(Reuters) – Bones found on a remote Pacific island in 1940 were likely those of famed pilot Amelia Earhart, according to new study.

If true, the findings would settle a long debate over the fate of Earhart, who vanished while attempting a round-the-world flight in 1937.

The new study re-examined measurements of several bones that were found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro, but are now lost. The measurements led a scientist in 1940 to conclude that they belonged to a man, a finding reinforced by a 2015 study.

But University of Tennessee anthropologist Richard Jantz carried out a new analysis, published in the journal Forensic Anthropology, that “strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart.”

Using new techniques, Jantz compared estimates of Earhart’s bone lengths with the Nikumaroro bones and concluded in the study that “the only documented person to whom they may belong is Amelia Earhart.”

Reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Leslie Adler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump pressed ahead on Thursday with import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent for aluminum but exempted Canada and Mexico and offered the possibility of excluding other allies, backtracking from an earlier “no-exceptions” stance.

Describing the dumping of steel and aluminum in the U.S. market as “an assault on our country,” Trump said in a White House announcement that the best outcome would for companies to move their mills and smelters to the United States. He insisted that domestic metals production was vital to national security.

“If you don’t want to pay tax, bring your plant to the USA,” added Trump, flanked by steel and aluminum workers.

Plans for the tariffs, set to start in 15 days, have stirred opposition from business leaders and prominent members of Trump’s own Republican Party, who fear the duties could spark retaliation from other countries and hurt the U.S. economy.

Within minutes of the announcement, U.S. Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a Trump critic, said he would introduce a bill to nullify the tariffs. But that would likely require Congress to muster an extremely difficult two-thirds majority to override a Trump veto.

Some Democrats praised the move, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who said it was “past time to defend our interests, our security and our workers in the global economy and that is exactly what the president is proposing with these tariffs.”

Trump’s unexpected announcement of the tariffs last week roiled stock markets as it raised the prospect of an escalating global trade war. He appeared to have conceded some ground after concerted lobbying by Republican lawmakers, industry groups and U.S. allies abroad.

Canada, the largest supplier of both steel and aluminum to the United States, welcomed the news it would not immediately be subject to the tariffs, but vowed to keep pressing Washington until the threat of tariffs had disappeared.Trump offered relief from steel and aluminum tariffs to countries that “treat us fairly on trade,” a gesture aimed at putting pressure on Canada and Mexico to give ground in separate talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said NAFTA talks were “independent” of Trump’s tariff actions and should not be subject to outside pressure.

In Beijing, China’s Commerce Ministry said on Friday it “resolutely opposed” the tariffs and that they would “seriously impact the normal order of international trade.”

While Chinese steel exports to the United States have been suppressed by previous anti-dumping duties, the broad “Section 232” national security tariffs are widely seen as aiming to pressure Beijing to cut excess steel and aluminum production capacity that has driven down global prices.

U.S. steel stocks, which have gained for weeks on anticipation of the tariffs, fell after the announcement, with the Standard and Poor’s composite steel index .SPCOMSTEEL ending down 2.53 percent against a half percent gain in the broad SP 500 .SP500 index.

Century Aluminum (CENX.O) shares fell 7.5 percent, while Alcoa (AA.N) dipped 0.9 percent. The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso gained slightly against the U.S. dollar.

SEEKING CLARITY

A senior Trump administration official said other countries could seek talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to find “alternative ways” to mitigate the threat to U.S. national security posed by their steel and aluminum exports to the United States.

It was unclear whether they would involve quotas or voluntary export restraints, but the official said that permanent exemptions for Canada and Mexico might result in higher tariffs on other countries to maintain 80 percent capacity usage targets for domestic producers.

European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said: “The EU is a close ally of the U.S. and we continue to be of the view that the EU should be excluded from these measures. I will seek more clarity on this issue in the days to come.”

U.S. steel- and aluminum-consuming industries sharply criticized the tariffs as damaging them with higher costs.

“The U.S. will become an island of high steel prices that will result in our customers simply sourcing our products from our overseas competitors and importing them into the United States tariff-free,” the Precision Metalforming and National Tooling and Machining associations said in a joint statement.

COUNTERMEASURES?

Several major trading partners have said they might respond to the tariffs with direct action.

Countermeasures could include European Union tariffs on U.S. oranges, tobacco and bourbon. Harley-Davidson Inc (HOG.N) motorcycles have also been mentioned, targeting Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin.

