The Comeback Kim: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wants a complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the South’s President Moon Jae-in said after the two met to try to salvage talks with the US.

Moon said that Kim expressed a desire to “end a history of war and confrontation.” Kim also said he was willing to talk about getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, which the Trump administration has said is a precondition for a meeting.

President Trump cancelled a June 12 meeting after tough talk from both sides, but the White House says it is still sending its advance team to Singapore in case the date is reinstated.

“A lot of people are working on it,” Trump said. “It’s moving along very nicely. We’re looking at June 12 in Singapore. That hasn’t changed. And it’s moving along pretty well, so we’ll see what happens.”

The Baby Snatchers: The Department of Health and Human Services admitted to Congress this past week that it had lost track of 1,500 children who entered the country illegally and alone and were placed in foster care. Most are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and were running away from gang violence, drug dealers, and domestic abuse. The government doesn’t know where these kids are anymore.

This comes just as Immigration and Customs Enforcement has embarked on a draconian new policy of separating captured illegal immigrants from their children.

On April 6^th, Attorney Gen. Jeff  Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy for first-time illegal border crossers. He said they will all be prosecuted. “It’s that simple.” He also said, “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law.”

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly cavalierly told NPR that children taken from their parents will be “put into foster care or whatever.”

The Arizona Daily Star reports that parents appearing in court can’t get an answer to where their children are.

Human rights advocates have said the policy is inhumane and clearly designed to terrify illegal immigrants. Although the policy is the work of the Trump administration, the President yesterday blamed it on Democrats tweeting, “Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.”

Divorced from Reality Star: President Trump yesterday accused the NY Times of inventing a source who spoke about trying to revive the cancelled talks with North Korea.

Trump tweeted, “The Failing @nytimes quotes ‘a senior White House official,’ who doesn’t exist, as saying ‘even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed.’ WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.”

Within hours the Times posted an online story pointing out that the quote came from a senior White House official who spoke to a large group of reporters in the White House briefing room. Rather than a lie, this seems to be an example of the President not knowing what his own administration is doing and saying.

Then there’s the matter of outright lies. Writing for The Washington Post’s Plum Line, Paul Waldman says Trump’s untruths on the matter of a government spy in his campaign are a part of a repeated pattern of absurdity.

It goes like this,” he says. “President Trump makes a ridiculous accusation that almost everyone immediately understands to be false. Then we in the media, because it’s the president, treat that accusation as though it’s something that has to be taken seriously. Then governmental resources are mustered to deal with the accusation. Then Republicans try to twist the mobilization of those resources to give them the answer they’re seeking. But because it’s all based on a lie, they fail once Democrats force some measure of truth to be revealed.”

The Roundup: Venezuela has released American Mormon missionary Josh Holt after holding him for two years on unspecified weapons charges. His release came as a surprise. Holt had gone to Venezuela to get married. — Indiana authorities have yet to charge and publicly identify the student they say shot and wounded a teacher and student at a middle school Friday in what is believed to be the 23rd school shooting in 2018.

 The Obit Page: Former astronaut Alan Bean, who was the fourth man to walk on the moon, has died in Houston at age 86. Bean and Pete Conrad stepped  on the moon in November 1969, four months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In 1973 Bean spent three months in space, a record at the time.

Bean later became a full time artist. “Every artist has the earth or their imaginations to inspire their paintings,” Mr. Bean told The New York Times in 1994. “I’ve got the earth and my imagination, and I’m the first to have the moon, too.”

-30-