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Britain’s 90-year-old monarch has made a rare foray into political affairs, being caught on film characterizing Chinese officials as “very rude” in their dealings with British counterparts during a state visit last year. Queen Elizabeth II made the unguarded comments Tuesday while talking to a senior police officer at a rain-soaked garden party on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. With uncharacteristic bluntness — rarely if ever heard in public — the queen said the Chinese had not dealt properly with Barbara Woodward, the British envoy to China. “They were very rude to the ambassador,” Elizabeth said. …

The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $165.0623 billion in the first quarter of 2016, which was down slightly from the $165.7159 billion merchandise trade deficit the United States ran in the first quarter of 2015, according to data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau. The U.S. exported $347.5618 billion in goods during the quarter and imported $512.6241 billion. The bilateral merchandise trade deficit with China during the first quarter was $77.9461 billion—by far the largest with any nation. […] The second largest bilateral merchandise trade deficit the United States ran during the quarter was the $16.9356 billion...

Marvel's new movie Doctor Strange may have changed the Ancient One from a Tibetan man to a Celtic white woman to appease China. That's at least was Doctor Strange writer C. Robert Cargill suggested on the Double Toasted podcast. Or was this another example of Hollywood whitewashing—giving Asian roles to white actors?

The GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump won a sweeping victory in the Indiana Republican primary on Tuesday, dealing a heavy blow to his rival Ted Cruz, who dropped out of the race later that night. Trump cleared his way to the Republican nomination for the 2016 US presidential election. Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus declared Trump to be the party's "presumptive" presidential nominee and called for unity against Hillary Clinton. Trump's breakthrough in the Republican primaries has caused a sensation in US politics, public discourse and the international community. At the beginning of the race, most analysts...

Two weeks after North Korea threatened to launch nuclear strikes against the U.S., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the federal government has still not implemented all of the recommendations made eight years ago to prevent catastrophic blackouts caused by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. The recommendations were made in 2008 by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electro-Magnetic Pulse Attack (EMP Commission). Although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Energy (DOE) have taken actions to prepare against an EMP attack, they “have not established a coordinated approach to identifying...

United States Steel Corp. has filed a complaint with U.S. regulators against the biggest Chinese steel producers, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices, stealing trade secrets and skirting duties on imports in the U.S. with false labeling. The big steelmaker is alleging illegal unfair competition by the Chinese producers and their distributors, and is seeking “the exclusion of all unfairly traded Chinese steel products from the U.S. market.” U.S. Steel announced Tuesday that it lodged the complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission. Normally the independent federal agency decides within 30 days whether or not to act. The case...

Chinese President Xi Jinping says that China must be on guard against nefarious religious influences from abroad. His comments over the weekend follow a tightening of religious space that has seen bans on the wearing of veils and beards in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang and the removal of church crosses in eastern China. “We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists,” Xi said at a Beijing conference on religions attended by top leaders, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. …

<p>If there's a single issue on which the U.S. and Russia should urgently cooperate, it's Saudi Arabia.</p> <p>If the Central Intelligence Agency's role is to discreetly promote the economic and political interests of the United States, then there's one country that ought to be awfully disappointing to the agency right now: Saudi Arabia. In fact, if there's an issue on which America and Russia could potentially agree, it would be the damage Saudi Arabia has recently wrought upon the national and economic security of both nations.</p>

The vast majority of Americans say they prefer lower prices instead of paying a premium for items labeled “Made in the U.S.A.,” even if it means those cheaper items are made abroad, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. While presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are vowing to bring back millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors, public sentiment reflects core challenges confronting the U.S. economy. Incomes have barely improved, forcing many households to look for the most convenient bargains instead of goods made in America. Employers now seek workers with college degrees, leaving...

A U.S. Naval officer who has been charged with espionage has been identified as Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, a Taiwanese-born flight officer assigned to a Naval reconnaissance unit. Lin was arrested eight months ago but his case did not become public until a pre-trial hearing this past Friday that will determine whether he will face a court martial.

