World News at a Glance

Trump Says North Korea Summit May Be Rescheduled

President Donald Trump said Friday that the White House was back in touch with North Korea and that the two sides might reschedule his summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, a startling reversal that revealed not only Trump’s improvisational approach to diplomacy but also deep divisions among his advisers about the risks of going ahead. Twenty-four hours after announcing that he was calling off the meeting in a letter to Kim, the North’s leader, Trump told reporters that he and Kim might yet meet in Singapore on June 12. Trump said he welcomed a conciliatory statement issued by North Korea.

Spanish Prime Minister’s Leadership Is Threatened by Corruption Verdicts

The issue of corruption in Rajoy’s Popular Party has returned to the top of Spain’s political agenda. On Friday, the main Socialist opposition party shelved a parliamentary motion to hold a vote of no-confidence to oust Rajoy, a day after his party’s former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, was sentenced to 33 years in prison and fined 44 million euros (about $51.3 million) for benefiting from a kickbacks-for-contracts scheme. The judges sentenced 28 other businessmen and politicians and ordered Rajoy’s party to pay a 245,000 euro fine, making it the first Spanish political force to be convicted of operating a slush fund.

Australia and Netherlands Pressure Moscow on Crash

A day after investigators identified the Russian military as the source of a missile that brought down a civilian airliner over Ukraine four years ago, the Netherlands and Australia, whose citizens made up the vast majority of passengers on the jet, said Friday that they would hold Moscow to account for bringing down the plane. Dutch authorities said they had “asked Russia today to enter a dialogue in order to come to a solution that does justice to the enormous suffering and damage caused by the downing of” Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was traveling to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

Declassified Cables Discuss Ex-Leader’s Ties to Colombian Drug Cartel

Álvaro Uribe, a powerful former Colombian president whose hand-picked candidate for the presidency is the front-runner in coming elections, was repeatedly accused in communications to diplomats of having ties to drug runners, newly declassified cables from the State Department show. The cables, which have recently been made available to The New York Times, describe meetings from 1992-1995 between U.S. officials and Uribe when he was an up-and-coming politician, as well as information gathered from Colombian officials who knew him well. Members of the Liberal Party, of which Uribe was a member, said he had ties to top drug families.

Aboriginal Youth Are Disproportionately Jailed, Report Finds

The number of Indigenous Australian juveniles in detention, on bail or on parole is increasing, even as the number of children accused of crimes in Australia is decreasing, a government agency said Friday. Indigenous Australians are disproportionately represented in the youth justice system and are 18 times more likely than their nonnative counterparts to be under “justice supervision,” a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said. The study said from 2012-2013 Indigenous juveniles were 15 times more likely to be in the system than non-Indigenous children, but that rose to 18 times over the last five years.

Trump’s On-Again, Off-Again Negotiating Style Unnerves Asian Allies

Leaders in Asia have grown accustomed to President Donald Trump’s unpredictability. But his handling of the summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — celebrating it, canceling it and then hinting it may still go on as planned — took the whipsawing to new levels. The zigzagging on the summit meeting, apparently done without consulting allies in the region, threatened to aggravate questions about the United States' treatment of its partners in Asia. Not involving Asian allies in the decision to scrap the summit appeared particularly damaging to and disrespectful of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.