That acceleration in pace — impossible to verify until experts get beyond the limited access to North Korean facilities that ended years ago — explains why President Trump and his aides fear they are running out of time. For years, American presidents decided that each incremental improvement in the North’s program — another nuclear test, a new variant of a missile — was worrisome, but not worth a confrontation that could spill into open conflict.

Now those step-by-step advances have resulted in North Korean warheads that in a few years could reach Seattle. “They’ve learned a lot,” said Siegfried S Hecker, a Stanford professor who directed the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, from 1986 to 1997, and whom the North Koreans have let into their facilities seven times.

North Korea is now threatening another nuclear test, which would be its sixth in 11 years. The last three tests — the most recent was in September — generated Hiroshima-size explosions. It is unclear how Mr Trump would react to a test, but he told representatives of the United Nations Security Council at the White House on Monday that they should be prepared to pass far more restrictive sanctions, which American officials say should include cutting off energy supplies.

Two Japanese warships left western Japan on Friday to join US aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, for exercises in the Philippine Sea. The drills will also involve a US guided-missile cruiser and guided-missile destroyer, said the US navy. The joint drill is designed to “ensure maritime forces remain ready to defend the region when called upon,” the navy said on its Facebook page.

North Korea said on Sunday that it was ready to sink a US aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military force. “Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” reported the Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper known to report propaganda for the North Korean regime.

But Liberty Counsel is ready to take action – through a federal lawsuit – if it is needed “to vindicate the parental and student rights.” Liberty Counsel noted the teacher’s propensity for bringing her outside interests into the public school classroom, such as promoting GLSEN’s “Day of Silence,” a national homosexual advocacy protest in public schools.

“The bullying behavior of Lora Jane Riedas is outrageous and unconstitutional,” said Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. “A teacher cannot ban students from wearing cross necklaces when other students are permitted to wear secular jewelry. Nor can teachers retaliate against students who refuse to display rainbow stickers on their books to promote an LGBT political agenda. The classroom is for learning, not promoting the LGBT agenda.”

Fans of the original better hold onto their hats, because this version's going to look a little different: Curly and Laurey will be women, Will and Ado Annie (make that Ado Andy) will be men, and Aunt Eller will be transgender, as other supporting characters help round out the wider LGBTQ spectrum.

"The goal is to adapt as little of the text as possible," Rauch said, though he added that gender pronouns will change. "I think as a gay man myself, I just thought a lot about, 'could a musical like this be made to be inclusive as far as sexual orientation and gender identity?'"

This result means that for the first time in modern French history, the second round will not include a candidate from either of the two political families — the Socialists and the Republicans — that have held the presidency since the Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

The selection of Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron for the run-off, on a high turnout of around 80%, is remarkable in several respects. In effect, it turns the final round of the election into a direct contest between two rival world views. Campaigning under the slogan “In the name of the people”, Ms Le Pen calls herself a “patriot” and spreads an essentially nationalist message.

She vows to hold a referendum on taking France out of the European Union, and thus the euro; to introduce protectionist trade barriers; to tax firms that hire foreigners; to strengthen ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia; to close the borders to immigration; and to strip jihadist suspects with dual citizenship of their French nationality.

By contrast Mr Macron, who set up his party, En Marche! (On the Move!), only a year ago, advocates keeping France central to the liberal Western order. A former Socialist economy minister, he is a zealous pro-European who wants to reinforce ties with Germany, to keep France part of the global trading system, to build cross-party support between left and right in order to “unblock” the French economy, and to support the transatlantic alliance.

Polls taken before first-round voting consistently suggested that he would beat Ms Le Pen by some 20 points in a head-to-head contest. Although no surprise can be ruled out, voters from the centre-right and far left are expected to rally to him, whatever their reservations, in order to keep her out.

This first-round result could also presage the break-up of the French party system. It is a measure of the anti-establishment mood that neither Ms Le Pen nor Mr Macron belong to a mainstream, established party. On May 7th, France faces a choice that will determine not only its future but that of the EU. It will become the most crucial test case in Europe for whether a liberal Western democracy can defy the trend and face down nationalist populism. The political alternatives on offer in this run-off could scarcely differ more.

“If Marine Le Pen is elected president of France, the Jews must leave,” Lazar said, according to a transcription of his address at the conference provided by Limmud FSU. Lazar was a keynote speaker of the event, which drew 2,500 participants — a record attendance since Limmud FSU began holding conferences across the former Soviet Union.

“We are in a real danger of seeing the arrival to power of someone who will only use democracy to destroy it,” Kalifat said. “We are in a state of total chaos. There is a real sense of urgency that all should be aware of us, and we should all assume our responsibility to go and vote to exclude these candidates, these parties of hate from reaching power.”

Marine Le Pen recently said France “was not responsible” for the murder of Jews whom French police helped round up for the Nazis. She has also vowed to ban kippahs and the right of French citizens to have an Israeli passport – prohibitions she said were necessary to enforce similar limitations on Muslims. She has however softened the National Front’s image since taking over in 2011 the leadership from her father, the party’s founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is a Holocaust denier and inciter of racial hate against Jews.

Jewish support for National Front rose from negligible levels under Jean Marie Le Pen to 13.5 percent in 2012, according to a poll. Kalifat in the interview flagged the rise in support for National Front by Jews who fear Islamists as particularly worrisome. “I am deeply concerned. I see the polls but I also hear the discussions of people around me who say, ‘why not give him – or her – a chance, perhaps she has the solution’,” Kalifat said. “But the enemies of our enemies are not our friends, not this time.”

During a speech about Israel and French Jews in 2014, Melenchon said: “We do not believe that any people is superior to another,” adding: “France is the opposite of aggressive communities that lecture to the rest of country.” A supporter of a blanket boycott of the Jewish state, in 2014 he praised participants of violent protests against Israel, calling their behavior exemplary despite the fact that some of them tried to burn down several synagogues. He condemned French Jews who demonstrated peacefully in support of Israel, suggesting their actions were tantamount to taking up arms “for a foreign country.”

The results of the first round of voting on Sunday in France’s presidential election could sound the death knell for Europe as we know it today. If the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and the far-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon overtake the front-runner Emmanuel Macron, who is leading them by a very slim margin, it is hard to see how France will remain in the EU for much longer. And without Britain and France, two of the three largest economies in Europe, it is hard to see the EU last for long at all.

Neither candidate intend to take France out of the EU or the euro currency group immediately, if elected. Le Pen has spoken of holding a Brexit-style referendum first while Mélenchon plans to introduce an economic program which will smash the rules that underpin the joint fiscal responsibility of the euro. Both favor a protectionist trade policy which contradicts the European single market’s fundamental freedom of trade. In their speeches, they both regard leaving Europe not only as a possibility, but a desired outcome. Le Pen has said how she wants France to be “more French and less European.”