In images and in words, Mr. Kim and Mr. Xi signaled that they had repaired the relationship between their countries, which had soured as Mr. Kim had accelerated his nuclear program and Mr. Xi had responded by endorsing — and enforcing — more punishing sanctions proposed by the United States.

“The friendship between North Korea and China that was personally created and nurtured together by former generations of leaders from both our sides is unshakable,” Mr. Kim told Mr. Xi, according to Xinhua. Mr. Xi went out of his way to recall the warm friendship between his father, a high-ranking Communist Party official from the Mao era, and Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, the North’s previous leader.

It is too soon to say whether the meeting marks a softening of China’s posture toward Mr. Kim or of its commitment to international sanctions against North Korea. But the visit served to highlight Beijing’s unique leverage over North Korea, even as Mr. Trump is threatening China with a trade war.

Mr. Trump can talk about maintaining “maximum pressure” on the North, but ultimately China — the North’s main trade partner — still decides what that means, because it can choose how strictly to enforce sanctions.

“China is saying to the United States and the rest of the world: Anyone who wants a deal on anything on the future of the Korean Peninsula, and certainly something which deals with nukes, don’t think you can walk around us, guys,” Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who is on good terms with the Chinese leadership, said in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

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Bruce Klingner, a former Korea analyst at the C.I.A. who is now at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said China had been bypassed by the diplomatic outreach that resulted in Mr. Trump’s agreement to meet with Mr. Kim. “Beijing has been on the sidelines of North Korea’s recent charm offensive and likely saw it necessary to finally invite Kim for a summit to get a readout of the upcoming diplomatic meetings and to be seen as a major player,” he said.

The Chinese government said it had briefed the White House on Mr. Kim’s visit, adding that Mr. Xi had sent a personal message to Mr. Trump.

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On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump expressed optimism on Twitter about the potential for diplomatic success, saying there was “a good chance” that Mr. Kim would “do what is right for his people and for humanity.”

At her daily briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, offered no concern about Mr. Kim’s visit to Beijing but declined to disclose the thrust of Mr. Xi’s message. “We feel like we’ve made significant progress and we’re going to continue moving forward in this process,” she said.

But there was little in the public accounts of Mr. Xi’s discussions with Mr. Kim to support such a positive assessment. Although Xinhua quoted Mr. Kim as saying he was open to talks with Mr. Trump and committed to denuclearization, North Korea’s own state media made no mention of either.

Xinhua also quoted Mr. Kim as proposing “phased, synchronized measures” by South Korea and the United States — a phrase that suggests a desire to negotiate a gradual drawdown of his arsenal, but which also echoes the North’s position in past talks that dragged on and ultimately failed. One major difference between then and now is that North Korea has a far more advanced nuclear arsenal.

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Mr. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, John R. Bolton, meanwhile, has expressed little patience for extended negotiations. He has said that North Korea should be asked to park its nuclear arsenal at the Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee.

Some analysts in Washington saw Mr. Kim’s visit to Beijing as a masterstroke that softened his international image as a rogue figure and made him look as if he genuinely wants a peaceful resolution to the conflict, potentially complicating Mr. Trump’s task in their upcoming meeting.

“You’re building this momentum, looking reasonable, looking willing to denuclearize,” said Sue Mi Terry, a Korea scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the North Koreans. All of which makes it harder for Mr. Trump to blame the North Koreans if talks do not yield a breakthrough. “If we don’t play ball, with this hawkish team in place with Bolton and so on, at least perception-wise we look like we’re the problem,” she said.

If China decides to soften its stance on sanctions and act as North Korea’s protector, Mr. Kim will enter the talks in a considerably stronger position than he otherwise would have.

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“It is very unlikely that Kim Jong-un consulted with the Chinese before offering to meet Trump,” said Sergey Radchenko, a professor of international relations at Cardiff University in Wales. “This in itself was a rebellious affront to the Chinese leadership. But by doing this, Kim immeasurably strengthened his negotiating position vis-à-vis the Chinese. He came to Beijing not as a supplicant but as an equal.”

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Victor Cha, who was at one point Mr. Trump’s choice for ambassador to South Korea until the decision was abandoned, said that besides the possibility of a reconciliation between Beijing and Pyongyang, “the most potentially intriguing element of this” is that Mr. Kim traveled with his entire entourage out of the country. “Shows he’s not worried about leaving the palace vacant and vulnerable to some coup and that he will go abroad,” Mr. Cha said.

Many analysts said they believed China had initiated the visit, essentially telling Mr. Kim that he could no longer afford to be cavalier about his bigger, richer neighbor, and telegraphing to Mr. Trump that America could pay heavily for keeping China on the outside.

Beneath the new bonhomie in the official accounts of Mr. Kim’s trip, the edgy nature of the seven-decade-old China-North Korea relationship was still apparent.

No agreements between the two leaders were announced, even on basic issues. Mr. Xi, in his public comments, made no reference to Mr. Kim’s expected meeting with Mr. Trump, an omission that may have reflected Mr. Xi’s displeasure at being left on the sidelines.

