USA

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday spoke over the phone with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on topics surrounding NATO and counterterrorism, said the White House on Wednesday.

The two leaders discussed the importance of NATO and counterterrorism efforts in Africa, the White House said in a statement.

French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly earlier expressed concern that the expected U.S. forces drawdown in Africa would "severely limit our effectiveness against terrorists."

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, will become acting director of national intelligence, a move that puts a staunch Trump ally in charge of the nation’s 17 spy agencies, which the president has only tepidly embraced.

“Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to working with him,” Trump tweeted.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday denounced the House’s impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump as ”grossly partisan” and said his testimony would not have changed Trump’s acquittal in the Senate, as he continued to stay quiet on the details of a yet-to-be-released book.

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AP) — Defense Secretary Mark Esper used his first-ever visit to a nuclear missile field in frigid North Dakota to tout the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar plan for a top-to-bottom modernization of the nuclear arsenal. The costly project is necessary, he said, to keep up with Russia and outpace China.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee inmate is scheduled Thursday to become the fifth to die in the state’s electric chair in the past 16 months. Each of those inmates chose electrocution over the state’s preferred execution method — lethal injection.

Nicholas Sutton, 58, was sentenced to death in 1986 for killing fellow inmate Carl Estep in a conflict over a drug deal while both were incarcerated in an East Tennessee prison. Sutton had been serving time for three murders he committed in 1979 when he was 18, including that of his grandmother.

MAGNOLIA, Miss. (AP) — Testimony from a Mississippi woman whose son and nephew were two of the eight victims killed in an early morning shooting in 2017 was so emotional that the man accused of killing them was in tears.

The Daily Leader reports that Shayla Edwards took the stand Wednesday and testified that Willie Cory Godbolt, a relative by marriage, had taken her son running through his neighborhood.

“Mama, I learned how to breathe when you’re running,” Edwards said her 11-year-old son Austin excitedly told her a week before Godbolt allegedly shot him to death.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a Russian-backed Syrian offensive are being squeezed into ever smaller areas near Turkey’s border “under horrendous conditions” in freezing temperatures that are killing babies and young children, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Wednesday.

Mark Lowcock told the U.N. Security Council that “the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe” in northwest Idlib province, which is the last major rebel stronghold, has “overwhelmed” efforts to provide aid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has ousted the Pentagon’s top policy official who had certified last year that Ukraine had made enough anti-corruption progress to justify the Trump administration’s release of congressionally authorized aid to Kyiv in its conflict against Russian-backed separatists.

John Rood resigned Wednesday, saying he was leaving at Trump’s request.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a common thread among the 11 felons who found favor with President Donald Trump this week — all who were pardoned or set free had advocates among the president’s wealthy friends and political allies.

In at least some cases, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and ’80s junk-bond king Michael Milken, Trump has personal relationships with those he granted clemency. In three others he drew on the recommendations of a Tennessee grandmother he’d previously granted clemency at the urging of reality-TV star Kim Kardashian West.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — From the opening bell, Democrats savaged New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and raised pointed questions about Bernie Sanders’ take-no-prisoners politics during a contentious debate Wednesday night that threatened to further muddy the party’s urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump.