From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

The U.S. preparing for nuclear war.

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Point.

As a candidate, President Trump asked, if we don't use nuclear weapons, why do we have them?

Modernization had already begun with Barack Obama. Now it's more intense that at any time since the

Cold War, which ended when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to downsize their arsenals.

India, Pakistan, even North Korea have programs for nuclear weapons. The U.S. is buying new ones and B-52s may go back on 24-hour alert.

We'll hear about the benefits of the new strategy and the risks. Is it a requirement of modern reality or a return to nuclear madness?

Later on today's talking point, a real-life story for Halloween, the body part business. First, here's the news.

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Hello again, Mormon Al-Nayback with To the Point.

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize with his promise to work for an end of nuclear weapons, but he began modernizing the arsenal anyway.

President Trump is accelerating that process.

We'll hear progress reports and conflicting opinions

about the first real nuclear buildup by the United States since the end of the Cold War.

Today's talking point organ transplants are heavily regulated, but sales of all kinds of other body

parts are not. It may be easier to buy a human head on the internet than a bottle of wine.

First, this news update. The newest name in Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation is

George Papadopoulos. Here's candidate Trump, introducing one of five new foreign policy advisors

during last year's campaign. George Papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant.

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