Featured Stories
White House: President Trump Delivers Powerful America First Message to the United Nations
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The White House issued the following news:
* * *
President Trump Delivers Powerful America First Message to the United Nations
September 23, 2026
In his address to the United Nations, President Donald J. Trump touted his record of historic results that have reshaped world order for America's benefit and made our nation safer and more prosperous.
President Donald J. Trump is ensuring America is respected on the world stage again and holding the U.N. accountable after years of weak and failed Democrat leadership under the Biden Administration that put America last.
Under
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The White House issued the following news:
* * *
President Trump Delivers Powerful America First Message to the United Nations
September 23, 2026
In his address to the United Nations, President Donald J. Trump touted his record of historic results that have reshaped world order for America's benefit and made our nation safer and more prosperous.
President Donald J. Trump is ensuring America is respected on the world stage again and holding the U.N. accountable after years of weak and failed Democrat leadership under the Biden Administration that put America last.
UnderPresident Donald J. Trump's leadership, America is back and stronger than ever before.
* The Trump Administration saved over $1 billion by cutting down the U.N. bureaucracy, terminated the blank checks and endless peacekeeping missions, forced a return to the basics of its founding mission, and advanced the United States' interests.
* President Trump imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court for its outrageous overreach, and the State Department launched a campaign to dismantle the court's threat to American Sovereignty.
* President Trump withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations that no longer served American interests, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Global Forum on Migration and Development.
* The Trump Administration thwarted the U.N.'s efforts to impose a secret global carbon tax that would have raised shipping costs on Americans to fund progressive climate pet projects.
* President Trump withdrew the United States and its funding from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its protection of human rights abusers and for attacking the United States for securing our borders and deporting criminal illegal aliens. President Trump also withdrew the United States and its funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for its close ties to Hamas.
* The United Nations Security Council endorsed President Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza and officially approved the Board of Peace, which now has 30 countries on its board.
* This year, the United Nations Security Council overwhelmingly voted to condemn Iran's terror attacks on commercial shipping, receiving more co-sponsors from U.N. members than any Security Council resolution in history.
* President Trump is defending American industries from the U.N.'s attempts to interfere with innovation and stifle the growth of the new industrial revolution powering unprecedented economic development
President Donald J. Trump is allowing America to WIN again by protecting our interests on the world stage, putting Americans safety and security above all else, holding our adversaries accountable, bolstering our defense industries, creating American jobs, and making America more prosperous for generations to come.
* When no other president would, President Trump stepped up and stopped the Iranian nuclear threat once and for all. Because of his action, the leading state sponsor of terror no longer has a Navy, an Air Force, radar, anti-aircraft equipment, or an economy.
* President Trump secured an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that permanently guarantees U.S. security interests in the Arctic at zero cost to the American taxpayer.
* The Trump Administration has ended decades of violence, instability, and foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere is under America's protection and control once again.
* President Trump put the cartels on watch, correctly designating them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and the U.S. military has treated them as such. Operation Southern Spear has dramatically reduced the deadly flow of drugs into our country, saving lives, and eliminated over 230 narcoterrorists in strikes against fentanyl-trafficking vessels.
* President Trump established Shield of the Americas as the largest and most powerful alliance for economic and national security the Western Hemisphere has ever seen. The organization's efforts against the cartels have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives from fentanyl and stripped over $4 billion from the cartels.
* U.S. forces captured the Venezuelan dictator and indicted narcoterrorist Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Since then, the Trump Administration has worked closely with Venezuela's leadership for a brighter future for the people of Venezuela and America.
* President Trump has secured the biggest oil deal in world history for the American people, delivering the U.S. majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela.
* The Trump Administration is rooting out the Cuban regime's coordination with radical and communist networks in the U.S. that sow division and threaten the American way of life, and taking action against the Mexican cartels that pursue terror against Americans.
* President Trump successfully pressured Panama to withdraw from China's Belt and Road Initiative.
* President Trump ended eight wars, ensured the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza, and is paving the way for lasting stability in the Middle East.
* President Trump raised NATO member defense spending to 5% of GDP and secured billions in investments from NATO partners into the U.S. defense industry, creating thousands of new jobs, protecting hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and boosting allied security.
* President Trump designated Muslim Brotherhood branches as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and redesignated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization to ensure the U.S. can eliminate their capabilities, operations, and threats posed to Americans and our national security.
