Just minutes into Sebastian Gorka’s appearance on Fox & Friends to discuss escalating nuclear tensions between Washington D.C. and Pyongyang, President Donald Trump issued his latest warning to North Korea via Twitter. 
 
 Following Trump’s comments warning North Korea against continuing their nuclear threats on Tuesday — and Pyongyang’s response — the U.S. president took to Twitter early Wednesday to boast about America’s powerful nuclear arsenal. 
 
 Asked about Trump’s warnings, Gorka said the president ” is saying don’t test America and don’t test Donald J. Trump.” 
 
 “We are not just a superpower,” Gorka continued. “We were a superpower. We are now a hyper-power. Nobody in the world, especially not North Korea, comes close to challenging our military capabilities.” 
 
 Gorka then reiterated the hardline on North Korea: “So the message is very clear, don’t test this White House, Pyongyang,” before claiming that the hermit kingdom is a “very insignificant threat in terms of scale.” 
 
 Despite escalating warnings coming from the White House, Gorka said the ball is in North Koreas court to “stand down the rhetoric.” 
 
 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm on North Korea hours before the president’s tweets on Monday morning, saying “Americans should sleep well at night,” and that there is no imminent threat from Pyongyang. 
 
 Later in the interview, Gorka was asked about comments from Democratic lawmakers, as well as Republicans like Sen. John McCain, condemning Trump’s “reckless” and “bombastic comments” as unhelpful. 
 
 As Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade phrased it, “you’re shaking your head — what’s your reaction to American lawmakers turning against the president’s words?” 
 
 Gorka responded by invoking White House grievances about leaks, before claiming that both leaks and “these kinds of statements” sadden him. 
 
 The White House staffer then made the argument that Americans need to throw their support behind Trump in this time of crisis: 
 
 “These are the moments when we have to come together as a nation and support the executive,” he said. “Whether you voted for him or not, whether they’re a Democrat or whether they’re a Republican, these are trying times.” 
 
 “During the Cuban missile crisis we stood behind JFK,” Gorka said, before making an alarming claim about the current state of affairs: “This is analogous to the Cuban missile crisis.” 
 
 “We need to come together,” he continued, before arguing that Americans should put the country over their political party. 
 
 [image via screengrab] 
 
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 Follow Aidan McLaughlin (@aidnmclaughlin) on Twitter 
 
 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Pacific island of Guam is home to the US Air Force's Andersen air base 
 
 North Korea has said it is considering carrying out missile strikes on the US Pacific territory of Guam. 
 
 The North's official news agency said on Tuesday the plan involved firing medium-to-long-range rockets at Guam, where US strategic bombers are based. 
 
 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, flying into Guam, said there was no imminent threat from North Korea. 
 
 He also defended President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday threatened Pyongyang with "fire and fury". 
 
 Mr Tillerson said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not understand diplomatic language, and a strong message was needed that he would understand. 
 
 "I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the US... will defend itself and its allies," he said. 
 
 On Wednesday, Mr Trump tweeted that the US nuclear arsenal was "more powerful than ever before", but added he was hopeful "we will never have to use this power". 
 
 The recent exchanges mark a sharp rise in rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang, but China has urged calm. 
 
 A foreign ministry statement quoted by Reuters called on all sides to avoid words or actions which might escalate the situation and to make greater efforts to resolve the issue via talks. 
 
 The UN recently approved further economic sanctions on North Korea, which Pyongyang said were a "violent violation of our sovereignty", warning the US would "pay a price". 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Trump threatened a response 'like the world has never seen' 
 
 On Wednesday, the official KCNA news agency said North Korea was "carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam" using its domestically made medium-to-long-range Hwasong-12 missiles. 
 
 The news agency reported a military statement issued on Tuesday, which probably came in response to US military drills in Guam. 
 
 However, there has been no indication that any attack on Guam by North Korea is imminent. 
 
 In a message to the public, the governor of Guam Eddie Baza Calvo said there was currently "no threat" to the island and the Marianas archipelago, but that Guam was "prepared for any eventuality". 
 
 North Korea's statement is the latest stage in a heating up of rhetoric and tension. 
 
 Pyongyang, which has tested nuclear devices five times, launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in July, claiming it now had the ability to hit mainland US. 
 
