Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Thursday, September 17th. In today's news, President Trump's plan for managing forests won't save us in a more flammable world.

The CDC director says coronavirus vaccines will not be widely available until the middle of next year.

In the latest crisis, low-income students are dropping out of college this fall

in alarming numbers.

But first, the big idea. Jim Mattis slept in his gym

clothes when he was Trump Secretary of Defense so that he could more quickly

join a top secret conference call whenever he

received an alert that a North Korean missile had been launched or was on the

launch pad. A flashing light was installed in his home's bathroom, so he would know immediately if such an alert came while he was showering.

A bell would also ring in the bedroom and kitchen.

This happened several times during the summer of 2017, according to Bob Woodward's new book.

The coverage of rage has focused on Trump willfully downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus during the early stages of the pandemic.

But what I was most struck by when reading it was just how real the danger of a fullscale nuclear conflagration with North Korea seemed to be

to the leaders of the US government three summers ago. The schoolyard tuns from that time

received plenty of attention.

Kim Jong-un called Trump a dottered.

Trump referred to Kim as Little Rocketman

and promised to rain down fire and fury if provoked.

But there were also a series of missile launches and significant

tactical escalations by both sides that registered little or no domestic

attention. In an interview with Woodward for the book, Trump said war with Pyongyang was, quote,

...