(CNN) — On the surface, the Group of Seven meetings convened Friday along a pristine stretch of Canadian riverfront appeared just like normal.

But beneath the smiling handshakes and whispered pleasantries was the unmistakable impression the global alliance of industrialized nations has changed for good.

President Donald Trump arrived expecting to tangle with his foreign counterparts on trade, a fight he proudly began but has been apprehensive about waging in person.

The leaders of France, Germany, Great Britain and Canada all planned to confront him directly about the tariffs on steel and aluminum that they believe threaten America’s closest world alliances.

But when the time came to air their grievances in public, the leaders here mainly sounded resigned to the fact their differences with Trump may never be resolved. And they made light of the disputes.

“Sometimes we disagree,” shrugged French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of a delayed meeting with Trump. Only a day earlier the two had been sniping at each other over Twitter.

When a reporter jokingly asked the two men to arm wrestle, Trump offered only praise.

“He’d be very tough to beat,” Trump said. “He’s my friend. We’ve had a great relationship right from the beginning.”

And during an earlier meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the summit’s host, Trump too attempted levity amid the rancor.

“Justin has agreed to cut all tariffs, all trade barriers,” he announced in jest as Trudeau grinned nearby.

When a reporter asked Trudeau whether he was disappointed the President was departing the summit early, Trump answered for him.

It was a signal the leaders assembled here on a forested outcropping in Quebec are intent on at least maintaining the appearance of comity, even as tensions boil over.

Trump departed the White House sounding defiant on trade, vowing to confront the leaders of America’s closest allies, who are infuriated at metal tariffs he applied last week.

But he arrived so late to the conference in remote Canada that he missed his first scheduled sit-down. And he’s planning to cut short his visit by several hours on Saturday.

The series of events opened what was expected to be a day-and-a-half of animosity between Trump and infuriated Western leaders, at least behind closed doors. The remaining six leaders are intent on bending Trump’s ear before the President departs early for his talks in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The stark reality of a US president skipping out on fuming Western allies to have what he’s described as a “friendly negotiation” with the North Korean despot has not been lost on diplomats and leaders assembled in the Canadian woods.

And Trump has done little to ease their jitters.

He suggested just before touching down in Quebec that Russia should be allowed to rejoin the summit after five years in exile — a break in the united front allies had hoped to put forward against Moscow’s destabilization efforts in the US and Europe.

The remark seemed destined to only escalate the existing tensions between Trump and the six other leaders gathered at a golf resort here. The annual G7 conference is usually a fairly news-free endeavor, with agreements on the global economy hammered out well before world leaders gather for two days of talks.

This year the normally staid affair has been imbued with uncertainty and bitterness. Few expect the assembled leaders will even agree on language for a joint “communique” that typically concludes the summit.

Trump sounded optimistic on that front, saying during his meeting with Trudeau that a joint statement was still possible.

In the mid-afternoon, Trump emerged with fellow world leaders and smiled broadly for a “family photo.” The underlying tensions weren’t visible as the Saint Lawrence River glinted in the background. But the group retreated quickly behind closed doors for the start of their talks.

Trump was initially due to meet mid-morning with his French counterpart, Macron, who he’d lambasted a night earlier on Twitter. But Trump emerged from the White House South Portico 30 minutes late on Friday morning, and spent another 20 minutes talking to reporters.

By the time Trump did arrive in Canada, met by a cordon of red-jacketed Mounties, he was well behind schedule, making the meeting impossible. Aides rescheduled it for the early evening.

“We’ve had really a very good relationship, very special. A lot of people wrote a couple of things that weren’t quite true — a little bit accurate, perhaps — we’ve had a little test every once in a while when it comes to trade,” Trump said before the sit-down.

“Emmanuel’s been very helpful in that regard,” Trump said. “And something’s going to happen.”

Last week, Macron candidly criticized Trump’s policies during a phone call over trade and immigration that turned sour, two sources told CNN. Trump held a similarly tense phone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau around the same time.

The enmity between Trump and Macron was stunning given the elaborate displays of friendship both men have lavished upon each other over the past year. Trump was Macron’s guest at last July’s Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, an honor reciprocated with a state visit at the White House this spring. The relationship was sometimes characterized as a “bromance,” though aides to both men have downplayed that, suggesting instead something of a rivalry between two alpha males new to the political scene.

Trump has been less friendly with Trudeau, who he views as overly liberal, according to aides. On Thursday, the President declared the Canadian prime minister “indignant” on Twitter, decrying his trade views.

But less than 24 hours later the two men were facing each other in white armchairs, grinning ahead of face-to-face talks.

“Our relationship is very good,” Trump said. “We are actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. And we’ve made a lot of progress today.”