 On Tuesday, media reports in the US claimed the North had achieved its goal of making a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption North Korea's second intercontinental missile launched last month was "seen from Japan" 
 
 While not confirmed, this was seen as one of the last obstacles to North Korea being a fully nuclear-armed state. 
 
 A report in the Washington Post, citing US intelligence officials, suggested North Korea was developing nuclear weapons capable of hitting the US at a much faster rate than expected. 
 
 A Japanese government defence white paper also said the weapons programme had "advanced considerably" and that North Korea possibly now had nuclear weapons. 
 
 North Korea's missile programme explained 
 
 In response, President Trump warned North Korea to stop threatening the US, saying they would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen". 
 
 However, veteran US Senator John McCain was sceptical about Mr Trump's statement, saying he was "not sure that President Trump is ready to act". 
 
 'Scary' situation - BBC's Yogita Limaye in Seoul, South Korea 
 
 On the streets of Seoul, barely 50km (30 miles) from the border with North Korea, the latest developments have drawn mixed reactions. Kim Seong-su, 62, said he thought Pyongyang was bluffing to preserve its regime and justify its nuclear programme. 
 
 But others are more concerned. Yeon Eui-sook says she finds the situation scary. "I hope everyone can live in peace. Kim Jong-un keeps doing this and making us worry," she said. 
 
 Analysts say the language from Pyongyang always gets more aggressive in August, when the US and South Korea conduct joint military exercises. But this time - with a US president who also uses strong words - the confrontation is getting even fiercer than usual. 
 
 North Korea had reacted angrily after the fresh sanctions were announced on Saturday by the UN, in an attempt to pressure it into giving up its nuclear ambitions. 
 
 The sanctions aim to reduce North Korea's export revenues by a third. 
 
 KCNA said North Korea would retaliate and make "the US pay a price" for drafting the new measures. 
 
 It called the sanctions a "violent violation of our sovereignty", the news agency said. 
 
 Meanwhile on Wednesday the UK Foreign Office said it would "continue to work with the US and our international partners to maintain pressure on North Korea". 
 
 "We have been consistently clear and forthright in our condemnation of North Korea's destabilising and illegal behaviour, including through support for UN Security Council resolutions to bring in sanctions that will limit North Korea's ability to pursue its nuclear weapons programme," a spokesman said. 
 
 A spokesman for Germany's foreign ministry, quoted by AFP, said it was watching the situation "with the greatest concern" and called on all sides to use restraint. 
 
 The tiny but important island of Guam 
 
 The 541sq km (209 sq miles) volcanic and coral island in the Pacific between the Philippines and Hawaii. 
 
 It is a "non-incorporated" US territory, with a population of about 163,000. 
 
 That means people born in Guam are US citizens, have an elected governor and House Representative, but cannot vote for a president in US national elections. 
 
 US military bases cover about a quarter of the island. About 6,000 personnel are based there and there are plans to move in thousands more. 
 
 It was a key US base in World War Two, and remains a vital staging post for US operations, giving access to potential flashpoints like the South China Sea, the Koreas and the Taiwan Straits. 
 
 Guam profile from BBC Monitoring 
 
 Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning ||||| This undated picture released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency via KNS on March 7, 2017 shows the launch of four ballistic missiles by the Korean People's Army (KPA) during a military drill. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: STR, This content is subject to copyright.) 
 
 Despite growing concerns about a nuclear strike on the U.S. by North Korea, emergency management officials in Washington state say they are prevented from forming an evacuation plan in the event of a nuclear attack. An effort is underway to change that. 
 
 Multiple reports on Tuesday indicated U.S. intelligence believed North Korea had reached the capability of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to make it small enough to load onto a missile. That development comes years earlier than previously thought. 
 
 President Donald Trump responded with a warning. 
 
 “North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump said Tuesday. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” 
 
 The President followed that up Wednesday with tweets touting the capability of America's nuclear arsenal, adding that he hopes it never has to be used. 
 
 
 
 "My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before," he said. "Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!" 
 
 
 
 My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2017 
 
 ...Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2017 
 
 
 
 But if there is an imminent threat of attack on Washington state, there is no plan on how to evacuate. State law prevents it. 
 
