Free Republic

Executive order effective September 8 exempts gold bullion, graphite, tungsten, and uranium while extending reciprocal tariffs to silicone products, resin, and aluminum hydroxide.The Trump administration exempted graphite, tungsten, uranium, and gold bullion from US country-based reciprocal tariffs, while adding levies on silicone products—and extending those tariffs to resin and aluminum hydroxide.The move, set to take effect today under an executive order, formalizes the planned bullion carve-out after a recent US Customs and Border Protection ruling sowed confusion by implying certain gold bars could face import taxes.TRUMP EXEMPTS GRAPHITE, TUNGSTEN, URANIUM & GOLD FROM COUNTRY-BASED TARIFFS; SILICONE PRODUCTS TO FACE LEVIES—...

In June 2014, a worker at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee was surprised to find U.S. nuclear secrets inside a trash bag marked for disposal along with standard rubbish. Taking a closer look, the worker found 19 more documents in the bag that were either marked classified or were later determined to contain information that should have been labeled secret. A dozen more bags of trash sat nearby, awaiting transport to an open landfill where Y-12 workers routinely dump garbage with no bearing on national security. When employees of Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services, Y-12, LLC, the contractor...

OAK RIDGE — A woman with suspected mental issues was able to drive into the main entrance and all the way through the high-security Y-12 National Security Complex unhindered Thursday morning, according to an Oak Ridge Police Department report obtained by the News Sentinel. The security breach occurred less than a year after three protesters cut through a series of security fences and walked to the innermost sanctum of Y-12, the country’s largest repository of weapons-grade uranium.

Energoatom, the operator of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, has denied a report from IAEA head Rafael Grossi that there are stocks of 30,000 kg of plutonium and 40,000 kg of enriched uranium at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is controlled by Russian forces. At a discussion on nuclear safety at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Grossi voiced concerns about the Zaporizhzhia NPP having such nuclear materials and said this was grounds for a visit to the plant by IAEA officials as soon as possible. Grossi said the IAEA is seeking to visit the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the largest nuclear...

Perhaps it’s too soon to mark nuclear power’s revival in the U.S. but there is a burst of activity that should ultimately yield a new generation of advanced nuclear plants and small modular reactors.This is especially true for major industrial energy consumers—which now also includes data centers—where there is a strong economic incentive to use more nuclear power instead of natural gas and intermittent renewables.In Illinois, Meta recently signed a long-term agreement to buy nuclear power from Constellation’s Clinton nuclear plant, the latest in a slew of deals between big tech and the nuclear industry. Constellation also said it would...

On June 22, 2025, the United States struck deep. Using bunker-buster bombs, Operation Midnight Hammer targeted Iran’s most fortified nuclear facility, Fordow, along with a constellation of related sites. Within hours, a new narrative emerged. According to some analysts and media commentators, Iran had foreseen the strike and whisked its highly enriched uranium out of harm’s way just days before the bombs fell. It is a seductive story, part thriller, part geopolitical chess game. But it is also, on closer inspection, fiction. Fordow is not a shipping warehouse. It is a subterranean stronghold. Situated 2,500 feet beneath the mountains near...

This weekend's strike on Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant used 30,000-pound GBU-57 "massive ordnance penetrator" bombs. The design of those weapons and plans for attacking the site had been in the works for some 15 years, which resulted in the destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities. "President Donald J. Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a cease-fire agreement and the end of the 12-day war [between Iran and Israel]," said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a press briefing today at the Pentagon. "Because of decisive military action, President...

Israeli boffins have developed a promising technique for "declawing" plutonium, which would let it be used as fuel but not for building bombs. They believe the technique could greatly expand peaceful use of nuclear power worldwide, while preventing weapons proliferation. Almost all plutonium is produced in nuclear reactors, which can run on either uranium or plutonium fuel rods. When the rods are replaced with new ones, the old fuel can be reprocessed - so yielding useful fissionable fuel including plutonium, and reducing the amount of waste requiring disposal or storage. Beyond basic reprocessing, there is also scope for more advanced...

Ho-hum, another day in Tehran, another incident of careless explosive-tank handling. Or so the Iranians want everyone to think, for now. Officials claim that “careless handling” of oxygen tanks triggered an explosion south of Tehran that killed two people in Baghershahr late yesterday. “Human error,” the Iranian regime called it: Two men have been killed in yet another Iran explosion, as officials blamed ‘human error’ for the blast.The explosion rocked the Sepahan Boresh factory in the city of Baqershahr, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to state media.It was caused by ‘workers being negligent...

