Trump lashes Biden, defies pandemic on White House stage

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AUG 28, 2020 1800 GMT | WASHINGTON, United States | U.S President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump blasted Joe Biden as a hapless career politician who will endanger Americans’ safety as he accepted his party’s renomination on the South Lawn of the White House.

Facing a moment fraught with racial turmoil, economic collapse and a national health emergency, Trump delivered a triumphant, optimistic vision of America’s future Thursday. But he said that brighter horizon could only be secured if he defeated his Democratic foe, who currently has an advantage in most national and battleground state polls.

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Moscow announces advanced trials for new COVID-19 vaccine

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AUG 26, 2020 @ 1500 GMT | Moscow, Russia | In this handout photo taken on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020, and provided by Russian Direct Investment Fund, an employee works with a coronavirus vaccine at the Nikolai Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, Russia. Russia on Tuesday, Aug. 11 became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine for use in tens of thousands of its citizens despite international skepticism about injections that have not completed clinical trials and were studied in only dozens of people for less than two months. (Russian Direct Investment Fund via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — The mayor of Moscow invited residents Wednesday to join trials of a coronavirus vaccine that Russia approved for use earlier this month, in what officials described as a breakthrough on par with the Soviet Union’s launch of the world’s first satellite in 1957.

The world’s first vaccine against the coronavirus to receive a government go-ahead has caused unease among international medical experts, who called Russia’s fast-tracked approval and failure to share any data supporting claims of the vaccine’s efficacy a major breach of scientific protocol.

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Israeli dig unearths large trove of early Islamic gold coins

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AUG 24, 2020 @ 1400 GMT | A hoard of gold coins discovered at an archeological site in central Israel, Tuesday, Aug 18, 2020. Israeli archaeologists have announced the discovery of a trove of early Islamic gold coins during recent salvage excavations near the central city of Yavn Tel Aviv. The collection of 425 complete gold coins, most dating to the Abbasid period around 1,100 years ago, is a “extremely rare” find. (AP Photo)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli archaeologists announced Monday the discovery of a trove of early Islamic gold coins found during recent salvage excavations near the central city of Yavne.

The collection of 425 complete gold coins, most dating to the Abbasid period around 1,100 years ago, was a “extremely rare” find, Israel Antiquities Authorities archaeologists Liat Nadav-Ziv and Elie Haddad said in a joint statement.

The trove, which was unearthed by youth volunteers, also included hundreds of smaller clippings from gold coins that would have served as smaller denominations.

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California wildfires some of largest in state history

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AUG 22, 2020 @ 1700 GMT | A member of a California Dept. of Corrections fire crew runs along a containment line with a chainsaw while fighting the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire, Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Bonny Doon, Calif. (AP Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Lightning-sparked wildfires in Northern California exploded in size Friday to become some of the largest in state history, forcing thousands to flee and destroying hundreds of homes and other structures as reinforcements began arriving to help weary firefighters.

More than 12,000 firefighters aided by helicopters and air tankers are battling wildfires throughout California. Three groups of fires, called complexes, burning north, east and south of San Francisco have together scorched 991 square miles (2,566 square kilometers), destroyed more than 500 structures and killed five people.

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EU regulators wrangle over Twitter data privacy penalty

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AUG 20, 2020 @ 1230 GMT | FILE – This April 26, 2017, file photo shows the Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. European Union privacy regulators are wrangling over the penalty Ireland’s data privacy watchdog was set to issue Twitter for a data breach. The Irish Data Privacy Commission was expected to issue its decision in the Twitter case, which would be its first involving a U.S. technology company since the new privacy law, known as GDPR, took effect in 2018, allowing for hefty fines. But it said Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020 that its counterparts in other countries – so-called concerned supervisory authorities – challenged a draft decision it circulated in May. (AP Photo)

LONDON (AP) — European Union privacy regulators are wrangling over the penalty Ireland’s data privacy watchdog was set to issue Twitter for a data breach, pushing back the case’s long awaited conclusion under the bloc’s tough new data privacy rules.

The Irish Data Privacy Commission was expected to issue its decision in the Twitter case, which would be its first involving a U.S. technology company since the new privacy law, known as GDPR, took effect in 2018, allowing for hefty fines.

