TODAY'S NEWS

Lightning-Caused Fires Sear Northern California

· Firefighters continued to battle nearly 850 wildfires in Northern California yesterday. The blazes were sparked by what one state official called an "unprecedented" lightning storm over the weekend in which more than 5,000 lightning strikes were recorded.

Crews from Utah and Nevada have been called in to help fight the fires, which have blackened thousands of acres and threaten thousands of homes.

Landslide Concern Prompts Panda Move

· Ten giant pandas were removed yesterday from the Wolong reserve in China's Sichuan Province. Overall, more than 40 of the endangered animals have been relocated since a powerful earthquake shook the region last month.

The Wolong reserve is threatened by landslides that pose a danger to the animals and risk further destruction of the bamboo forests that feed them, so officials have been moving the pandas to other research facilities.

More than 69,000 people died in the May 12 quake, China's worst in 58 years. One panda at a reserve was killed, and one remains missing. It is not known if any of the estimated 1,600 pandas living in the wild died.

Wolong officials now would like to move the research center.

34-Year-Old Debt Repaid

· Jeffrey Hardin showed up at an Ohio couple's front door in 1974 and said that he'd run out of gas. The couple gave the 17-year-old a five-gallon can filled with gas and told him to be sure to pay it back.

Now he has. Hardin showed up recently to repay Violet and Harold Goff for their kindness. He gave them a new five-gallon container filled with fuel.

Harold Goff joked that it was a good investment since the gas and container, once worth about $5, now cost $25.