While Trump talks tough, US quietly cutting nuclear force
Mockups like this of a Minuteman 3 nuclear missile are used for training by maintenance crews in Wyoming.
WASHINGTON — The Air Force is quietly shrinking its deployed force of land-based nuclear missiles as part of a holdover Obama administration plan to comply with an arms control treaty with Russia. The reductions are nearing completion despite President Donald Trump’s argument that the treaty gives Moscow an unfair advantage in nuclear firepower.
The reduction to 400 missiles from 450 is the first for the intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, force in a decade File, Robert Burns / The Associated Press — when the arsenal came down from 500 such weapons. The Air Force says the latest cut in Minuteman 3 missiles will be completed in April, leaving the deployed ICBM arsenal at its smallest size since the early 1960s.
In 2014, President Barack Obama’s administration announced the planned ICBM reduction to tailor the overall nuclear force, including bombers and nuclear-armed submarines, to the New START accord that the U.S. and Russia sealed in 2010. Both nations must comply with the treaty’s limits by February 2018. The Associated Press
Fla. — Key West police detectives nabbed a man wanted in Georgia for an assortment of violent crimes, including felony strangulation and aggravated assault with a weapon — after he used a store rewards card, which tipped authorities off to his whereabouts.
The Keynoter reports Cobb County Sheriff’s officials contacted Key West police Thursday saying 37-year-old Jamaal Seymour was possibly in Key West and was wanted on a number of counts.
Shortly after, Seymour used his rewards card at a CVS pharmacy. Card holders can earn benefits like coupons.
Detectives spotted Seymour that night and approached him. Police said the man took off running, but they caught him a short time later.
He was booked locally for resisting arrest, giving false ID to an officer and being a fugitive.