The Latest: US pump prices remained above $4 a gallon throughout August for first time, AAA says

Venezuelans are expressing outrage and the oil industry is waiting for details on President Donald Trump’s announcement that Venezuela ’s acting president has agreed to give an unnamed U.S. company control of vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost. Trump called it “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” but critics say U.S.

consumers won’t benefit for many years.Global crude prices are rising again after renewed warfare between the United States and Iran, the first significant military action in a month. The global energy supply shock has for the first time kept average prices Americans pay at the pump above $4 throughout August, according to the AAA.U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told The Associated Press ahead of the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting he’s hosting in Asheville, N.C., on Monday and Tuesday that the Trump administration is prepared to exact “financial violence if we have to” as it pressures allies to join in “economic D-Day” sanctions on Iran.Here's the Latest:US Treasury blocks certain journalists from G20 meetingIndividual reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News were not granted credentials to the Group of 20 meeting, for reasons the Treasury has not explained.

Bessent told the AP in an interview Sunday that “it has nothing to do with point of view.”The Times said denying American journalists access to a U.S. event is “a blatant attempt to evade public scrutiny.”“With the war in Iran, sanctions, the bond markets, and inflation on the agenda for the G20 finance ministers, the stakes of this gathering are significant for the global economy and the American people,” the Times’ statement said. “Excluding specific reporters and entire news organizations is a disservice to the public and an assault on press freedoms that we strongly condemn.”Bloomberg News reported Sunday evening that denying the agency access to the meeting “undermines media freedom and public accountability.” The Wall Street Journal declined to comment.▶ Read moreChina, Russia and India meet to counter US influenceThe leaders of China, Russia and India gathered with other heads of state in Kyrgyzstan on Monday for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group billed as a counterweight to U.S.

global influence.Russian President Vladimir Putin met separately with Chinese Preside…