A Stockholm-based watchdog says the world's nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on nuclear deterrence in 2023.

The Air Force is reporting the first data on cancer diagnoses among troops who worked with nuclear missiles.

For 50 years the Minuteman missile has been armed and ready, day and night, for nuclear war on a moment’s notice.

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. An unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from California early Tuesday on a test flight to a target in the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force Global Strike Command said. The missile blasted off at 12:21 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base and its three reentry vehicles traveled 4,200 miles (6,759 kilometers) to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands as part of a developmental test, the command said from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. Test launches are essential to sustaining the aging Minuteman 3 nuclear weapon system, Col. Omar Colbert, the 576th Flight Test Squadron commander, said in a statement. The Air Force said test launches are not a reaction to world events. The launch calendars are developed three to five years in advance, and planning for individual launches takes six months to a year.