In Canada, Trump is confronting a fractured set of Western alliances that he has shown little desire to repair. Instead, Trump has embraced the discord with his French, Canadian, German and British counterparts, lashing out on Twitter in the hours before departing on Air Force One for Quebec.

In European capitals and among delegations gathered here at a pristine golf resort, anxiety over the future of US leadership has become more palpable than perhaps any other point in Trump’s presidency, with the acrimony spilling into view just as the largest industrial nations hope to put forward a united front.

Trump was unenthusiastic about traveling to Canada for the talks, according to aides, who said he questioned whether his presence was absolutely required. Even as late as Thursday afternoon, he quizzed staffers over whether it was too late to cancel his participation.

He was told that scrubbing his visit altogether would appear like he was shrinking from a fight he proudly began. But his stay in Canada was nonetheless cut short by several hours late Thursday evening when the White House said Trump would depart for Singapore on Saturday after a morning session on gender equality. That means he’ll skip the section of the summit focused on climate change and the environment, sending an aide in his place.

If there was any hope the fissures might be repaired before Trump arrived, it was dashed on Friday morning when the President told reporters he was open to reinstating Russia’s participation in the group, which was suspended after Moscow’s incursion into Ukraine in 2013.

“Russia should be in this meeting,” Trump said. “Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting? And I would recommend, and it’s up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting. They should be a part of it.”

The step of cutting Russia out of the G7 was viewed as a decisive step at the time, one meant to convey unity and isolate and penalize Vladimir Putin as he embarked upon a destabilizing set of actions meant to divide Western nations.

But five years later, the West has never appeared more fractured. US intelligence agencies have determined Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the hopes of helping Trump. And Putin was recently re-elected to another term.</s>SINGAPORE (AP) — The small island nation of Singapore, which prides itself on law and order, is feeling the pressure of more than 3,000 members of the press arriving for a historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The heavy media presence along with stringent security measures for the summit Tuesday has added to the frenzy unusual for the laid-back tropical state.

For over a week, journalists have been staking out Singapore’s luxury hotels, airports and government buildings to catch a glimpse of officials involved in summit preparations.

Unruly ones have already crossed red lines. Police said Friday they arrested two South Korean journalists from the national broadcaster KBS suspected of trespassing in the residence of the North Korean ambassador.</s>Many have their doubts about Trump-Kim summit

WASHINGTON (AP) — The self-proclaimed master dealmaker is facing doubts from multiple corners as he prepares to negotiate with Kim Jong Un.

Ahead of President Donald Trump's landmark summit next week with the North Korean leader, U.S. allies and many Republicans are raising concerns that he may impulsively give in on issues they say should be deal-breakers for the United States. Ambiguity about exactly what "denuclearization" must look like has left some wringing their hands, while others fear he may yield on a longtime North Korean wish that the U.S. withdraw some or all of its military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

There are worries from some quarters about Kim's intentions and his willingness to actually follow through on any commitment he might make in Singapore.

"My suspicion remains that he is going to try to get as much sanctions relief as possible without having to give up his weapons," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Rubio, who applauded Trump's now-reversed decision to cancel the summit, said at the time that it was apparent that Kim's goal "was either to gain sanctions relief in exchange for nothing or to collapse international sanctions by making the U.S. appear to be the unreasonable party."

The concerns have been voiced on both sides of the aisle in Congress, where top Senate Democrats have sent Trump a letter insisting any deal will be a bad one unless it forces North Korea to comply with a long list of onerous demands. Even Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, generally averse to publicly criticizing fellow Republican leaders, warned the president last week that "you could get snookered."

In their letter, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for any agreement with North Korea to meet five key points: that all weapons of mass destruction be removed or dismantled; that there be no uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing; that it end all ballistic missile testing; that it allow "anytime, anywhere" inspections of its facilities; and that a deal be permanent.

"The president has talked tough when it comes to North Korea, but more important than any tweet, more important than any comment about the size of the big red button will be the president's willingness to stand strong and secure a strong and enduring deal," Schumer said. "We hope that he'll be successful and strongly encourage him to reach an agreement that meets the five principles that we've laid out."

Trump, clearly eager for a summit he can sell as a success, has played into the concerns that he may find himself outmatched at the negotiating table by Kim. Kim's detailed command of the issues central to his country's nuclear conflict has impressed U.S. officials who have interacted with him since Trump's diplomacy with the North began.

"I don't think I have to prepare very much. It's about attitude," Trump said of the summit before meeting Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "It's about willingness to get things done."

