WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's getting late early. US President Donald Trump is privately reassuring Republicans anxious about his deficits to Democrat Joe Biden, noting there are three months until Election Day and reminding them of the late-breaking events that propelled his 2016 comeback. But four years later, the dynamics are very different. Aides are increasingly worried that the 2020 campaign may already be defined as a referendum on Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and will feature

Who gets to be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine? US health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it's a vexing decision. "Not everybody's going to like the answer," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. "There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list." Traditional

HANOI (AP) -- Vietnam on Friday reported its first-ever death of a person with the coronavirus as it struggles with a renewed outbreak after 99 days with no local cases. The Health Ministry said a 70-year-old man died after contracting the disease while being treated for a kidney illness at a hospital in Da Nang. More than 90 new cases have been confirmed in the past week, more than half of them patients at the hospital. Da Nang is Vietnam's most popular beach destination, and thousands of

President Donald Trump is for the first time floating a "delay" to November's presidential election, as he makes unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting will result in fraud.  The dates of federal elections are set by Congress, and the Constitution makes no provisions for a delay to the Jan. 20, 2021 presidential inauguration.  Trump tweeted Thursday: "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURAT

The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built -- a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers -- blasted off Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of ancient life. NASA's Perseverance rode a mighty Atlas V rocket into a clear morning sky in the world's third and final Mars launch of the summer. China and the United Arab Emirates got a head start last w

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he decided to cut American troops in Germany because the country is not paying enough for protection, stressing the United States will no longer be a "sucker." The US military earlier announced the troop drawdown plan that calls for withdrawing about 12,000 troops out of 36,000 US forces and relocating about half of them to other regions in Europe to keep Russia in check. "We don't want to be the suckers any more ... We're

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Two Chinese nationals have been indicted for seeking to steal COVID-19 vaccine research and hacking hundreds of companies in the United States and abroad, including defense contractors, the US Justice Department said Tuesday. Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, also targeted human rights activists in the United States, China and Hong Kong, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said. The indictment comes amid rising tensions between the global superpowers fueled by the coro

LUTSK (AP) -- An “unstable” armed man who seized more than a dozen hostages on a long-distance bus in Ukraine’s western city of Lutsk was detained late Tuesday after a standoff that lasted for over 12 hours and all hostages were freed unharmed, officials said. The assailant agreed to release the hostages following a 15-minute phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko told reporters. Shortly after the ca

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States' COVID-19 virus case load is soaring at an explosive rate, even as leaders of some of the worst-hit states resist mandatory mask measures to stem the spread. Health authorities reported more than 77,600 new cases on Friday, according to the Johns Hopkins University database. The number of patients hospitalized for the virus is at its highest level since April 23, according to The COVID Tracking Project. The death rate, which plummeted in May and June, ha

NEW DELHI (AFP) -- India on Friday became the third country in the world to record one million coronavirus cases, following Brazil and the United States where infections also continued to surge. The virus has killed more than 588,000 people and infected nearly 14 million around the world since first being detected in China late last year. But, despite extraordinary restrictions on people travelling that have crippled the global economy, the pandemic is worsening in many parts of the world. I

BEIJING (AFP) -- Beijing 2022 organisers were "pressing ahead" with preparations for the Winter Olympics Friday after a senior IOC official warned the coronavirus could force the Games to be postponed. Dick Pound, a former International Olympic Committee vice-president, told AFP that all options would have to be considered if the Beijing Games cannot be held in 2022. Beijing is due to host the Winter Olympics just six months after the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, which have been put ba

MOSCOW (AFP) -- President Vladimir Putin has ordered snap military drills involving 150,000 personnel and hundreds of aircraft and naval vessels to ensure "security in Russia's southwest," the defence ministry said Friday. "In accordance with the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces snap exercises are being conducted by troops of the Southern and Western military districts," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying in a statement. The

BEIJING (AFP) -- US officials have "lost their minds and gone mad" in their dealings with Beijing, China's foreign ministry said Friday, in the latest verbal salvo between the two superpowers. Tensions between Washington and Beijing have run high this year and some of the most outspoken critics of China in American congress were this week hit with sanctions, days after the US imposed visa bans and asset freezes on several Chinese officials. US Attorney General Bill Barr added fuel t

　PCs, somewhat left behind in the mobile internet age, are making a comeback as people stuck at home due to the coronavirus rely on them for work, education and entertainment, industry watchers say. 　Gartner and International Data Corp. reports show shipments of desktop computers, laptops and workstations grew in the second quarter as pandemic-related disruptions to the supply chain were overcome. 　IDC determined that PC shipments worldwide jumped 11.2 percent to 72.3 million units on the

The New York Times said it plans to relocate its Hong Kong-based digital news operation to Seoul, amid growing concerns over the impact of China’s national security law. Seoul has been chosen as the location for the US paper’s digital media operation for South Korea’s openness to foreign business, freedom of press and its impact on news in Asia. By next year, one-third of its Hong Kong office will be moved to Seoul. Hong Kong has been a desirable location to many English-lan