tion ''in a civil but res- olute manner.'' He out- lined plans to overhaul the green card system for immigrants with families, and end immigration caps for their spouses and minor children. immigration LAKE BUENA In a speech before His- panic leaders, Romney made only passing men- tion of his promise to complete a 2,000-mile border fence to help stem illegal immigration. Instead he attacked Presi- dent Barack Obama's new plan to ease deportation rules for some illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children as little more than a ''stop-gap measure.''