LIMITS’ WITH MISSILES

U.S., BU dean says

regime. But hours later, Mattis, meeting yesterday with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo at the Pentagon, seemed to contradict Trump. "We're never out of dip-lomatic solutions," Mattis told reporters. But Trump also appeared to denounce previous U.S. efforts to try to appease North Korea in what an ex-pert called a "helpful" step. "The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extor-tion money, for 25 years," Trump tweeted. That appeared to be a reference to a previous practice under former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that saw the U.S. send $1.3 billion in food and fuel assistance to North Korea between 1995 and 2008 in hopes of appeasing the regime, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at Tufts University. Much of that money came after North Korea launched a missile across Japan in 1998, which sent a message that their defi-ance could be rewarded, said Lee, who added that Trump's tweet effectively declared that those days are over. "I think that's helpful to send a message to North Korea that no, thank you. we're not going to go back to appeasing you," Lee said. The increased tensions also come as Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin re-portedly relocated 1,500 citizens living along the 24-mile land border with North Korea, though it re-mains unclear whether that might have just been a training exercise. But experts don't expect the escalating tensions will trigger a preemptive U.S. military strike be-cause South Korea would be immediately attacked in retaliation. But in the U.S. territory of Guam, which North Ko-rea has reportedly drawn up plans to launch missiles toward, residents remain on edge. "Many of us have taken extra steps to prepare in whatever ways we think we ought to;' said Selina Onedera-Salas, who lives in Guam. "Notices filled with emergency response infor-mation and instructions were sent home with public school students at the start of the school year. Imagine how my children felt about reading those sheets before handing them over to me." The tension in Guam, she said, is palpable. "I have friends who have prepared their homes;' she said, "and I know a few others who feel like their

AP PHOTOS ‘VERY PROVOKING’: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, center top, smiles at the site of Tuesday’s missile test launch. The test, with a missile overflying Japan, comes as South Korean troops, above, are holding exercises with the U.S. military near the...