LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Lead Story for Today . . .
from Al Jazeera
U.S. President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025 [Jonathan Ernst/ Reuters]
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS (summary and link to Al Jazeera article.
(Also available in Nuclear World News section)
United States President Donald Trump has warned Hamas of dire consequences if it fails to disarm, while also threatening to “quickly eradicate” and “knock down” any attempts by Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme.
Trump issued the threats on Monday, after holding talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Speaking from Florida on Monday, Trump refused to rule out a follow-up attack after US air strikes in June damaged three Iranian nuclear facilities.
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
OMG! So now Trump has switched his old vocabulary about destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities to his failed attempt to demolish Iran’s previous attack from his past use of “obliteration“ to a future use he defines as “eradicate”. I can’t quite understand how something that has been “obliterated” can then be “eradicated”. And he proved he meant it by adding the adverb “quickly” as if he subconsciously knows his “Operation Midnight Hammer” failed, but is such an habitual liar that he can’t keep track of them all.
Somehow someway someone somewhere with the power to do so must convince congress and the supreme court that Trump is mentally unfit to continue on as the US president for even another day . . .
Trump is unwittingly — perhaps cognitively unaware of his actions and their potential nuclear war impact — continuously verbally heating up the potential for the last thing humanity needs: WWIII . . . ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
There is also a real possibility of nuclear war (Russia versus Ukraine, Pakistan versus India, threats from North Korea, Iran, Israel). Global warming …
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Lead Story for Today . . .
from WVTF
In this photo released by Roscosmos State Space Corporate on Friday, July 25, 2025, a Soyuz rocket lifts off from a launch site in Vostochny in far eastern Russia carrying an Iranian satellite along with Russian satellites into orbit.
TEHRAN, Iran — Russia on Sunday sent three Iranian communications satellites into orbit, the second such launch since July, Iranian state television reported.
The report said that a Russian rocket sent the satellites to circle the Earth on a 500-kilometer (310-mile) orbit from the Vostochny launchpad in eastern Russia. The three satellites are dubbed Paya, Kowsar and Zafar-2.
The report said that Paya, weighing 150 kilograms (330 pounds), is the heaviest satellite that Iran has ever deployed into orbit. Kowsar weighs 35 kilograms (77 pounds), but the report didn’t specify how heavy Zafar-2 is.
The satellites feature up to 3-meter resolution images, applicable in the management of water resources, agriculture and the environment. Their life span is up to five years.
Russia occasionally sends Iran’s satellites into orbit, highlighting the strong ties between the two countries. In July, a Russian rocket sent Iranian communications satellite Nahid-2 into orbit.
Russia, which signed a “strategic partnership” treaty with Iran in January, strongly condemned the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran that came during a 12-day air war in June and killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including military commanders and nuclear scientists. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 people in Israel.
As a long-standing project, Iran from time-to-time launches satellite carriers to send its satellites into space.
The United States has said that Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired in 2023.
Copyright 2025 NPR
All Things Nuclear
NEWS (and Link just below or also below at Nuclear World News, Monday, (12/29/2025))
All Things Considered · BBC World Service · Fresh Air · Full Disclosure · Here … nuclear scientists. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 …
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
This most recent event added to the less-recent others, including Trump’s and Netanyahu’s ill-considered twelve day war with Iran, including Trump’s now “infamous” “Operation Midnight Hammer” weekend war that failed miserably — and now Iran, more than ever supported by Russia — the two having signed a “strategic partnership” treaty in January, has strongly condemned the Israeli and U.S. strikes .
The Trump/Netanyahu June attacks apparently killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including military commanders and nuclear scientists. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 people in Israel, and, for sure, the new satellite-sharing between Russia and Iran is related to my comments on the same subject in yesterday’s Post and others.
This is all extremely scary news that could easily be the beginning of an eventual nuclear war that includes nuclear bomb strikes using space as the carrier rather than from slower and less accurate air or ground-based missiles, airplanes, trucks, and trailers, that could be more easily intercepted by the USA and other NATO countries.