There was also no public comment in Beijing about what Mr. Kim was planning to offer Mr. Trump or what role China would play as the talks approached, questions of the utmost importance to China.

While China supports the international effort to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons, it has also been careful not to press the North hard enough to risk a collapse of the Kim regime, which could potentially lead to a united Korean Peninsula, under an American security umbrella, on China’s border.

“China needs to know North Korea’s calculations,” said Da Wei, a professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing. “Kim knows the negotiations cannot fully succeed without China’s support. China’s involvement will make any solution more viable.”

Some analysts said Mr. Kim was repeating a pattern set by his father, Kim Jong-il, who visited China before his 2000 summit meeting with South Korea’s then-president, Kim Dae-jung. Kim Jong-il was then about six years into his tenure as North Korea’s leader, just as his son is now.

“Now six years into his own reign, Kim III seeks to play the role of the proactive, peace-seeking statesman,” said Lee Sung-yoon, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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He may hope to get Mr. Trump to settle for “another faulty, open-ended, non-biting nuclear deal” that would make it “politically near-impossible for the U.S. to talk about, let alone implement, a pre-emptive strike, John Bolton at the head of the National Security Council notwithstanding,” Mr. Lee said.

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Protesters gathered by the hundreds at the Sacramento City Council meeting Tuesday night, and, like slain citizen Stephon Clark, they held up their cellphones.

“Does this look like a gun?” activist Berry Accius asked Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the other members of the council as those in the crowd extended their arms, phones in hand.

They were protesting the March 18 killing of Clark, 22, an unarmed black man shot at 20 times by two police officers. Police said the officers believed Clark had a gun, but only a white iPhone was found near his body.

The demonstrators on Tuesday were led by Stevonte Clark, who burst into the meeting about 30 minutes after it began, walked to the council’s dais and sat on it, chanting his brother’s name. His eyes met Steinberg’s.

“Stephon Clark! Stephon Clark!” he yelled, clad in a black shirt bearing his brother’s face.

And in front of Steinberg, he addressed the crowd: “The mayor and the city of Sacramento has failed all of you.” The demonstration prompted a recess and forced Steinberg to end the meeting early, citing safety concerns.

[ ‘Join us or go home!’: Stephon Clark protests block thousands from getting into Kings game ]

Steinberg said Clark’s disruption was inappropriate, but the moment revealed undercurrents of frustration and tension in a community marked by skepticism of police accountability.

“There is deep pain and anguish,” Steinberg told The Washington Post in a phone interview on Wednesday. “It’s our job to bear some of that pain, and to help translate the anguish and grieving and the historic pain [of black communities] into tangible and real change.”

Released body-camera footage of the incident, including delays in providing first aid and the officers’ failure to announce themselves as police, has prompted outrage in Sacramento, calls for accountability and numerous protests amid recent police killings of unarmed black men in the country.

Stevonte Clark could not be reached for comment. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn announced earlier Tuesday that the state Department of Justice would provide independent oversight of the police investigation into the shooting.

“We take our responsibility in full recognition of the importance of getting it right,” Becerra said. “Because it’s about respect and trust. It’s about identifying ways to achieve public safety and safer outcomes in the future.”

Steinberg was also in attendance for the announcement. He had briefly spoken about the conduct of the officers, citing the ongoing investigation. But, he said, “regardless of the conclusions there, the outcome was just plain wrong. A 22-year-old man should not have died that way.”

Policy evaluations are underway, he said, including an April 10 department-led review of relevant procedures, like how foot pursuits should be conducted and regulations for applying first aid to suspects.

Police say that Clark was breaking into vehicles and that the officers pursued him as he headed to his grandmother’s house, where he had been staying. One officer shouted ‘Gun!’ in the belief that Clark was armed. The two officers took cover, and seconds later, fired 10 rounds each, striking Clark an unknown number of times. More than five minutes passed before officers provided medical attention. Clark died at the scene.

“It raises serious questions, obviously,” Steinberg said about the officers’ apparent failure to identify themselves as police.

The delay in providing medical attention, another focus of the outcry, is also a concern. “I am troubled by that,” he said, but he added that the probe may reveal why that had occurred.

Sacramento police declined to elaborate on their policy on providing live-saving aid to citizens they injure. “That is part of our ongoing investigation of this entire incident,” spokesman Vance Chandler said Wednesday. A single sentence of department guidance reads: “Officers shall provide first aid to injured parties if it can be done safely.”

Chandler also declined to describe department policy detailing how and when officers can disable their body-camera video and audio feed. In the closing moments of the body-camera footage released by the department, another police official asks the two officers involved in the shooting to mute their body cameras. The department has not released their names amid threats to their safety.

Family members and activists accuse police in general of treating black men with more violence. Steinberg said he believes unconscious racial bias is linked to police shootings generally, but he stopped short of describing any link to the Clark killing.

