USA

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would not participate in the summit on Iran that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Friday.

"Probably not," Trump said when asked whether he would join the Putin-proposed video summit during a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Trump also confirmed to reporters that the United States "will be doing a snapback" against Iran, referring to restoring all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran.

"You will be watching it next week," he added.

NEW YORK, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks posted modest gains in the week, as investors digested a slew of newly-released economic data while grappling with the uncertain fate of the further coronavirus stimulus in the country.

For the week ending Friday, the Dow gained 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent and the Nasdaq was up 0.1 percent.

The S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index, which is designed to track the performance of the 50 largest Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges by total market cap, logged a weekly decline of 2.3 percent.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has again pushed for schools to reopen despite the severe COVID-19 pandemic across the country, according to The Guardian newspaper.

"We got to open up our schools and open our businesses," Trump said on Wednesday. "Children often have only mild symptoms, and medical complications are incredibly rare," the newspaper quoted the president as saying.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — After several hours of mostly peaceful demonstrations Saturday in an Atlanta suburb that’s home to a giant Confederate memorial, large numbers of police moved in to disperse the crowds when fights broke out.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — As President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign challenged Nevada’s new voting law in court, the president and Republicans argued the rules would facilitate fraud and illegal voting. Chief among their criticisms was a provision allowing “ballot harvesting.”

The Nevada lawsuit highlighted a practice that has long fueled Republicans’ suspicions about mail-in voting.

SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump intends to withdraw the nomination of William Perry Pendley to head the Bureau of Land Management, a senior administration official said Saturday — much to the relief of environmentalists who insisted the longtime advocate of selling federal lands should not be overseeing them.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s utilities on Saturday night are bringing back power to thousands of customers across the state after a brief outage, according to the authority that operates the power grid.

The California Independent System Operator (California ISO) said in a statement that the brief rolling blackouts throughout the state were caused by the failure of a power plant and the loss of wind power.

California ISO said it ordered the end of rolling blackouts about 6:48 p.m., when wind power increased.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Anyone can get a coronavirus test at the CentroMed clinic in San Antonio, but on a recent day, the drive-thru was empty. Finally two masked people in a maroon SUV pulled straight on through with no wait.

With hundreds of deaths reported each day, students returning to class and football teams charging ahead with plans to play, Texas leaders who grappled with testing shortages for much of the pandemic are now facing the opposite problem: not enough takers.

“We’re not having enough people step forward,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 15 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that time was running out to prevent a decaying tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen from dumping its load of 1.1 million barrels of oil into the Red Sea.

UNITED NATIONS, August 15. /TASS/: Russia urges its partners in the UN Security Council to avoid further escalation of confrontation over the Iranian issue, Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya said in a statement.