 RCW 38.52.030, passed in 1983, says "The comprehensive, all-hazard emergency plan authorized under this subsection may not include preparation for emergency evacuation or relocation of residents in anticipation of nuclear attack.” 
 
 Retired General Barry McCaffrey, who has been outspoken about the need to pay serious attention to North Korea, calls the law "goofy." 
 
 "Certainly it’s a goofy thing to not tell people to think about a major real threat," he said in April. "What we're trying to achieve is deterrence, which means ballistic missile defense." 
 
 FEMA has released a comprehensive guide to the nuclear threat, and the state's Emergency Management Plan covers all sorts of disasters. 
 
 A bipartisan bill to remove that section of the law was introduced in the state senate this year, but it never made it out of committee before the third special session ended. 
 
 "Because of paranoia and scare that preparing for war would lead to war, legislators back in the early 80s set up this silly system where we’re prohibited from planning for relocation or evacuation in the event of a nuclear war," said Sen. Mark Miloscia (R-Federal Way), who co-sponsored the bill. 
 
 "Since the state government committee was already planning to update our emergency planning for a large earthquake in the Puget Sound, it makes sense to update this statue at the same time. So, we can improve our planning for both earthquakes and for nuclear strikes," said Sen. David Frockt (D-Seattle), who sponsored the bill with Miloscia. 
 
 The author of the state law preventing a nuclear attack plan, former Democratic state lawmaker Dick Nelson, says at the time, Washington state was inundated with nuclear threats, and the idea was to create an example of peace. 
 
 "It was about finding a middle ground we could all agree on," he said in April. 
 
 Nelson also felt that if Seattle were to be attacked, the chances of survival would be so low that a preparation plan would have been moot anyway. 
 
 But Nelson says the law does provide an "out" so cities can create their own plan. He says the law doesn't necessarily prevent a plan from being put into place, but rather offers the option of not creating a plan. Regardless, the state says it has no evacuation plan. 
 
 Nelson still says he has no regrets. 
 
 "I haven't abandoned my basic belief that we need to find peaceful ways of dealing with the nuclear threat," he said. "But I also believe we have a crazy dictator who could do anything." 
 
 © 2017 KING-TV ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By William M. Arkin, Cynthia McFadden, Kevin Monahan and Robert Windrem 
 
 The National Security Council has presented President Donald Trump with options to respond to North Korea's nuclear program — including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News. 
 
 Both scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy prepared in advance of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. 
 
 The White House hopes the Chinese will do more to influence Pyongyang through diplomacy and enhanced sanctions. But if that fails, and North Korea continues its development of nuclear weapons, there are other options on the table that would significantly alter U.S. policy. 
 
 The first and most controversial course of action under consideration is placing U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. The U.S. withdrew all nuclear weapons from South Korea 25 years ago. Bringing back bombs — likely to Osan Air Base, less than 50 miles south of the capital of Seoul — would mark the first overseas nuclear deployment since the end of the Cold War, an unquestionably provocative move. 
 
 "We have 20 years of diplomacy and sanctions under our belt that has failed to stop the North Korean program," one senior intelligence official involved in the review told NBC News. "I’m not advocating pre-emptive war, nor do I think that the deployment of nuclear weapons buys more for us than it costs," but he stressed that the U.S. was dealing with a "war today" situation. He doubted that Chinese and American interests coincided closely enough to find a diplomatic solution. 
 
 An undated file photograph released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un overseeing Korean People's Army military exercise in Pyongyang, North Korea. KCNA/EPA/REX/Shutterstock / Shutterstock 
 
 "I don’t think that [deploying nuclear weapons] is a good idea. I think that it will only inflame the view from Pyongyang," retired Adm. James Stavridis told NBC News. "I don't see any upside to it because the idea that we would use a nuclear weapon even against North Korea is highly unlikely." 
 
 Two military sources told NBC News that Air Force leadership doesn't necessarily support putting nuclear weapons in South Korea. As an alternative, it's been practicing long-range strikes with strategic bombers — sending them to the region for exercises and deploying them in Guam and on the peninsula as a show of force. 
 
 Mark Lippert, the former U.S, ambassador to South Korea, said nuclear deployment there is a concept that's been embraced by a growing number of Koreans. 
 
 "Some polls put it at well over 50 percent," he said. "It's something that's being debated, and support for it over time, at least at this point, is climbing." 
 
