USA

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — It began as a stunning light show on a mid-August weekend — lightning bolts crackling in the skies over Northern and Central California, touching down in grasslands and vineyards.

The National Weather Service warned that the dry lightning striking a parched landscape “could lead to new wildfire.”

It turned out to be a huge understatement. Thousands of bolts ignited hundreds of fires in California and at least one in Oregon, setting the stage for some of the most destructive wildfires the West Coast states have seen in modern times.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (APP): United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called the coronavirus pandemic the world’s top security threat, and called for greater cooperation in controlling outbreaks and developing an affordable vaccine.

“The outbreak remains out of control”, Secretary-General Antonio?Guterres declared in his press conference on Wednesday, ahead of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) High Level Week, noting that soon one million lives will be “lost to the virus”.

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (NNN-TASS) — Residents of developed countries trust Russian President Vladimir Putin more than his American counterpart Donald Trump, a Pew Research Center poll covering 13,200 people from 13 countries revealed.

According to the research published Tuesday, 23% of respondents treat Putin with trust. The trust rating of Chinese leader Xi Jinping is slightly lower – 19%. Meanwhile, only 16% of those surveyed have faith in the US President.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - China’s ByteDance faces an uphill struggle to convince the White House to allow it to keep majority ownership of its popular short video app TikTok in the United States, according to former national security officials and regulatory lawyers.

Trump ordered ByteDance last month to divest TikTok amid U.S. concerns that the personal data of as many as 100 million Americans that use the app could be passed on to China’s Communist Party government. He has threatened to ban TikTok in the United States as early as Sept. 20 if ByteDance does not comply.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- It will be the late second quarter or third quarter of 2021 before a COVID-19 vaccine is generally available to the American public, said Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Robert Redfield on Wednesday.

During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Redfield said he thought that there would be vaccine initially available sometime between November and December, but "very limited supply and will have to be prioritized."

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on the international community to come together to defeat COVID-19.

"The virus is the number one global security threat in our world today," the UN chief said at a hybrid press conference, noting that this is the moment when "the international community needs to come together to defeat the virus."

NEW YORK (AP) — A looming U.S. ban on the Chinese app WeChat won’t target people who use the app to communicate, according to a government court filing Wednesday.

President Donald Trump issued orders on Aug. 6 that targeted WeChat and TikTok as purported national-security threats and imposed a Sept. 20 deadline for the Commerce Department to draft specific measures for blocking “transactions” with the Chinese owners of the apps.

ATLANTA (AP) — Joe Biden is resisting calls from President Donald Trump and even some fellow Democrats to release his list of potential Supreme Court picks seven months after he pledged to name the first Black female justice.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden said Wednesday that while he trusts what scientists say about a potential coronavirus vaccine, he doesn’t trust President Donald Trump.

His comments come as the debate over a vaccine — how it will be evaluated and distributed when it’s ready — has taken center stage in the presidential race with seven weeks to go until the November election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the economy still struggling to recover from the pandemic recession, Federal Reserve policymakers signaled Wednesday that their benchmark short-term interest rate will likely remain at zero at least through 2023 and possibly even longer.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference that while the economy has rebounded more quickly than expected, the job market is still hurting and the outlook is uncertain. The unemployment rate has fallen steadily since the spring but is still 8.4%.