Although the Trump administration has said that America's 28,500 troops in South Korea aren't bargaining chips in Singapore, there are persistent concerns — fueled by Trump's own comments — that he may waver. For years Trump has complained about the U.S. bearing too much of the burden for other countries' security, and as president he's sought to pull troops from Syria and other locations. He's also specifically questioned the need for so many troops in South Korea, asking in 2016, "What are we getting for this?"

Agreeing to a troop withdrawal from South Korea would be the worst possible outcome for the summit, said Christopher Hill, a former U.S. ambassador who ran negotiations with North Korea in the George W. Bush administration.

"Even if he tried to couch it in terms of South Korea not paying the bills, which is nonsense, I just think it would make him look weak," Hill said.

Another North Korea expert from the Bush administration, Victor Cha, noted that only Trump has raised troop presence as a possible negotiating point.

"We are the ones who have been talking about putting it on the table," he said. "This should be a matter between U.S. and South Korea."

Trump's diplomacy with North Korea has been cheered on by South Korea, whose new leadership is more supportive of engagement with the North than any South Korean government in years. The level of concern is higher, though, in Japan, another U.S. treaty ally in Asia with much at stake.

Japan's government is worried that Trump, with his "America First" focus, may accept a deal that eliminates the threat from North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the U.S. mainland, without dealing sufficiently with medium-range missiles that could strike Tokyo. Japan also been pressing Trump to force the North to release Japanese abductees seized years ago, Japanese officials have said, although Trump has given little indication that's a high priority for his summit.

Associated Press writer Gillian Wong in Beijing contributed to this report.</s>Singapore, which recently topped the global law-and-order index for a fifth consecutive year ahead of Norway, Iceland and Finland, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the success of the historic US- summit. The summit, to be held on June 12, will be the first-ever meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting US President.

As the two controversial leaders – and Kim Jong-Un – prepare for a face-to-face aimed at resolving a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, the Singapore government is working double-time to make sure that one of the most unusual and highly anticipated summits in recent history is held without any untoward incident. 

 

 According to latest reports, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un has already arrived in Singapore on Sunday.

Trump and Kim are expected to meet at the Capella Hotel located on Singapore's Sentosa Island on June 12. Security at the Capella is tight, with even reporters being banned from entering the historic building. The hotel, with its 112 rooms and villas, was designed by British architect Norman Foster.

Security: While both leaders are expected to arrive with their personal security teams, the Singaporean police, including its Gurkha contingent, are expected to secure the summit venue, roads and hotels.

Checkpoints to come up: Several notices have appeared warning residents that security checkpoints will be set up in the city and will stay until Thursday, June 14.

Ban on weapons, loudspeakers and drones: A posting in the government gazette bans weapons, flares, loudspeakers, sound systems and banners in the special zone. The police have been allowed to conduct body searches on all people entering the area and drones have also been banned.

Airspace restrictions: Meanwhile, a notice, on the websites of the Civil Aviation Organization and the US Federal Aviation Administration, says that airspace over Singapore will be temporarily restricted on June 11, 12 and 13.

Restrictions on aircraft: All aircraft arriving at Singapore's Changi Airport will be required to reduce speed and face some restrictions on runway use “for reasons of national security”, a notice says. Travellers have been advised to expect delays for flights arriving at and departing from Singapore during this period.</s>The White House says in a statement ahead of President Donald Trump's historic summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un that the talks with North Korea are moving "more quickly than expected."

The White House says Trump now plans to depart Singapore on Tuesday evening ahead of schedule.

The White House says Trump will address the media on Tuesday following his summit with Kim and depart Singapore at approximately 8 p.m. local time for the United States. The president had been expected to leave Singapore on Wednesday morning.

Trump is set to meet with Kim in Singapore on Tuesday morning.</s>Donald Trump has decided to leave his historic summit with Kim Jong-un 15 hours earlier than expected, flying back to Washington on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning. The White House says that this change of plans is a product of talks moving more quickly than expected. But there’s reason to suspect that it is because they are barely moving at all.

On Monday evening in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that complete denuclearization “is the only outcome that the United States will accept” from Pyongyang, and that the latter will enjoy no economic relief until it has met that demand. By contrast, Pompeo did suggest that the U.S. was prepared to make unspecified concessions to North Korean security concerns before the total dismantling of its nuclear program was achieved.

“We’re prepared to take actions that will provide them sufficient certainty that they can be comfortable that denuclearization isn’t something that ends badly for them,” Pompeo said, adding that talks were “moving quite rapidly and we anticipate they will come to their logical conclusion even more quickly than we had anticipated.”