“I don’t believe our cops are racist. But that’s a different question from whether [implicit] racism pervades every aspect of community life, especially in law enforcement and communities of color.”

[ Sacramento simmers with tension in wake of fatal police shooting of Stephon Clark ]

An analysis by The Post found that 987 people were killed by police last year — 68 of them unarmed. Clark is at least the sixth person fatally shot by the Sacramento Police Department since the beginning of 2015. Five of them were black men; the other was a white man. At least 230 people have been killed by police this year, according to The Post’s database on fatal force.

The White House on Wednesday called Clark’s death “a terrible incident” but declined to weigh in further on the shooting or the decision by Louisiana’s attorney general, announced Tuesday, not to seek charges against the officers who fatally shot Alton Sterling in 2016.

In Sacramento, the protests continue, and citizens are closely watching the outcome of the investigation. Steinberg said he is “extremely conscious” of nationwide accountability concerns involving police officers escaping punishment after they were found to have violated the public’s trust.

A Post analysis published last year found that since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct. Departments reinstated 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

California laws minimize what law enforcement agencies publicly release after incidents such as officer-involved shootings, including the disciplinary measures taken and the investigators’ conclusions. “That’s not right. The public has the right to know,” Steinberg said.

All eyes are on Sacramento to serve as an example, he said.

“We need to ask and answer that seminal question: ‘Is there not a better way?’ And the answer has to be yes.”

Wesley Lowery contributed to this report.

Read more:

Baton Rouge police officers won’t be charged in fatal shooting of Alton Sterling

A deputy in Houston shot and killed an unarmed black man — days after Stephon Clark’s death

In the midst of that turmoil, Dr. Jackson, 50, who was named to his current position by President Barack Obama in 2013, has grown close with Mr. Trump, a commander in chief who enjoys familiar faces in his orbit and often rewards them with new roles.

Dr. Jackson had a rare turn in the spotlight in January, when he announced the results of Mr. Trump’s physical, his first while in office, and addressed speculation over the president’s physical and mental health. The president was very pleased with the performance.

“I’ve found no reason whatsoever to think the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought processes,” Dr. Jackson said.

His policy views are all but unknown, though, especially on Capitol Hill, where the Senate will decide whether he is up to leading the department. Senators, including Johnny Isakson of Georgia, the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, issued cautious statements on Wednesday praising Dr. Shulkin and indicating that they would need to get to know the nominee.

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That tone was echoed by mainstream veterans groups like Disabled American Veterans and the American Legion, who hold considerable sway in Washington, and who warned of a potential leadership vacuum at the department.

Privately, several White House aides acknowledged that Dr. Jackson’s lack of managerial experience could be problematic and said that once again the president’s interest in his personal bond with someone was more significant than their curriculum vitae.

In a Twitter post on Wednesday announcing the changes, Mr. Trump called Dr. Jackson “highly respected” and thanked Dr. Shulkin for “service to our country and to our great veterans.”

I am pleased to announce that I intend to nominate highly respected Admiral Ronny L. Jackson, MD, as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs….

—
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 28, 2018

Mr. Trump said that Robert Wilkie, the under secretary for defense personnel and readiness at the Defense Department, would serve as acting secretary in the meantime, bypassing the department’s deputy secretary, Thomas G. Bowman.

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The White House did not respond to a request asking who would replace Dr. Jackson.

Dr. Shulkin, who served as under secretary of veterans affairs in the Obama administration, had begun to make headway on some of the department’s most persistent problems. Those included an expansion of the G.I. Bill for post-9/11 veterans, legislation that makes it easier for the department to remove bad employees and a law that streamlines the appeals process for veterans seeking disability benefits.

Those successes and his easy grasp of complicated policy issues won Dr. Shulkin deep support on Capitol Hill and among veterans groups. And Mr. Trump, who made veterans issues and overhauling the scandal-ridden department a focal point of his campaign, showered Dr. Shulkin with praise. At a bill-signing ceremony in June, the president teased that the secretary need never worry about hearing his “Apprentice”-era catchphrase, “You’re fired.”

“We’ll never have to use those words on our David,” Mr. Trump said. “We will never use those words on you, that’s for sure.”

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But in recent months, a group of conservative Trump administration appointees at the White House and the department began to break with the secretary and plot his ouster. At issue was how far and how fast to privatize health care for veterans, a long-sought goal for conservatives like the Koch brothers.

The officials — who included Dr. Shulkin’s press secretary and assistant secretary for communications, along with a top White House domestic policy aide — came to consider Dr. Shulkin and his top deputy as obstacles.

The secretary’s troubles only grew when what had been an internal power struggle burst into the open in February, after the department’s inspector general issued a scathing report on a trip Dr. Shulkin took last year to Britain and Denmark. The report, describing what it called “serious derelictions,” found the secretary had spent much of the trip sightseeing and had improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets as a gift.