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The big question at this hour: Is the U.S. planning to invade Iraq sometime next year? While White House officials are downplaying a "New York Times" report that says the U.S. is considering a major air and ground assault for next year that could include as many as 250,000 American troops. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein celebrated his 65th birthday over the weekend with the usual well-choreographed tributes from the Iraqi people. And, in Baghdad, tens of thousands of people marched as a show of support and defiance in the face of U.S. determination to topple Hussein. Ambassador...

USA Rare Earth, the funding and development partner of the Round Top heavy rare earth project and Texas Mineral Resources announced Thursday that its rare earths pilot plant processing facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has received the required permits and officially opened. Once fully commissioned, the plant will be focused on group separation of rare earths into heavy (dysprosium, terbium), middle, and light (neodymium, praseodymium) rare earths (REE’s) and will be the first facility to separate the full range of rare earth elements in the US since 1999. USA Rare Earth’s pilot plant is the second link in a 100%...

A rapid 14-day environmental review has seen a new uranium mine approved in Utah. The endorsement is part of a refreshed Trump administration process to fast-track permissions for energy and mining projects. The Velvet-Wood uranium project received a green light on Friday. It is owned and operated by the Canadian company Anfield Energy. The approval tick comes 11 days after the Interior Department ordered the Bureau of Land Management to review the mine’s environmental impacts within two weeks, as opposed to the prior timeline of months or years.The dynamic new approach has been expected since President Donald Trump declared a...

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders (EOs) on nuclear energy proliferation and an order removing political considerations from public-sector science, as conservatives claimed the latter was scandalized in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump also signed restoring "gold standard science" as the cornerstone of federal research. A senior White House official said on Friday there has been a decline in "disruptive research" and investments in biomedical research, along with "serious cases" of fraud and misconduct and the inability to reproduce scientific methods for the purpose of restoring public trust. The official also blamed policy responses to the COVID-19...

BATA, Equatorial Guinea—Classified American intelligence reports suggest China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea, according to U.S. officials. The officials declined to describe details of the secret intelligence findings. But they said the reports raise the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast of the U.S.—a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and Pentagon. Principal deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer visited Equatorial Guinea in October on a mission to persuade...

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) says the Trump administration should drop nuclear negotiations with Iran and finish off the country's nuclear facilities with a military strike. "Waste that s—t," the Pennsylvania Democrat told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview on Wednesday. "You're never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities." Fetterman dismissed the foreign policy experts who warn that striking Iran would lead to the outbreak of...

FULL TITLE: 'Something was off': Survivor says US troops were stalled by a village elder before they were ambushed by 50 terrorists in Niger for hours following a near 24 hour patrol operation The four American special forces killed fighting in Niger were ambushed by 50 ISIS terrorists after they were stalled by a village elder, a survivor of the attack has revealed. The group of 12 American forces had accompanied 30 Nigerien forces to an area about 85 kilometers north of the capital Niamey on a routine reconnaissance mission on October 3, when a dramatic new order came through...

Russia said Thursday that any attacks on its ally Iran would be unacceptable and illegal, warning of irreversible consequences if the U.S. were to bomb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned President Trump’s threat to bomb Iran if a deal on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is not reached, reiterating its support for Iran’s program.“The use of military force by Iran’s opponents in the context of the settlement is illegal and unacceptable,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. “Threats from outside to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure facilities will inevitably lead to an irreversible global catastrophe....

I am having a back and forth with Japan Today regarding their publishing of an article which appeared in Capitol Hill Blue that has subsequently been exposed to be false.Japan Today did not get the article from Capitol Hill Blue though. They got it from Truthout.org, a leftist propaganda outfit.I wanted to see if Truthout.org even had the story up on their site. I went to their main page, Truthout.org and checked. Nothing. I noticed a search box up at the top. So I took a phrase from the original article, sought significant quantities and hit search.Bingo.Here is what the...

By Wayne Allyn Root In just the past few hours, we have uncovered perhaps the biggest scandal of the Biden presidency. It turns out Joe Biden never signed anything- no laws, no Executive Orders, no legal documents, nothing. They were all signed by autopen. There were no original signatures. Which makes them all illegal. That makes everything that happened and passed during the past four years null and void. But that brings up the question of the century: If Biden never signed anything, who did? Who was calling the shots? Who was running the country? I know the answer… All...

At the tail end of the fiery Oval Office exchange pitting Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky against President Trump and Vice President Vance, Trump spent two heated minutes on a theme the media will likely bury. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” said Trump. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia.” What Trump did not say, but he might have, is that the constant scapegoating of Russia and Putin made America’s proxy war against Russia an easy sell. What Trump might also have said is that before he...