Even as Trump threatened tariffs and prodded his NAFTA partners, 11 nations gathered in Chile to sign a landmark Asia-Pacific trade pact, one that Trump withdrew from on his first day in office last year.

Trump, who won the White House after a career in real estate and reality TV, has long touted economic nationalism, promising to bring back jobs to the United States and save the country from trade deals he views as unfair. That has put him at odds with many in his Republican Party, traditionally a supporter of free trade.

(For a graphic on ‘Global trade and GDP growth’ click reut.rs/2FtPzhW)

(For a graphic on ‘U.S. visible trade balance’ click reut.rs/2Fmon8N)

(For a graphic on ‘U.S. steel imports by country’ click reut.rs/2Fkjb5g)

Related Coverage

• Tesla chief Musk says China trade rules uneven, asks Trump for help
• How tariffs, trade war fears roil U.S. financial markets
• China metal producers urge Beijing to retaliate on U.S. tariffs

Additional reporting by Antonio De la Jara and Dave Sherwood in Santiago, Michael Martina, Elias Glenn, Kim Coghill, Brian Love, Nichola Saminather, Doina Chiacu and Andrea Hopkins; Writing by David Stamp, David Chance and David Lawder; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney

The world can only benefit as China marches toward “irresistible” national rejuvenation and assumes greater global leadership under President Xi Jinping, China’s top diplomat said Thursday as he sought to dismiss concerns about China’s rise while also underscoring its inevitability.

From providing the most peacekeepers of any U.N. Security Council member to facilitating talks in world conflicts, “the China of today should play a more active role in resolving hot issues in the region and the world,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “This is not only something we should do, but what is widely expected of us.”

Wang spoke on the fringes of China’s annual, largely ceremonial legislative session at a news conference, where he was asked whether China’s recent efforts to push for peace talks in Myanmar and between Israeli and Palestinian delegations, for instance, represented a shift in its longstanding non-interference foreign policy.

China remains committed to non-interference, Wang said, arguing that those in the West who are alarmed by China’s growing clout and overseas activity are affected by bias.

“The development and rejuvenation of China is irresistible,” Wang said. “Some people in the United States believe that China therefore wants to replace the role of the U.S. in the international arena. This is a fundamental, strategic misjudgment.”

“China and the United States can compete without necessarily being opponents, they should more be partners,” he added, while warning that a possible trade war mulled by President Donald Trump would hurt the U.S.

“Especially in today’s globalized world, a trade war is the wrong prescription,” he said.

Wang emphasized what he called the key role played in China’s more pro-active foreign policy by President Xi Jinping, who is likely to remain leader indefinitely after the legislature lifts presidential term limits.

“Since 2012, President Xi Jinping has been the chief architect of China’s major-country diplomacy. He was personally involved in the planning and conduct of head of state diplomacy, which by world acclaim has been brilliant,” Wang said.

Xi has visited 57 countries and received more than 110 foreign heads of state, Wang said, citing Xi’s “leadership and charisma.”

Wang called on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an eight-nation group dominated by China and Russia, to play a greater role in international diplomacy, saying it has a “bounden duty to maintain peace and stability in our region and beyond.”

China will host the SCO summit in the port of Qingdao in June.

The group also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan, and China has sought to use it to ensure security along its Central Asian border, for example, by holding joint anti-terrorism exercises.

In international affairs, however, it has been a relative lightweight, and the new emphasis announced by Wang is in keeping with a Chinese push to broaden its global footprint with mega projects such as the trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

On the Korean Peninsula, Wang claimed success for China’s proposal for a “dual suspension” of North Korean nuclear activities in return for a halt in South Korea-U.S. war games.

“This proves that China’s proposal of suspension for suspension was the right prescription for the problem and created basic conditions for the improvement of inter-Korean relations,” Wang said. North Korea’s security concerns should be addressed in return for a pledge to denuclearize, he said.

Wang also indicated he expects more countries will cut formal ties with Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. China has been steadily increasing political, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan to force President Tsai Ing-wen to endorse its contention that the self-governing island democracy is a part of China.

“To establish diplomatic relations with the government of the People’s Republic of China that is the sole legal government to represent all China and conduct normal cooperation is apparently a right choice that conforms to the tide of times,” Wang said.

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Gary Cohn had one of the toughest jobs in Washington: restraining an impulsive president from waging a trade war he’s been itching to fight. Now that Cohn is leaving as director of Trump’s National Economic Council, the way is clear for the president to slap hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from around the world. Trump also has a freer hand to punish China for its alleged theft of intellectual property. The U.S. is weighing restrictions on Chinese investments and tariffs on a broad range of Chinese imports, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News on March 6.