Critics of the secretary seized on the report to try to hasten his removal. Dr. Shulkin, fearing a coup, went public with a warning about officials “trying to undermine the department from within” and cut off those he saw as disloyal. The efforts backfired. At the White House, senior officials came to believe that Dr. Shulkin had misled them about the contents of the report. And the secretary’s public declarations only further aggravated top officials, who felt Dr. Shulkin had gone too far in commenting on internal politics with news outlets and had opened the administration to sharp criticism over his trip to Europe, which the report said cost more than $122,000.

But as recently as early March, after meetings with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, Dr. Shulkin publicly claimed victory, signaling that he had the White House’s support to remove officials opposing him.

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The victory was short-lived. Before long, Dr. Shulkin sharply curtailed his public profile, cutting off communications with reporters and isolating himself from top deputies he viewed as disloyal. People who have spoken with the secretary in recent days said he was determined to keep his post, even as it became increasingly clear his time was up. He was set to meet with leaders from the nation’s largest veterans groups on Thursday.

Despite his problems with the White House, Dr. Shulkin remained overwhelmingly popular on Capitol Hill, where the Senate unanimously confirmed him last year, and among the veterans groups that have traditionally held outsize influence in Washington. In recent weeks, leaders from both parties publicly and privately signaled their support, even as rumors of his replacement appeared in news reports.

But Mr. Trump had had enough. He began to discuss successors in recent weeks, even considering Energy Secretary Rick Perry as a possibility. He told friends last weekend that he would fire Dr. Shulkin, it was just a question of when.

Dr. Shulkin had made a preliminary inquiry about having Dr. Jackson for an under secretary role last year, and the president spoke with him briefly about it then, one senior administration official said. But it went nowhere at the time.

By Monday, Mr. Trump had started animatedly talking with a handful of people about the idea of Dr. Jackson’s replacing Dr. Shulkin, people familiar with the discussions said. Still, he did not tell many advisers of his plan until soon before it was announced.

A Navy doctor since 1995, Dr. Jackson deployed as an emergency medicine physician to Taqaddum, Iraq, during the Iraq war. He has served as a member of the White House medical unit since 2006 and as its lead physician since 2013, overseeing Mr. Obama’s physicals.

Dr. Jackson had told several people that he planned to retire from Washington after Mr. Obama left office. But Mr. Trump, whose previous personal physician made headlines with a series of unauthorized news interviews about his patient, asked Dr. Jackson to stay on. Mr. Trump, who goes to great lengths to hide details of his personal life, quickly came to trust Dr. Jackson, referring to him warmly as “Doc” around the White House.

Democrats, moderate Republicans and mainline veterans groups have all feared that Dr. Shulkin’s departure could clear the way for a more aggressive push for government-subsidized private care at the department.

“Every major veterans’ organization in this country vigorously opposes the privatization of the V.A.,” Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “I stand with them. Our job is to strengthen the V.A. in order to provide high-quality care to our veterans, not dismember it.”

Correction: March 28, 2018

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the rank of Dr. Ronny L. Jackson. He is a rear admiral, not an admiral.

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At $299 (and $50 to $99 more if you want to get a compatible stylus), schools might not have the budget to get both a tablet and a traditional laptop for students. With the financial constraints of most public schools, they probably have to pick one of the two. And while Apple’s case for the iPad as an educational tool is a strong one, laptops remain a more sensible option for most students. Which begs the question: Why hasn’t Apple made a low-cost Macbook for education instead?

Apple is likely making a push into schools in an attempt to recapture some of its glory days in the education sector. Apple famously made a deal in 1978 with the Minnesota Education Computing Consortium (MECC) to supply 500 computers to schools, and by 1982, MECC was the largest seller of Apple computers in the country. Steve Jobs told Computerworld in a 1985 interview that “one of the things that built the Apple II was schools buying Apple IIs.”

It used to be that Apple computers were commonplace in learning institutions, with Macintoshes and eMacs present in schools and universities across the country throughout the 1980s and early 2000s. Much of that was due to efforts such as large-scale computer donations, deals with top colleges, and making eMacs (and other models) a little less capable and more affordable than the rest of Apple’s consumer lineup.

In the mid-2000s, Apple did make a low-cost Macbook for schools… sort of. It was the basic polycarbonate Macbook, and while it was initially intended for consumer audiences, it was still marketed and sold in schools as a low-cost alternative. When they were taken off the retail shelf in 2011, Apple still sold them exclusively to educational institutions for around $900 per machine.

In recent years, however, things have changed. According to a recent survey by FutureSource Consulting, Apple has fallen to a distant third behind Google Chromebooks and Windows PCs in the education market. That’s because Chromebooks and PCs are more affordable. In an effort to make its products sleeker and faster, Apple’s done away with most of its entry-level products. The cheapest Macbook right now, for example, is $1,300, which is definitely not a budget laptop by any stretch of the imagination.

