Azia: Hey guys, I am Azia Celestino, and it is Friday, January 27

Azia: Hey guys, I am Azia Celestino, and it is Friday, January 27. Here we go, and first up, the tension between the United States and Mexico is getting real, and now a scheduled meeting between the two presidents has turned into a no-show.

A scheduled meeting between President Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was cancelled after a debate over Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border, which he says Mexico will pay for. But the Mexican president has repeatedly said his country is not paying.

The border between the U.S. and Mexico runs nearly 2,000 miles and is already protected by almost 700 miles of fencing, which cost more than $2 billion to build. President Trump wants to replace that fencing with a concrete wall spanning the entire border.

Trump has said his plan will cost $8 to $12 billion. Analysts peg the figure at $15 to
$40 billion. Critics say that money is better spent on more technology, equipment and manpower.

Manuel Pastor: You build a higher wall; somebody will build a higher ladder. What you need on the border in order to ensure security is more Border Patrol agents.

Azia: Now Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has also riled up some communities in the U.S. Several cities are resisting President Trump’s new policy toward so-called sanctuary cities. Yesterday, President Trump signed an order to cut off federal funding for sanctuary cities. These are cities that instruct law enforcement not to ask people about their immigration status, meaning whether or not they are in the U.S. legally.

There are more than 300 U.S. cities and counties that limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis. City leaders say it keeps the city safe.

Mayor Betsy Hodges: If people don't feel safe calling the police, they won't call the police, and we're a less safe city overall.

Azia: But President Trump says sanctuary cities give a free pass to people living here illegally. Last night, Miami, a city with a reported 150,000 illegal immigrants, said it would comply with Donald Trump’s order.

Okay now, some good news for the residents of Flint, Michigan. They may finally be able to drink their water from the tap. This week, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality released test results showing that the lead levels in Flint water had fallen below the government limit, meaning it is now safe to drink. Residents are still wary, and many continue to use bottled water, which they have been doing for more than a year.

The crisis began back in 2014, after Flint officials decided to switch the city's water source to the nearby Flint River and lead contaminated the drinking water. Too much lead can lead to long-term health effects like lower IQs and memory loss, especially for young people. Even though reports showed the water was dangerous, no one told the residents, who continued drinking the toxic water for months.

And more than a dozen city employees are facing criminal charges because of their alleged role in the water crisis.

All right, coming up, tick tock, tick tock — one clock is ticking faster than we would like.

Azia: Now, it may sound like something out of a comic book or a sci-fi movie, but the Doomsday Clock really does exist, right, Tom?

Tom: Yes, it does. It has been around for decades, actually. The clock is more of a symbolic thing than a reality, but it is a way to show the potential for a global collapse. The closer it gets to midnight, the closer we get to catastrophe.

Rachel Bronson: Today we move the clock a half-minute closer to midnight. It is now two and a half minutes to midnight.

Tom: The “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” released its latest update yesterday: two and a half minutes till the clock strikes midnight, the closest it has been to disaster in more than 60 years. The scientists look at world threats like climate change and economic collapse, but the clock really started because of the fear of nuclear war.

Bronson: It is a metaphor, but we are literally minutes away from a nuclear exchange should someone press a button.

Tom: With doomsday symbolically just minutes away, it is President Trump's finger on the nuclear button. During his campaign he called for the U.S. to "strengthen and expand its nuclear capability" — a reversal of almost 70 years of U.S. policy. But can one single person change the clock?

Bronson: Those are the issues that the Science and Security Board take into consideration. We very rarely make a decision based on an individual.

Tom: However, the president’s stance on climate change and nuclear weapons did have an impact, along with mounting tensions between global superpowers Russia and the U.S.

Over the last few years, Russia has been building up its arsenal. That has many people concerned that we could be entering a new arms race, where both countries make more and more powerful nuclear weapons in an attempt to get so strong that the other side won't mess with them.