Trump and the nationalists who have his ear, such as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and trade adviser Peter Navarro, have a point. The U.S. steel and aluminum industries really have been devastated by unfair Chinese competition. China has begun closing some of its steel mills under international pressure, but its production capacity remains twice as high as it was in 2006, the year the country issued the State Council Notice Promoting Structural Adjustment for Overcapacity. The pattern with aluminum is similar.

Trump and his advisers are also correct that economic strength is a matter of national security—and that right now China plays that game much more effectively than the U.S. does. China routinely forces foreign companies to turn over their intellectual property—the crown jewels of any corporation—as the price for doing business in the country. The Made in China 2025 project aims to develop domestic sources for a wide array of advanced technologies, something that would reduce its dependence on potential adversaries such as the U.S. and Japan. The 2018 National Defense Strategy document prepared by the Pentagon accuses China and Russia of “undermining the international order from within.”

It’s important to credit Trump on these points, because a lot of commentators have dismissed his promise of metals tariffs as nothing more than a play for votes or an eruption of machismo. They may be that, but they’re not only that. None other than Michael Froman, who was President Obama’s chief trade negotiator and is no friend of Trump’s, said on Feb. 5: “It is in our national interest to have a strong steel and aluminum industry domestically.”

The tragedy is that Trump has made the U.S., rather than China, the focus of the world’s opprobrium. Citing national security as a justification for the metals tariffs will give other countries the excuse to do the same, tearing a hole in the delicate web of trade agreements the U.S. spent decades spinning. And applying the tariffs to all countries, as he has threatened to do, weakens the united front of American trading partners that’s needed to confront China and get it to change its behavior. “This will be seen as the latest, and one of the more significant, signals that the U.S. under Trump is not a reliable economic partner,” says Roland Rajah at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.

As critics are fond of pointing out, China is the 11th-biggest seller of steel to the U.S. and comes in fourth in selling America aluminum. The Trump tariffs are a serious risk for about “zero percent” of the Chinese economy, Bloomberg Economics analyst Tom Orlik wrote on March 1. Far more affected will be Canada, the No. 1 exporter to the U.S. of both metals.

Suddenly we’re discussing possible trade wars between the U.S. and some of its most reliable allies. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker adopted some of Trump’s bravado in a talk in Germany on March 2. “We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley-Davidson, on blue jeans, Levi’s, on bourbon. We can also do stupid. We also have to be this stupid,” the European Union’s highest-ranking official said. The headline in London’s City A.M. riffed on the song American Pie: “Hit the Chevy with a Levy, Tax Your Whiskey Rye.”

Trump, of course, fired back on Twitter that if Europe retaliated, the U.S. would counterretaliate with tariffs on auto imports. On Feb. 5, Trump tweeted that he might exempt Canada and Mexico if they sign a “new fair” North American Free Trade Agreement. That, unfortunately, undercut his argument that the tariffs were necessary for national security.

The spectacle of Western leaders attempting to out-stupid each other plays into China’s hands and may explain why its officials have stayed relatively quiet. Liu He, a high-level emissary of President Xi Jinping, kept a low profile on a visit to Washington, calling for cooperation. As Napoleon is supposed to have said: Never interrupt an opponent who is making a wrong decision.

The reason Trump keeps attacking allies over trade is that despite the best efforts of globalist advisers such as Cohn, he continues to regard trade with a Game of Thrones mindset, as a war in which one side must lose. Exports are good and imports are bad in Trumponomics, and a trade deficit is prima facie evidence that the other side has acted in bad faith.

Whoever taught Trump undergraduate economics at Wharton must be aghast. In fact, both sides win in an international transaction, or they wouldn’t do the deal. What’s more, it’s routine for countries to have surpluses with some trading partners and deficits with others—just as a head of household has “trade deficits” with her supermarket, doctor, and dentist and a “trade surplus” with her employer.

To be sure, though a deficit with any particular country isn’t a sign of trouble, it isn’t healthy for the U.S. to have persistent deficits with the world as a whole. Better trade deals could narrow them by breaking down barriers to exports of world-leading U.S. goods and services. Trump is right about that.

But America’s trade deficits also reflect the country’s failure to save enough money to finance needed investments in factories, housing, roads, etc. The trade deficit is the statistical companion of the savings shortfall: The U.S. is borrowing to finance its consumption instead of paying for imports with exports. On that score, things are getting worse. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump triumphantly signed at the end of 2017 will increase the federal budget deficit, which in turn will worsen the national savings shortfall and cause the trade deficit to get bigger, economists say. Like identical twins, the budget and trade deficits come from “the same zygote,” said the headline of a JPMorgan Chase Co. research note on March 2.

