Stocks fall…Trump weighs in on jet engine sales…SpaceX to launch tourists

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell in afternoon trading after technology giant Apple became the most well-known company to warn of a financial hit from the virus outbreak in China.The maker of iPhones said it will fall short of its revenue forecasts in the current quarter because of production problems and weak demand in China. Technology companies and banks led the selling. Utilities and communication services stocks held up well.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is signalling that he opposes efforts to block the sale of jet engines to China. Trump’s tweets appeared intended to thwart a proposal from within his own administration to limit exports of engines jointly produced by General Electric and a French company. “We don’t want to make it impossible to do business with us,’’ the president tweeted. “That will only mean that orders will go to someplace else…” Trump’s tweets followed a report in The Wall Street Journal that his administration was weighing a ban on shipments to China of a jet engine produced jointly by GE and the French company Safran SA.

NEW YORK (AP) — Asian-American businesses in major U.S. cities are seeing a remarkable decline in customers amid fears about the viral outbreak that originated in China. City and health officials are trying to stanch the financial bleeding through information campaigns and personal visits to shops and restaurants. They emphasize that with just 15 cases diagnosed in the entire country there is no reason to avoid them. Some business owners have seen their customer traffic cut by more than half and are anxiously waiting for things to return to normal.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX aims to launch up to four tourists into a super high orbit, possibly by the end of next year. The company has partnered with Space Adventures for the all-tourist flight. Officials announced the first-of-its-kind mission Tuesday. Space Adventures has already helped put tourists into orbit, working with the Russian space program. For this trip, paying customers will skip the International Space Station and instead orbit two to three times higher, or roughly 500 to 750 miles above Earth. Ticket prices are not being divulged but are expected to be in the millions. SpaceX will use the same kind of Dragon capsule that will launch NASA astronauts to the space station.

BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has agreed to make its website and online educational videos more accessible to people who are deaf and hard of hearing under a settlement announced in federal court. The settlement was announced Tuesday and comes months after a similar agreement was reached in a lawsuit brought against Harvard University by the National Association of the Deaf. The group accused the schools of discriminating against people with hearing disabilities by not adequately or accurately captioning videos of lectures and other programs it posts online. An MIT spokeswoman didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

The Associated Press