Wrap up: One Big Beautiful Bill passed by House; Golden Dome budget and timeline announced; Iran insists on enriching over 20%; AUKUS manager and more; Obituary

President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a tax bill, was passed in the House in the middle of the night Wednesday into Thursday 215-214 largely on party lines with Republicans Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Warren Davidson (Ohio) voting against and Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) voting “present.”

The portion relevant to the nuclear weapons complex, the $150 billion defense portion and its provisions on the National Nuclear Security Administration, remains unchanged from the markup in the House Armed Services Committee at the end of April.

The Senate will take up the bill when it returns, and Republican leaders in the House have said they hope to get the bill signed into law by July.

President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday announced key details of the planned Golden Dome missile defense architecture, with an expected total cost of $175 billion and timeline to be ready within three years and be run by the Vice Chief of Space Operations.

Speaking during a press conference in the oval office, Trump said the system will deploy “next-generation technologies” across land, sea, and space with space-based sensors and interceptors; integrate with existing missile defense capabilities; and “should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we’ll have it done in about three years.”

He said the system is planned to be capable of intercepting ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles.

Despite reports of Iranian officials being ready to sign a nuclear deal with the U.S. last week, Tehran issued a statement saying enriching uranium to levels above 20% is non-negotiable, Iranian state news reported.

“We are still assessing whether it is worth participating,” Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in the statement. “Uranium enrichment will continue with or without an agreement, and Western countries should lift the unfair sanctions applied to Iran.”

Rear Adm. Richard Seif assumed management of the AUKUS Integration and Acquisition Direct Reporting Program Management Office on April 21, according to a May 14 Navy announcement. 

This office is responsible for executing the trilateral AUKUS agreement to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines with high nuclear stewardship and nonproliferation standards.

Seif previously served as commander of the Submarine Force at the U.S. Pacific Fleet and commander of Task Force 34 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Seif succeeds Rear Adm. Lincoln M. Reifsteck, who now serves as commander of Submarine Group Seven, Task Force-54 and Task Force-74. 

During a May 13 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Space Policy Andrea Yaffe confirmed the Defense Department delivered the initial 30-day review on Golden Dome development pathways to the White House in line with the original Jan. 27 executive order. 

Yaffe said DoD officials worked with stakeholders to work on the different design options and “we matured them to a place that the technical experts took over and really refined them into a few different options to bring to the secretary.” She added DoD leaders have engaged with the president on this “and the hope is that there will be an announcement soon, certainly tied with the budget.” 

Vice Adm. Scott Pappano, President Donald Trump’s pick to be Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, advanced out of committee onto the Senate Executive Calendar last week.

The vote tally for Pappano and when a vote will take place has not been announced.

The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reportedly achieved ignition once again in April 2025, the lab said in a report.

This experiment is NIF’s eighth successful ignition experiment, where it delivered 8.6 megajoules of energy after inputting 2.08 megajoules of energy into the target. A positive-energy output is what makes ignition, or fusion.

These experiments are meant to demonstrate controlled nuclear fusion principles as a potential future energy source.

Obituary

U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has died at age 75, only weeks after publicly announcing his cancer had returned.

Connolly, an advocate for federal workers, died early Wednesday morning, according to a family statement posted on his Congressional website. Connolly was in his ninth term representing Virginia’s 11th District, which includes Fairfax, according to his online biography, but announced he would not seek re-election in April after his cancer returned.

“It is with immense sadness that we share that our devoted and loving father, husband, brother, friend, and public servant, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, passed away peacefully at his home this morning surrounded by family,” the statement says.