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President Trump frequently said Mexico would pay for a wall along the southern border as he sought the presidency in 2016. Now, he is privately pushing the U.S. military to fund construction of his signature project.

 Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting that the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.

After floating the notion to several advisers last week, he told House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that the military should pay for the wall, according to three people familiar with the meeting Wednesday in the White House residence. Ryan offered little reaction to the notion, these people said, but senior Capitol Hill officials later said it was an unlikely prospect.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs are provoking a chain reaction around the globe, as governments from Europe to Canada prepare to erect barriers to prevent cheap metal once bound for the United States from entering their markets.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced a series of regulatory changes that would make it easier for border officials to block steel and aluminum imports into that nation. The European Union has begun a “safeguard investigation” that could result in tariffs or other trade actions if it determines that steel intended for the American market is being diverted to the bloc.

“These past few days, we’ve looked at strengthening the measures that we already have in place because it’s important that we not be taking in dumped steel from around the world,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

Some supporters of the tariffs see the moves as evidence that the Trump administration’s strategy is working. But other trade experts see this chain reaction as the first in a damaging series of actions that will end up raising the price of metals globally and making markets around the world less free.

Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, said that while Mr. Trump’s approach appeared to be bearing fruit in the short term, it could ultimately hurt the trust of American trading partners and hamper the economy.

“Even if it looks like other countries are lining up on the U.S. side, and this is going to help in terms of reducing steel and aluminum supply, it may do very little for employment in those industries, and it may end up hurting other industries that use steel and aluminum as imports,” he said. “So we could end up with a somewhat Pyrrhic victory for the United States.”

Eswar Prasad,

. He (Eswar Prasad) has co-authored or edited several books and monographs on financial globalization, China, and India. His current research interests include the macroeconomics of globalization, the relationship between growth and volatility, and the Chinese and Indian economies.

You don't have a constitutional right to own an AR-15.

After days of speculation, it has been confirmed that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has visited China.

The visit, confirmed by China and North Korea, was Mr Kim's first known foreign trip since taking office in 2011.

Mr Kim held "successful talks" with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

China is North Korea's main economic ally and it was thought highly likely it would consult Beijing before planned summits with South Korea and the US.

Mr Kim is due to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April, and US President Donald Trump in May.

The Beijing visit is considered a significant step in North Korea's preparation for the proposed talks.

During the visit, Mr Kim assured his Chinese counterpart he was committed to giving up his nuclear weapons, China's Xinhua news agency reported, but with conditions.

"The issue of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula can be resolved, if South Korea and the United States respond to our efforts with goodwill, create an atmosphere of peace and stability while taking progressive and synchronous measures for the realisation of peace," Mr Kim was reported saying.

Now, [Trump] is privately pushing the U.S. military to fund construction of his signature project.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in an op-ed Tuesday that the Second Amendment should be repealed, citing the protests in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as an impetus for the change.

Stevens, who retired from the high court in 2010 as one of the longest-serving justices in history, argued the Second Amendment had been warped by gun lobbyists at the National Rifle Association to extend beyond its original intent.

PARKLAND, Fla. — My first interaction with Nikolas Cruz happened when I was in seventh grade. I was eating lunch with my friends, most likely discussing One Direction or Ed Sheeran, when I felt a sudden pain in my lower back. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of my 90-pound body; tears stung my eyes. I turned around and saw him, smirking. I had never seen this boy before, but I would never forget his face. His eyes were lit up with a sick, twisted joy as he watched me cry.

The apple that he had thrown at my back rolled slowly along the tiled floor. A cafeteria aide rushed over to ask me if I was O.K. I don’t remember if Mr. Cruz was confronted over his actions, but in my 12-year-old naïveté, I trusted that the adults around me would take care of the situation.

Five years later, hiding in a dark closet inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I would discover just how wrong I was.

I am not writing this piece to malign Nikolas Cruz any more than he already has been. I have faith that history will condemn him for his crimes. I am writing this because of the disturbing number of comments I’ve read that go something like this: Maybe if Mr. Cruz’s classmates and peers had been a little nicer to him, the shooting at Stoneman Douglas would never have occurred.

This deeply dangerous sentiment, expressed under the #WalkUpNotOut hashtag, implies that acts of school violence can be prevented if students befriend disturbed and potentially dangerous classmates. The idea that we are to blame, even implicitly, for the murders of our friends and teachers is a slap in the face to all Stoneman Douglas victims and survivors.

A year after I was assaulted by Mr. Cruz, I was assigned to tutor him through my school’s peer counseling program. Being a peer counselor was the first real responsibility I had ever had, my first glimpse of adulthood, and I took it very seriously.

Despite my discomfort, I sat down with him, alone. I was forced to endure his cursing me out and ogling my chest until the hourlong session ended. When I was done, I felt a surge of pride for having organized his binder and helped him with his homework.

Looking back, I am horrified. I now understand that I was left, unassisted, with a student who had a known history of rage and brutality.

Like many pre-teenage and teenage girls, I possessed — and still, to an extent, possess — a strong desire to please. I strive to win the praise of the adults in my life and long to be seen as mature beyond my years. I would have done almost anything to win the approval of my teachers.

This is not to say that children should reject their more socially awkward or isolated peers — not at all. As a former peer counselor and current teacher’s assistant, I strongly believe in and have seen the benefits of reaching out to those who need kindness most.

But students should not be expected to cure the ills of our genuinely troubled classmates, or even our friends, because we first and foremost go to school to learn. The implication that Mr. Cruz’s mental health problems could have been solved if only he had been loved more by his fellow students is both a gross misunderstanding of how these diseases work and a dangerous suggestion that puts children on the front line.

It is not the obligation of children to befriend classmates who have demonstrated aggressive, unpredictable or violent tendencies. It is the responsibility of the school administration and guidance department to seek out those students and get them the help that they need, even if it is extremely specialized attention that cannot be provided at the same institution.

No amount of kindness or compassion alone would have changed the person that Nikolas Cruz is and was, or the horrendous actions he perpetrated. That is a weak excuse for the failures of our school system, our government and our gun laws.

My little sister is now the age that I was when I was left alone with Mr. Cruz, anxious and defenseless. The thought of her being put in the same situation that I was fills me with rage. I hope that she will never know the fear that I have become so accustomed to in the past month: The slightest unexpected sound makes my throat constrict and my neck hairs curl. I beg her to trust her gut whenever she feels unsafe. And I demand that the adults in her life protect her.