FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) – It’s time for the trial of a former Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy who was caught on camera getting violent with an inmate as lawyers for both sides gave their opening statements.

The victim in this case, David O’Connell, also testified in court, Wednesday afternoon.

The incident took place back in January 2019 at Broward Health North in Pompano Beach when former deputy Jorge Sobrino was caught on camera punching O’Connell while he was handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Sobrino is being charged with misdemeanor battery, which could land Sobrino a year in jail if he is convicted.

State prosecutors argued that Sobrino went too far since O’Connell was handcuffed to the bed.

“You will see, on video, deputy Sobrino closes the door, they start arguing with one another, he [Sobrino] tells him sit down, he goes over to lift his legs down, he is sitting, but he lifts his legs on the bed, and he jabs him, he punches him one time to the left side of his face,” said prosecutor Christopher Killoran.

Sobrino’s defense attorney, Eric Schwartzreich, argued that he was legally able to use force on O’Connell.

“A police officer, and in this case, is allowed to punch a suspect or somebody in custody in the face,” said Schwartzreich. “They’re trained to do it, and whether you like or not, and use of force, it’s not pretty, but it’s lawful. A use of force, while not pretty, it’s legal.”

The trial is expected to end within a day or so.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed sharply lower on Wall Street Wednesday as dismal results from Target renewed fears that inflation is battering U.S. companies. The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, fell 4%. Target lost a quarter of its value, dragging other retailers down with it, after saying its profit fell by half in the latest quarter as costs for freight and transportation spiked. That comes a day after Walmart cited inflation for its own weak results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,164 points, or 3.6% and the tech-heavy Nasaq pulled back 4.7%. Treasury yields fell as investors sought safer ground.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 1,100 points Wednesday, as big earnings misses by Target and other major retailers stoked investors’ fears that surging inflation could cut deeply into corporate profits.

The broad sell-off erased gains from a solid rally a day earlier, the latest volatile day-to-day swing for stocks in recent weeks amid a deepening market slump.

The S&P 500 fell 4% as of 3:16 p.m. Eastern. The benchmark index is now down more than 18% from the record high it reached at the beginning of the year. That’s shy of the 20% decline that’s considered a bear market.

The Dow was down 1,143 points, or 3.5%, at 31,502, and the Nasdaq fell 4.6%.

“A lot of people are trying to guess the bottom,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. “Bottoms occur when there’s nobody left to sell.”

Retailers were among the biggest decliners after Target plunged following a grim quarterly earnings report.

Target lost a quarter of its value after reporting earnings that fell far short of analysts’ forecasts. In a sign of the impact of inflation, particularly on shipping costs, Target said its operating margin for the first quarter was 5.3%. It had been expecting 8% or higher. The company also said consumers returned to more normal spending habits, switching away from TVs and appliances and buying more toys and travel-related items.

The report comes a day after Walmart said its profit took a hit from higher costs. The nation’s largest retailer fell 7.2%, adding to its losses from Tuesday.

The weak reports stoked concerns that persistently rising inflation is putting a tighter squeeze on a wide range of businesses and could cut deeper into their profits.

Retailers had some of the biggest losses. Dollar Tree fell 15.4% and Dollar General slumped 11.8%. Best Buy fell 11.6% and Amazon fell 7%.

Technology stocks, which led the market rally a day earlier, were the biggest drag on the S&P 500. Apple lost 5.9%.

All told, more than 95% of stocks in the S&P 500 were down. Utilities also weighed down the index, though not nearly as much as the other 10 sectors, as investors shifted money to investments that are considered less risky.

Bond yields fell as investors shifted money into lower-risk investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.89% from 2.97% late Tuesday.

The disappointing report from Target comes a day after the market cheered an encouraging report from the Commerce Department that showed retail sales rose in April, driven by higher sales of cars, electronics, and more spending at restaurants.

Stocks have been struggling to pull out of a slump over the last six weeks as concerns pile up for investors. Trading has been choppy on a daily basis and any data on retailers and consumers is being closely monitored by investors as they try to determine the impact from inflation and whether it will prompt a slowdown in spending. A bigger-than-expected hit to spending could signal more sluggish economic growth ahead.

