Richard L. Garwin, an architect of America’s hydrogen bomb, who shaped defense policies for postwar governments and laid the groundwork for insights into the structure of the universe as well as for medical and computer marvels , died on Tuesday at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 97. His death was confirmed by his son Thomas. A polymathic physicist …
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Nuclear Testing Not Advised, Trump’s Nominee Says in Senate Hearing
Brandon Williams, President Trump’s pick to become the keeper of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, testified on Tuesday that he would not recommend that Mr. Trump restart explosive testing of the deadly weapons. His statement, during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, was unexpected. Other advisers to the administration had proposed that the president resume the test detonations …
Read More »DOGE Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts
They handled the secure transport of nuclear materials — dangerous, demanding work that requires rigorous training. Four of them took the Trump administration’s offer of a buyout and left the National Nuclear Security Administration. A half-dozen staff members left a unit in the agency that builds reactors for nuclear submarines. And a biochemist and engineer who had recently joined the …
Read More »Trump Freeze on Aid to Nuclear Inspectors Undercuts His Iran Policy
Starting in late January, President Trump suspended two programs that provide American aid to international nuclear inspectors, potentially undermining his own goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. Though one of the programs has since been restored, the outcome of the actions has been to weaken confidence in an effort that for decades has exposed Iran’s strides toward …
Read More »Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Names Alexandra Bell Its New President
At the end of January, the keepers of the Doomsday Clock announced that the world was 89 seconds to midnight, a metaphor for our proximity to extinction. That’s one second closer than we were for the past two years, and the nearest the clock has ever inched to global destruction by way of human-made risks, including nuclear weapons, climate change …
Read More »Trump Orders ‘Iron Dome’ for U.S., but Freezes Funds for Nuclear Protection
Star Wars is back, with an executive order from President Trump that the White House said “directs the building of the Iron Dome missile defense shield for America.” The order, issued on Monday night, didn’t quite do that. It was more a vaguely worded set of instructions to accelerate current programs or explore new approaches to defending the continental United …
Read More »Trump Picks Ex-Congressman to Manage U.S. Nuclear Arsenal
President-elect Donald J. Trump has picked Brandon Williams, a former Navy officer and one-term congressman, to become the keeper of the nation’s arsenal of thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads. Mr. Trump’s selection is a shift from a tradition in which the people who served as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration typically had deep technical roots or experience …
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