What I see here is the coming-together of the two most dangerous and irresponsible leading, but poorly and dangerously guided or lead, countries — the US and Russia along with their allies. Yet, China hasn’t even been considered in this scenario . . . and then there is North Korea, too. ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Lead Story for Today . . .
from Newsweek
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, on September 16, 2024. | AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
When asked whether Israel or the U.S. could carry out new attacks on Iran, Pezeshkian responded: “If they choose to strike, they will naturally face a more decisive response.”
“Despite all the problems we face, we are now—in terms of both equipment and personnel—far stronger than we were during their previous attacks,” the Iranian president said.
An Iranian official said more than 1,000 people were killed in Iran and several thousands more injured. Twenty eight people were killed in attacks on Israel.
The U.S. launched assaults on three of Iran’s nuclear sites in a coordinated attack involving more than 125 U.S. aircraft, Tomahawk cruise missiles and the first known combat use of GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs. Tehran then attacked the U.S.’ Al-Udeid military base in Qatar. No injuries were reported.
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
So, it appears that Trump’s “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear facilities in his “Operation Midnight Hammer” weekend war was little more than “disturbing the hornet’s nest”, which Iran has now strengthened their defenses should either or both Trump and Netanyahu decide to do the “obliteration” all over again. Limited damage to the nuclear facilities was done and has apparently already been repaired, but more than 1,000 Iranians were killed — and now at least Netanyahu is arguing to Trump that it must be done all over again .
If that happens, this could turn into a nuclear war, which could only inspire more countries to enter the fray along with European NATO. countries. Trump has made a huge mistake that he will never live down, and whether or not diplomatic talks for a new Iranian nuclear use agreement — that Trump had originally proposed — was instead egotistically “bombed away” when he reneged on his original peaceful proposal. Such adult-style talks and an agreement can probably never be reached by now because it may well be far too late . . .
It is curious to me that Obama was able to accomplish such a long and peaceful agreement,, and therefore I have to wonder why Trump terminated it all by himself in his 1st term, and then made such a pact virtually impossible during this term . . .
The following is a recap of what our country thought about all this in 2018 according to recent history:
President Donald Trump terminated U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on May 8, 2018.
In a statement delivered from the White House, Trump called the 2015 agreement a “horrible one-sided deal” and announced that the United States would withdraw and re-impose economic sanctions on Iran. This decision was a reversal of a key foreign policy achievement of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and was met with criticism from European allies who were also signatories to the agreement. ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Being threatened, others are aspiring to go nuclear as well. Since China’s rise is widely perceived as a threat to US predominance in the competition …
However, Israeli officials stress that the two threats must not be conflated: from Israel’s perspective, the nuclear program is an existential threat, …
… war-within-a-war. Nan said that while global awareness of nuclear threats was universal, the insidiousness of biological weapons was often overlooked.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran has repeatedly denied. Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day war …
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
from Tabnak . . .
US President Donald Trump speaks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on October 13, 2025 [Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
Trump wrongly seeing Israel, US national interests as equivalent regarding Iran missiles
TABNAK, Dec. 27 – Former US diplomat says that Trump seems to be instinctively parroting Netanyahu, wrongly seeing Israel and American national interests as equivalent.
Donald Trump stated a few days ago: “Iran is rapidly rebuilding their missile program. They can try, but reviving the nuclear program will take Iran a long time — and if they try to rebuild and revive it without a deal, we will destroy it again. We can also quickly take out Iran’s missiles.” It appears that Trump is talking about a “preventive war” against Iran’s missile program. He has also attacked Iran’s nuclear program (claiming “preemptive war”) by striking the Natanz, Fordow, and Esfahan facilities. What is your assessment of his claim of a preventive war against Iran’s missile program?
President Trump’s talk about attacking Iran’s missiles is a departure from previous policy . . .
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
How can you say “the strikes completely and totally obliterated ” Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities?” — or, more exactly, “destroyed” something and then, after a month or so, have to “destroy it again”? Even Netanyahu knows better, and therefore Trump is avoiding him and the “truth” because he was wrong the first time.
Trump is still trying to cover-up his original lie that he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities with his weekend war ridiculously called “Operation Midnight Hammer” although everyone on planet Earth who pays any attention to his actions knows what he did, and why it was wrong, and yet we look the other way and refuse to put 100% of the blame on him — where it truly is — while he pretends to have the situation under control and has moved on to “other” priorities.