Talks rapidly reaching their “logical conclusion” has been a feature of the past few weeks of diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. On May 30, Pompeo met with North Korean spy chief Kim Yong-chol in New York; their discussion concluded two hours earlier than expected, as Kim refused to make any commitment whatsoever on denuclearization, according to the Washington Post. Days earlier, in the North Korean village of Panmunjom, negotiations between diplomats from Washington and Pyongyang stalled when North Korea’s vice–foreign minister Choe Son-hui said that denuclearization “should not be on the table for the Singapore summit” — a demand that would nullify the meeting’s purpose from the White House’s perspective.

Now, both sides appear prepared to let Tuesday’s historic face-to-face between the sitting leaders of the U.S. and North Korea function as more of an ice-breaker (and photo op) than a high-stakes diplomatic showdown. “We are hopeful this summit will have set the conditions for future successful talks,” Pompeo said during his remarks Monday.

The summit will open at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Singapore (which is 9 p.m. tonight in Washington) with Kim and Trump shaking hands and taking a walk in the view of the media, according to an official who spoke with Bloomberg News. The two leaders will then meet one on one (with only translators listening in), before being joined by their top aides. Among those flanking Trump will be Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, whose belligerent rhetoric toward North Korea briefly derailed the summit last month.

For the moment, it is difficult to see how the American and North Korean positions can be reconciled. For Pyongyang, the summit is itself an affirmation of its nuclear program immense value. It is inconceivable that the world’s leading superpower would make time for an isolated, impoverished Chinese client state if said state did not have weapons of mass destruction. In leveraging the threat of its nuclear program, by contrast, Kim’s regime has secured Washington’s ostensible endorsement of its right to violate human rights in perpetuity.

Given the tangible benefits of retaining its nuclear weapons; the dearth of reasons to trust America’s promises; the high likelihood that Washington isn’t actually willing to risk a mass-casualty war to force denuclearization; and the fact that one of North Korea’s chief security demands — the withdrawal of American troops from the region — is something that Trump has suggested that he wants to do regardless, for “America first” reasons, it is hard to understand why Pyongyang would ever commit to total denuclearization.

Granted, North Korea has other security goals that America could facilitate — among them, a guarantee to defend its regime against domestic challenge, a peace treaty ending the Korean War, and the removal of South Korea and Japan from America’s so-called nuclear umbrella. But the White House is insisting that it will make no major concessions on these fronts until Pyongyang has dismantled its nuclear program.

If the two sides’ long-term, strategic objectives appear incompatible, however, their short-term political goals would seem to be in close alignment: Both leaders have an interest in declaring the summit a productive first step in an ongoing process. After the debacle at the G7, Trump does not want to come home without a symbolic display of diplomatic skill; and a friendly summit will do more to legitimate Kim’s regime than a failed one.

It doesn’t take all that long to reach an agreement to disagree for now, and talk more later. If that is the “logical conclusion” of the summit in Singapore, then it’s unsurprising that the two sides are converging on it “rapidly.”</s>BERN, Switzerland — A teacher who believes Kim Jong Un was secretly his student has offered President Donald Trump advice before their looming summit: Prepare some punchlines.

Michel Riesen recalls the boy he knew as Un Pak as being obsessed with basketball when he attended a school in Bern, Switzerland. The 14-year-old also liked jokes — and even tolerated being teased.

"If I look back I see a friendly, gentle, young Asian boy," Riesen told NBC News, referring to the youth who is widely believed to have been Kim Jong Un, now the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea. "A teenager from next door."

Riesen was Un Pak's homeroom teacher in 1998 and also taught him German and math.

"He had a good sense of humor," Riesen said in his first English language interview. "We had a laugh with each other."

The boy often wore NBA jerseys and expensive Nike shoes, according to Riesen.

The teacher recounted once teasing the boy, who was then just known to be a North Korean national but is now thought to be the son of dictator Kim Jong Il, about his basketball skills.

"I said to him: 'Hey, you look already like a pro but there is still a way to go to play like a pro. It's not enough to look like a pro,'" he recalled.

He said Un Pak had "no problem" with such quips.

Riesen added that while some other students at Liebefeld-Steinholzli School were "as good as him or better" on the basketball court, Un Pak always played with "passion."

Riesen said Un Pak was a good student and that his overseas schooling left him with a good understanding of Western values.

"Democracy is part of our being here in Switzerland," Riesen said. "So for sure he came into contact with democracy."

The teacher said Un Pak never appeared to be accompanied by a bodyguard and walk to school on foot. The teen is believed to have learned English, as well as some German and French, during his time in Switzerland.

However, Riesen said the boy struggled to form close friendships with local children due to his lack of command of the Swiss-German language.

Asked what Trump should do when meeting Kim Jong Un face-to-face, Riesen replied: "Try to find the sense of humor."

In a statement to NBC News, the school said a North Korean teen attended from August 1998 until the autumn of 2000. "He had been registered as the son of an embassy employee," it added. "He suddenly left the school. The boy was well-integrated, diligent and ambitious. His hobby was basketball."

