North America

14 Mar 2019; DW: International donors are on track to raise close to €6.2 billion ($7 billion) in aid for Syria and those fleeing the eight-year conflict in 2019, exceeding expectations, according to the United Nations.

More than half of that money is earmarked for refugees languishing in neighboring countries while the conflict continues and Europe remains divided on contributing to reconstruction.

Pledges beat expectations

Washington, Mar 15; PTI: In a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump, a dozen Republican senators broke party ranks and sided with Democrats to terminate the US President's declaration of a national emergency on America's border with Mexico.

In a 59-41 vote, 12 Republicans joined every Senate Democrat on Thursday in a rare move to block the president's effort to divert billions in funding to build his long-promised border wall without congressional approval.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives last month backed the measure.

Caracas, Mar 15; AFP: Venezuelans resumed work after a week-long hiatus forced by an unprecedented nationwide blackout, but President Nicolas Maduro's government faced fresh problems including a "terrorist attack" on an oil facility.

Three storage tanks at the Petro San Felix heavy oil processing plant in eastern Venezuela caught fire late Wednesday, Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo told state television. There were no reports of casualties.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday dangled the prospect of walking away from a new trade deal with China if it’s not to his liking, just as he cut short his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un when the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

Trump spoke on the state of negotiations with China shortly before meeting with Republican senators on trade issues. He spoke optimistically of the U.S. and China being able to reach an agreement, declaring that “China has not been doing well. We’ve been doing unbelievably well.”

13 Mar 2019; AFP: President Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort, already facing 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud, was sentenced to an additional 43 months in prison Wednesday on conspiracy charges.

"The defendant is not public enemy number one," US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in delivering the sentence in a hushed Washington courtroom.

14 Mar 2019; AFP: No one even knows when it will come out, but Robert Mueller's top secret probe into possible collusion between Donald Trump and Russia has Washington on edge -- and the president mounting preemptive attacks against impeachment.

"How do you impeach a man who is considered by many to be the President with the most successful first two years in history, especially when he has done nothing wrong," Trump asked Wednesday in a stream of tweets laying out the case for his innocence.

13 Mar 2019; AFP: Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in California on Wednesday, granting a reprieve to 737 condemned inmates -- the largest death row population in the United States.

"The death penalty has been an abject failure. It discriminates based on the color of your skin or how much money you make," he told a news conference. "It's ineffective, irreversible, and immoral.

13 Mar 2019; AFP: The US space agency NASA on Wednesday cast a shadow on the future of its new heavy-lift rocket, the SLS -- acknowledging development delays on a project that is already years behind.

The Space Launch System program is being run much as the Apollo and space shuttle mission were handled in the days of old.

But Wednesday's announcement illustrates how quickly NASA has embraced a new era dominated by private space companies who are offering the option of low-cost transport on a mission-by-mission basis.

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States is grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, said U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday, as the country becomes the last major country to do so after two crashes by the model in recent months.

"All of those planes are grounded, effective immediately," Trump told a press event, referring to the Boeing 737 Max variations.

"The safety of the American people, of all people is our paramount concern," Trump said.

Washington, Mar 14 (AFP) The US Senate has dealt a stinging bipartisan rebuke to Donald Trump's foreign policy and his alliance with Riyadh, voting to end support for the bloody Saudi-led war effort in Yemen.

Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled chamber approved on Wednesday a historic curtailment of presidential war powers that directs Trump "to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen" within 30 days.