North America

09 Mar 2019; AFP: SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, completing a NASA demonstration mission that paves the way for the resumption of manned space flights from the US.

After hours of suspense, the Dragon spacecraft touched down at 8:45 am (1345 GMT) some 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of the US state of Florida.

08 Mar 2019; DW: Two top officials in US President Donald Trump's administration announced their resignations on Friday, the latest in a series of departures from the White House.

Bill Shine resigned as White House communications director after eight months in the post as Trump's top communications aide.

The former Fox News executive will now work on Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, the White House said in a statement.

08 Mar 2019; DW: Chelsea Manning has been jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury in an investigation involving WikiLeaks. The former US military analyst said she had already answered the questions during her 2013 court-martial.

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she, if elected, will seek legislation to break up the country's tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google, which she said "have too much power."

Writing in a post on Medium, an online publishing platform, the Democratic senator from the state of Massachusetts called the rise of Facebook, Google and Amazon "a great story  -  but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump and his top economic adviser on Friday defended the country's economic performance following a new report by the Labor Department that showed job gains plunged to 20,000 in February.

The growth in non-farm payroll jobs in February stood in stark contrast with the January number of 311,000, according to the report, which also said that the U.S. economy added an average of 223,000 new jobs per month in 2018.

Washington, Mar 9 (AP) President Donald Trump will be making a significant request for border wall funds and seeking money to stand up Space Force as a new branch of the military in the White House budget being released next week, an administration official said Friday.

For the first time, Trump plans to stick with the strict spending caps imposed years ago, even though lawmakers have largely avoided them with new budget deals. That will likely trigger a showdown with Congress.

Washington, Mar 9 (AP) A World Bank arbitration panel ruled on Friday that Venezuela must pay US oil giant ConocoPhillips more than 8 billion as compensation for a decade-old expropriation dispute, roughly the same amount as the South American country's foreign currency reserves.

The bank's ICSID tribunal had ruled in 2013 that the 2007 expropriation of ConocoPhillips investments in two heavy crude oil projects violated international law.

Washington, Mar 9 (PTI) Amidst reports of negotiations for a deal with china hitting a bump, President Donald Trump has said that he will enter into a trade deal with Beijing only if he is confident that it is good for the US.

But he also told reporters at the White House on Friday that he is confident of entering into a trade deal with China.

The world's two largest economies are locked in a trade war since Trump imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items from China in March last year, a move that sparked fears of a global trade war.

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man strangled his pregnant wife in their bed before driving her body and their two daughters to a worksite where he smothered the girls with a blanket, according to records of an interview he gave police from prison.

Christopher Watts made the statements during authorities’ prison visit on Feb. 18, three months after he was sentenced to life in prison. Authorities said they believe the grim account of the killings represent Watts’ first full confession.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s 2020 budget proposal will include $100 million for a global women’s fund spearheaded by his daughter Ivanka Trump.

A White House official told The Associated Press that the budget, expected to be released Monday, will include the funding for the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. The administration last month launched the government-wide project, led by the Republican president’s daughter and senior adviser.