Kang Myung-do, a defector from North Korea and distant relative of Kim Jong Un, said it must have been difficult for the future ruler to live under a fake name in a foreign country with his parents thousands of miles away.

"He led a life in hiding," said Kang, who is now a professor at South Korea's Kyonggi University. "The stress he felt living like that must have been enormous."

Kang described Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011, as "really ruthless" and said he "emitted fear and used that fear to govern."

He suggested that it was important for Trump to remember that Kim Jong Un’s father “was the one who influenced him the most."</s>Washington (CNN) Just hours ahead of a historic summit in Singapore, lawmakers back in Washington are openly questioning President Donald Trump's latest global strategy with some bemoaning that the White House is alienating American allies while simultaneously stretching the bounds of cooperation with long-held enemies.

Trump is scheduled to meet Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just days after ruffling feathers at the G7 summit in Canada and engaging in a public spat with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a move that even a handful of lawmakers in the President's own party are questioning.

On Friday, Trump called for Russia to be added to the summit to restore it the G8, a statement that Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said was "weak."

"This is weak. Putin is not our friend and he is not the President's buddy. He is a thug using Soviet-style aggression to wage a shadow war against America, and our leaders should act like it," Sasse said.

Saturday, Trump summit pulled the US endorsement of the summit communique -- a joint statement that was signed by all the other G7 participants: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Trump announced on Twitter he had made the decision following comments from Trudeau that Canada would move ahead with imposing retaliatory measures on the US in response to newly imposed tariffs imposed by the US on aluminum and steel.

"I have made it very clear to the President that it is not something we relish doing, but it something that we absolutely will do," Trudeau said. "Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around."

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday on Fox News that "there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door."

Hours later, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake tweeted a link to an article about Navarro's comment with a message: "Fellow Republicans, this is not who we are. This cannot be our party."

And GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he was "confused" when he saw the remarks from Navarro.

"Look, as a guy that believes in heaven and hell, I would never use those terms ever," he told CNN's Kate Bolduan on "At This Hour" on Monday. "I thought that was inappropriate. We can have disagreements as allies and I don't even mind the President going there with a tough message because, look, we want a fair deal, but to go to that level, when I woke up and saw that headline, I was a little confused."

Sen. John McCain, who is battling brain cancer in his home state of Arizona, called out the President in a tweet Saturday for not siding with US allies at the summit.

"To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values," the Arizona senator tweeted. "Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn't."

But other Republicans have held their tongue, wary of doing anything to undermine Trump's negotiating hand ahead of the President's meeting with Kim in Singapore.

McCain's best friend and colleague in the Senate, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, disagreed with his statement on Twitter, saying even though he and McCain believe in free trade, the majority of Americans might not.

"I'm not so sure John's right about where America is on trade," Graham said on "This Week." "The Bernie Sanders element of the Democratic Party doesn't stand for free trade. Hillary Clinton said she would get out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership if she had become president. There is a movement in our party that Trump's seized that got him the nomination, and eventually became president of the United States."

He continued: "So I'm not so sure a majority of Americans believe that globalization and free trade is in our interests. I believe that, John McCain believes it ... but I'm not so sure most Americans (agree)."

But the tension between traditional Republican orthodoxy on trade and foreign policy is being tested and so far very few Republicans appear ready to confront Trump.

On trade, Tennessee Republican Sens. Bob Corker has introduced legislation that would roll back the President's power to impose tariffs like the ones he introduced earlier this month on steel and aluminum on U.S. allies, but Republican leaders don't appear eager to take it up even as an amendment to already-moving legislation.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been more outspoken.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, accused Trump of executing Putin's diplomatic and national security strategy, not America's.</s>SINGAPORE (AP) — On the eve of their historic and unprecedented summit, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prepared Tuesday for a meeting that could define the fate of millions, along with their own political futures, with Trump forecasting a "nice" outcome and Kim spending the day out of view.

Both sides were finalizing preparations for the meeting, which was to kick off at 9 a.m. Tuesday with a handshake between Trump and Kim, an image sure to be devoured around the world. Trump and Kim planned to meet one on one, joined only by translators, for up to two hours before admitting their respective advisers, a U.S. official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations and insisted on anonymity.

The summit will be the first between a North Korean leader and a sitting American president. In Singapore, the island city-state hosting the summit, the sense of anticipation was palpable, with people lining spotless streets Monday waving cell phones as Trump headed to meet Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

As Trump and Lee sat down for a working lunch at the Istana house, Trump sounded optimistic, telling Lee, "we've got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely." Trump had earlier tweeted about the "excitement in the air!"

