North America

20 Feb 2020; MEMO: On Tuesday, members of the US Senate called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to work on liberating the US citizen of Saudi origin, Dr Walid Fitaihi, who is being tried by the Saudi authorities on “politicized” charges.

“It is very important for the US Democratic and Republican administrations to free United States citizens abroad,” said a statement sent by Democratic Senators: Bob Menendez, Patrick Leahy, Chris Murphy, Chris Van Houlin, and Ron Wyden.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 20 (NNN-Xinhua) — Foreign investors are looking to increase their investment in Mexico thanks to the ratification of the renovated free trade agreement, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.

“In general (foreign investors are) very optimistic about the country’s economic future, and committed to keeping their investment and increasing their investment in Mexico, within the framework of the free trade deal,” Lopez Obrador told reporters at his daily press conference.

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.