#nuclear-security

#nuclear-security

The US Department of Energy announced that thanks to President Trump's decisive leadership 13.5 kilograms (about 30 pounds) of uranium had been removed from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela. The department called the joint operation, involving the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela, a win for America, Venezuela, and the world. The safe removal of all enriched uranium from Venezuela sends another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela, Brandon Williams, the administrator of the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, said.

People are going to have to go and get it," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said when asked whether Iran's enriched uranium would be secured at a congressional briefing Tuesday, without specifying who would conduct the operation or the specific methods involved.

The giant confinement building encapsulating the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded nearly 40 years ago is smooth and curved-built with scientific precision. Installed in 2016, the structure was designed to prevent the escape of radiation from the stricken reactor, which is also encased in a smaller concrete sarcophagus. The confinement enshrouds both reactor and sarcophagus and is so massive that if you placed the Statue of Liberty inside it at its center, her torch wouldn't come close to prodding the ceiling.

During talks with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the Gyeongju National Museum, Trump expressed concern that "North Korea's nuclear development is significantly threatening the security of the Korean Peninsula and northeast Asia." But Trump also left the door open to dialogue with Pyongyang, claiming he still has a "good relationship" with Kim and was ready to return to meet the North Korean leader "at any time."

The federal agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile has begun furloughing employees as part of the ongoing federal government shutdown, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday. In a visit to Nevada, Wright said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal workers as part of the shutdown, which began Oct. 1. Nearly 400 federal workers will remain on the job, along with thousands of NNSA contractors, the Energy Department said.

"We deployed a then-frontier version of Claude in a Top Secret environment so that the NNSA could systematically test whether AI models could create or exacerbate nuclear risks," Marina Favaro, who oversees National Security Policy & Partnerships at Anthropic tells WIRED. "Since then, the NNSA has been red-teaming successive Claude models in their secure cloud environment and providing us with feedback."

A 38-year-old Ontario man who faced a rare charge under Canada's state secrets law of leaking sensitive information to a foreign entity or terrorist group has been found not criminally responsible after he posted a YouTube video that disclosed nuclear power plant vulnerabilities and provided instructions on how to cause damage. James Alexander Mousaly, who worked for provincial electricity producer Ontario Power Generation, was suffering from bipolar disorder and psychosis