To make a long story short, Trump should have been removed from office unilaterally for his egotistic attack on Iran that did nothing but make the world’s nuclear war anxiety greater than ever before, and seems to put the “blame” on Netanyahu for concincing him the weekend war was nas necessary to stop Iran in whatever “tracks” it was making. The whole informed world sees through this obvious “game” of “no-truth or consequences” that Trump is playing. In my opinion, his actions then and now, among many others, are threatening the future of the entire world. ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
from the European media — “The National News” com . . .
After a series of incidents, Europe needs to assess its protection of nuclear sites against drone incursions, experts have told The National. Photo: US Army
Europe’s nuclear sites on high alert over 2026 drone threats. Western … To defend against a serious attack on a nuclear site, governments …
After a series of incidents, Europe needs to assess its protection of nuclear sites against drone incursions, experts have told The National. Photo: US Army
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
As we continue to see more and more “non-nuclear wars”, attacks on nuclear power plants, which just by the act of warlike aggression obviously proves that nuclear power plants and their facilities everywhere not only would be, but already are, powerful and strategic weapons in times of war, but also in times of “make-believe” peace, which is therefore essentially the same as nuclear war no matter what the political world and the media calls it.
So, I am wondering from the headline of the above article what it is that would safely protect nuclear power plants and their facilities from nuclear — or non nuclear — drones and other missile-like military equipment.
Or, more to the point, when does a conventional war become a nuclear war? Ask Ukraine about what attacks on nuclear power plants means to their non-military population — as they starve to death in the daytime and freeze to death in the dark —and you will quickly catch on to the fact that nuclear power plants have become weapons of nuclear war rather than quietly and occasionally efficiently doing what they were designed to do — provide electricity for the peaceful operation of necessary electricity for the practical needs of an entire nation, and maybe even a neighbor if it is an ally. But that concept is becoming long gone as war intelligence has “discovered” that nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs do approximately the same thing — kill people.
When are we going to wake up and rid our lives — as well as other living creatures’ existence, too —and remove “all things nuclear” from our wonderful provider, mother Earth? ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
I have posted this Christmas Day article from “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” in its entirety here to offer an indication, good, bad, or ugly, whether or not we are progressing or regressing in our present challenges concerning “All Things Nuclear”.
If you didn’t already know, Albert Einstein was a consultant, and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, was the scientific director, playing important roles as part of the “Manhattan Project” that developed the only two nuclear bombs to ever be used in war. Let’s hope they were also the last.
Neither Oppenheimer nor Einstein were necessarily in favor of the project, but they did what America and a few other countries, including Great Britain and Canada felt was needed to end WWII. They were both a part of the original “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”. ~llaw
In June, the United States joined Israel’s operation against Iran, targeting underground nuclear facilities, including the Fordow fuel enrichment plant using “bunker busters” like the GBU-57A/B massive ordnance penetrator that only US B-2 bombers (right) are certified to carry. (Illustration by François Diaz-Maurin; original artwork and photo salmanalfa, MikeMareen / depositphotos.com)
Forty years ago this year, the Hollywood film Back to the Future featured an eccentric scientist, “Doc” Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd), accidentally sending his teenage friend Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered time-traveling car. As he battles to return to 1985, Marty encounters his young father, who is bullied by his supervisor, Biff Tannen, and meets his young mother, on whom Biff has a crush. But Marty’s teenage mother falls in love with Marty, threatening his own existence. To go back to 1985, Marty has no other choice but to make his future parents fall in love, which he achieves, much to Biff’s dismay.
Four years later, the movie returned with a first sequel in which Marty travels to 2015, this time to prevent his son from tarnishing his family’s reputation. But while in the future, a revengeful older Biff steals the time-travelling car to go back to 1955 and rewrite history: There, Biff becomes a successful businessman, opens a casino, and uses his money to influence US politics.
In many ways, 2025 resembled Back to the Future, and not only because Donald Trump—whom the trilogy’s villain Biff is admittedly based on—returned to the White House in January. Less than one year into his second term, President Trump has exhibited Cold War-era thinking several times already.
