North America

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Boeing announced yesterday, its P-8A team and Spirit AeroSystems employees, have laid the keel beam for New Zealand’s first P-8A.

Laying the keel is an important production milestone, during the building of any ship or aircraft, and represents the cornerstone of this latest P-8, Boeing said.

This process was done at the Spirit AeroSystems facility, where all Boeing 737 fuselages, nacelles and pylons are designed and built.

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Russia does not appear to be looking to escalate the conflict in Syria, the leading U.S. general in the Middle East said on Friday, even as Moscow pursues its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces have remained in Syria since 2015 when they helped turn the tide in a civil war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States has roughly 900 troops in Syria, sometimes near Russian troops.

UNITED NATIONS, March 18 (Reuters) - The United States and Western allies slammed Russia on Friday for spreading propaganda, disinformation and "nonsense" at the United Nations Security Council by alleging that parts of biological weapons were being made in Ukraine.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia sent a lengthy document, seen by Reuters, to the council and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday on Moscow's accusation that there are "military biological programs" in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department will on Friday move to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate U.S. export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, officials told Reuters.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, March 18 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Joe Biden in a video call on Friday that the war in Ukraine must end as soon as possible and called on NATO nations to hold a dialogue with Moscow, but did not assign blame to Russia for the invasion.

In the call, which lasted nearly two hours, Biden was expected to tell the Chinese leader that Beijing would pay a steep price if it directly supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a warning at a time of deepening acrimony between the world's two largest economies.

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday swore in Shalanda Young as chief of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), making her the first Black woman in history to assume that role.

The ceremony came two days after the Senate confirmed Young to serve as the director of the OMB with a vote of 61 to 36.

CABOT, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas deputy was convicted Friday of negligent homicide and sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting an unarmed white teenager whose death last year drew the attention of national civil rights leaders.

Jurors acquitted Michael Davis of the more serious offense of manslaughter while finding him guilty of the misdemeanor charge in the death of 17-year-old Hunter Brittain during a June 23 traffic stop outside Cabot, a city of about 26,000 people roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s campaign to unite the globe against the Russian invasion of Ukraine is being challenged not only by adversaries such as China but also by the world’s most populous democracy, India.

United Nations, Mar 18 (AP) Russia's U.N. ambassador says he is not asking for a vote Friday on its resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which has been sharply criticized by Western countries for making no mention of Russia's responsibility for the war against its smaller neighbor.

Vassily Nebenzia told the U.N. Security Council Thursday that Russia decided at this stage not to seek a vote because of pressure from the United States and Albania on U.N. members to oppose it, but he stressed that Moscow is not withdrawing the resolution.

17 March 2022; MEMO: The administration of US President Joe Biden is considering removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its terror blacklist, in return for a public commitment from Tehran to de-escalation in the region, Axios website reported quoting three high-ranking Israeli officials and two American sources.