North America

WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it was imposing sanctions on an alleged oil smuggler and companies it said provide support to the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to a statement.

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted Omani national Mahmood Rashid Amur Al Habsi and a network of businesses, two based in Oman, one based in Liberia and one based in Romania, it said.

The action freezes any U.S. assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy in Somalia, James Swan, on Thursday told the Security Council that significant progress has been made in the political situation in the Horn of Africa country.

"I am pleased to report that significant progress has been made" since the signing of the May 27 Electoral Implementation Agreement between Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and leaders of the federal member states, Swan told the Council meeting on the situation in Somalia.

HAVANA (AP) — Tropical depression Fred was slowly strengthening and could regain tropical storm status sometime on Friday, ahead of its projected track towards the Florida Keys and southwest Florida, forecasters said.

The system was dropping heavy rain over parts of Cuba in the early morning hours and was expected to reach Florida by Saturday, the U.S. National Weather Service said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just weeks before the U.S. is scheduled to end its war in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rushing 3,000 fresh troops to the Kabul airport to help with a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. The move highlights the stunning speed of a Taliban takeover of much of the country, including their capture of Kandahar, the second-largest city and the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

WAIMEA, Hawaii (AP) — A metal roof sits atop the burned remains of a homestead on the once-lush slopes of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea — a dormant volcano and the state’s tallest peak — charred cars and motorcycles strewn about as wind-whipped sand and ash blast the scorched landscape.

Generations of Kumu Micah Kamohoalii’s family have lived on these lands reserved for Native Hawaiians, and his cousin owns this house destroyed by the state’s largest-ever wildfire.

(AP) --- No racial or ethnic group dominates for those under age 18, and white people declined in numbers for the first time on record in the overall U.S. population as the Hispanic and Asian populations boomed this past decade, according to the 2020 census data.

The figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau offered the most detailed portrait yet of how the country has changed since 2010 and will also be instrumental in redrawing the nation’s political maps.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators say transplant recipients and others with severely weakened immune systems can get an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to better protect them as the delta variant continues to surge.

The late-night announcement Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration applies to several million Americans who are especially vulnerable because of organ transplants, certain cancers or other disorders. Several other countries, including France and Israel, have similar recommendations.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (APP): UN expert has expressed concern over arrests, harassment, criminalization and threats against human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and within Israel, and called on Israeli government to make sure all Palestinian human rights defenders are protected.

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) – More than 175 U.S. public health experts, scientists and activists, urged President Joe Biden’s administration, to take urgent steps to confront the global spread of COVID-19, including immediate export of vaccine doses the country has stockpiled.

“We urge you to act now,” they wrote in a joint letter sent to senior White House officials on Tuesday, the full text of which was made public yesterday, in a report by The Washington Post.

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. inflation remained elevated in July, but there were signs that inflation might have peaked, amid pandemic-related supply constraints and the emergence of the Delta variant.

The consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.5 percent in July, after rising 0.9 percent in June, the U.S. Labour Department said yesterday. Over the past 12 months, through July, the index increased 5.4 percent, the same increase as the period ending June and the largest 12-month increase since 2008.