Meanwhile, U.S. and North Korean officials huddled at the Ritz-Carlton hotel Monday ahead of the sit-down aimed at resolving a standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. A second round of meetings was planned for the afternoon as officials worked to lay the groundwork for progress to be made Tuesday, according to the official familiar with the preparations. Delegates were outlining specific goals for what Trump and Kim should try to accomplish and multiple scenarios for how key issues can be resolved.

A look at what to expect from the Kim-Trump summit

SINGAPORE (AP) — After a sudden and welcome turn to diplomacy following last year's threats, insults and fears of war — remember "fire and fury" and "dotard"? — Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are ready to shake hands, sit down face-to-face and ... do what exactly?

Some observers insist that it's the beginning of the complete denuclearization of North Korea. No, no, say others, you need to manage your expectations. This is just an elaborate get-to-know-you session, albeit between the two most famous leaders in the world, and nuclear armed at that.

Actually, says another group, there will indeed be disarmament, a peace treaty ending the Korean War and North Korea's emergence as a contributing member of the international community — but just not right now.

Whatever the results, it will be one of the more unusual summits in recent history as a flamboyant, often erratic U.S. president gets a close-up look at a hereditary socialist despot who sits on a nuclear weapons program.

Here's a look at how Tuesday's first-ever meeting between the leaders of North Korea and the United States might turn out:

North Korea gets first big dose of Trump summit news

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Koreans got their first big dose of news Monday that their leader Kim Jong Un had arrived in Singapore for what even the state-run media was calling a historic meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The news covered the front page of the ruling party's newspaper and was the top — and only — item on the first news broadcast of the day on Korean Central Television, which for many North Koreans is the only channel available.

People crowded around poster stands at subway stations around the capital to read the news and gathered at noon in front of the city's main train station to watch a big screen display of images of Kim getting off the special Air China flight that took him to Singapore.

A report by the Korea Central News Agency said the summit would have "wide-ranging and profound talks" and noted that it is being held "under the great attention and expectation of the whole world."

The relative speed with which the state media got the news of Kim's arrival in Singapore out to the North Korean public suggests a certain level of confidence that the meeting will go well — or at least well enough. For the North, Kim Jong Un has already won a huge propaganda bonus by merely having the summit and sitting down as an equal with the U.S. president, an accomplishment his father and grandfather sought but could never realize.

Brothel bans weighed in Nevada as legal pimp runs for office

PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) — A state marketed as a place where people can indulge in all manner of sins is confronting its status as the only place in America where you can legally pay someone for sex.

A coalition of religious groups and anti-sex trafficking activists has launched referendums to ban brothels in two of the seven Nevada counties where they're legally operating. The push to outlaw the industry dovetails with a campaign by the state's most famous pimp for a seat in the state Legislature.

Nevada, according to brothel owner Dennis Hof, was built "on gaming, liquor, girls and mining."

"But there's a shift occurring," said Jason Guinasso, a Reno-based attorney involved with the effort to get the anti-brothel measures on the November ballot.

Hof, who has half a dozen brothels operating in the two counties and starred in the HBO adult reality series "Cathouse," is challenging incumbent Assembly member James Oscarson of Pahrump in a Republican primary on Tuesday.

ROME (AP) — Italy and Malta dug in for a second day Monday and refused to let a rescue ship with 629 people aboard dock in their ports, leaving the migrants at sea as a diplomatic standoff escalated under Italy's new anti-immigrant government.

"Enough!" said Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. "Saving lives is a duty, but transforming Italy into an enormous refugee camp isn't."

He tweeted: #Chiudiamoiporti. "We're closing the ports."

Maltese Premier Joseph Muscat also refused to take in the Aquarius ship of the humanitarian group SOS Mediterranee. He accused Italy, which coordinated the rescue, of violating international norms governing sea rescues.

Italy's position, Muscat said, risks "creating a dangerous situation for all those involved."

MBANDAKA, Congo (AP) — Irene Mboyo Mola spent 11 days caring for her husband as he died of Ebola in a hospital where she said nurses were too scared to get close. She helped him to the bathroom, picked up his feverish body when he lost his balance, and reinserted an IV that fell out of his bleeding arm.

"He told me all he could see was death," recalls Mola, a 30-year-old mother of six, as she sat slumped on the floor in her small hut.

That close contact put Mola at high risk of getting a disease that has no cure and kills about half of those infected. But now, as Congo battles the most serious Ebola outbreak since the devastating 2014 epidemic in West Africa, health workers have something new to offer: a vaccine.

With thousands of doses dispatched to front-line health workers, the world is watching to see if a promising but still experimental vaccine might help stop this terrifying disease faster than traditional measures doctors have tried since Ebola was identified 40 years ago.

