North America

(AP) --- Johnson & Johnson is pulling baby powder containing talc worldwide next year after it did the same in the U.S. and Canada amid thousands of lawsuits claiming it caused cancer.

Talc will be replaced by cornstarch, the company said.

The company has faced litigation alleging its talcum powder caused users to develop ovarian cancer, through use for feminine hygiene, or mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor.

The package, passed with no Republican votes, could be read largely as an effort to help West Virginia look to the future without turning away entirely from its roots.

WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) — Authorities are investigating the motives of an armed man who they say tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati office, fled and died hours later in a rural standoff with law enforcement, a case unfolding as the FBI warns agents to take extra precautions amid increased social media threats to its employees and facilities.

Officials have warned of a rise in threats against federal agents in the days following a search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The biggest investment ever in the U.S. to fight climate change. A hard-fought cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors in the Medicare program. A new corporate minimum tax to ensure big businesses pay their share.

And billions left over to pay down federal deficits.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump called late Thursday for the “immediate” release of the federal warrant the FBI used to search his Florida estate, hours after the Justice Department had asked a court to unseal the warrant, with Attorney General Merrick Garland citing the “substantial public interest in this matter.”

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 (APP): Rear Admiral Guillermo Pablo Rios of Argentina has been appointed as Head of Mission and Chief Military Observer for the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which monitors the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, it was officially announced Thursday.

Rear Admiral Rios succeeds Major General Jose Eladio Alcain of Uruguay, who will shortly complete his assignment.

LOS ANGELES, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Antarctica's coastal glaciers are shedding icebergs more rapidly than nature can replenish the crumbling ice, doubling previous estimates of losses from the world's largest ice sheet over the past 25 years, a satellite analysis showed on Wednesday.

The first-of-its-kind study, led by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles and published in the journal Nature, raises new concern about how fast climate change is weakening Antarctica's floating ice shelves and accelerating the rise of global sea levels.

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - China's war games around Taiwan have led Biden administration officials to recalibrate their thinking on whether to scrap some tariffs or potentially impose others on Beijing, setting those options aside for now, according to sources familiar with the deliberations.

President Joe Biden's team has been wrestling for months with various ways to ease the costs of duties imposed on Chinese imports during predecessor Donald Trump's tenure, as it tries to tamp down skyrocketing inflation.

HAVANA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Specialists and firefighters from Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela are making progress in controlling the fire at a fuel storage facility in Matanzas Province, according to reports from local authorities on Wednesday.

The fire was triggered by a lightning strike on a tank containing 26,000 cubic meters of Cuban oil on Aug. 5, and later consumed three nearby tanks, leaving one dead, 14 missing and 125 injured.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Under the Black Sea Initiative, 12 vessels have been authorized to depart the Ukrainian ports, a United Nations official coordinating the grain export deal said on Wednesday.

These ships contain "over 370,000 metric tons of grain and other food stocks," Frederick Kenney, interim coordinator for the UN at the Joint Coordination Center for the Black Sea Initiative, told a regular press briefing held at the UN headquarters in New York via video link from Istanbul, Türkiye.