Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to resume testing nuclear weapons.

NPR's Jeff Brumfield says there's only one place in America where they can test them, and...

That's in the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. It's a place called the Nevada National Security Site. It's

absolutely massive. I was out there last year. It's bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

Basically, they dig a hole, bury the weapon, thousands of feet underground, and then they detonate it.

But the test site is not ready to do a really scientific test. They don't have the

experiment design. They don't have the instrumentation. That kind of test would take years to develop

because the U.S. hasn't tested since 1992. And here's Jeff Rumfield reporting.

Trump is back in Washington after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korea.

No deals on trade issues were reached, but China's near total export ban on rare earth minerals has been paused.

Democrats are slamming the Trump administration for politicizing the military.

And Pierce Quill Lawrence reports that includes leaving Democrats out of briefings on lethal strikes against alleged drugboats.

The Trump administration has labeled alleged narco-traffickers as illegal combatants.

That's the legal justification for military strikes against more than a dozen small boats,

killing more than 60 people without trial or presenting evidence. But Senate Democrats say they have

been excluded from a White House briefing on the issue, and House Democrats say the Pentagon

abruptly pulled its lawyers from a classified briefing of the Armed Services Committee. The White House says Democrats are soft on narco-trafficking.

Democrats say President Trump is using the military for politics, including making

campaign-style partisan speeches on military bases, which conflicts with the U.S.

military's centuries of apolitical tradition.

Quill Lawrence NPR News.

The leaders of several airlines are calling on Congress to end the government shutdown.

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