Red, white and glowing blue: Trump's push for new reactors reaches the finish line

Geoff Brumfiel | NPR

A little over a year ago, President Trump set an ambitious goal: He wanted to see American companies build at least three new experimental nuclear reactors by July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Shortly after Trump signed an executive order enshrining his goal, the Department of Energy launched its Reactor Pilot Program. The program is designed to help companies build and run test reactors quickly, in part by radically cutting back on the regulations required for such reactors. That program has sparked a nuclear race, and with less than a week to go, two companies have already reached the goal of switching on their reactor.

Nuclear weapons storage in spotlight as US plans $4bn boost for its UK airbases

Harry Davies and Rob Evans | The Guardian

More than $4bn (£3bn) is to be spent upgrading the US government’s military and spy bases in the UK, according to official documents that shed light on the UK’s apparent role as a secretive site for American nuclear weapons. The construction plans include building new bunkers in Suffolk, which will seemingly be used to store nuclear weapons, and modernising facilities to help covert units run secret operations.

Dossier reveals chaos behind Koreas' early 1990s nuclear negotiations

Woo Jae-yeon | Yonhap

Inter-Korean talks on the North Korean nuclear issue dissolved into shouting matches behind closed doors, with officials cutting each other off and hurling insults, according to newly declassified government records on the 1991-1993 nuclear negotiations Tuesday.

The unification ministry released the 3,836 pages of transcripts from 32 rounds of inter-Korean nuclear talks held between December 1991 and January 1993. … At a meeting on March 10, 1992, talks nearly broke down with officials talking over each other, shouting and throwing around insults, including "thug," causing the session to descend into chaos.

 South Korea to Speed Nuclear Push to Meet Surging Power Demand

Soo-hyang Choi and Sing Yee Ong | Bloomberg

The South Korean government will consider ways to cut atomic power construction times as it looks to ramp up energy supply to meet the demands of artificial intelligence. “It typically takes nine to 10 years to build a nuclear power plant. We will examine ways to shorten that timeline,” Kang Hoon-sik, the presidential chief of staff, told reporters on Monday. Details would be included in the upcoming basic plan for long-term electricity supply and demand, he said.

A growing missile threat to the US homeland and the emerging arms race

Daniel Salisbury | IISS

Recent US intelligence assessments, alongside accelerating procurement – spurred by the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine – suggest a future wherein states’ missile arsenals – offensive and defensive – are much larger than recent decades, in addition to the emergence of a conventional arms race alongside a potential nuclear one. n March 2026, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The document noted that the United States Intelligence Community projected a more-than fivefold expansion of missile threats to the US homeland, ‘to more than 16,000 missiles by 2035, from the current figure of more than 3,000 missiles’.

Could President Trump conclude with Iran a better nuclear deal than Obama’s JCPOA?

Pierre Goldschmidt | Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique

The MoU signed by President Trump and Iran on June 18, 2026  has been described by many allies of the United States as a catastrophic capitulation … The so-called "Final Deal" to be negotiated between the United States and Iran must be a win-win agreement. For instance, Iran would have to obtain firm guarantees that once and as long as the conditions for lifting nuclear-related sanctions are met, these sanctions could not be unilaterally and unduly terminated under a U.S. Presidential Order or similar actions.