Even if the vaccine helps, there are serious hurdles. The shots must be transported deep into forests with few paved roads without it spoiling in the heat. Health workers have to identify and track down anyone who's had contact with a sick person. Hardest of all, they must persuade a scared and wary population that shots pushed by foreigners could save their lives.

Immigration firm seems to thrive after Trump lawyer's help

NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T and drug giant Novartis got nothing but bad publicity when they asked Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen for help with business, but a Florida immigration firm that tapped him appears to have gotten nearly everything it wanted.

When Nicholas Mastroianni II hooked up with Cohen last year, his business was threatened by a looming regulatory crackdown on the federal EB-5 program that offers foreigners permanent residency visas if they invest in certain U.S. real estate projects.

Cohen put Mastroianni in touch with a lobbying firm that was paying him for referrals. And although it's not clear exactly what the firm did, the proposed crackdown on the visa program collapsed and Mastroianni's business — U.S. Immigration Fund — is now set to pocket tens of millions in fees for acting as a visa broker in a string of ongoing projects.

"Without regulation, the fat cats are still lapping at the bowl," said David North, a fellow at the nonpartisan research firm Center for Immigration Studies who has supported the EB-5 overhaul efforts led by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Neither Cohen nor Mastroianni responded to requests for comment about their newly revealed business relationship.

JARABLUS, Syria (AP) — Nearly 50 children orphaned by the Syrian war escaped the hell that was their hometown of Aleppo after they appeared in a distressing video and appealed for their lives as government forces moved in under a hail of fire.

In the year and half since, the children and their instructors have been uprooted twice more: once to escape similar bombardment in another rebel stronghold and again when they fled a town that has been overwhelmed by people seeking shelter from Syria's war.

The orphanage first established in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, known as the Center for the Exceptional, has finally landed in a small house in the sleepy northern town of Jarablus, which was once a hub for Islamic State militants along the border with Turkey but has been governed by a Turkey-backed administration since 2016.

More than six million people — nearly a quarter of Syria's pre-war population — have been displaced inside Syria because of the war. For Aleppo's orphans, the war trauma and the loss of parents were compounded by the recurrent uprooting from the only familiar place they knew.

"It was better back home. We had our toys and our home. We had a court to play in and we had a toys room, a looms area, and a hall for learning singing," said Yasmine Qamuz, an 11-year-old whose mother is missing and whose father died of a heart condition in Aleppo. Qamuz said she left her favorite yellow doll behind in Aleppo.

A theme of tolerance, inclusion at this year's Tony Awards

NEW YORK (AP) — A small-scale, intimate musical about hard-won cultural understanding was an altogether apt Tony winner on a night where tolerance and inclusion were constant themes.

"The Band's Visit," about an Egyptian police band that gets stranded in a remote Israeli desert town, forcing both sides to get to know each other, triumphed over much flashier shows to win best musical Sunday night — and a total of 10 awards. The closest runner-up, with six, was the blockbuster London import "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which won best play.

One by one, the winners of "The Band's Visit" referenced the show's themes of acceptance and finding a common humanity. Tony Shalhoub, named best actor in a musical, spoke of his father's arrival at Ellis Island from Lebanon in 1920. "May we, their descendants, never lose sight of what they taught us," he said. Ari'el Stachel, who won for best featured actor, praised the show for "telling a small story about Arabs and Israelis getting along, at a time that we need that more than ever." Addressing his parents in the audience, Stachel, whose father was born in Israel, confessed that "for so many years of my life I pretended I was not a Middle Eastern person."

The show also won awards for its luminous lead actress, Katrina Lenk, and its director, book and score, among others. Producer Orin Wolf said the message was one of unity, in a world that "more and more seems bent on amplifying our differences." Composer David Yazbek, speaking later at the Tony after-party, said the show had special resonance amid "the climate of divisiveness that we're seeing." The show isn't just about Jews and Arabs, he said; "It's about any tribes that have figured out reasons to be at odds with each other."

The Middle East conflict, immigration, LGBT equality, gun control — many social issues came up, explicitly or implicitly, during the ceremony, which was hosted with a light (and musical) touch by Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban. The night's first big winner, Andrew Garfield, best actor in a play for "Angels in America," earned hearty cheers when he declared, "Let's just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked." He was referring to last week's Supreme Court decision in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of religious objections.

NEW YORK (AP) — With a bleep on live television and double fists raised in the air, Robert De Niro got the theater crowd on its feet at the Tony Awards with a rousing political introduction of his old friend Bruce Springsteen that was focused squarely elsewhere: on President Donald Trump.

