Brandon Williams, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the National Nuclear Security Administration, advanced onto the Senate Executive Calendar after the Armed Services committee voted “favorably” for him on May 1, according to the congressional website.
The committee did not tell the Exchange Monitor what the final tally vote was.
Williams is calendar item No. 107 on the Executive Calendar for Monday, May 5.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Director General Rafael Grossi met with officials in D.C. last week, including Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Nuclear Energy Commission chair David Wright, the nuclear watchdog agency said April 24.
It was Grossi’s first visit to the U.S. capitol since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. Grossi also expressed his thanks for the three-day visit on the website X April 22.
“The United States is an indispensable partner in our important work to make the world safer and more prosperous,” Grossi said in the press release.
A Carnegie Corporation of New York consortium pledged millions of dollars toward nuclear weapons expertise focused on risk reduction, or nonproliferation.
Dame Louise Richardson, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, announced the consortium launch at last week’s Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference.
The consortium would distribute $10.2 million over two years to think tanks, university centers, nongovernmental organizations or experts that send in proposals, which Carnegie will seek out soon, according to Axios.
US and Iran’s fourth round of nuclear talks in Rome have allegedly been postponed to an undetermined time, Tehran told media outlets, though the US State Department said the Saturday meeting in Rome had not been confirmed.
This news comes after the State Department issued a round of sanctions this week against Iran, which Iran described as “further proof of the American decision-makers’ contradictory behavior,” according to BBC.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in an opinion article in the Washington Post early April that this nuclear deal would be a “trillion-dollar opportunity” for America fit for President Donald Trump’s priorities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said in the podcast The Free Press earlier this week that the Trump administration is prepared to allow Iran a civilian nuclear program that runs on imported nuclear fuel as a compromise to avoid Tehran’s possible escalation to a nuclear weapon.
The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition announced April 25 it elected Katherine Peretick as chair of the coalition and Stacey Paradis as vice chair.
The two will lead the commission in its aim to build a nuclear waste management program to dispose of spent nuclear fuel stored at both operating and shutdown nuclear plants nationwide, according to a coalition press release.
Peretick is a commissioner for the Michigan Public Service Commission, while Paradis is a commissioner from the Illinois Commerce Commission.
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), 75, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Monday he will not seek re-election, months after announcing his cancer diagnosis.
“After grueling treatments, we’ve learned that the cancer, while initially beaten back, has now returned,” Connolly said in a letter to constituents in Fairfax County and Northern Virginia. “I’ll do everything possible to continue to represent you and thank you for your grace.”
“The sun is setting on my time in public service, and this will be my last term in Congress,” Connolly said. “I will be stepping back as Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee soon. With no rancor and a full heart, I move into this final chapter full of pride in what we’ve accomplished together over 30 years.”
