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, 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, 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.

09 Mar 2019; DW: A federal court in New York has charged former Venezuelan vice president Tareck El Aissami with violating US sanctions. The US had imposed sanctions on El Aissami and other Venezuelan officials for their alleged role in drug trafficking in 2017.

The move comes as tensions between the US and Venezuela are at their highest point, with Washington backing self-declared interim President Juan Guaido in the opposition's struggle against acting President Nicolas Maduro.

JERUSALEM (AP) — When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has run into political trouble in the past, he has lashed out at the media, the political opposition and Israel’s Arab minority with incendiary and divisive language to galvanize his nationalist base.

Ahead of April 9 elections, Netanyahu has zoned in on prominent Arab lawmaker Ahmad Tibi.

JERUSALEM, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Israeli aircraft struck Friday overnight several military targets of Hamas in the Gaza Strip hours after a projectile was fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said early Saturday in a statement that "several military targets" in a Hamas compound in the southern Gaza Strip and "underground structures" in the northern Gaza Strip were struck.

08 Mar 2019; DW: The European Union should make concessions in Brexit talks to convince British lawmakers to back a controversial exit deal next week, British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday. The call came as Brussels and London struggle to reach an agreement to avoid a potentially damaging "no-deal" Brexit at the end of March.

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: Germany will not declare Lebanon's Hezbollah movement a terrorist organization, a top official said Friday.

Niels Annen, deputy minister in the Foreign Ministry, told newsmagazine Der Spiegel that the Iran-backed Shiite Islamist movement is a relevant factor in Lebanese society and part of the complex political landscape in the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is eyeing a plan to seek more money from allied European and other nations where American troops are based.

Several U.S. officials said Friday that the White House has asked the Defense Department to gather data on the costs of keeping troops in other countries and how much those nations contribute to the expenses. The officials weren’t authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

London, Mar 9 (PTI) Fugitive billionaire diamantaire Nirav Modi, accused in the USD 2 billion PNB fraud case, is living openly in a swanky 8-million pound apartment in London's West End and is now involved in a new diamond business, a British daily reported on Saturday.

Modi, 48, is currently living in a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor of the landmark Centre Point tower block, where rent is estimated to cost 17,000 pounds a month, The Telegraph reported.

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.