* President Trump is rebuilding America's defense industrial base, restoring American shipbuilding, and reshoring critical industries. These policies are reshoring American manufacturing, creating new high-paying jobs, and securing over $11 trillion in investments across the United States.
President Trump will never stop fighting for the American people, and he's only just begun.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/09/president-trump-delivers-powerful-america-first-message-to-the-united-nations/
OCC Reports Mortgage Performance for Q2 of 2026
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (TNSrep) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued the following news release:
* * *
September 23, 2026
OCC Reports Mortgage Performance for Second Quarter of 2026
WASHINGTON--The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) reported on the performance of first-lien mortgages in the federal banking system during the second quarter of 2026.
The OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, Second Quarter 2026 showed that 97.7 percent of mortgages included in the report were current and performing at the end of the quarter, an increase from
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (TNSrep) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued the following news release:
* * *
September 23, 2026
OCC Reports Mortgage Performance for Second Quarter of 2026
WASHINGTON--The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) reported on the performance of first-lien mortgages in the federal banking system during the second quarter of 2026.
The OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, Second Quarter 2026 showed that 97.7 percent of mortgages included in the report were current and performing at the end of the quarter, an increase from97.5 percent in 2025.
The percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages - mortgages that are 60 or more days past due and all mortgages held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments are 30 or more days past due - decreased from the second quarter of 2025.
Servicers initiated 7,904 new foreclosures in the second quarter of 2026 showing an increase from the previous quarter and from a year earlier.
Servicers completed 7,349 modifications during the second quarter of 2026, a 16.5 percent increase from the previous quarter's 6,308 modifications. Of these 7,349 modifications, 7,107, or 96.7 percent, were "combination modifications" -- modifications that included multiple actions affecting the affordability and sustainability of the loan, such as an interest rate reduction and a term extension.
The first-lien mortgages included in the OCC's quarterly report comprise approximately 18.8 percent of all residential mortgage debt outstanding in the United States or approximately 10.1 million loans totaling $2.6 trillion in principal balances.
This report (https://occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/mortgage-metrics-reports/files/mmr-quaterly-report.html) provides information on mortgage performance through June 30, 2026.
* * *
Original text here: https://occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2026/nr-occ-2026-80.html
National Gallery of Art Appoints Virginia Anderson as Christiane Ellis Valone Senior Curator of American Art and Head of the Art of the Americas
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The National Gallery of Art issued the following news release:
* * *
National Gallery of Art Appoints Virginia Anderson as Christiane Ellis Valone Senior Curator of American Art and Head of the Art of the Americas
September 23, 2026
Washington, DC--The National Gallery of Art announced today that Virginia Anderson will join the museum as the Christiane Ellis Valone Senior Curator of American Art and head of the art of the Americas. She will assume the role in November.
Anderson will lead the art of the Americas department, which stewards the National Gallery's collection
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The National Gallery of Art issued the following news release:
* * *
National Gallery of Art Appoints Virginia Anderson as Christiane Ellis Valone Senior Curator of American Art and Head of the Art of the Americas
September 23, 2026
Washington, DC--The National Gallery of Art announced today that Virginia Anderson will join the museum as the Christiane Ellis Valone Senior Curator of American Art and head of the art of the Americas. She will assume the role in November.
Anderson will lead the art of the Americas department, which stewards the National Gallery's collectionof paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from the Americas. In this role, she will advance the museum's continued development of a collection of art of the Americas that is reflective of the broad scope of artistic innovation across various media and time periods. Anderson will oversee a permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, and works of decorative art from the 18th century to present day, including the Kaufman Collection, one of the most significant collections of early American furniture and decorative arts ever assembled.
Anderson joins the National Gallery from the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), where she is the senior curator of American art and department head of American painting and sculpture and decorative arts. She brings decades of experience and deep expertise in the field as a scholar of American painting, having organized major exhibitions and installations spanning the colonial era to the present.
"We are thrilled to welcome Virginia Anderson to the National Gallery. Her wealth of experience in the field of American art will provide strong leadership in the ongoing growth of our collection of art of the Americas while enriching the presentation of historic American art at the museum. Anderson's deep scholarly knowledge and expansive thinking will be a great asset as we work to make our galleries more engaging and relevant to museum audiences today," said E. Carmen Ramos, the National Gallery's chief curatorial and conservation officer.