So why can’t Apple make a cheap laptop? “Theoretically Apple could do this, although the first step they would have to take is to reduce their profit margin,” said analyst Rhoda Alexander from IHS Markit. “However, that profit margin is a key component of Apple’s success, allowing Apple to constantly reinvest in the brand, driving innovation and RD across hardware, software and content development.”

Apple could also make cheaper laptops with plastic cases and cheaper CPUs, but making mass quantities of cheap hardware doesn’t seem to be part of Apple’s current strategy. “There are other compromises they could make at the design and component level to reduce their cost, if their end goal was to drive unit volume,” continued Alexander, stating that Apple likely wants to maintain a “premiere standard across the entire brand line.”

Which seems to be why Apple seems to be so keen on iPads as part of its education strategy. Not only are the tablets portable, lightweight and easy to use, they’re also part of Apple’s “post-PC” narrative, where most tasks only need a touchscreen and an accessory or two.

In a way, it makes sense. When Engadget tried replacing a laptop with an iPad Pro for a week, we found it to be surprisingly effective, letting us do most tasks with ease. No, it didn’t quite replace a laptop for us — batch-resize images was a struggle, for example — but it was close. And for kids, that might be good enough.

The fact that so many parents already use iPads with their kids should not be underestimated. After all, this is a device that many children are already familiar with, and moving from what you have at home and bringing the experience to school makes sense. While laptops and keyboards are what we as adults are familiar with, children who grow up with hand-me-down tablets will be more adept with touchscreens. Combined with just how many educational apps there are available on the iPad, it’s no surprise that Apple sees the iPad as key to getting back into classrooms.

Yet, the cost is a barrier. Given the choice between a $300 iPad and Chromebooks that start at $150, it’ll be hard for schools to pick the former over the latter. Sure, one has sleek and powerful apps, but the other has a keyboard, with all the important functionality, for a cheaper price.

Apple could make a student-only iPad or Macbook just for the educational market, perhaps constructed out of a durable polycarbonate. As long as there was enough performance and power to properly run any and all educational apps as well as Apple’s own productivity tools without hiccups. It might not be as shiny and glossy as the iPad announced today or the current Macbook line, but it wouldn’t need to be.

But the reality is, we probably won’t see anything like that anytime soon. At the end of the day, Apple has stuck to its guns as a purveyor of high-end electronics. It would be very unlike Apple to suddenly produce cheaper budget versions of its hardware just to keep up with its rivals (the iPhone 5c didn’t last long, remember). Which is unfortunate, because that might be what it needs to do in order to convince more schools to switch to iPad.

Catch up on all of the news from Apple’s education event right here!

SANTA ANA, Calif.—Orange County officials on Tuesday voted to condemn parts of California’s approach to immigration, aligning themselves with the Trump administration as the state increasingly stakes out an oppositional role.

At a packed public hearing, the county’s board of supervisors—all Republicans—also voted to support a federal lawsuit against California’s so-called sanctuary state law, which strictly limits when and how local authorities can cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

…

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a surprise trip to China this week, meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of planned summits with South Korean and U.S. leaders, Chinese and North Korean state media confirmed Wednesday.   

The journey, which is believed to be Kim’s first foreign trip since he came to power in 2011, adds a new piece to a complex diplomatic puzzle over the future of North Korea’s nuclear program. 

The announcement ends a mystery that started on Monday, when a mysterious train chugged into central Beijing, spurring reports of a high-profile visitor from North Korea. 

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed that the visitor was indeed Kim, along with his wife, Ri Sol Ju, arriving for an “unofficial” visit at the invitation of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. The confirmation came sometime after the North Korean group is believed to have departed China.

Kim traveled with all his top aides, KCNA said, including Choe Ryong Hae, often called the No. 2 leader of North Korea and the head of the powerful Organization and Guidance Department, and Ri Su Yong, the former ambassador to Switzerland and foreign minister, who is now a top official in the Politburo. 

China and North Korea have had close ties for decades, but in recent years, the relationship has been stressed. Kim’s visit suggests an effort to repair relations ahead of Kim’s planned meetings with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, and then U.S. President Donald Trump. 

Chinese and North Korean accounts of the meeting struck a positive tone. “We speak highly of this visit,” Xi told Kim, according to Chinese state media.

Kim’s toast to Xi: “It is appropriate that my first trip abroad is in China’s capital, and my responsibility to consider continuing NK-China relations as valuable as life,” according to KCNA.

The question of who was on the armored train had gripped the Chinese capital for days. The train arrived unannounced. Passengers disembarked and boarded limos. After nightfall, a motorcade drove to a state guesthouse where foreign dignitaries often stay. 

But Chinese officials and media and the South Korean government were initially quiet about the identities of those who had been aboard.

Chinese netizens looking for answers hit a wall. On Tuesday, three of the top 10 blocked terms on Weibo, a microblogging site, were “Kim Jong Un,” “North Korea” and “Fatty the third,” a popular Chinese nickname for Kim, according to freeweibo.com, a website that tracks censorship.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the news of Kim’s visit by saying that the Chinese government had briefed the Trump administration about the visit on Tuesday. The briefing included a “personal message from President Xi to President Trump,” she said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in this still image taken from video released on March 28. (Reuters Tv/Reuters)

The Trump administration sees the development “as further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is creating the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue with North Korea,” Sanders said.

