Vice: American Scrap & Children of the Drones

'American Scrap' (correspondent: Davd Choe) - Cities like Detroit and Cleveland have found themselves at the forefront of a new phenomenon: scrapping. People left behind are literally ripping apart old school, houses, hospitals and factories for raw materials to hawk to local scrap yards for cash. Scrap metal is one of the U.S.' biggest exports, with billions of dollars' worth traveling to China every year, where it's invested into their infrastructure. The price for a pound of copper, for example, is about five times more than it was in 2002. David Choe looks into the life cycle of scrap metal, from the people who risk their lives to find it, to the yards that buy it, all the way to the Chinese traders who take it back home to build their economy. 'Children of Drones' (correspondent: Suroosh Alvi) - After a long and costly war in Afghanistan, American foreign policy has taken a drastically different approach to dealing with suspected Taliban insurgents. In place of the old 'boots on the ground' strategy, President Obama has increasingly relied on remote-controlled drone warfare, with operators stationed thousands of miles away who eliminate targets with the click of a button; their only interaction with the battlefield is through a screen. Drones are touted as a surgical weapon that keeps soldiers out of harms's way. But for the innocent victims, described as 'collateral damage,' drone strikes are hardly precise. Suroosh Alvi investigates the effects of drone strikes in Pakistan, where extremism and militancy are only growing in the wake of Obama's drone campaign. (TVMA) (AC,AL,V)