By invoking national security under the rarely used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the U.S. is setting a precedent for skirting the World Trade Organization’s procedures. The WTO is slow and not always effective, but if countries begin to ignore it and start using high tariffs and quotas against one another, global trade growth could shudder to a halt. That would harm everyone.

“National security has been kind of reserved, as it should be, for special circumstances,” says Nicole Lamb-Hale, who was assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services in the Obama administration. “Other countries will say, ‘The United States did it, so we can do it, too,’ ” says Lamb-Hale, a managing director at Kroll Inc., an investigations and security company.

The idea that the U.S. would need to ramp up metal production to replace ships, tanks, and planes destroyed in battle is World War II-style thinking, says Jeff Bialos, a partner in the law firm Eversheds Sutherland in Washington, who was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration. “Now it’s qualitative superiority, not quantitative superiority,” he says. “We fight wars today with what we have” when the shooting starts.

Aixtron SE to Chinese-controlled Grand Chip Investment GmbH by blocking the acquisition of its U.S. branch. In September, EC President Juncker proposed an EU-wide system for screening incoming direct investment. Last year, Australia ordered the compilation of a registry of key assets to provide regulators with more information when deciding whether deals raise national security concerns. It was surprised when a Chinese investor negotiated directly with the government of the Northern Territory to capture a 99-year lease for the port of Darwin, which is next to a large contingent of U.S. Marines.

Now the U.S. is in danger of losing the moral high ground on trade and investment. Daniel Rosenthal, co-chairman of Kroll’s advisory practice on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), says the U.S. has been hammering China for years for using national security as a pretext. Says Rosenthal: “We significantly degrade our argument, because now we’re doing what they’re doing.” —With Enda Curran, Andrew Mayeda, and Joe Deaux

Video

‘House of horrors’ parents back in court amid new details

Prosecutors seek to block the Turpins from contacting the children before the trial.

The 17-year-old girl who escaped the California “house of horrors” and alerted authorities of the alleged abuse at the hands of her parents reportedly uploaded videos on YouTube under an alias describing her harsh home life.

The daughter of Louise Anna and David Allen Turpin detailed the harsh living conditions by singing what appeared to be her own written songs, ABC 7 reported.

“You blame me for everything, you blame me in every way, you blame me for what they say, what they say,” one of the songs went.

She also posted videos of her interacting with two Maltese-mix breeds. The dogs and the youngest of the Turpin children were the only ones who did not appear to suffer from malnutrition, police have said.

‘HOUSE OF HORRORS’ SIBLINGS ENJOYING LASAGNA, ‘STAR WARS’ AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY, ATTORNEY SAYS

The videos also captured dirt on the walls and clothes piled on the floor.

“Good Morning America” reported the girl also appeared to have had an Instagram account. The accounts contains selfies of the teen and pictures of pop star Justin Bieber.

The 17-year-old girl escaped the California home and called police.

 (Reuters)

The teen’s most recent video was reportedly uploaded seven days before she escaped her home in Perris, California, in January — the location that held her and her 12 siblings. When authorities probed the residence, they reported the home smelled of human waste. The oldest sibling weighed only 82 pounds. The children range in age from 2 to 29.

Authorities said the abuse was so long-running that the children’s growth was stunted. They said the couple shackled the children to furniture as punishment and had them live a nocturnal lifestyle.

CALIFORNIA HOUSE OF HORRORS PARENTS FACE LIFE IN PRISON ON TORTURE, ABUSE CHARGES

David and Louise Turpin are being held in prison each on $12 million bail. They face up to life in prison after being charged with torture and child abuse.

The case sparked national attention as details of the abuse came to light.

David Allen and Louise Anna Turpin face life in prison after being charged with torture and animal abuse.

 (Reuters)

Prosecutors allege the children were subjected to “frequent beatings” and “even strangulation,” and weren’t allowed to be unshackled to go to the bathroom. They also allegedly were allowed to take only one shower a year.

The siblings also lacked common knowledge such as knowing what medication was or who a police officer is.

Last week, Jack Osborn, whose law firm is representing the seven adult Turpin children are enjoying popular movies, food and modern technology. On Friday, star cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed an exclusive concert for the siblings, People reported.

Fox News’ Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

A Clinton, Mo. police officer was killed in a shooting Tuesday.

