Newsletter: Today: An Overture From North Korea

President Trump and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un have stopped trading insults and started preparing to meet.

TOP STORIES

An Overture From North Korea

The leaders of the United States and North Korea have never even shared a phone call, much less met face to face, but that could change by May after an unusual announcement from a South Korean official that President Trump has accepted an invitation by Kim Jong Un to meet. “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze,” Trump tweeted. “Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time.” A meeting would be fraught with risk, and U.S. officials remain skeptical about Pyongyang’s motives. Meanwhile, Kim will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in next month in the third-ever meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea since a cease-fire in 1953.

How to Avoid a Tariff: Let’s Make a Deal!

The president’s final order for tariffs on imported steel and aluminum seems to be right out of the Trump playbook: a threat that’s subject to negotiation. Instead of blanket tariffs, he at least initially exempted Canada and Mexico — and allowed any other country to avoid the duties by providing a “satisfactory alternative.” What does that mean? “We’re going to be very flexible,” Trump said. “We’re going to see who’s treating us fairly, who’s not treating us fairly.” But that haziness could open the door to legal challenges, given that Trump’s order is based on the argument that the tariffs are needed for national security.

More Politics

-- Trump said it was “a disgrace” that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warned last month about federal agents’ planned immigration raids in the Bay Area.

-- Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort Jr. will wear two monitoring bracelets to ensure he shows up for proceedings in courthouses in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

-- Trump says there is no chaos in the White House, but policymaking on immigration, guns and tariffs this year shows otherwise.

Build That Wall? One Town’s Lesson From a Fence

Next week, Trump will visit the San Diego border area to view prototypes of his proposed wall. A little more than an hour’s drive east, people in the town of Jacumba Hot Springs have firsthand experience of what happens when the border with Mexico is fortified. The changes they saw after Operation Gatekeeper, a crackdown in the mid-1990s, offer a glimpse of what communities may face if Trump’s wall is built, including some unintended consequences.

She’s a Kiwi, a Prime Minister and a Mom-to-Be

In 1998, Jacinda Ardern’s high school classmates voted her most likely to be prime minister of New Zealand someday. In October, she did, by running on a liberal platform of positivity and optimism — becoming the world’s youngest female leader of a nation at age 37. Since then, she’s helped create a new version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which was signed Thursday) after the U.S. withdrawal by Trump. And in June, she’ll be giving birth to her first child.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

On March 5, 1929, fire broke out at the Los Angeles Auto Show. “A half hour later the $1,250,000 display at the corner of Washington and Hill streets, housed in four huge tents, was a mass of smoking embers, charred wood, blazing rubber and twisted steel.” The Times reported an electrician and firefighters were injured. The next day, the Los Angeles Motor Car Dealers’ Assn. reopened a smaller version of the auto show at the Shrine Auditorium.

MUST-WATCH VIDEO

-- A look back at 1968’s “East L.A. blowouts,” when thousands of Mexican American students marched to demand a better education.

-- Film critic Kenneth Turan says “The Death of Stalin” is “a comedy of terrors that creates laughs but doesn’t let you forget that Stalin and his coterie caused the deaths of untold numbers of Soviet citizens.”

CALIFORNIA

-- Prosecutors won’t criminally charge a former Los Angeles police officer in the fatal shooting of a man near the Venice boardwalk, even though Chief Charlie Beck had called for them to charge him.

-- A retired LAPD officer has been arrested on suspicion of workers’ compensation fraud while enrolled in a program that pays veteran cops and firefighters their salary and pension for up to five years.

-- Olvera Street merchants aren’t happy about L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s plan to shelter the homeless nearby.

-- L.A. will probably see rain from a subtropical storm passing through on Saturday and early Sunday. (Also, don’t forget to “spring forward” as Daylight Saving Time starts.)

YOUR WEEKEND

-- How to have a “dry garden” that is drought-friendly and contains plenty of color.

-- The weather isn’t cooperating yet, but Las Vegas pool season is open. Here are five places to party.

-- Love good bread? Check out these baking books and bread-making classes from L.A. bakers.

-- Restaurant notes: A 3,400-square-foot pasta palace just opened in Culver City, and a Food Network star has a new cake shop in Pasadena.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- Director Ava DuVernay says she’ll be watching the career of Storm Reid, the star of her new film, “A Wrinkle in Time,” as an indicator of whether Hollywood is truly changing.

-- Pantherpedia: Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” film has given rise to a cottage industry of essays about it.

-- After Arie Luyendyk Jr. broke off his engagement with Minnesota native Becca Kufrin on “The Bachelor,” a Minnesota lawmaker drafted a bill banning Luyendyk from the state. Never fear, it won’t become law.

NATION-WORLD

-- Mississippi lawmakers have approved the most restrictive abortion ban in the U.S. The state has only one clinic.

-- In a thunderous assault, the Syrian army all but sliced the rebel-held enclave of Ghouta in two, pushing the death toll to more than 900 since the onslaught began last month.

-- Women across the globe rallied, chanted and in some cases walked off the job Thursday to mark International Women’s Day. Will the #MeToo movement at last herald a social sea change?

-- On Twitter, fake news spreads faster and further than real news, according to a scientific analysis. Bots aren’t to blame.

BUSINESS

-- After being convicted of defrauding investors, “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli is expected to be sentenced today and faces more than a decade in prison.

-- Snap is laying off 120 staffers as part of a plan to overhaul its engineering team.

-- Toys R Us is making preparations for a liquidation of its bankrupt U.S. operations.

SPORTS

-- UCLA guard Aaron Holiday was the star as his team held off Stanford to advance in the Pac-12 tournament.

-- Meanwhile, forward Chimezie Metu dominated USC’s victory over Oregon State in the same tournament.

OPINION

-- Rep. Adam B. Schiff writes about how Democrats can sweep the midterm elections.

-- Destabilizing the banking sector again is one thing Democrats and Republicans apparently agree on.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- A look at the history of how North Korea creates crisis and then seeks to negotiate. (The Atlantic)

-- Will former President Obama produce shows for Netflix? (New York Times)

-- A day in the life of a old-school film projectionist making his way in today’s world. (Vanity Fair)

ONLY IN L.A.

Delivering pizza to Milton Berle. Buying reading glasses with Fred Astaire. Getting a book about Jesus from Little Richard (while he was eating Taco Bell). Celebrity sightings have long been a part of living in Los Angeles, even if they are usually few and far between. What was your first encounter with one? The Times’ Carolina Miranda asked on Twitter and got these responses, including one about receiving a clown lamp as a gift from Betty White.

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