One week after entering the presidency, Trump announced his plan for a new, comprehensive missile-defense system that his administration later called Golden Dome and claimed would be built in three years at a cost of no more than $175 billion. Many missile defense experts have pointed to the project’s technical and policy flaws and called it a fantasy that will add to a long-running US missile defense debacle. The fantasy started with President Ronald Reagan’s dream of building a missile shield—which he called the Strategic Defense Initiative and that detractors called “Star Wars”—after record Soviet nuclear deployments in—wait for it—1985. Experts warned that the Golden Dome proposal is self-defeating, as it will prompt US adversaries to build more maneuverable missiles and use more decoys, rendering any national defense ineffective.
A few days after announcing his missile defense effort, President Trump told reporters about his desire to engage with Russia and China on denuclearization efforts. “There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” he said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons, and China’s building nuclear weapons.” But New START, the only agreement constraining the number of strategic offensive weapons that the United States and Russia can deploy, is set to expire in less than two months. And as of writing, Moscow maintains that it hasn’t received any formal response.
Around the time of Trump’s denuclearization comments, his administration’s Department of Government Efficiency started firing new federal hires, including hundreds at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Energy Department agency responsible for the safety and security of the US nuclear arsenal. (Most of the NNSA employees fired were eventually rehired after a bipartisan uproar in Congress.) The NNSA and its network of national laboratories provide essential technical support to the State Department for nuclear arms control verification. In July, the Trump administration dissolved the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, which was responsible for policy, negotiation, and overall compliance reporting of arms control treaties.
In May, President Trump signed four executive orders on nuclear power to accelerate nuclear power plant construction in the United States and support new, smaller, and less-regulated reactor designs. One of the orders plans a “substantial reorganization” of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a plan three former chairs of the NRC say would threaten the independence of the agency, possibly undermining the safety requirements for nuclear regulation.
The same month, a brief skirmish started at the border between India and Pakistan, which seemed to quickly escalate, prompting President Trump to call for restraint from both sides. As a ceasefire agreement that Trump said he helped broker was being announced, reports suggested that, during the conflict, Pakistan’s Prime Minister had convened the National Command Authority, apparently in response to India’s targeting of Pakistani military bases. The National Command Authority is responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear policy and operational decision-making. (Pakistan’s defense minister later denied that the meeting ever happened.)
Then came the worst international security crisis of the year.
In June, two days after Trump said Iran rejected the US proposal for a nuclear deal that included a demand that it stop enriching uranium on Iranian soil, Israel attacked Iran, targeting military leaders, nuclear facilities, and nuclear scientists. About a week later, the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. While Trump touted the attack as “very successful,” the status of Iran’s nuclear program remained unclear after the attack, and later reports suggested that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium may not have been destroyed. Some experts warned before the attack that destroying Iran’s enrichment plants would not eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat and that a US action might spur Iran to covertly sprint toward a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.
In July, in a surprising congressional twist, the House passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) reauthorization and expansion bill. As a result, communities affected by the 1945 Trinity nuclear test and uranium mining in areas of Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, the Navajo Nation and all of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, as well as downwinders in Guam exposed to fallout from the Pacific nuclear tests during the Cold War started receiving compensation for their radiation exposure this year. (These groups were not initially covered by RECA.)
As if the legacy of US nuclear testing wasn’t painful enough, President Trump suggested in October that the United States should return to nuclear testing, confusing experts who could not tell whether the president was referring to testing a nuclear delivery system (such as a missile) or testing an actual nuclear explosive device. Many experts had already explained how resuming nuclear explosive testing would be impractical and against US security interests.
There have been many other nuclear developments in 2025 that also pointed in the direction of more risk and more instability. But one stood out: In a shocking sign that shows how much the nuclear security landscape has been turned on its head, this past week, a member of Japan’s prime minister’s office who advises Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on national security told reporters that Japan “should possess nuclear weapons.” These remarks came just months after Japan commemorated the 80th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
Whether the world has already entered a new nuclear age marked by renewed arms racing is up for debate. But nuclear affairs have made a strong and undeniable comeback on the front pages of many newspapers this year—something unseen since the end of the Cold War. Even in Hollywood, film directors are daring to talk about nuclear risk once again with a plethora of new and upcoming releases, including this year’s much-remarked A House of Dynamite.
When it reconvenes in January, let’s hope the US administration comes back to the present and sets about a new start in nuclear arms control and diplomacy.
