Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the end of a major U.S.-Russia arms control treaty, British government turmoil over the newly released Epstein files, and Chinese President Xi Jinping pressing U.S. President Donald Trump on Taiwan.

The last nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States expired on Thursday, leaving the two countries without limits on their arsenals for the first time since 1972. U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that a “better agreement” is needed, one that includes emerging nuclear powerhouse China. But until then, the owners of roughly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads remain unchecked.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the end of a major U.S.-Russia arms control treaty, British government turmoil over the newly released Epstein files, and Chinese President Xi Jinping pressing U.S. President Donald Trump on Taiwan.

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The last nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States expired on Thursday, leaving the two countries without limits on their arsenals for the first time since 1972. U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that a “better agreement” is needed, one that includes emerging nuclear powerhouse China. But until then, the owners of roughly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads remain unchecked.

Signed in 2010 by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the so-called New START treaty went into force in February 2011 and was set to expire in 15 years. The agreement capped the number of nuclear warheads that each country can deploy to 1,550 and included significant mechanisms for verification and transparency.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in February 2023 that he was suspending his country’s participation in the treaty over Washington’s support for Ukraine, but the Russian Foreign Ministry said shortly after that Moscow would continue abiding by the agreement’s limits on the number of warheads it........

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