SUMMARY:Fear around the North’s missile and nuclear programs have spiked with false alarms in Hawaii over the weekend and Japan on Tuesday. At a Vancouver summit, U.S. officials hope to unite the West to target North Korea economically. Meanwhile, the two Koreas continue their first direct talks in two years. Nick Schifrin talks to retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman.
SUMMARY: South Korea conducted more military drills Tuesday, the latest to deter North Korea after its nuclear test on Sunday. But there are growing concerns about U.S.-South Korea relations, as President Trump pushes South Korea to get tougher, threatening a trade deal and potentially driving a wedge between the two allies. William Brangham reports on the tensions rising with the Korean peninsula.
SUMMARY: Word of a significant policy reversal came not from the Pentagon, but from President Trump's Twitter feed, where he announced that transgender people would be banned from the U.S. military. Socially conservative groups welcomed the decision, but it drew quick condemnation from Democrats and some leading Republicans. Judy Woodruff learns more from William Brangham.
SUMMARY:Two years since the Iran nuclear agreement was signed, President Trump may be on the way to pulling the U.S. out of the deal. The President indicated in an interview he's willing to overrule the State Department and not certify Iran's compliance. John Yang talks to Robert Malley, a former White House negotiator for the Iran nuclear talks, and Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
SUMMARY: What would happen today if the President ever gave the order to unleash nuclear weapons? Granted rare access to America's nuclear war fighters, veteran correspondent Jamie McIntyre on special assignment for the NewsHour profiles the people and the fleet that would carry out such a mission, then joins John Yang to discuss what he's learned about America's aging arsenal.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Over the past eight months, we have aired three stories about America's aging nuclear arsenal.
Tonight, we thought we'd share with you some of the more interesting things we learned along the way.
John Yang has that.
JOHN YANG (NewsHour): Our past stories looked at the debate over rebuilding America's nuclear submarines, missiles and bombs, now that much of the current arsenal is reaching the end of its service life.
And, tonight, to continue our unprecedented look behind the scenes, we meet some of the men and women charged with this great responsibility.
MAN: All stations, all stations, this is absentee, absentee.
JAMIE MCINTYRE:If the President ever gives the order to unleash nuclear weapons, the men and women whose fingers are on the triggers would hear something like this.
MAN: Yankee, mike. Stand by, uniform.
JAMIE MCINTYRE: It's the sound of an emergency action message. It's only a drill, but in a real-life situation, the highly encrypted message sent to bombers, submarines and missile crews would tell them which war plan to execute and which targets to destroy.
The coded message echoes, because it's sent by many different radios around the world, to ensure that even if the nation were under nuclear attack, at least one of the messages would get through.
The “NewsHour” was granted rare access to America's nuclear war fighters over the past six months. At Minot Air Force base in North Dakota, we spent the day with the airmen who load the B-52 bombers and the crews that fly them.
Chief Master Sergeant Lee Robins is the wing weapons manager.
WATCH ALL THE STORIES IN OUR “AGING ARSENAL” SERIES:
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
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