"I am honored to join the distinguished staff of the National Gallery, whose collection of American art is one of the finest in the country. This particular moment offers great opportunities to share the depth, richness, and cultural relevance of this renowned collection with today's audiences," said Anderson. "I look forward to working with the outstanding curatorial team to consider the stories these works can tell about the breadth of the American experience, and to celebrate the ways in which American creativity connects to materials and movements from across the globe."
Anderson's curatorial practice is centered on expanding the narratives American art can tell through social histories and innovative frameworks, which will further the National Gallery's ambitions to present a richer and more interconnected history of art in the Americas to its audiences.
While at the BMA, Anderson led the reinstallation of several galleries of the museum's historic American collection, including two period rooms and galleries that unite paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts to consider themes including land and labor in 19th- and 20th-century American art. She curated and co-curated significant exhibitions including Seeing the Essential: The Sigmund M. and Mary B. Hyman Collection of American Art (2026), Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again (2026), Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA (2024), and By Their Creative Force: American Women Modernists (2019-2020), among others. Her next exhibition, Tempting to Touch: Surface and Substance in 20th-Century American Art, will open at the BMA in May 2027.
Prior to her time at the BMA, Anderson was the Diane and Michael Maher Assistant Curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums. There she coedited a major collection catalog, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two: Paintings, Watercolors, Pastels, and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, and co-organized an exhibition of American pre-Raphaelite art, The Last Ruskinians: Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore, and Their Circle (2007). Anderson has also served as an appointed adjunct professor in the Program in Museums and Society at Johns Hopkins University, and as an adjunct professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Anderson holds an AB in government from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in art history from Boston University. She is also a member of the American Art Curatorial Committee at the Harvard Art Museums.
* * *
About the National Gallery of Art's Art of the Americas Department
The National Gallery of Art's art of the Americas department oversees an internationally recognized collection of over 2,000 works of 18th- to early 20th-century American art, as well as modern and contemporary Native American art and colonial Latin American art. It also includes the promised gift of the important collection of early American furniture assembled by George M. and Linda H. Kaufman.
The collection consists of more than 1,500 paintings, 200 sculptures, and 500 works of decorative arts. Its strengths are in 19th-century landscape paintings, portraits, still lifes, folk art paintings, Indigenous images, Gilded Age paintings, and American impressionism. The collection contained fewer than a dozen historical American paintings when the National Gallery opened its doors and has grown substantially in the years since. It is now the largest representation of any national school in the museum's collection. Significant acquisitions include the 1971 purchase of the newly rediscovered second set of Thomas Cole's famous four-part series The Voyage of Life (1842) and The Seine (c. 1902) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, as well as the 1985 acquisition of Rembrandt Peale's Rubens Peale with a Geranium (1801).
In 2014, the National Gallery received over 250 paintings from the former Corcoran Gallery of Art. Included were masterpieces by such major figures as John Singleton Copley, Samuel F. B. Morse, Charles Bird King, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and George Bellows, as well as one of the Corcoran's most famous works, Frederic Edwin Church's Niagara (1857). The Corcoran transfer brought in works by important early 20th-century Native American artists including Awa Tsireh, Tonita Pena, and Velino Shije Herrera.
The collection has strategically expanded in the past decade, adding key works by artists such as Edward Mitchell Bannister, Theresa Bernstein, Fidelia Bridges, Aaron Douglas, Anna Eliza Hardy, Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome, Lilly Martin Spencer, Archibald John Motley Jr., Elizabeth Okie Paxton, Hannah Brown Skeele, and Mary Bradish Titcomb. Efforts will continue to locate and acquire great paintings by artists not yet represented in the collection that will further enrich the museum's presentation of American historical art. Over the past few years, particularly following the exhibition The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans (2023-2024), the National Gallery's collection of contemporary Native American artists has grown to include major works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kay WalkingStick, and Fritz Scholder, among others. The growing collection of colonial Latin American art includes Christ Gathering His Garments after the Flagellation (c. 1670s), a major painting by Juan Correa, one of the most important artists working in 17th-century Mexico City, and Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1730-1739) by Tomas de Merlo, Guatemala's most important 18th-century artist. Given the longstanding cultural and artistic connections between the UK and the United States, the National Gallery's British collection is stewarded by the Art of the Americas department. Reflecting these connections, works by British artists are presented, where appropriate, in galleries devoted to American, British, and European art.