But it said Thursday that its counterparts in other countries – so-called concerned supervisory authorities – challenged a draft decision it circulated in May.

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Trump administration imposes new Huawei restrictions

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AUG 18, 2020 @ 1500 GMT | FILE – In this July 15, 2020 file photo, visitors wearing masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus look at the latest products at a Huawei store in Beijing. The U.S. government is imposing another round of restrictions on tech giant Huawei as President Donald Trump renews accusations the Chinese company’s telecommunications equipment is used for spying. The Commerce Department’s new rules which will further block Huawei from getting access to chip technology. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is further tightening restrictions on China’s Huawei, seeking to starve it of crucial components by cutting off all access to U.S. technology.

“We don’t want their equipment in the United States because they spy on us,” Trump told Fox News on Monday. “And any country that uses it, we’re not going to do anything in terms of sharing intelligence.”

The Commerce Department’s new rules, rolled out Monday, will further block Huawei from accessing chip technology.

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Hunger, squalor mar South Sudan post-war unification efforts

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AUG 16, 2020 @ 1400 GMT | Trainees parade during the visit of the defense minister to a military training center in Owiny Ki-Bul, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan Saturday, June 27, 2020. At crowded camps in South Sudan, former enemies are meant to be joining forces and training as a unified security force after a five-year civil war so they can help the shattered country recover but they can barely find enough food. (AP Photo)

BOR, South Sudan (AP) — Here in crowded camps in South Sudan, former enemies are meant to be joining forces after a five-year civil war so they can help the shattered country recover. But they can barely find enough food.

The Associated Press spoke to women, both former rebel fighters and government troops, who are among tens of thousands of people being trained as a unified security force. It’s meant to be a major step in the 2018 peace deal ending the war that killed nearly 400,000 people.

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Pompeo inks deal to support more US troops in Poland

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AUG 15, 2020 @ 1100 GMT | WARSAW, Poland | US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Poland’s Minister of Defence Mariusz Blaszczak greet each other after signing the US-Poland Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday Aug. 15, 2020. Pompeo is on a five day visit to central Europe. (Pool via AP)

WARSAW (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sealed a defense cooperation deal Saturday with Polish officials that will pave the way to deploy more American troops to Poland.

Pompeo, in Warsaw at the end of a four-nation tour of central and eastern Europe, signed the deal with Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak that sets out the legal framework for the additional troops.

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China attacks new US demand to register Confucius Institutes

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AUG 14, 2020 @ 1700 GMT | FILE – In this Sept. 16, 2018, file photo, American flags are displayed together with Chinese flags on top of a trishaw in Beijing. China says Friday, Aug. 14, 2020, the United States is trying to “demonize and stigmatize” bilateral its foreign relations, in a scathing attack on the Trump administration’s designation of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a foreign mission of the Chinese Communist Party. (AP Photo)

BEIJING (AP) — China accused the United States on Friday of trying to “demonize and stigmatize” relations between the two countries, in a scathing attack on the Trump administration’s designation of Chinese-funded language and culture programs in the U.S. as foreign missions of the Chinese Communist Party.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said branches of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center operating at U.S. schools and colleges are a “bridge and link to help people from all over the world learn Chinese, understand China, and strengthen educational and cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries.”

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UK records deepest recession among top economies

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AUG 12, 2020 @ 1600 GMT | FILE – In this Thursday, April 30, 2020 file photo, a woman wearing a mask to protect against coronavirus, rides a bicycle past a job centre in Shepherd’s Bush, as the lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus continues, in London. The U.K. economy has officially fallen into a recession after official figures showed it contracting by a record 20.4% in the second quarter as a result of lockdown measures put in place to counter the coronavirus pandemic. The slump recorded by the Office for National Statistics follows a 2.2% quarterly contraction in the first three months of the year. (AP Photo)

LONDON (AP) — Britain has suffered the deepest recession among the world’s top economies this year, shrinking by a fifth in the second quarter alone when much of the economy was mothballed as part of efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

The 20.4% quarterly drop is the worst since records began in 1955, the Office for National Statistics said, and means Britain is in recession.

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