 (Facebook)

At least one Missouri police officer was killed and two other officers were wounded in a shooting Tuesday night at a home about 75 miles outside Kansas City, authorities said.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Lowe said at a news conference early Wednesday that the Clinton County 911 center received a call late Tuesday where two women could be heard screaming in the background. Clinton police officers responded to the home and were met with gunfire.

Lowe said the officers were shot at by an unidentified suspect from inside the home. Lowe said officers went inside to try and apprehend the suspect who then fatally shot one officers and wounded the other two.

Missouri State Highway Patrol said on Twitter the wounded officers were transported to a hospital. One suffered minor injuries and the other had moderate injuries, police said.

The officers were not immediately identified.

Lowe said a SWAT team entered the home but found the suspect dead.

It is the second Clinton police officer to die in the line of duty in the last seven months, according to Fox 4 KC.

“It’s a small department,” Lowe said. “It’s small enough that you know each individual officer and the community knows each individual officer, and it’s hard to put into words when you’re talking about an agency of this size, a community of this size where something tragic like this happened just seven months ago.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.

North Korea’s offer to suspend nuclear and missile tests in exchange for talks with the U.S. reflects an emerging truth about President Donald Trump’s unconventional foreign policy style: It may heighten the risk of conflict, but also the potential for breakthroughs.

As Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday: “the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction.”

Few diplomats or analysts believe that Kim Jong Un’s offer, relayed by South Korea, will in fact deliver a denuclearized Korean peninsula in exchange for the U.S. security guarantees suggested as a basis for talks.

The Kim dynasty has a history of dangling the prospect of a negotiated settlement on its nuclear arsenal, and then walking away after getting concessions. It has also made enormous human and financial sacrifices to build its arsenal and accused the U.S. of failing to uphold prior agreements.

The U.S., in turn, has run hot and cold from one administration to the next on the value of pursuing diplomacy with Pyongyang. Neither side has budged from long-stated preconditions for talks to happen.

Read a QuickTake on how North Korea defies the world

“Caution, we’ve been here so many times before,” said James Hoare, a British diplomat and historian who opened the U.K.’s first embassy in Pyongyang in 2001.

Still, without Trump’s threats to unleash nuclear “fire and fury,” North Korea’s supreme leader might not have moved even this far.

“It may be we have to give Trump credit,” said Hoare, now an associate fellow at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank. “But if he really has been playing ‘crazy’ in some clever game, it’s an extremely dangerous one with horrific possible consequences for people on the Korean peninsula, Japan and elsewhere in the region.”

North Korea isn’t the only area where Trump’s willingness to risk all could potentially produce benefits.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last year lauded an accelerated increase in defense spending among non-U.S. members as a message of solidarity to Washington. Trump had previously shocked the alliance by suggesting commitment to NATO’s collective defense clause might be conditional on whether a member state had spent enough.

Whether there has in fact been a “Trump effect” on NATO spending is debated. Rising security threats that set budgets before his election were mainly responsible, according to John Chipman, director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Still, he said, “uncertainty about the U.S. may continue to drive increases.”

Answering NATO’s Call

Change in annual defense spending by European NATO members and Canada

Source: NATO

Note: 2017 figure is an estimate

Fear of U.S. disengagement under Trump does appear to have helped revive some long-stalled initiatives to consolidate European military capabilities and procurement. At the December launch of a new EU agreement on Permanent Structured Cooperation in defense, known as PESCO, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Europe needed to be able to act alone, “especially after the election of the U.S. president.”

U.S. officials see the development as a two-edged sword, warning last month that PESCO must not be allowed to duplicate or undermine NATO. European leaders say there is no conflict.

In other areas such as trade and relations with Iran, it isn’t clear whether Trump’s brinkmanship and unpredictability can produce results to offset the risks that critics believe he is taking.

Trump’s recently announced import tariffs on steel and aluminum could give the U.S. leverage to hurry renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement on better terms. “We’re not looking to get into trade wars,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday, as he confirmed a proposal to waive the tariffs for NAFTA members Mexico and Canada.

Harley Davidson

Yet if the tariffs remain, trade wars could start looking for the U.S. The European Union has already outlined duties on 2.8 billion euros ($3.5 billion) of U.S. imports — including Harley Davidson motorcycles — that the bloc plans to introduce should Trump’s taxes on steel and aluminum made outside the U.S. take effect.

The president’s threat to withdraw certification of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran unless it gets strengthened by May is another high stakes play, according to Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy.