Top story: It happened – Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un

Hello, it’s Warren Murray with the news this morning.

There were remarkable scenes in Singapore overnight where Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have been holding their historic summit. We are continuing our live coverage after the two leaders came face to face at the Capella hotel on Sentosa island.

Kim arrived first and met Trump on the steps of the hotel, where they shook hands for about 12 seconds in front of a display of US and North Korean flags. It is the first time a sitting US president has met with a leader of North Korea. Here are some picture highlights from the unfolding events.

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In latest developments: after a working lunch with their teams of aides, Trump in typically superlative terms said talks had gone “better than anybody could imagine”, and that he and the North Korean leader were on the way to “a signing”, indicating they will release a joint statement about the summit.

Earlier, heading into the first of several meetings, Trump said he was confident of “tremendous success”. Kim said “it has not been easy to get here” and that “the old prejudices and practices worked as obstacles, but we have overcome them and we are here today”. Speaking in unprecedented fashion in front of the world’s press, the North Korean dictator said the summit was “a big prelude to peace”. “I believe so too,” said Trump.



Korea’s state-run media has hailed the “wide-ranging and profound talks” being held “under the great attention and expectation of the whole world”. The relative speed with which state media reported on Kim’s arrival suggests the regime’s degree of confidence about the meeting. Han Il-gwang, a Pyongyang resident, said: “When I woke up this morning, I saw the news in the newspaper that our respected marshal went to Singapore for the North Korea-US summit. I know Singapore is a very hot country, so I wish that our respected marshal stays healthy and comes back in good health.”



Richard Wolffe reminds us that even as Trump appears as peacemaker in Singapore, he has been busy waging metaphorical war against Canada and the G7. And for his part, Kim’s old friend Dennis Rodman was reduced to tears on CNN as he watched the scenes of rapprochement unfold. The former basketballer, who has visited North Korea several times, said he had been damned for his own attempts to conciliate between the two sides. “I couldn’t even go home. I had to hide out for 30 days. But I kept my head up high, brother. I knew things were going to change.”

‘Back me on the bill’ – Theresa May has appealed directly to rebel Tory MPs to back her on the Brexit bill, which returns to the House of Commons today. The House of Lords sent 15 changes to the EU withdrawal bill back to MPs, and the cliff-hanger is an amendment to give parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal to withdraw from the EU. The sticking point is what happens next if parliament ultimately rejects the deal. The government is trying to broker a compromise – Labour is petitioning rebel Tories to stay the course and help defeat the government, though Labour has its own leave-remain divisions to deal with. For now at least, May has avoided a damaging potential defeat over a customs union with the EU – that appears to have been set aside until July.

Out the trolls, says MP – Labour’s Jess Phillips is calling for an end to absolute online anonymity, saying she has been bombarded with more than 600 rape threats in a single night. Facebook, Twitter and other social networks should be made to record people’s real identities, said Phillips. The security minister, Ben Wallace, has called for digital IDs to end online anonymity; while Theresa May has used the G7 summit to call for tech companies to tackle attacks against women.

Hands on the wheel – Carmakers are being criticised for letting buyers think their vehicles can drive themselves. Fatal accidents involving Tesla’s Autopilot system have highlighted the need for drivers to be much more aware of the need to stay in charge. In the UK, a man was banned from driving for 18 months after switching on the Autopilot feature in his Tesla on the M1 and switching to the passenger’s seat. “The capability of current road vehicle technologies must not be oversold,” said Matthew Avery from Thatcham Research. “Names like Autopilot or ProPilot are deeply unhelpful, as they infer the car can do a lot more than it can.”

Students hit books, not drugs – A survey of illegal drug use among students has turned up some surprises. Of 1,000 undergraduates who took part, 71% said they had not taken drugs. The small-scale survey conducted on behalf of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), a thinktank, contrasts with one by the National Union of Students where 56% of respondents said they had used drugs at some point. Nick Hillman, the Hepi director, said its survey was “an important corrective to some of the wilder ideas about today’s students. They are more hardworking and less hedonistic than is often supposed.”

Still batting on: “The greater mouse-eared bat is so large that observers who first discovered it in Britain likened one to a young rabbit hanging from a wall. In flight, its wings can stretch to nearly half a metre.” And, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, there is only one of them left in the UK. He lives in a secret tunnel in West Sussex, and Patrick Barkham was desperate to meet him.

Lunchtime read: Astronaut sets course for the Moon

Chris Hadfield knows how to draw attention to himself – he was the guitar-playing, Bowie-warbling astronaut floating around the international space station. Now he wants Earth’s governments to harmonise in efforts to establish settlements on the moon, as a stepping stone to Mars. “We still don’t even know what we don’t know about exploring Mars,” says the Canadian spaceman, who argues bringing in privateers like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is the right thing to do in pushing forward with our exploration of the solar system.

The challenges of going to Mars are immense, says Hadfield, but “the moon is now within our grasp. Not just to explore but actually to settle. And so the real question is this: can we build an environment where people can be healthy and happy and, most importantly, live? And I think the answer is yes.”

Sport

Gareth Southgate will board the England flight to Russia today with the increasingly firm conviction that his players have recovered from one of the lowest points in the team’s history. Harry Kane has vowed England will tackle the World Cup “head on” as the national side’s new captain seeks to break his goalscoring duck at major tournaments. In rugby union, England’s list of concerns also now includes the Saracens hooker Schalk Brits, who has interrupted his South African holiday to join the Springbok squad before the second Test in Bloemfontein.

Lizzie Deignan claims Chris Froome has been denied fair process in his anti-doping case and criticised the testing authorities for not doing more to protect her reputation after three whereabouts failings. A metabolite of cocaine was the substance found in a test taken from the unbeaten $1.4m horse Walk In The Sun after he won at Lingfield in February.



Business

Asian shares have been just slightly higher during the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. The Federal Reserve will start a two-day meeting on interest rates today. Investors expect interest rates to rise from 1.75% to 2% and will be looking for an indication of how many rate hikes Fed officials are considering this year. On the currency markets, the pound has been trading at $1.336 and €1.135 overnight.

The papers

“Trump-Kim meeting is summit of the century” enthuses the Times, while the Metro goes with “Despot hits the night spots”, showing Kim Jong-un out and about in Singapore. It’s not the recently mellowed North Korean tyrant, though, who concerns other front pages. In the Mail, it is “End of breast feeding tyranny” as midwives (tyrants, all!) are told not to shame mothers who choose to bottle feed.

The tyranny of … umm, parliamentary process is the concern of the Sun and the Express, which are furious about amendments to the EU withdrawal bill being foisted on MPs by the Lords. “Great Britain or Great Betrayal” – the Sun’s headline feels a bit flat, to be honest. “Ignore the will of the people at your peril” – that’s more thunderous, from the Express. “May’s last-ditch plea to rebels to support Brexit withdrawal bill” is the Guardian’s splash as the legislation returns to the Commons. The Mirror hails the “Prostate cancer saliva test revolution” that could make predicting the disease as simple as spit. “More than 2,300 doctors denied visas in five months” says the FT, reporting that the immigration system for non-EU skilled workers appears to be swamped. The Telegraph reports on “Calls to block social media ‘hooks’ for children” – it says the children’s commissioner wants algorithms that target youngsters shut down.

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