Europe tries to take lead in setting sweeping rules for cryptocurrency

LONDON — Europe has moved to lead the world in regulating the freewheeling cryptocurrency industry at a time when prices have plunged, wiping out fortunes, fueling skepticism and sparking calls for tighter scrutiny.

European Union negotiators hammered out the final details for a provisional agreement late Thursday on a sweeping package of crypto regulations for the bloc’s 27 nations, known as Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA.

“In the Wild West of the crypto-world, MiCA will be a global standard setter,” the lead EU lawmaker negotiating the rules, Stefan Berger, said in a news release. The EU’s crypto rules “will ensure a harmonized market, provide legal certainty for crypto-asset issuers, guarantee a level playing field for service providers and ensure high standards for consumer protection.”

McConnell warns Dems about reviving climate package

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell threatened Thursday to derail a bill designed to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the United States if Democrats revive their stalled climate and social policy package.

The rejuvenation of the Democratic reconciliation package, central to President

Joe Biden’s agenda, remains a work in progress and is far from certain. But with some signs of progress in the negotiations, McConnell is moving to complicate Democratic plans by warning that Republicans would react by stopping separate semiconductor legislation from moving over the finish line in the coming weeks.

“Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” McConnell tweeted, referring to the shorthand name for the computer chips bill that passed the Senate last year.

Canada official warns of possible COVID resurgence

OTTAWA — Canada’s chief public health officer is warning of a possible COVID-19 resurgence in the fall and winter.

Theresa Tam said Thursday the circulating Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are even more transmissible and able to evade immunity than previous versions, making a rise in cases likely in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, U.S. regulators told COVID-19 vaccine makers Thursday that any booster shots tweaked for the fall will have to add protection against those Omicron subvariants. Those mutants together now account for just over half of new U.S. infections.