Through special exhibitions, installations, publications, and educational initiatives, the art of the Americas department deepens understanding of the artistic, cultural, and historical contexts that shaped American and British art in the early modern era. The department seeks to continually expand the collection, and its curators collaborate closely with conservators and scientists to ensure the long-term preservation of the art within it.
* * *
About the National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is the nation's art museum, home to a renowned collection of over 160,000 works of art, from antiquity to today. Each year, the museum welcomes millions of people in person and online to explore art, creativity, and our shared humanity. Located on the National Mall, admission to the West and East Buildings, Sculpture Garden, special exhibitions, and public programs is always free.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.nga.gov/press/virginia-anderson-appointment-head-art-americas
DOJ Issues Statements on Michigan Court Decision in BP Case
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The U.S. Department of Justice issued the following news release:
* * *
Justice Department Issues Statements on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan's Decision in People of the State of Michigan vs. BP, P.L.C., et al.
September 23, 2026
Justice Department Filed a Statement of Interest in the Case
-
The Justice Department issued the following statements regarding the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan's decision yesterday in People of the State of Michigan vs. BP, P.L.C., et al., which was an antitrust lawsuit brought by
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The U.S. Department of Justice issued the following news release:
* * *
Justice Department Issues Statements on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan's Decision in People of the State of Michigan vs. BP, P.L.C., et al.
September 23, 2026
Justice Department Filed a Statement of Interest in the Case
-
The Justice Department issued the following statements regarding the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan's decision yesterday in People of the State of Michigan vs. BP, P.L.C., et al., which was an antitrust lawsuit brought bythe state against energy companies.The Justice Department's Antitrust Division and Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) had previously filed a statement of interest to inform the court of legal doctrines that limited the state's claims.
"This dismissal should make states rethink the use of lawfare to enact climate change policy," said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr. "We are committed to upholding antitrust and environmental law. Michigan's case would have accomplished neither. That is what we highlighted in our statement of interest."
"Last May, we filed a complaint against Michigan to prevent it from suing energy companies for climate change under state law theories that are preempted by federal law," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of ENRD. "After we filed our complaint, Michigan pivoted to the novel antitrust claims that the court dismissed yesterday. We are pleased that the district court has rejected another aggressively anti-energy lawsuit, and we are committed to protecting American energy from this sort of state overreach."
"Antitrust law protects competition and thereby consumers; it is not a tool to advance societal goals unrelated to competition," said Deputy Assistant Attorney General G. Charles Beller of the Antitrust Division. "The court's dismissal of Michigan's novel antitrust claims reiterates the bedrock principle that State plaintiffs, like other private parties, must establish antitrust standing. This standing doctrine ensures that the relief provided to private parties is appropriately tailored to redress harms to competition. On behalf of the American people, we are proud to have worked with ENRD to protect and defend the proper application of federal law."
* * *
Original text here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-issues-statements-us-district-court-western-district-michigans-decision
DOE Office of Science Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory: Three Proposals Chosen Through Fiscal Year 2027 FICUS EMSL-ARM Call
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The Department of Energy Office of Science Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory issued the following news:
* * *
Three Proposals Chosen Through Fiscal Year 2027 FICUS EMSL-ARM Call
Projects integrate expertise and resources from two national user facilities
Joey Wohlhieter September 23, 2026
Three projects were recently selected through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) EMSL-ARM proposal call to study terrestrial-atmosphere processes and microphysical processes underlying cloud formation and precipitation.
The
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The Department of Energy Office of Science Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory issued the following news:
* * *
Three Proposals Chosen Through Fiscal Year 2027 FICUS EMSL-ARM Call
Projects integrate expertise and resources from two national user facilities
Joey Wohlhieter September 23, 2026
Three projects were recently selected through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) EMSL-ARM proposal call to study terrestrial-atmosphere processes and microphysical processes underlying cloud formation and precipitation.
Theprincipal investigators (PIs) and their teams will leverage advanced instruments, staff expertise, data, and resources from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) and Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facilities.
All three projects are related to ARM's ongoing Desert-Urban SysTem IntegratEd AtmospherIc Monsoon (DUSTIEAIM) field campaign in Phoenix, Arizona.
Projects are expected to be completed within 24 months. Work begins October 1, 2026.