Chinese experts said a visit by a senior North Korean leader before the meetings with Moon and Trump made sense. 

“At a possibly historic moment, before the start of a dramatic play on the Korean Peninsula, China was losing the spotlight,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea expert at Beijing’s Renmin University. A visit would restore Beijing’s leading role, he reasoned.  

Zhang Liangui, a retired professor and Korea scholar at the Central Party School in Beijing, said, “The North Korea nuclear issue cannot be solved by solely relying on negotiations between North Korea and the United States, because, essentially, the nuclear issue is a regional security issue, not an issue of the relationship between North Korea and the United States.” 

Experts also said secrecy was standard for North Korean visitors. “Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, employed a similar approach in the past,” said Lu Chao, a Korea expert at China’s Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s usually a secret visit and then publicized after the North Korean leader has left.” 

It was the example of Kim Jong Il’s 2011 visit that provided early clues that something was up.

The detective work started Monday when train spotters and North Korea watchers noticed two suspicious developments: tight security at the China-North Korea border and train delays across the northeast.

On Monday afternoon, Japanese broadcaster NTV spotted an unusual train pulling into a station in the heart of the capital. It was green and yellow and looked a lot like the trains used by Kim Jong Il in 2011. 

As the news started to spread, so did unverified videos of a motorcade speeding through the Chinese capital. Soon, unconfirmed reports of Kim sightings were spreading in chat groups.

Anna Fifield in Tokyo, Philip Rucker in Washington, Amber Ziye Wang, Shirley Feng, Luna Lin and Yang Liu in Beijing, Min Joo Kim in Seoul and Yuki Oda in Tokyo contributed to this report.

Read more:

Kim Jong Un’s North Korea: Life inside the totalitarian state

North Korea’s one-percenters savor life in ‘Pyonghattan’

Kim Jong Un: Is North Korea’s leader desperate or confident?

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday ordered Uber Technologies Inc. to suspend testing autonomous vehicles on public roadways in the state, a rebuke by a former supporter that takes the company’s decision on testing out of its hands.

The governor’s decree follows the fatal crash of a self-driving Uber on a Tempe street two Sundays ago when it struck a pedestrian walking her bike across the street outside of a crosswalk.

Mr….

The expulsions brought into focus the disconnect between aggressive actions taken against the Kremlin by the Trump administration and the president’s public eagerness to have a cooperative relationship with Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump has staunchly resisted criticizing the Russian president, even as he imposed sanctions on a series of Russian organizations and individuals for interference in the 2016 presidential election and what the administration called other “malicious cyberattacks.”

Mr. Trump, who energetically comments on almost any other subject on Twitter or in encounters with reporters, stayed conspicuously silent on the showdown with Russia on Monday, leaving it to aides to explain his decision.

“The only real conclusion to draw is there is something of a divide,” said Thomas Wright, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe. “They may have convinced him to sign off, but he doesn’t want to be the face of it. He could have resolved this any day with a 10-minute appearance. That’s the part that’s puzzling to me.”

Michael Anton, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Mr. Trump deserved credit for organizing the joint response and expressed frustration at the perception that the president had not been firm enough with Russia.

“No matter what we do, it’s like, ‘You guys are soft on Russia,’” he said. “What do we have to do to show that we’re tough? We just coordinated a 22-nation action and kicked out 60 Russians.”

Mr. Anton said the president did not publicly excoriate Russia for its actions because he wanted to maintain a constructive relationship at the level of the countries’ leaders. “Happy talk on one phone call is better than belligerent talk on one phone call,” he said.

Speaking from the White House lectern on Monday, Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, called the poisoning attack “brazen” and “reckless,” and said that it impeded Mr. Trump’s continued desire to foster a constructive relationship with the Russians.

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“We want to have a cooperative relationship,” Mr. Shah said. “The president wants to work with the Russians, but their actions sometimes don’t allow that to happen.”

Indeed, aides were intent on describing a president who was keenly aware of Russian misbehavior. One official, who was not authorized to publicly describe the president’s private conversations, said Mr. Trump sounded aggressive about Moscow during a discussion with advisers in the Oval Office on Friday, calling Russia’s actions of late “dangerous.”

The American expulsion order was designed to root out Russians actively engaging in intelligence operations against the country, White House officials said. Those expelled included 12 people identified as Russian intelligence officers who have been stationed at the United Nations in New York, and 48 operating under the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Russians and their families have seven days to leave the United States, according to officials. American officials estimate that there are more than 100 Russian intelligence officers in the United States.

The Trump administration also announced that it would close the Russian Consulate in Seattle because of its proximity to Naval Base Kitsap, one of two American naval bases that house a fleet of nuclear-powered, ballistic missile-carrying submarines.

