Good morning. The U.S. military blew up another boat in the Pacific Ocean that it claimed was carrying drugs, killing two people. The strikes have now claimed 130 lives. And a group of conservative activists has worked for more than a decade to stop all American government efforts to fight climate change. They’re “close to total victory,” one said. There’s more news below, including a look at the cognitive benefits of coffee. I’m going to start, though, with nuclear weapons.
The end of arms controlI grew up in a world where the prospect of nuclear war seemed remote, if not impossible. My school didn’t run the duck-and-cover drills that haunted baby boomers. My punk-rock friends largely sneered at their older siblings’ recordings of the 1979 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. None of us really understood the satire of “Dr. Strangelove.” The existential threat that hovered over our classrooms was AIDS. Then, last week, the United States and Russia allowed New START, their last nuclear arms control treaty, to die. For the first time in 50 years, the two nations do not have limits on the size or composition of their nuclear arsenals. Not only that, report my colleagues David Sanger and William Broad: The United States is considering deploying more nuclear weapons — and may even restart testing them. Trump unboundPresident Trump says he wants an “improved and modernized” agreement. But he hasn’t mentioned freezing the size of the American and Russian arsenals. The consequences for global security are myriad, and scary. For one thing, it leaves open the possibility of a new arms race, one that the United States, Russia and China have anticipated. For another, some U.S. allies already wonder if they can count on the protection of the U.S. as a nuclear deterrent. Some have begun to explore making their own nukes. Currently, just nine nations — Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. — command these weapons. Could others soon join them?
Amid that uncertainty comes the Trump administration’s plan to deploy more bombs and maybe test some. That would take the United States in the opposite direction from the greater and greater control of nuclear weaponry in place since Ronald Reagan was president. The nation has not conducted a nuclear test since 1992. The administration is already budgeting funds that would enable more warheads on the largest nuclear-armed submarines, David and Bill say. That puts enemies on notice, of course: A retaliatory strike by the U.S. could be bigger than ever. But it could also encourage other nations to do the same, threatening Trump’s desire to protect the nation with a “Golden Dome” to intercept missiles launched by its foes. The more targets there are, the harder it is to shoot them down. A new arms race?Last fall, Russia unveiled the Poseidon, an underwater drone that can cross an ocean to detonate a thermonuclear warhead. That could set off a radioactive tsunami and eliminate a coastal city. “There is nothing like this in the world in terms of the speed and the depth of the movement of this unmanned vehicle — and it is unlikely there ever will be,” Vladimir Putin said at the time. (He added that there were “no ways to intercept” it.) Russia is also trying to place a nuclear weapon in space, American officials said during the Biden administration, where it could vaporize fleets of American satellites. China, for its part, has tested a hypersonic missile that could follow a zigzag path and release a warhead that would be almost impossible to intercept. And it appears to have little interest in arms control until the size of its nuclear arsenal matches the ones controlled by Washington and Moscow, David and Bill report. American allies have a related worry: that Washington’s “nuclear umbrella” can’t be counted on to cover them. The prime minister of Poland suggested recently that the time had come for his country to explore nuclear options. And last month, when Trump was threatening to take over Greenland (remember that?), a leading newspaper in Sweden called for a Nordic nuclear arsenal. I’m glad not to be an eighth grader thinking about this before bed.
Over the past year, federal immigration agents patrolling in U.S. cities and towns have shot 16 people. In many of these cases, the government is quick to blame the people who are shot. Those claims have fallen apart when the cases have gone to court, as Alexandra Berzon and Allison McCann detail in a new article.
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If you think your daily doses of espresso or Earl Grey sharpens your mind, you just might be right. A large new study shows evidence of cognitive benefits from coffee and tea — as long as they’re caffeinated. Participants who drank two to three cups of coffee, or one to two cups of tea, daily for decades had a lower chance of developing dementia than people who drank little or no caffeine, the researchers reported. The study didn’t find additional benefits for people who drank more, though — possibly because there’s a limit to how much caffeine our bodies can metabolize.
China is too powerful to be reined in by diplomacy or tariff policy alone, Steven Rattner writes. Here is a column by Michelle Cottle on Trump’s obsession with naming things after himself. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Carbo-loading: Olympic athletes are taking their pasta consumption to the next level at the Games in Italy, spaghetti’s ancestral home. Sighting: A gray wolf was spotted in the Los Angeles region for the first time in nearly a century. Recycling: A brother-and-sister team in Spain works with divers to give abandoned plastic fishing nets a second life as home décor. Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was a ranking of the best Super Bowl ads.
972— That was the record for the number of career wins for a high school boys basketball coach in New York State. After 45 consecutive years at a high school in Queens, could Ron Naclerio beat it? Read his story.
Skiing: Lindsey Vonn, in her first public comments since crashing in the women’s downhill, said she had suffered a complex tibia fracture that is stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix. Curling: The U.S. mixed doubles team reached the gold medal match with a 9-8 upset win over defending the Olympic champion, Italy. The Americans will face Sweden today. Hockey: Team USA beat Switzerland 5-0 and improved to 3-0 in the women’s preliminary round. Next for the Americans is a showdown with Canada. Skiing: Philipp Raimund of Germany went from pulling out of a competition almost a year ago because of his fear of heights |