Of course, I couldn’t close this year-end review without mentioning the passing of way too many important figures from the nuclear nonproliferation and arms control community, including Bob Alvarez, Dick Garwin, Dan Hirsch, R. Rajaraman, and (late last year) Evgeny Velikhov. Each stood in their own way for the reduction of the risk from nuclear weapons and pushed for the diplomatic and science-based disarmament or arms control solutions that have been at the core of the Bulletin’s mission since 1945.
Here are five Bulletin nuclear stories that stood out in 2025—and that you should read.
How Fukushima’s radioactive fallout in Tokyo was concealed from the public By François Diaz-Maurin In this investigative piece, I tell the story of how very high concentrations of insoluble cesium microparticles were found in Tokyo following the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, and how these findings were kept from the public’s eye for years. The piece was published as part of a special issue honoring the many contributions of Rod Ewing, a longtime member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board who passed away last year, to the science and policy challenges of nuclear materials.
Nuclear expert Jon Wolfsthal on the costs of US nuclear weapons programs spiraling out of control By François Diaz-Maurin In an interview with the Bulletin, nuclear expert Jon Wolfsthal explains how the Defense Department’s inability to meet budget and schedule requirements and to prioritize strategic investments could force instability by default. “To the extent that we will need nuclear weapons to be credible until we can achieve some more stable outcome, we need to make sure we are not wasting money and spending these funds and scarce resources on programs that aren’t going to build what they are designed to build,” Wolfsthal says. “Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what we are doing right now. We are not only trying to build an aircraft while we are flying it. We’re trying to build an aircraft while it’s doing a nosedive into the ground, and the trajectory is already set.”
The United States may destroy the Fordow enrichment plant. It won’t make the Iranian nuclear threat go away By Richard Nephew Before the United States attacked Iran on June 20, former director for Iran at the National Security Council, Richard Nephew, warned that an attack against Iran’s existing nuclear sites—even if successful—would not be enough to eliminate the odds of a future Iranian nuclear breakout. “The United States and Israel must acknowledge that Fordow is not the only pathway for an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran may have other centrifuges available, including at secret sites, and probably already at work,” Nephew wrote.
Iran can still build nuclear weapons without further enrichment. Only diplomacy will stop it By Edwin Lyman After President Trump announced the US military had attacked Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, the world’s attention immediately shifted to answering two questions: How did the US attack unfold? And how much damage had the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities sustained from the attack? The news coverage focused on these questions for several days, during which US administration and military officials offered conflicting statements fueled by a leaked intelligence assessment about the actual damage to the facilities. But one important question was completely overlooked: Could Iran still build the bomb without these facilities? In this article, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ed Lyman, explains how Iran’s stockpile of 60-percent enriched uranium could be used directly to make crude nuclear weapons without requiring further enrichment—an operation that some Iranian groups could do even without state approval.
Eighty years and 89 seconds: It’s time to fight against midnight By Alexandra Bell As the Bulletin celebrates its 80th anniversary this month, the Bulletin‘s new president and CEO, Alex Bell, reflects on the reasons why the current nuclear landscape appears so bleak and offers a refreshing take on how to seriously approach the future of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, deterrence, and disarmament. “Progress will only be achieved through plodding, frustrating, and iterative steps underpinned by scientific endeavor and sustained political will, some of which can be easily controlled and some of which cannot,” Bell writes.
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LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
Copied from the above introduction to today’s article from “The Bulleting of Atomic Scientists” . . . I have my own opinions, but today is a good day to avoid any influences from me, and an even better day for the everyday citizens of countries around the world to begin paying attention to all that is happening in Today’s Nuclear World and beyond. ~llaw
I have posted this Christmas Day article from “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” in its entirety here to offer an indication, good, bad, or ugly, whether or not we are progressing or regressing in our present challenges concerning “All Things Nuclear”.
If you didn’t already know, Albert Einstein was a consultant, and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, was the scientific director, playing important roles as part of the “Manhattan Project” that developed the only two bombs to ever be used in war. Let’s hope they were also the last.
Neither Oppenheimer nor Einstein were necessarily in favor of the project, but they did what America and a few other countries, including Great Britain and Canada felt was needed to end WWII. They were both a part of the original “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”. ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
In May, President Trump signed four executive orders on nuclear power to accelerate nuclear power plant construction in the United States and support …
LAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
From a Post I saw on Facebook this morning written by Shawn Fitzpatrick for Astronaut Ron Garan. (Rather than Post any options from my LLAW’s Nuclear World News Today) . . .