The Federal Reserve is trying to temper the impact from the highest inflation in four decades by raising interest rates. On Tuesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a Wall Street Journal conference that the U.S. central bank will “have to consider moving more aggressively” if inflation fails to ease after earlier rate hikes.

Investors are concerned that the central bank could cause a recession if it raises rates too high or too quickly. Worries persist about global growth as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts even more pressure on prices for oil and food while lockdowns in China to stem COVID-19 cases worsens supply chain problems.

The United Nations is significantly lowering its forecast for global economic growth this year from 4% to 3.1%. The downgrade is broad-based, which includes the world’s largest economies such as the U.S., China and the European Union.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

COVID-19 cases are increasing in the United States – and could get even worse over the coming months, federal health officials warned Wednesday in urging areas hardest hit to consider reissuing calls for indoor masking.

Increasing numbers of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are putting more of the country under guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that call for masking and other infection precautions.

“Right now, the increases are concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. (But) prior increases of infections, in different waves of infection, have demonstrated that this travels across the country,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, at a White House briefing with reporters.

For an increasing number of areas, “we urge local leaders to encourage use of prevention strategies like masks in public indoor settings and increasing access to testing and treatment,” she said.

However, officials were cautious about making concrete predictions, saying how much worse the pandemic gets will depend on several factors, including to what degree previous infections will protect against new variants.

Last week, White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha warned in an interview with The Associated Press the U.S. will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress doesn’t swiftly approve new funding for more vaccines and treatments.

Jha warned that without additional funding from Congress for the virus would cause “unnecessary loss of life” in the fall and winter, when the U.S. runs out of treatments.

He added the U.S. was already falling behind other nations in securing supplies of the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines and said that the domestic manufacturing base of at-home tests is already drying up as demand drops off.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he would be requesting $22.5 billion in additional funds to fight the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and address pandemic-caused issues in the supply chain.

Jha said domestic test manufactures have started shuttering lines and laying off workers, and in the coming weeks will begin to sell off equipment and prepare to exit the business of producing tests entirely unless the U.S. government has money to purchase more tests, like the hundreds of millions it has sent out for free to requesting households this year.

That would leave the U.S. reliant on other countries for testing supplies, risking shortages during a surge, Jha warned. About 8.5 million households placed orders for the latest tranche of 8 free tests since ordering opened on Monday, Jha added.

The pandemic is now 2 1/2 years old. And the U.S. has seen — depending how you count them — five waves of COVID-19 during that time, with the later surges driven by mutated versions of the coronavirus. A fifth wave occurred mainly in December and January, caused by the omicron variant.

The omicron variant spread much more easily than earlier versions.

Some experts are worried the country now is seeing signs of a sixth wave, driven by an omicron subvariant. On Wednesday, Walensky noted a steady increase in COVID-19 cases in the past five weeks, including a 26% increase nationally in the last week.

Hospitalizations also are rising, up 19% in the past week, though they remain much lower than during the omicron wave, she said.

In late February, as that wave was ebbing, the CDC released a new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 was easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.

Walensky said more than 32% of the country currently live in an area with medium or high COVID-19 community levels, including more than 9% in the highest level, where CDC recommends that masks and other mitigation efforts be used.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending travelers get tested for COVID-19 as close to the time of departure as possible.

In the last week, an additional 8% of Americans were living in a county in medium or high COVID-19 community levels.

Officials said they are concerned that waning immunity and relaxed mitigation measures across the country may contribute to a continued rise in infections and illnesses across the country. They encouraged people — particularly older adults — to get boosters.

Some health experts say the government should be taking clearer and bolder steps.

The CDC community level guidelines are confusing to the public, and don’t give a clear picture of how much virus transmission is occurring in a community, said Dr. Lakshmi Ganapathi, an infectious diseases specialist at Harvard University.

When the government officials make recommendations but do not set rules, “it ultimately rests on every single individual picking and choosing the public health that works for them. But that’s not what is effective. If you’re talking about stemming hospitalizations and even deaths, all of these interventions work better when people do it collectively,” she said.

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Stobbe reported from New York.