Which proposals were chosen for the FY 2027 FICUS EMSL-ARM call?
Learn more about the projects, listed in alphabetical order by each PI's last name.
PLUME-AIM: Phoenix Long-range Urban and Monsoon Emissions for DUSTIEAIM
PI: Daniel Feldman, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The PLUME-AIM campaign will use ground-based observations to determine how aerosols interact with atmospheric buoyancy and winds to drive aerosol transport across the Colorado River Basin. Comparisons with 2026 Dust and Regional Organic aerosol Profiling for Land-atmosphere Exchange and Transport (DROPLET) data at DUSTIEAIM will establish the stationarity of these interactions.
* * *
Vertical Profile of Electrical Charge and Aerosols Properties and Links to Cloud Condensation and Ice Nuclei
PI: Claudio Mazzoleni, Michigan Technological University
This project will combine aerosol sampling in Arizona during the DUSTIEAIM campaign with ion measurements and laboratory analyses to examine links between dust particle composition, size, morphology, mixing state, and electrical charge. Researchers will investigate whether and how charge influences dust transport and particles' ability to nucleate cloud droplets or ice.
* * *
Size-resolved Properties of Desert Aerosol and Implications for Condensation Nuclei and Ice Nucleation Activity
PI: Armin Sorooshian, University of Arizona
This project investigates how particle size, composition, morphology, and mixing state affect cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nucleation (IN) in a desert-urban atmosphere. Utilizing the observational framework provided by the DUSTIEAIM campaign, researchers will test hypotheses about aerosol sources and properties, aiming to improve understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and forecasting relevant to public health and weather.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.emsl.pnnl.gov/news/three-proposals-chosen-through-fiscal-year-2027-ficus-emsl-arm-call
DOE Argonne National Laboratory: Major Producer of World's Medical Isotope Supply is Giant Step Closer to Using Proliferation-resistant Nuclear Fuel
ARGONNE, Illinois, Sept. 24 (TNSxrep) -- The U.S. Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory issued the following news release:
* * *
Major producer of world's medical isotope supply is giant step closer to using proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel
Belgium's high-performing nuclear research reactor meets important technical milestone with submission of safety assessment on low-enriched uranium fuel
September 23, 2026
Belgium's nuclear research center, SCK CEN, has submitted a safety assessment to regulators for clearance to operate the BR2 research reactor on a lower enriched uranium
... Show Full Article
ARGONNE, Illinois, Sept. 24 (TNSxrep) -- The U.S. Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory issued the following news release:
* * *
Major producer of world's medical isotope supply is giant step closer to using proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel
Belgium's high-performing nuclear research reactor meets important technical milestone with submission of safety assessment on low-enriched uranium fuel
September 23, 2026
Belgium's nuclear research center, SCK CEN, has submitted a safety assessment to regulators for clearance to operate the BR2 research reactor on a lower enriched uraniumfuel.
For decades, nonproliferation scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have helped convert the fuel in dozens of research reactors around the world so that they operate safely and more securely. They find ways to change systems that rely on highly enriched uranium fuel, which can be used to make weapons, to systems that use low-enriched uranium fuel. With every fuel conversion, Argonne has gained experience, insight and a reputation for expertise solving some of the toughest reactor conversion problems.
Now, Argonne has helped researchers in Belgium achieve a significant technical milestone in what might be its most involved effort to date. Argonne scientists and engineers helped demonstrate safety metrics needed by Belgium's nuclear regulators in order to approve the fuel conversion in the BR2 research reactor at Belgium's nuclear research center, SCK CEN.
The BR2 research reactor is one of Europe's most complex, and it is also one of its most important, because it is a leading material testing reactor and producer of medical isotopes and semiconductor materials. By working together, the American and Belgian experts are helping to secure these capabilities at the same time that they are lowering the risk of anyone diverting the research reactor's fuel to make weapons.
A source of hope and connection
The BR2 reactor is responsible for producing about one-fourth of the world's supply of molybdenum-99, an isotope that decays into technetium-99m. Technetium-99m is widely used to diagnose a range of health conditions, including heart disease and cancer. BR2 also plays an important role in the production of therapeutic radioisotopes such as Lutetium-177 and Terbium-161; hospitals and communities depend on these medical isotopes to improve public health.