CHRISTIAN communities in China have been left horrified after the government started tearing down thousands of crucifixes in a crude bid to eradicate the faith in the country. More than two thousand crosses have now been forcefully removed from churches as part of a government campaign to regulate "excessive religious sites". ... Several members of the public have since been arrested for attempting to halt the government's crude attempt to suppress the Christian faith. Among the arrested was prominent human rights lawyer Zhang Kai, who was detained after he mounted a legal campaign to challenge the removal of the crosses....

U.S. Steel says it is cutting 25 percent of its non-union workforce in North America, or roughly 750 jobs. The Pittsburgh-based steel producer has about 21,000 employees in North America and about 18,000 are represented by the United Steelworkers union at last count. …

Republican lawmakers upset about the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage have advanced measures in about a dozen states this year that could strengthen protections for those who refuse on religious grounds to provide services to same-sex couples. The bills could benefit court clerks, photographers, florists, bakers, wedding-hall operators and others who say gay matrimony goes against their beliefs. For a party already being torn apart by the presidential contest, the state legislative efforts have exposed deep rifts between the GOP’s social conservatives and its pro-business wing. Business leaders worry that such measures will allow discrimination and scare away companies...

Global military spending reached almost $1.7 trillion in 2015, marking a year-on-year increase for the first time since 2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms expenditure around the world. The United States remained far and away the top spender, which despite a dip from 2014, accounted for more than a third of total global spending. It was followed by China and then, perhaps surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, which supplanted Russia in third place.

Russia and China present the greatest cyber security threat to the U.S., but Iran is trying to increase and spend more on its capabilities, the Navy admiral in charge of the military’s Cyber Command told Congress Tuesday. Adm. Michael Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while the U.S. has more overall military power than the three countries, the gaps are narrower when it comes to cyber warfare. He said U.S. Cyber Command is making progress building cyber mission teams, and will have 133 fully operational by September 2018. Already, he said that nearly 100 teams are already conducting...

Amnesty International reports that there was a dramatic 54 percent increase in executions globally in 2015, with Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia responsible for nearly 90 percent of the killings. The human rights organization said that the figure of at least 1,634 people executed last year — up from 1,061 in 2014 — does not include executions in China where data on the death penalty is considered a state secret. […] According to the report, the number of executions recorded in Saudi Arabia increased by 76 percent to 158. Executions in Iran rose 31 percent to 977. and the 326...

Quickly and quietly, the People’s Republic of China is transforming itself into a 21st Century military superpower to be reckoned with. Case in point: China’s latest-generation Dong Feng (“East Wind”) intercontinental ballistic missile, the DF-41, is months away from deployment. This newest nuclear missile, touted as the world’s longest-range missile, is reputedly capable of striking anywhere within the continental United States. Unlike its predecessors, the DF-41 will not be confined to stationary missile silos, but will be launched from mobile platforms. This formidable new weapon will probably be deployed to the People's Liberation's Army's (PLA's) Strategic Rocket Forces bases this...

China’s Communist Party has a new target in its campaign against pernicious Western cultural influences: April Fools’ Day. “The so-called Western April Fools’ Day does not conform to Chinese cultural traditions or socialist core values,” the party’s leading propaganda organ, Xinhua News Agency, said in a brief message on its official microblog Friday. “Hope people won’t believe in rumors, start rumors or spread rumors,” the message concluded. …

The United Nations' recently implemented sanctions against North Korea are already driving a wedge between longtime allies North Korea and China, a document from the Workers' Party of North Korea reveals. In the document, the Workers' Party condemns Beijing for partaking in the sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear program and urges its people to confront China with a "nuclear storm" for its alleged "betrayal of socialism," Daily NK reports.

China is consolidating its ability to censor the Internet by drafting new rules requiring businesses that serve domestic Internet users to register their Web addresses inside the country, a move seen as targeting Chinese companies but that has raised concerns among foreign businesses. In its most draconian interpretation, the proposed requirements could also further limit access within the Chinese network, analysts said. That appears to be the latest step by the ruling Communist Party to erect cyber barriers in the name of what some officials call “Internet sovereignty.” […] Under the draft regulations released this week by the Ministry of...