Shawn Fitzpatrick for astronaut Ron Garan
After spending 178 days aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Ron Garan returned to Earth carrying something far heavier than space equipment or mission data. He returned with a transformed understanding of humanity itself.
From orbit, Earth doesn’t look like a collection of countries, borders, or competing interests. It appears as a single, radiant blue sphere suspended in darkness. No lines divide continents. No flags mark territory. From 250 miles above the surface, every human conflict suddenly looks small — and every human connection looks unavoidable.
Garan described watching lightning storms crackle across entire continents, auroras ripple like living curtains over the poles, and city lights glow softly against the planet’s night side. What struck him most wasn’t Earth’s power — it was its fragility. The atmosphere protecting all life appeared as a paper-thin blue halo, barely visible, yet responsible for everything that breathes, grows, and survives.
That view triggered what astronauts call the “overview effect” — a profound cognitive shift reported by many who see Earth from space. It’s the sudden realization that humanity shares a single, closed system. No backups. No escape route. No second home.
Garan began questioning humanity’s priorities. On Earth, economic growth is often treated as the ultimate goal. From space, that hierarchy collapses. He argues that the correct order should be planet first, society second, economy last — because without a healthy planet, neither society nor economy can exist.
He often compares Earth to a spacecraft. A ship carrying billions of crew members, all dependent on the same life-support systems. And yet, many behave as passengers rather than caretakers, assuming someone else is responsible for keeping things running.
From orbit, pollution has no nationality. Climate systems ignore borders. Environmental damage in one region ripples across the entire globe. The divisions we defend so fiercely on the ground simply don’t exist from above.
Garan’s message isn’t abstract or idealistic. It’s practical. If humanity continues to treat Earth as an unlimited resource rather than a shared system, the consequences will be universal.
Seeing Earth from space didn’t make him feel small. It made him feel accountable.
Because when you truly understand that we’re all riding the same fragile spacecraft through the universe, the idea of “us versus them” quietly disappears — replaced by a single, unavoidable truth:
There is only us.
LAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
The successful order of life on Earth will never be in order until humans realize they must live as one! The global world must learn to live as one, to paraphrase an old John Lennon song . . . ~llaw
My thanks to Michelle UluOla — who has posted here before — for this thoughtful jest ‘fore Christmas Post from the viewpoint of an astronaut!
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Self-Assessment of Capacity Building for Nuclear, Radiation, Transport and Waste Safety, and Emergency Preparedness and Response … Management of Spent …
… nuclear threats. By Marlena Broeker. Years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the United States is still struggling with how to support Ukraine and push …
Moscow’s Coercive Nuclear Threats … Why is the Kremlin focusing on its new nukes? … Significantly, during the 15-minute address, Putin emphasized what …
LAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
OMG!
WASHINGTON — President Trump has announced a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a “battleship” as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet.”
LAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
There are so many wild, crazy, and inhumane issues going on in the nuclear world these days that I decided to not pick a lead story today — and leave the world gone crazy about “everything nuclear and otherwise” up to you, the reader, today. . . .
Putin is fighting an illegal war — attacking Ukraine civilians’ (including children’s lives by trying to starve or freeze them to death in the cold and dark in 8 districts of Ukraine . . .
D.o.n.a.l.d T.r.u.m.p. plans to build a “Golden Battleship” to add to his “golden fleet” of warships for reasons, I guess, that would impress Venezuelan “drug cartels” so much they wouldn’t mind being blown to bits — even if they had nothing to do with drug running at all . . .
Japan is about ready to restart part of the Fukushima nuclear reactor system, perhaps to see if they can go through once again what they went through 15 years ago . . .
A geological fault has damaged a nuclear reactor in Sweden . . . forcing it offline at least overnight, but probably much longer . . .
Putin is threatening NATO with nuclear war — still, and again, and non-stop . . .
And unmentioned, PG&E, the teetering government supported company that owns the last commercial nuclear power plant at Devil’s Canyon on Avila Beach in California near San Luis Obispo seems to have shut down most of San Francisco with a huge explosion and fire “just fore Christmas” . . .