BR2 is also used for other valuable work, including a wide range of materials experiments and silicon doping. Doping is the process of intentionally adding impurities to a material to alter its properties. In silicon, this helps create semiconductors used in technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines and other high-power electronics.
Converting the fuel system in a nuclear reactor is always a challenge. Any proposed changes must be evaluated according to international standards to demonstrate continued safety, efficiency and functionality. However, BR2 is especially challenging because it is a high-performance research reactor with a wide range of specialized uses.
According to Jeremy Licht, a principal nuclear engineer who manages Argonne's Research Reactor Methods group, BR2 operates seven times a year in 30-day cycles. Its core can be reconfigured from one cycle to the next to support a wide range of user needs.
"BR2 is an impressive reactor with a highly flexible core," Licht said. "That creates a challenge during conversion because we need a design that reflects how the reactor is actually used, and then we have to show it can meet safety requirements across a wide range of uses."
Licht is among more than a dozen Argonne experts responsible for the technical support for Belgium's research reactor conversion. This work has already spanned a decade. The team's recent success reflects Argonne's expertise in research reactor analysis and the use of Argonne-developed codes trusted throughout the nuclear community to evaluate reactor safety and fuel performance.
"We're not done yet, but it is a major milestone to complete the fuel qualification and conversion safety analysis work so that SCK CEN could submit its conversion authorization request to their regulator," he said.
SCK CEN recently submitted the BR2 safety assessment report to its national regulator, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control. They are working to obtain approval for the fuel conversion proposal in 2027 and to begin converting systems soon afterward.
Europe is home to three other high-performance research reactors of similar complexity. The SCK CEN milestone shows that these highly complex research reactors can also be converted to use more proliferation-resistant fuels. With each successful conversion, Argonne is improving nuclear security worldwide while sustaining reactors that provide a broad range of benefits to society.
* * *
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
* * *
The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.anl.gov/article/major-producer-of-worlds-medical-isotope-supply-is-giant-step-closer-to-using-proliferationresistant
ATF Joins Interagency Trade Fraud Task Force to Combat Illicit Vape and Tobacco Trafficking
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued the following news release:
* * *
September 23, 2026
ATF joins interagency Trade Fraud Task Force to combat illicit vape and tobacco trafficking
WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives today announced it has joined the interagency Trade Fraud Task Force, strengthening federal efforts to stop illegal, mis-declared, and smuggled goods, such as illegally entered vapes and nicotine products, from entering U.S. commerce and funding organized crime.
Launched
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued the following news release:
* * *
September 23, 2026
ATF joins interagency Trade Fraud Task Force to combat illicit vape and tobacco trafficking
WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives today announced it has joined the interagency Trade Fraud Task Force, strengthening federal efforts to stop illegal, mis-declared, and smuggled goods, such as illegally entered vapes and nicotine products, from entering U.S. commerce and funding organized crime.
Launchedby the Department of Justice and Homeland Security Investigations, the Trade Fraud Task Force brings together federal enforcement partners to identify and dismantle schemes that use false customs declarations, mislabeled shipments, and other fraudulent practices to evade lawful import requirements. Specifically, ATF's participation will strengthen the Task Force's ability to trace illicit tobacco and vape products from points of entry through domestic trafficking networks into American communities, leveraging ATF's statutory authority under the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act.
"We are proud to partner with our federal law enforcement colleagues on this Task Force," said ATF Director Rob Cekada. "This joint effort strengthens our ability to protect American communities, dismantle the criminal networks profiting from trade fraud, and get harmful, unregulated, and illegal products like illicit Chinese vapes off our streets."
ATF's authority under the PACT Act makes it the lead federal agency responsible for enforcing registration, reporting, and shipping requirements for tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery system sales in interstate commerce. ATF maintains the PACT Act non-compliant list and holds direct authority to inspect records and refer violations for criminal prosecution. ATF's participation integrates the agency's enforcement capabilities into the Department of Justice's coordinated strategy to combat trade fraud.
The illegal vape and tobacco market remains a growing threat to public health and law enforcement. Industry estimates indicate unauthorized vape products now account for the majority of e-cigarette sales in the United States, with most manufactured overseas and smuggled into domestic distribution chains.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.atf.gov/news/press-releases/atf-joins-interagency-trade-fraud-task-force-to-combat-illicit-vape-and-tobacco-trafficking