The “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" debuted the clock in 1947 when the first nuclear arms race began, setting the initial time at seven minutes to midnight. The hands came closest to midnight — two minutes away — in 1953, after the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first hydrogen bombs, a more powerful kind of nuke.

Bill Downs: This seems to me to be more a day for a searching of the human soul perhaps than for any kind of scientific celebration.

Tom: We were furthest from annihilation in 1991, with 17 minutes to spare, after nuclear-capable countries signed an agreement to reduce their nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War. But the group admits they once got it wrong: The year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, the clock moved back to 12 minutes to midnight.

Bronson: That's the one that when we look back across our whole time series, is the one that we'd say they didn't know all the information at that point.

Bill Gertz: I'm not going to lose any sleep. I don't think we're near an apocalypse.

Tom: Bill Gertz writes about national security for the “Washington Times” and is publishing a new book, which details the continuing threat of nuclear weapons. He sees the Doomsday Clock simply as politics.

Gertz: In a lot of ways, the Doomsday Clock is being used by the liberal left to try to promote its agenda for nuclear disarmament, for greater efforts to control climate change and other elements.

Tom: But scientists say that is not the case.

Bronson: We've moved it for Republicans and Democrats and most recently under a Democratic administration. Our goal isn't to create panic, but it is to say, “This is very serious, and there's things that we can do.” And if we can have that conversation, that would be very productive.

Tom: Tom Hanson, Channel One News.

Azia: Thanks, Tom.

Okay, here is one for you: Which country has the most nuclear weapons in the world? Is it the U.S., Russia, China or North Korea? The answer is on ChannelOne.com.

Okay, next up, the road to a surprising friendship.

Azia: All right, guys, now Cassie Hudson is joining us for a Feel-Good Friday story.

Cassie: Azia, this story begins with an unusual encounter. A police officer late at night stops a black teen on the street, but what happens next makes it one of my favorite stories.

It seemed like a bad situation.

Officer Kirk Keffer: It’s not very well lit out here.

Cassie: Late at night in an industrial section of Benicia, California, Officer Kirk Keffer says he spotted a shadowy figure in a dark hoodie.

Keffer: Kind of caught me off guard because I normally don't see anybody out there, and there's no sidewalks, and he's kind of walking on the side of the street. 

Cassie: It was 18-year-old Jourdan Duncan, minding his own business.

Jourdan Duncan: And I noticed that it was a police car, and I was like, oh.

Cassie: But Jourdan explained to the officer he was just walking home from work, so Officer Keffer offered him a ride and learned what Jourdan is all about.

Keffer: Just his drive — his work ethic. And to me that speaks volumes.

Cassie: As Keffer took Jourdan from where he works at Pro-Form Laboratories, he started to really appreciate the young man sitting next to him because this wasn't just a trip around the block. This was a 7-mile trek — a two-and-a-half-hour walk to Jourdan's house a whole town away in Vallejo, California.

Duncan: He said, “And you're walking?” I said, “Yeah, I'm walking."

Keffer: Not many 18-year-olds that you meet have that kind of mindset. 

Cassie: Jourdan says he started walking to work after his car broke down last May. He says people have offered him rides, but he wants to make it on his own. That gave Officer Keffer an idea.

Duncan: He said, “Hey Jourdan, you remember me, right?” 

Keffer: I said, “Jourdan, you're not in trouble.” I said, “We just want to give you something."

Cassie: Keffer got the police association to buy Jourdan a new bike.

Duncan: I was just looking at the bike like, this bike is going to be cherished.

Cassie: Keffer also raised an additional $38,000 to help him buy a car and pursue his career — to be a police officer.

Keffer: It's an honorable job.

Cassie: Jourdan even got to ride along on a shift.

Keffer: I wanted to show him what law enforcement does.

Cassie: What started with a suspicious person may end with a perfect partnership. Cassie Hudson, Channel One News.

Azia: Great story. Thanks, Cassie. 

All right, guys, that is all for now. Have a great weekend, and we will see you right back here on Monday.

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