Stay tuned! ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
“Whether it’s leveraging our skilled workforce, driving innovation, delivering on cleanup or revitalizing land to add advanced nuclear energy to fuel …
Japan’s solar cells blow past nuclear power. The reason why Japan is so densely populated, especially in urban regions, is because 70% of the country …
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
from Al Jazeera
Local residents and survivors of the Fukushima disaster protest against the reopening of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa outside the Niigata prefectural government office, Japan, December 22, 2025 [Issei Kato/Reuters]
Nuclear Power
NEWS (Link to this Story is directly below and and is also posted in Nuclear World News Today’s Nuclear Power category . . .)
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be latest plant to restart 15 years after Fukushima disaster shut down country’s nuclear energy.
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
Restarting a nuclear power facility that was severely damaged by a tidal wave caused by an earthquake and a resulting tsunami without recognizing the severe damage it did and the human suffering that went on afterward that still remains questionable with Japan continuing to allow nuclear waste — treated or not — into the Pacific Ocean seems to be two consecutive radical steps gone too far.
Risks taken for whatever reason after nuclear power plants were damaged or mothballed from “old age” is being ignored in Japan as well as in the United States if not other countries except Germany that is intelligent enough to stay away from “All Things Nuclear”, and has shut down all of there nuclear power facilities.
The rest of the world would be wise to follow Germany’s lead and rid our world of nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons before it is too late to continue to survive on planet Earth . . . ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Every Exponent article goes through checks for accuracy before publication. If you have a concern or questions about this article, please email editor …
The U.S. decisively intervened alongside Israel at the end of the 12-day war in June by bombing underground Iranian nuclear sites and also intercepted …
They argue that Russia’s traditional defensive nuclear posture is ineffective in its war against Ukraine, which they describe as a Western proxy war, …
LLAW’s Nuclear World News’ Image and/or Story for Today . . .
from NBC News
A sign in Tehran on Dec. 7 features an image of a university student holding a model of a satellite carrier, alongside Persian script that reads, ”For a better Iran, its missile is on me; I will send it into orbit.”Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images
In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Trump said {he} told Americans he’s “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East.”
The Israeli concerns about Iran come as Tehran has expressed interest in resuming diplomatic talks with the U.S. aimed at curtailing its nuclear deal, which could potentially complicate Israel’s approaching Trump about new strikes.
The funding of Iranian proxies in the region also is top of mind for the Israelis, according to the person with direct knowledge of Israel’s plans.
“The nuclear weapons program is very concerning. There’s an attempt to reconstitute. It’s not that immediate,” this person said.
The strikes the U.S. conducted in June against Iran, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, included more than 100 aircraft, a submarine and seven B-2 bombers. Trump has said they “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites, though some early assessments indicated the damage may not have been as extensive as the president has said.
But Trump said just Wednesday of this week in such a grand personal way: he “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East.”
In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Trump said told Americans he’s “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for …
LLAW’s Thoughts, Concerns, and Fears about Today’s Nuclear World and beyond . . .
And so it is, the despicable and world -endangering Trump lies go on, including his declaration just Wednesday of this week that the “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites that it’s laughable even if it was true! Yet Trump now continues to explain in such a grandiose self-aggrandizing way — he “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East.”
The proof is in the voice of another liar — Israel’s Netanyahu — who insists that Israel, (meaning the USA) must attack Iran again before the USA has a chance, which Trump believes to be unnecessary, to once again make such a nuclear agreement limiting the degree of nuclear enrichment Iran would be allowed to refine. This is the Obama agreement that worked fine for years until Trump tore it up ending the extension of that agreement when he began his first term as president. ~llaw
Nuclear World News Today
About Today’s Nuclear News, Files, Categories, and How it Works . . .
There are 7 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcano and caldera activity around the world that also play an important role in the survival of human and other life.
The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). If there was no news from a Category today, the Category will not appear. The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera
IAEA News (Friday’s only) (Not available today)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Premier Ford: said: “With energy demand — everything needs energy — Ontario is expected to increase up to 90 percent over the next 25 years. Put this …
… war through threats, media campaigns, and political maneuvers. In a … The United States also entered the war by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites in …
Iran is rebuilding its missile array, rehabilitating its nuclear capabilities, and remains unwilling to accept an agreement that would prevent it from …