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Mr. Shah said the president took a proactive role in speaking with foreign leaders and encouraging others to join the efforts. White House officials who described the expulsion order said it had coordinated with about a dozen American allies. A British official said London’s diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials had spoken with their American counterparts on a daily, even hourly, basis since the attack on Mr. Skripal.

The Kremlin has maintained that it had nothing to do with the poisoning. In a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday, officials accused British authorities of “a prejudiced, biased as well as hypocritical stance” in carrying out the expulsions, and castigated European Union and NATO member countries for following suit.

“It goes without saying that this unfriendly move by this group of countries will not go unnoticed, and we will respond to it,” the statement read.

Current and former diplomats said the real test of the expulsions would be if they served to deter Russia from further intervention in other countries.

“The key question for me is whether all this — and whatever else is to follow — will finally persuade Putin that the cost of killing off enemies and ‘traitors’ and subverting other people’s societies in order to ‘make Russia great again’ just isn’t worth it,” said Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to the United States. “That would be a great prize for the free world, and for British diplomacy.”

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Poland has positioned itself to take a lead role in coordinating a response from the Eastern European nations traditionally most wary of their giant neighbor to the east. Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz called the incident in Britain an “unprecedented attack on civilians with the use of chemical weapon, unseen in Europe since World War II.”

The expulsion of Russian diplomats was an unprecedented move by Warsaw, the first time it has taken diplomatic action against its neighbor because of Russian behavior outside of Poland.

Germany’s move not only signaled solidarity with London, but also suggested the incoming foreign minister, Heiko Maas, may be more hawkish toward Moscow than his predecessor.

“The attack in Salisbury shook us all in the European Union,” Mr. Maas said. “For the first time since the end of World War II, a chemical war agent was used in the middle of Europe.”

Mr. Maas said Germany did not take the decision “flippantly.”

“But the fact and indications point to Russia. The Russian government has so far not answered any of the open questions and has shown no readiness to play a constructive role in solving this attack,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s decision to join a united front against Russia came amid a personnel churn in the White House as numerous aides, including his national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, have said they will leave the administration. Last month, Mr. McMaster called evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election “incontrovertible.”

His words angered the president, who remains anxious over the continued investigation into his campaign’s contact with Russian officials. Mr. Trump publicly rebuked General McMaster on Twitter for forgetting “to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” referring to his Democratic election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The harsher stance on Russia will also prove to be an early test of the ideological compatibility of the president’s newly revamped national security team. Last week, Mr. Trump announced that he would replace General McMaster with John R. Bolton, long a vocal critic of Mr. Putin who has called Russian interference in the 2016 election “a true act of war.” Mike Pompeo, the nominee for secretary of state, has been quieter with his criticisms.

And then there is the president himself, whose public declarations have repeatedly found themselves in conflict with the policy decisions rolled out in his White House. Brian McKeon, who served as a chief of staff of the national security counsel under President Barack Obama, said the staff disruptions were sure to play out if the Trump administration was considering taking further action against Russia.

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“Bolton’s worldview is that there should be more” measures, including sanctions, Mr. McKeon said. “I don’t think that’s the president’s view.”

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The counterpuncher, so far, has held his punches.

President Trump exercised uncharacteristic public restraint Monday following an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in which adult film star Stormy Daniels described, in vivid detail, a consensual sexual encounter with Trump — a relationship the president has repeatedly denied.

But privately, the president has lobbed sharp attacks at Daniels and her media tour, calling her allegations a “hoax” and asking confidants if the episode is hurting his poll numbers. The president even has griped to several people that Daniels is not the type of woman he finds attractive.

Trump — who was among the estimated 22 million Americans who watched the Daniels interview that aired Sunday night — asked staff in the White House if they, too, had watched and wondered what they thought of it, someone who has spoken to him said. The president said that he personally did not think Daniels appeared credible, added this person, who has talked to the president about his interactions with the pornographic film star and did not want to be identified discussing them.

But publicly, Trump was uncharacteristically silent after the “60 Minutes” interview, in which Daniels recounted having unprotected sex with Trump in 2006 and described being verbally threatened five years later by a man she didn’t know to stay silent about her allegations. Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford and who was 27 years old during the alleged encounter, also said that she did not find Trump, then 60, attractive and that she viewed the encounter simply as a “business deal.” She said that Trump had floated the idea of her appearing on his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”

Experts say any possible legal danger for Trump stemming from the alleged affair could come from the nondisclosure agreement that his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, executed with Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. In exchange for her silence, Cohen facilitated a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016 — which, if deemed an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign, would violate federal law.

The president and his White House staff have hewed to a remarkably disciplined and restrained playbook — a departure for the normally brash Trump, who is usually reluctant to let a slight go unanswered.

Trump has not personally addressed the matter in recent weeks, and while his spokesmen have broadly denied the allegations on his behalf, they have declined to publicly litigate Daniels’s specific claims.

