2024-05-20 20:03

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - The United States on Monday said it had been unable, due largely to logistical reasons, to accept an Iranian request for assistance following a helicopter crash over the weekend that killed President Ebrahim Raisi, as Washington offered its condolences. The rare request from Iran, which views the United States and Israel as its main adversaries, was disclosed by the State Department at a news briefing. "We were asked for assistance by the Iranian government. We did make clear to them that we would offer assistance, as we would do in response to any request by a foreign government in this sort of situation," spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. "Ultimately, largely for logistical reasons, we were unable to provide that assistance," Miller said, without elaborating. The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions. Iran has still not provided any official word on the cause of the crash of the U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopter in mountains near the Azerbaijan border. Asked whether he was concerned that Tehran might blame Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: "The United States had no part to play in that crash." "I can't speculate on what may have been the cause," he added. The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises. Iran's clerical rulers face international pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear program and its deepening military ties with Russia during the war in Ukraine. Still, Austin played down any U.S. concerns that the crash might have immediate security implications in the Middle East. "I don't necessarily see any broader, regional security impact at this point," he said. Under the Islamic Republic's constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days. Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Khamenei and Iran's security services would seek to avoid any perception of vulnerability during the transition period. "As a result, I'd expect a skittish, reactive Iran that may be more risk-averse in the near term but paradoxically more dangerous if it perceives itself on the defensive," Maloney said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-it-was-unable-provide-iran-assistance-after-helicopter-cash-2024-05-20/

2024-05-20 19:58

May 20 (Reuters) - The head of Ukraine's Russia-annexed Luhansk region said on Monday that Ukrainian shelling had damaged a fuel depot and triggered a fire in the town of Dovzhansk. It was the third such Ukrainian attack on depots in the region this month. Leonid Pasechnik, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Ukrainian forces had used cluster bombs in the attack on the town, called Sverdlovsk, its Soviet-era name, by the Russia-installed local administration. Pasechnik said emergency services were at the scene to keep nearby buildings safe from the fire in the town, which lies south of the region's main town, Luhansk. It was the second Ukrainian strike on the region during the day, Pasechnik said. There was no official Ukrainian comment on the attack on the fuel depot. Ukrainian war bloggers reported the strike and posted pictures of a large plume of smoke wafting skyward in what looked like a forested area. Bloggers also reported an earlier strike in the region, with pictures of rubble outside a high-rise building. Pasechnik reported strikes on oil storage depots earlier in May in Luhansk and in the town of Rovenky, near Dovzhansk. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/head-russia-annexed-luhansk-says-ukrainian-shelling-damages-fuel-depot-2024-05-20/

2024-05-20 19:41

May 20 (Reuters) - Recovery teams refloated a huge cargo vessel impeding shipping in the Port of Baltimore early on Monday and pulled it free of the main channel, two months after the boat crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge and caused the span to collapse. Tugboats led the Dali to a local marine terminal after a successful effort to make the container ship buoyant at about 6:40 a.m. EDT (1040 GMT), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on social media platform X. The removal of the Dali marked a significant step in the Port of Baltimore's recovery from the boat's March 26 collision with one of the bridge's support pillars. The bridge's collapse killed six road workers and hindered traffic through the busiest port for car shipments in the U.S. President Joe Biden praised the team that freed the ship from its weeks-long imprisonment under the bridge's wreckage in a post on X on Monday. "It took the grit of workers and officials coming together to get this done," Biden said. "That's Baltimore Strong." Maryland Governor Wes Moore told NBC on Sunday that workers were on track to restore full access to the port this month. Since the bridge collapse, authorities have opened four temporary channels to allow some shipping to resume. Crews set off controlled explosions last week to allow them to remove a portion of the fallen bridge from the bow of the Dali, which had been pinning the boat in place. That allowed salvage crews to haul away the twisted metal wreckage using cranes and barges, and free the boat for refloating and removal, the Corps of Engineers said. Federal investigators said in a preliminary report last week that the Dali had lost electrical power several times before crashing into the bridge as it was leaving the port. Maryland state officials estimate it will cost $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion to rebuild the bridge and anticipates completion by fall 2028. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/crashed-ship-that-took-down-baltimore-bridge-refloated-towed-channel-2024-05-20/

