Trump strains ties with Europe

While it gained a bumper economic harvest for the United States in the Middle East, the first overseas trip by Donald Trump as the US president seems to have widened an already-existing schism with his country's European allies.

Batting around conspiracy theory only serves to shame national team

KONG LINGHUI, A FORMER OLYMPIC TABLE TENNIS CHAMPION and head coach of the Chinese national women's table tennis team, has been suspended after he was sued by a Singaporean casino, which is seeking to recover about 4.9 million yuan ($715,000) in gambling debts. Beijing News comments:

Penalty tougher on informational leaks

A JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the management of people's personal information comes into effect on Thursday. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Crux is how much hotels can charge during exam days

TO ENSURE THEIR CHILDREN have a good rest during the four-hour noon break on the two days of the national college entrance exams, or gaokao, parents will often book hotel rooms for them. As a result many hotels in places where students sit the exams are hiking their room rates by huge amounts during the two days due to the high demand. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

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Dialogue suggests China, Japan can find a way out of impasse

That Beijing and Tokyo both underlined the need to take each other as a potential partner rather than a threat was an important outcome of their just concluded fourth high-level political dialogue.

Obligation to not waste food

Chinese people traditionally dine out with relatives and friends during festivals, but on such occasions a lot of food can be easily wasted as people order too many dishes.

Seeds of ecological conservation awareness now need nurturing

ZHENG NAIYUAN, A RURAL TEACHER IN XIUSHUI COUNTY, East China's Jiangxi province, strived to protect the Chinese yew for years on his own. It was due to his efforts and perseverance that a county-level natural protection area was established in 2010. Zheng received a Marsh Award for International Plant Conservation from Botanic Gardens Conservation International in 2014 and he has since become quite well-known. Thepaper.cn comments:

Marriage of interests the meat of the matter

YURUN FOOD GROUP, a Hong Kong-listed meat product manufacturer that has received government subsidies of more than HK$4 billion ($510 million) from 2005 to 2015, more than 46 percent of the company's total profits over that period, is struggling to restart some 20 projects in Northeast China's Liaoning province. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Monday:

Self-defense is more than just a 'zombie right'

ON SATURDAY, Shandong Provincial High People's Court began a retrial of Yu Huan, a 21-year-old man from Liaocheng, Shandong province, who killed a man when he stabbed four "debt collectors" who were trying to recover money his mother owed. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

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Xiongan a product of necessity, not whim

Perhaps because China is a large country, or its imbalanced economic development could give rise to unexpected contradictions, the country's leadership has decided to build a cluster of modern cities in northern China. One such cluster is Xiongan New Area, which will cover 100 square kilometers initially, and expand to 200 sq km in the mid term and 2,000 sq km in the long term.