North America

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 (APP): The UN trade and development body, UNCTAD, has called for action to curb cryptocurrencies in developing nations, in three policy briefs published Wednesday.

Although private digital currencies have rewarded some individuals and institutions, they are an unstable financial asset that can bring social risks and costs, the agency, which is based in Geneva, warned.

UNCTAD said their benefits to some are overshadowed by the threats they pose to financial stability, domestic resource mobilization, and the security of monetary systems.

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday the United States could not allow China to normalize the new level of pressure on Taiwan it asserted with days of military drills following her visit to the Chinese-claimed island.

"What we saw with China is that they were trying to establish sort of a new normal. And we just can't let that happen," Pelosi told a news conference with four other Democratic House members who accompanied her on the trip to Asia.

NEW YORK, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Joe Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new strategy to stretch the limited available doses of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine by changing how the vaccine is injected, The Hill reported.

The new method would split up the doses and use one-fifth as much vaccine per shot. The partial dose of the vaccine would be injected into the upper layer of skin, rather than the full dose into the underlying fat, which is how shots are typically administered.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed the country’s most powerful general, offering $300,000 to “eliminate” the Trump administration official, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Shahram Poursafi, identified by U.S. officials as a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, is currently wanted by the FBI on charges related to the murder-for-hire plot.

HAVANA (AP) — A deadly fire that has consumed at least half of a large oil facility in western Cuba and threatened to worsen the island’s energy crisis has been largely controlled after nearly five days, authorities said Wednesday.

Flames that recently consumed the fourth tank in the eight-tank facility in Matanzas were almost quelled, although the third tank remains on fire and surrounded by smoke, according to an unidentified Cuban firefighter.

“We can’t go in for now,” he told Cubavisión, a government TV channel.

NORTH CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) — President Joe Biden arrived in South Carolina on Wednesday to begin what is expected to be at least a seven-day vacation with members of his family outside of Washington.

The first couple was planning to be in Kiawah Island, noted for its private beach and golf resort, through Tuesday, according to Federal Aviation Administration advisories.

The White House did not respond to requests to provide details on Biden’s vacation schedule, activities or when he planned to return to Washington.

CRYSTAL SPRINGS, Miss. (AP) — U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Harold Duane Poole was waiting with his semiautomatic service rifle — and an explanation — when deputies arrived at his sprawling wooded property on a warm spring night last year and found a bullet-riddled body near the driveway.

A veteran of the DEA’s military-style commando teams, Poole acknowledged he fatally shot a mentally ill neighbor just minutes after calling law enforcement to report the man was trespassing on his land – yet again – “out of his mind” and threatening him with a rock.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — After he was detained by New Mexico police, the suspect in the killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque denied any connection to the crimes that shook the city and its small Muslim community — and told authorities he was so unnerved by the violence that he was driving to Houston in search of a new home for his family, court documents said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Falling prices for gas, airline tickets and clothes helped give Americans a slight break from the pain of high inflation last month, though overall price increases slowed only modestly from the four-decade high that was reached in June.

Consumer prices jumped 8.5% in July compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, down from a 9.1% year-over-year increase in June. On a monthly basis, prices were unchanged from June to July, the first time that has happened after 25 months of increases.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as he testified under oath Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement.

Trump arrived at Attorney General Letitia James’ Manhattan offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., before announcing more than an hour later that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”