2024-05-20 19:30

LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - An Australian computer scientist who claimed he invented bitcoin lied "extensively and repeatedly" and forged documents "on a grand scale" to support his false claim, a judge at London's High Court ruled on Monday. Craig Wright had long claimed to have been the author of a 2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin, published under the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto". But Judge James Mellor ruled in March that the evidence Wright was not Satoshi was "overwhelming", after a trial in a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to stop Wright suing bitcoin developers. Mellor gave reasons for his conclusions on Monday, stating in a written ruling: "Dr Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is." The judge added: "All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto." Mellor also said that Wright's actions in suing developers and his expressed views about bitcoin also pointed against him being Satoshi. Wright, who denied forging documents when he gave evidence in February, said in a post on X: "I fully intend to appeal the decision of the court on the matter of the identity issue." COPA – whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments firm Block (SQ.N) New Tab, opens new tab – described Monday's ruling as "a watershed moment for the open-source community". "Developers can now continue their important work maintaining, iterating on, and improving the bitcoin network without risking their personal livelihoods or fearing costly and time-consuming litigation from Craig Wright," a COPA spokesperson said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/self-proclaimed-bitcoin-inventor-lied-repeatedly-support-claim-says-uk-judge-2024-05-20/

2024-05-20 19:04

May 20 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials are not ready to say inflation is heading to the central bank's 2% target after data last week showed a welcome easing in consumer price pressures in April, with several on Monday calling for continued policy caution. "It is too early to tell whether the recent slowdown in the disinflationary process will be long lasting," Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson told the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in New York, even as he called the April data "encouraging." Jefferson described current monetary policy as restrictive and declined to say if he expected rate cuts to commence this year, only noting that he will be carefully assessing incoming economic data, the outlook, and balance of risks. Speaking separately at a conference held by the Atlanta Fed, Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michael Barr, said "disappointing" first-quarter inflation readings were "did not provide me with the increased confidence that I was hoping to find to support easing monetary policy." Like Jefferson, Barr reinforced the Fed's overarching message that rate cuts, highly anticipated by markets, are on hold until it is clear inflation will return to the Fed's 2% target. "We will need to allow our restrictive policy some further time to continue its work," Barr said. Consumer prices cooled in April, and retail spending did not increase at all, two welcome signs that the economy may be losing some steam in the face of a policy rate that the Fed has held in the 5.25%-5.5% range since last July. But Fed policymakers, stung by a string of higher-than-expected inflation readings for the three months prior, remain cautious and want to make sure pricing pressures are fully on track back to the Fed's 2% target rate before starting to cut its benchmark interest rate. Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester, speaking to Bloomberg TV on Monday, said she continues to believe that inflation will fall this year, though more slowly than she had expected. But the lack of progress on inflation in the first quarter, along with a stronger-than-expected economy, mean she no longer sees three rate cuts this year as likely, she said. And, she said, if inflation against her expectation does stall out or gain ground, the Fed is well-positioned to respond "either by holding rates at current levels for longer or, if appropriate, raising the rate." San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, in an interview with Axios published Monday, said she sees no evidence of the need to hike rates, but at the same time is "not confident" that inflation is falling toward 2% and sees no urgency to cut rates. The Fed's next policy meeting is June 11-12 meeting. Traders in contracts tied to the central bank's policy rate currently do not expect an interest rate cut until September. In comments after his formal remarks, Jefferson said, "I am cautiously optimistic that we can continue our battle against inflation" while permitting the economy to continue to grow and create more jobs. He noted growth and job creation have been resilient, which gives him some confidence the Fed can do what it needs to do to get price pressures down. Jefferson also weighed in the state of the Fed's balance sheet drawdown and noted the recently announced plans to slow the pace of the shrinkage comes allows the process to play out with reduced risk of creating financial market stress. He also noted there's little way to know yet how far the Fed needs to contract its holdings. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/feds-jefferson-too-early-tell-if-slowdown-inflation-long-lasting-2024-05-20/

2024-05-20 18:22

May 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that it tested retail samples of milk and other dairy products in 17 states for viable bird flu virus, providing further details about the locations of the previously disclosed tests. The regulator said it collected 297 samples at retail locations in 17 states between April 18-22, but the retail samples represented products made at 132 processing locations in 38 states. "Even if a sample was collected in one particular state, the milk in a consumer package could have come from cows on several farms located in several states, pasteurized in a different state from where the milk was produced, and available for purchase in yet another state," the agency said in its statement. The U.S. has confirmed bird flu in dairy cattle in nine states since late March. The FDA had said on May 10 that no live virus was found in retail milk samples. It has also said that pasteurized milk is safe to drink but has cautioned against consuming raw milk. Scientists, however, have said they believe the outbreak is more widespread based on the FDA's findings that showed about 20% of retail milk samples contained remnants of the H5N1 virus. The samples included cottage cheese, cream, and half and half, which is equal parts milk and cream, sour cream and yoghurt, in addition to milk. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-fda-tested-retail-milk-samples-bird-flu-17-states-2024-05-20/