 Still, he thinks it's a bad idea, undermining the U.S. objective of a nuclear-free zone and "South Korea's moral authority toward de-nuclearization of the peninsula." 
 
 A woman walks past a television screen showing file footage of a North Korean missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul on April 5, 2017. Jung Yeon-Je / AFP - Getty Images 
 
 Another option is to target and kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other senior leaders in charge of the country's missiles and nuclear weapons and decision-making. Adopting such an objective has huge downsides, said Lippert, who also served as an assistant defense secretary under President Barack Obama. 
 
 "Discussions of regime change and decapitation...tend to cause the Chinese great pause of concern and tends to have them move in the opposite direction we would like them to move in terms of pressure," he said. 
 
 Stavridis, a former NATO commander, said that "decapitation is always a tempting strategy when you're faced with a highly unpredictable and highly dangerous leader." 
 
 "The question you have to ask yourself," he said, "is what happens the day after you decapitate? I think that in North Korea, it's an enormous unknown." 
 
 A third option is covert action, infiltrating U.S. and South Korean special forces into North Korea to sabotage or take out key infrastructure — for instance, blowing up bridges to block the movement of mobile missiles. The CIA, which would oversee such operations, told NBC News it could offer "no guidance" on this option. But Stavridis said that he felt it was the "best strategy" should the U.S. be forced to take military action. He described such action as: "some combination of special forces with South Korea and cyber." 
 
 Last year, South Korea announced the creation of a special operations unit called Spartan 3000 to operate behind enemy frontlines inside North Korea. 
 
 Trump has already indicated he's open to unilateral action if China fails to rein in its ally, telling the Financial Times over the weekend, "If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will." 
 
 But on Wednesday, Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "any solution to the North Korea problem has to involve China." He said that while his job was to present "military options" to the White House, he finds it "hard ... to see a solution without China." 
 
 Related: Defense Secretary Says North Korea 'Has Got to be Stopped' 
 
 Still, military exercises and simulations focused on North Korea have been getting larger and more complex in recent years. In 2017 alone, these exercises have included; 
 
 "Key Resolve," a command post exercise held in March 
 
 "Foal Eagle," a peninsula-wide mobilization and logistics exercise underway now, 
 
 An anti-submarine exercise taking place this month, part of the "Silent Shark" series. 
 
 "Nimble Titan," a gigantic multinational missile defense synchronization experiment last month. 
 
 And last month, the Army announced that it would permanently station its version of the armed Predator — called Gray Eagle — on the Korean Peninsula. That follows an exercise last summer in which hunter-killer Reaper drones practiced the mock destruction of North Korean mobile missile launchers. 
 
 Since North Korea’s first successful nuclear test in 2009, the United States has adopted a strategy to "slow, stop, and defeat" the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile pursuits. That ranges from interdiction of supplies to interception of a ballistic missile actually in the air. 
 
 The Trump White House, through the National Security Council, asked for blue sky options in early February, a senior official told NBC on background. "Think big," the official said that the agencies were instructed. Many proposals have already been abandoned, but on the military side, sources say, the three options with the highest impact still constitute the next steps. 
 
 "It is absolutely appropriate," Stavridis said, for all contingencies to be considered. "In fact, it's mandatory for the Pentagon to present the widest possible array of options. That's what enables presidents to make the right decisions, when they see all the options on the table in front of them." ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption North Korea has ramped up its missile testing in recent months 
 
 CIA director Mike Pompeo has warned that North Korea is on the cusp of being able to hit the US with a nuclear missile. 
 
 He stressed Washington still preferred diplomacy and sanctions but said military force remained an option. 
 
 North Korea claims it already has the capability to strike the US. 
 
 Mr Pompeo also said that a US-Canadian hostage couple freed last week had in fact been held in Pakistan, rather than Afghanistan as initially assumed. 
 
 He said Canadian Joshua Boyle and his US wife Caitlan Coleman had been "held for five years inside of Pakistan". 
 
 This contradicted accounts from Pakistani officials, who said the family had been held in Afghanistan, and moved across the border into the Kurram tribal district of Pakistan on 11 October. 
 
 Pyongyang's 'final step' 
 
 North Korea is "close enough now in their capabilities that from a US policy perspective we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving that objective," Mr Pompeo said at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative Washington think tank, on Thursday. 
 
