Iraq on Sunday urged foreign countries to stop importing crude directly from its autonomous Kurdistan region and to restrict oil trading to the central government. The call, published in statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office, came in retaliation for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s plan to hold a referendum on independence on Monday. The central government’s statement seems to be directed primarily at Turkey, the transit country for all the crude produced in Kurdistan. The crude is taken by pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean coast for export. Baghdad “asks the …

A spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office has been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying the classified NROL-42 satellite lifted off at 10:49 p.m. PDT Saturday. All systems were going well when the launch webcast concluded about three minutes into the flight. National Reconnaissance Office satellites gather intelligence information for U.S. national security and an array of other purposes including assessing impacts of natural disasters. U.S. officials have not revealed what the spacecraft will be doing or what …

U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber is prepared to make concessions as it seeks to reverse a decision by London authorities not to renew its license in the city, which represents a potentially big blow for the fast-growing company, a newspaper reported. The Sunday Times also quoted sources close to London’s transport body as saying the move was encouraging and suggested the possibility of talks. “While we haven’t been asked to make any changes, we’d like to know what we can do,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s general manager in London, told the newspaper. …

Charles Bradley, known as the “Screaming Eagle of Soul” for a powerful, raspy style that evoked one of his musical heroes, James Brown, died Saturday at age 68. Bradley, who achieved success later in life with his 2011 debut album “No Time for Dreaming,” was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the fall of 2016 and underwent treatment, according to a statement from his publicist, Shazila Mohammed. He went out on tour earlier this year after receiving a clean bill of health, but the cancer returned recently, spreading to his liver, …

The Environmental Protection Agency says it has recovered 517 containers of “unidentified, potentially hazardous material” from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey. The agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether there’s a threat to human health. The one-sentence disclosure about the 517 containers was made Friday night deep within a media release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency summarizing the government’s response to the devastating …