North America

13 Feb 2019; AFP: The US Justice Department charged a former Air Force intelligence official Wednesday with spying for Iran, saying she exposed a fellow US agent and helped the Revolutionary Guard target her former colleagues for cyber attacks.

US officials said Monica Witt, 39, who worked a decade in Air Force counterintelligence, had an "ideological" turn against her country and defected in 2013, turning over information on US espionage operations against Tehran.

14 Feb 2019; AFP: An international court Wednesday ruled Iran can proceed with a bid to unfreeze assets in the United States, rejecting Washington's claims the case must be halted because of Tehran's alleged support for international terrorism.

Washington had argued that Iran's "unclean hands" -- a reference to Tehran's suspected backing of terror groups -- should disqualify its lawsuit to recover $2 billion in assets frozen by the US Supreme Court in 2016.

14 Feb 2019; AFP: During 14 years of intrepid exploration across Mars, it advanced human knowledge by confirming that water once flowed on the red planet -- but NASA's Opportunity rover has analyzed its last soil sample.

The robot has been missing since the US space agency lost contact during a dust storm in June last year and was declared officially dead Wednesday, ending one of the most fruitful missions in the history of space exploration.

14 Feb 2019; DW: The Democrat-led US House of Representatives has voted 248-177 in favor of a resolution that would end US support for the Saudi Arabia-led military intervention in Yemen.

Only 18 Republicans voted for the measure, which would ban refueling support, intelligence and targeting assistance without prior Congressional approval.

Lawmakers said they were concerned about how the US had contributed to the civil war in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of people.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Google will make a new investment of more than 13 billion U.S. dollars in data centers across the United States in 2019, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Wednesday.

Pichai said the new investment is expected to allow the company to hire tens of thousands of workers and create more than 10,000 new construction jobs in many states including Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma, Pichai said.

With the new funding, Google will "have a home in 24 total states, including data centers in 13 communities," Pichai said.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Roughly six in 10 U.S. voters oppose another federal government shutdown over the border wall funding dispute between the White House and Congressional Democrats, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.

Only 33 percent of respondents support another shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found.

However, U.S. voters are evenly split on whether the country should build the wall along the southern border, which is Trump's signature campaign promise.

12 Feb 2019; AFP: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would consider extending the deadline for a trade deal with China beyond March 1.

"If we're close to a deal, where we think we can make a real deal... I could see myself letting that slide for a little while," Trump told reporters at the White House.

But he added: "Generally speaking I'm not inclined to do that."

13 Feb 2019; AFP: President Donald Trump indicated Tuesday that he will walk back his threat to shut the government even if he does not get all the money he has demanded for building a wall along the US-Mexican border.

Although Trump left enough wiggle room to keep the country guessing, he appeared to be edging toward accepting a deal struck in Congress that would give him significantly less money for the much-maligned barrier.

13 Feb 2019; AFP: US space agency NASA will make one final attempt to contact its Opportunity Rover on Mars late Tuesday, eight months after it last made contact.

The agency also said it would hold a briefing Wednesday, during which it will likely officially declare the end of the mission.

Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004 and covered 28 miles (45 kilometers) on the planet, securing its place in history after lasting well beyond its expected 90-day mission.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Defense said Tuesday that acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in Baghdad on a broad range of defense issues.

In their meeting at the prime minister's office, Shanahan and Abdul Mahdi discussed a broad range of defense issues, including the need to further develop capabilities of Iraqi security forces, according to a press release issued by the Pentagon.