 "They are so far along in that, it's now a matter of thinking about how do you stop the final step." 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Pompeo said military force had to remain an option 
 
 He warned Pyongyang's missile expertise was now advancing so quickly that it was hard for US intelligence to be sure when it would succeed. 
 
 "When you're now talking about months our capacity to understand that at a detailed level is in some sense irrelevant," he said. 
 
 Last weekend, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had also insisted President Donald Trump wanted to resolve the confrontation with North Korea through diplomacy. 
 
 His statement had come after Mr Trump had publicly told him not to waste time seeking talks with Kim Jong-un. 
 
 Hostage controversy 
 
 In his speech, the CIA director also commented on the return of hostages Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman. 
 
 The couple were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 and had three children while in captivity. 
 
 Mr Pompeo said they had been "held for five years inside of Pakistan" - contradicting the official story given by Pakistani authorities that the couple had been held by the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, and were recently moved across the border into Pakistan. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Freed hostage Joshua Boyle after five years held hostage 
 
 His comments reinforce US media reports of anonymous US officials claiming the hostages had in fact been held by a Pakistani militant group supported by the country's secret service the entire time. 
 
 The Haqqani militant group is regarded as a close Taliban ally with support from Pakistan's military-run intelligence service. Pakistan denies such claims. 
 
 "I think history would indicate that expectations for the Pakistanis willingness to help us in the fight against radical [Islamist] terrorism should be set at a very low level," Mr Pompeo said. "Our intelligence would indicate the same." 
 
 "I think we should have a very real conversation with them about what it is they're doing and what it is they should do and the American expectations for how they should behave," he added. 
 
 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to travel to Pakistan next week. 
 
 Russia influence denied 
 
 In his wide-ranging speech, Mr Pompeo also said that the intelligence community had concluded "that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the [US] election". 
 
 The CIA later issued a statement that appeared to contradict Mr Pompeo's remark. 
 
 "The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed, and the Director did not intend to suggest that it had," Dean Boyd, director of the CIA's office of public affairs, said. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Trump denies he or his team ever colluded with Russia 
 
 The public report by the Director of National Intelligence released in January stated that the intelligence community did "not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election." 
 
 US intelligence agencies believe Russia tried to sway the election in favour of Trump and now there are several investigations looking into whether anyone from his campaign helped. 
 
 However, they have not assessed whether alleged Russian interference affected the election outcome. 
 
 Russia denies the allegations and President Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials. 
 
 The allegations are currently investigated by several US parliamentary committees as well as a special counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller. ||||| SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - South Korean and Japanese jets joined exercises with two supersonic U.S. B-1B bombers above and near the Korean peninsula on Thursday, two days after North Korea sharply raised tension by firing a missile over Japan. 
 
 The drills, involving four U.S. stealth F-35B jets as well as South Korean and Japanese fighter jets, came at the end of annual U.S.-South Korea military exercises focused mainly on computer simulations. 
 
 “North Korea’s actions are a threat to our allies, partners and homeland, and their destabilizing actions will be met accordingly,” said General Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces Commander, who made an unscheduled visit to Japan. 
 
 “This complex mission clearly demonstrates our solidarity with our allies and underscores the broadening cooperation to defend against this common regional threat.” 
 
 North Korea has been working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States and has recently threatened to land missiles near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. 
 
 On Monday, North Korea, which sees the exercises as preparations for invasion, raised the stakes in its stand-off with the United States and its allies by firing an intermediate-range missile over Japan. 
 
 On Thursday, its official news agency, KCNA, denounced the military drills in traditionally robust fashion, calling them “the rash act of those taken aback” by the missile test, which it described as “the first military operation in the Pacific.” 
 
 President Donald Trump, who has warned that the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” in case of North Korean provocation, reacted angrily to the latest missile test, declaring on Twitter that “talking is not the answer” to resolving the crisis over North Korea’s weapons programs. 
 
 U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was quick on Wednesday to stress that a diplomatic solution remained possible, but on Thursday he told reporters he agreed with Trump that Washington “should not be talking right now to a nation that is firing missiles over the top of Japan, an ally.” 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders reiterated at a regular briefing on Thursday that all options - diplomatic, economic and military - remained on the table. 
 
 Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera spoke to Mattis by telephone and agreed to keep putting pressure on North Korea in a “visible” form, Japan’s defense ministry said. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe said he and visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to urge China, North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in North Korea. 
 
 May and Abe also discussed the possibility of adopting a new U.N. Security Council resolution on North Korea, a British government source said. 
 
 SANCTION OPTIONS 
 
 The 15-member U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned the firing of the missile over Japan as “outrageous” and demanded that North Korea halt its weapons programs. But the U.S.-drafted statement did not threaten new sanctions. 
 
 Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers fly from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a mission, with an escort of a pair of Japan Self-Defense Forces F-15 fighter jets and U.S. Marines' F-35B fighter jets in the vicinity of Kyushu, Japan, in this photo released by Air Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan August 31, 2017. Air Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan/HANDOUT via REUTERS 
 
 Japan has been urging Washington to propose new Security Council sanctions, which diplomats said could target North Korean laborers working abroad, oil supplies and textile exports. 
 
 However, diplomats expect resistance from Russia and fellow veto-wielding power China, particularly given that new measures were only announced on Aug. 5 after North Korea tested its first two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July. 
 
 A U.S. ban on travel by Americans to North Korea comes into effect on Friday, a step announced after the death of a U.S. student shortly after his release from a 15-year prison sentence in the country, where three other Americans are still detained. 
 
 China repeated a call on Thursday for restraint by all parties. 
 
 Defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang told a monthly briefing China would never allow war or chaos on the Korean peninsula, its doorstep, and military means were not an option. 
 
 “China strongly demands all sides to exercise restraint and remain calm and not do anything to worsen tensions,” Ren said, adding that Chinese forces were maintaining a normal state of alert along the North Korean border. 
 
 Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the situation on the peninsula was serious. 
 
 “The current tense situation on the peninsula isn’t a screenplay or a video game,” she told reporters. “It’s real, and is an immense and serious issue that directly involves the safety of people from both the north and south of the peninsula, as well as peace and stability of the entire region.” 
 
 Slideshow (12 Images) 
 
 For an interactive on North Korea's missile capabilities, click: here 
 
 For a graphic on North Korean missile trajectories, ranges, click: here 
 
 For a graphic on Kim's new act of defiance, click: here
– President Trump doesn't appear to be heeding calls to end his rhetoric in regard to North Korea. In a pair of tweets, he boasted about America's nuclear prowess. "My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal," he tweeted. "It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before." He then added, "Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!" Earlier, in response to North Korea's threat to strike Guam, Trump retweeted a Fox News story about US Air Force jets taking off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam for a training mission, with a caption noting pilots could be ready to "fight tonight," notes the Wall Street Journal. Related: Ad-lib? The New York Times reports that Trump's "fire and fury" line from Tuesday was improvised. The newspaper says the president did not run the language by advisers in advance, including chief of staff John Kelly. A piece of paper Trump had in front of him was reportedly a fact sheet on the opioid crisis. Politico reporter Josh Dawsey's sources tell him the words were not "carefully vetted," adding, "Don't read too much into it." Mattis weighs in: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may have had a more calming tone on the subject Wednesday, but defense chief James Mattis followed up with some tough language. Among other things, he warned in an afternoon statement that North Korea should "cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people," per CNN. American nukes: Trump's tweets on the US arsenal were apparently in reference to a review of nuclear weapons that was ordered on Jan. 27 but isn't expected to be completed until year's end, reports the Washington Post. Such reviews are required by Congress about every eight years. After the last one in 2010, Barack Obama announced a $1 trillion plan to upgrade the nuclear arsenal over 30 years. Given all that, fact-checkers are pushing back on Trump's boast that he beefed up the arsenal, and that's putting it mildly. JFK comparison: “These are the moments when we have to come together as a nation and support the executive,” White House aide Sebastian Gorka said on Fox News, per Mediaite. “Whether you voted for him or not, whether they’re a Democrat or whether they’re a Republican, these are trying times. … During the Cuban missile crisis we stood behind JFK. This is analogous to the Cuban missile crisis.” Seeking ambassador: No ambassador to South Korea is in place yet under the new administration, and BuzzFeed reports that the absence of one is especially troubling now.