De Niro, a staunch Trump opponent, dropped a couple of F-bombs heard clearly by the Radio City Music crowd Sunday night. The CBS television audience heard dead silence instead before he raised his arms — twice — and earned a sustained standing ovation.

The legendary actor urged the audience to vote in November and lauded Springsteen for his own political commitment before the singer sat at a piano for a moving performance based on his "Springsteen on Broadway" show that had him singing his classic hit, "My Hometown."

De Niro said of Springsteen: "Bruce, you can rock the house like nobody else and even more importantly in these perilous times, you rock the vote, always fighting for, in your own words, truth, transparency and integrity in government. Boy, do we need that now."

The anti-Trump sentiment swept backstage as playwright Tony Kushner and others from "Angels in America" spoke to reporters about its three big wins: best play revival and acting trophies for Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane</s>Singapore - President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un converged on this island city-state Sunday ahead of one of the most unusual and highly anticipated summits in recent world history, a Tuesday sit-down meant to settle a standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal.

Trump descended from Air Force One into the steamy Singapore night, greeting officials and declaring he felt "very good," before he was whisked away to his hotel, driving along a route lined with police and photo snapping onlookers. Trump traveled to Singapore from Canada, where he attended a meeting of the Group of Seven Nations.

Hours earlier, a jet carrying Kim landed. After shaking hands with the Singapore foreign minister, Kim sped through the city's streets in a massive limousine, two large North Korean flags fluttering on the hood, surrounded by other black vehicles with tinted windows and bound for the luxurious and closely guarded St. Regis Hotel.

Kim smiled broadly Sunday evening as he met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

"The entire world is watching the historic summit between (North Korea) and the United States of America, and thanks to your sincere efforts ... we were able to complete the preparations for the historic summit," Kim told Lee through an interpreter.

Trump is set to meet with Lee on Monday.

Trump has said he hopes to win a legacy-making deal with the North to give up their nuclear weapons, though he has recently sought to manage expectations, saying that it may take more than one meeting.

The North, many experts believe, stands on the brink of being able to target the entire US mainland with its nuclear-armed missiles, and while there's deep skepticism that Kim will quickly give up those hard-won nukes, there's also some hope that diplomacy can replace the animosity between the US and the North.

This will be the first summit of its kind between a leader of North Korea and a sitting US president. The North has faced crippling diplomatic and economic sanctions as it has advanced development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The North Korean autocrat's every move will be followed by 3,000 journalists who have converged on Singapore, and by gawkers around the world, up until he shakes hands with Trump on Tuesday. It's a reflection of the intense global curiosity over Kim's sudden turn to diplomacy in recent months after a slew of North Korean nuclear and missile tests last year raised serious fears of war.

Part of the interest in Tuesday's summit is simply because Kim has had such limited appearances on the world stage. He has only publicly left his country three times since taking power after his father's death in late 2011 - twice traveling to China and once across his shared border with the South to the southern part of the Demilitarised Zone in recent summits with the leaders of China and South Korea respectively.

But it's Kim's pursuit of nuclear weapons that gives his meeting with Trump such high stakes. The meeting was initially meant to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, but the talks have been portrayed by Trump in recent days more as a get-to-know-you session. Trump has also raised the possibility of further summits and an agreement ending the Korean War by replacing the armistice signed in 1953 with a peace treaty. China and South Korea would have to sign off on any legal treaty.

It's unclear what Trump and Kim might decide on Tuesday.

Pyongyang has said it is willing to deal away its entire nuclear arsenal if the United States provides it with a reliable security assurance and other benefits. But many say this is highly unlikely, given how hard it has been for Kim to build his program and that the weapons are seen as the major guarantee to holding onto his unchecked power.

Any nuclear deal will hinge on North Korea's willingness to allow unfettered outside inspections of the country's warheads and nuclear fuel, much of which is likely kept in a vast complex of underground facilities. Past nuclear deals have crumbled over North Korea's reluctance to open its doors to outsiders.

Another possibility from the summit is a deal to end the Korean War, which North Korea has long demanded, presumably, in part, to get US troops off the Korean Peninsula and, eventually, pave the way for a North Korean-led unified Korea.

The fighting ended on July 27, 1953, but the war technically continues today because instead of a difficult-to-negotiate peace treaty, military officers for the US-led United Nations, North Korea and China signed an armistice that halted the fighting. The North may see a treaty - and its presumed safety assurances from Washington - as its best way of preserving the Kim family dynasty. The ensuing recognition as a "normal country" could then allow sanctions relief, and later international aid and investment.

Just meeting with Trump will also give Kim a recognition North Korea has long sought, setting him up as global player and equal to the US domestically and, internationally, as the leader of a "normal country" worthy of respect.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive in Singapore ahead of the upcoming summit.