“The president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims,” Raj Shah, the principal deputy White House press secretary, told reporters Monday. “The only person who’s been inconsistent is the one making the claims.”

The closest Trump skirted to weighing in came in a tweet Monday morning that did not reference Daniels or the interview but generally decried what he said were a spate of false media reports. “So much Fake News,” Trump wrote. “Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great!”

Lanny Davis, a former White House special counsel who helped President Bill Clinton navigate the Monica Lewinksy scandal, said Trump is sending a message with his lack of direct engagement.

“His absence of comment, to me, was a concession to a not very shocking or newsworthy conclusion, which is that he carried on extramarital affairs,” said Davis, a partner at the law firm Davis Goldberg Galper. “He was silent and wasn’t attacking or criticizing or contradicting her.”

President Trump, flanked by Vice President Pence, speaks after signing a $1.3 trillion spending bill last week. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

But Daniels has been on Trump’s mind. Over the weekend at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., he talked to friends and club members about the controversy, and on Saturday he dined with Cohen.

Trump’s friends and advisers have been cautioning him that he has little to gain by getting into a back-and-forth with Daniels.

“He’s really not in a punch-back mode,” said one friend who has discussed the matter with the president in recent days and spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “Everyone is telling him, look, you can’t win here, so just do nothing.”

Trump has calculated that the salacious details from Daniels and other women now surfacing publicly will not erode his political support in any meaningful way. The president has convinced himself, said one Republican in frequent touch with the White House, that the scandal will blow over — in part because, for decades, Trump deliberately presented himself as a Manhattan millionaire playboy. 

“The president, when he used to be plain old Donald Trump, used to say all publicity is good publicity,” said Louise Sunshine, a former longtime executive at the Trump Organization. “He used to enjoy negative publicity because he said even that is good publicity.”

Trump also believes his base of loyal supporters, including Christian conservatives, will not abandon him, just as they stuck by his side after the “Access Hollywood” tape was reported in The Washington Post in October 2016.

“The president is correct believing that his solid group of supporters, including evangelicals and Protestants, are not going to leave him on this issue,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide. “He’s delivered for them on judges, which is really the most important issue, and on life” — a reference to abortion policy.

Nunberg added, “I don’t think anybody believes that they elected Saint Joseph.”

Still, Trump’s friends say that the allegations — not only from Daniels, but also from Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who has alleged a nearly year-long affair with Trump, and from Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant who is suing Trump for defamation — have caused a strain in his marriage.

First lady Melania Trump did not return to Washington with Trump on Sunday, instead remaining at Mar-a-Lago for what a White House aide called a previously scheduled “spring break.”

Sunshine, who said she thought Daniels was “very believable,” said that based on her years working with Trump, she thought he would probably be most bothered by the scandal’s impact on his family.

“I think it probably would upset him because it would upset Melania, it would upset his daughter,” Sunshine said.

Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for the first lady, issued a public appeal for privacy that seemed to reference the president’s 12-year-old son, Barron, who was born around the time of the alleged affair with Daniels. “While I know the media is enjoying speculation salacious gossip, Id like to remind people there’s a minor child who’s name should be kept out of news stories when at all possible,” Grisham tweeted.

Inside the West Wing, senior officials believe Daniels’s account to be largely credible and consider it a serious news story that could deal real and lasting damage to the president, according to one of Trump’s advisers. 

The White House communications team collectively monitors all Daniels developments but has largely tried to leave the official response to Trump’s outside lawyers involved in the case, a White House aide said. There is little upside, this person added, in trying to respond to each new twist and turn.

“We don’t necessarily know exactly what happened and all the details, and trying to create a response based on a lack of knowledge is like flying blind,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. “Once the White House gets into the business of actually responding to it, we’ll go down this rabbit hole of just being consumed with all things Stormy.”

At Monday’s briefing, Shah was peppered with questions about Daniels. He tried to avoid answering with much detail and referred some questions to Cohen.

Asked whether Trump had watched the “60 Minutes” interview, Shah said, “I’m not going to get into what the president may or may not have seen.” He later added, “There are clips of it playing all over, in the morning news shows.”

Pressed to explain the offer of compensation to Daniels to ensure her silence, Shah seemed to defend the move. “False charges are settled out of court all the time. And this is nothing outside the ordinary,” he said.

Trump’s denials of Daniels’s allegations have been consistent since his presidential campaign. In 2016, Trump acknowledged to some of his closest political advisers that he had met Daniels but repeatedly denied to them that he ever had a salacious encounter with her, two people familiar with the matter said.

Once, when the topic of Daniels came up on Trump’s private plane near the end of the campaign, the candidate asked what year the encounter was said to have taken place, these people said. When he was told 2006, he simply shrugged and moved the conversation along, they added.

The White House has largely adopted Trump’s nothing-to-see-here posture. Republican allies say they have received little guidance, and no official talking points, on how to handle questions about Daniels or the other women.

One Republican operative who works closely with the White House described the information vacuum strategy: “It’s almost like it doesn’t exist.”