美国有线新闻 CNN 美韩启动鹞鹰军演 美多州教师举行抗议

AZUZ: Foal Eagle is the name of military drills being held right now between the U.S. and South Korea, two countries who've been allies since the Korean War ended in 1953 and whose common rival has been North Korea.

The war games have been held annually for years. They angered North Korea, which has called them practice for an invasion of the North. The U.S. and South Korea say the drills are defensive in nature.

But with change in the air, with North Korea's leader preparing for historic meetings with South Korea's president and potentially with America's president, there are some differences in this year's drills.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a discreet and low key start to the joint U.S.-South Korean military drills this year, a very different situation to what we usually see. But clear, South Korean and U.S. officials don't want to provoke Pyongyang at a time when relations are thawing, and, of course, there is that summit coming up between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un dated for April 27th.

So, what we're seeing at this point is the Foal Eagle field exercise military drills have started this Sunday. They'll go for a month, but that's half the time hat they usually last. Last year, for example, they went for two months.

We are hearing though from the Pentagon and from South Korean military officials, they'll have the same scope, the same scale as previous years.

We know there are 11,500 U.S. troops within Foal Eagle. There's 290,000 South Korean troops.

But one interesting thing we should mention is that we haven't heard about any media day. Usually, we have heard about that by this time.

I'm hearing that potentially, we won't be seeing very much. We won't be invited to film very much as in previous years. We do film it. We show it to the world, and, of course, North Korea sees the capabilities of the U.S. and South Korea militaries.

So, potentially, we will hear very little response from North Korea if they are not seeing exactly what these very visual and what they believe to be provocative military drills are.

AZUZ: Schools are close today in Oklahoma City, the capital of Oklahoma, but not for spring break. Teachers there are among tens of thousands who are protesting for more school funding and better pay. Their rallies have stretched across Kentucky and Arizona, too.

Oklahoma's teachers who recently received their first raise in a decade said there were still an unacceptable lack of funding for things like textbooks and school supplies. Kentucky's teachers are protesting changes to their pension plan, what they rely on for retirement. Their state has a tremendous shortfall in funding for teachers' pensions.

Arizona's teachers recently rallied for a 20 percent pay raise. The state governor's office said they got one of more than 4 percent from 2016 to 2017, but teachers there also want more funding for education in general. This is all happening within a month of strike by teachers and school staff in West Virginia, which resulted in pay raises there. The largest funding source for schools is the government of the state they're in.