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Say goodbye to the Gotham Sports app.

It appears the U.S. has won him over.

Idaho's High Desert Becomes Hot Spot For Nuclear Power Revolution

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

History was made with the flip of a switch at 12:30 a.m. on June 4, under partly cloudy skies and a waning three-quarter moon in Idaho's Arco Desert, when a prototype reactor sustained a nuclear chain reaction, becoming the first new design to achieve "criticality," or viability, in the United States since 1973.

In that midnight milestone's wake, the future is following fast. Since Antares Nuclear's Mark-0 design was validated in early June, three other novel reactor designs have met the U.S. Department of Energy's criticality requirements and, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Up to four more could do so by year's end.

While technologies, fuels, and applications vary, these prototypes share common traits. All are far smaller than the conventional reactors with massive cement cooling towers, and all are designed to be mass-produced, portable, and scalable. Several can fit in the bed of a pickup truck.

Most microreactor designs could be built in factories and shipped in cargo containers to locations around the world. Idaho National Laboratory

The nuclear energy surge is a convergence of rare bipartisan accord with stymied science and spiking electricity demand, spurred by power-hungry data centers and the integration of artificial intelligence and quantum computing into an electron-dependent world where the average U.S. home has 21 digital devices.

High-tech investors and hyperscalers are financing much of the innovation and pressuring the energy department to accelerate approvals to bring these new energy sources to market.

Not next decade.

Next year.

First-Movers

Antares Nuclear is one of 10 companies selected by the Department of Energy in August 2025 to develop "first mover" innovations under a reactor pilot program authorized by President Donald Trump. In four executive orders in May 2025, the president called for licensing 10 new reactors by 2030 and quadrupling the nation's nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

The United States maintains the world's largest nuclear power industry, with 96 reactors across 28 states that produce nearly 20 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association.

But since 1990, while 18 reactors have been retired, only two new ones have been built in the United States, largely because of costs, long timelines, regulatory entanglements, and public perception after the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima nuclear accidents.

Although deployments have languished for a half-century, nuclear technologies have advanced, with U.S. companies developing more than 30 new reactor designs. Meanwhile, successive administrations and Congress - in scarce consensus - have been deregulating and subsidizing the industry since 2024's ADVANCE Act adoption to meet a projected 25 percent increase in electricity demand by 2030 and more than 70 percent increase by 2050.

Criticality, a no-power proofing of theoretical physics, is generally the first step in being licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to produce and sell commercial nuclear reactors.

Trump's executive orders overhaul the commission and streamline approvals, meaning new reactors could be for sale within six months to a year, Wright said on June 25 in Idaho Falls after meeting with developers at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Qualifying for the pilot reactor program launched by Trump's executive orders, or for enrollment in the energy department's newly established nuclear launchpad program, gives developers access to the Idaho National Laboratory, an 890-square-mile sagebrush sprawl in the Arco Desert, where atomic power was first used to create electricity in 1951. Specifically, they gain access to the Materials and Fuels Complex, a 40-minute drive from the lab's Idaho Falls administrative offices.

Prototypes by Aalo Atomics and Valar Atomics also reached criticality under the pilot reactor program, while Deployable Energy did so as a launchpad participant. On criticality's "cusp" at the national lab and elsewhere are micro-reactors from Radiant Industries, Natura Resources, Last Energy, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, and Oklo.

Antares Nuclear's Mark-O

When Antares's Mark-0 achieved functional viability on June 4, it became the 53rd reactor to reach criticality at the Idaho National Lab and the first non-lightwater reactor licensed in the United States since 1973.

The Torrance, California startup's shipping container-sized prototype, which utilizes sodium heat pipes for cooling without relying on external power, could produce up to 20 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 15,000 homes, by 2027.

At the national lab on June 25, Wright told Antares CEO Jordan Bramble that seeing a structure where "wetted" sodium waste was treated transformed into a reactor test site in less than a year had made him so happy, he cried.

"I got emotional - emotional! - today to see the humans, the reactors, the steel, the action that's happening" at the lab site, he said. "To think on June 4 - less than 13 months after [Trump's executive orders] - that reactor ran critical [because] a three-year-old company said, 'Yes, we can. Yes, we will,' and leaned in."

Fueled by high-assay low-enriched uranium, Antares's prototype is in a 26-foot-deep, 26-foot-wide chamber and "over-shielded" under 11 cement slabs collectively weighing more than 200 tons.

Antares Communications Manager Kayla Haas said that when the company was founded in 2023, there were "three big things on the agenda": in 2026, secure Mark-0 criticality; in 2027, "produce electricity" with the next-generation Mark-1; and in 2028, "deploy reactors on customer sites."

"We're super excited to have checked the 2026 box," Haas said. "Now, we are shifting focus to our Mark-1 electricity-producing reactor that we'll test in 2027."

Backed by more than $140 million in private financing, Antares Nuclear owns a 322,000-square-foot plant in Southern California and offices in Aiken, South Carolina, and Idaho Falls. Its Mark-0 and Mark-1 reactors are ideally designed for defense and space applications.

The June 4 demonstration was conducted in partnership with Department of Defense nuclear fuels contractor BWX Technologies Inc. and observed by Pentagon officials. Antares is under contract to deliver micro-reactors to the U.S. Air Force's Joint Base San Antonio in 2027 and to the U.S. Army by September 2028.

Since 2025, Antares Nuclear has also been testing a 100-kilowatt reactor - enough juice for 65 homes - at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, for potential use in space travel and as a moon base power plant.

The prototypes all share the same "base design," Antares Licensing Director Jason Andrus said, but testing in California, Idaho, and Alabama allows the company to integrate "learnings" into evolving designs and "do really kind of nerdy, nukey things."

Valar Atomics' Ward 250

Valar Atomics became the second to gain criticality, when its Ward 250 high-temperature, helium-cooled reactor sustained generation on June 18 at the San Rafael Energy Lab in Emery County, Utah. It is the only one of the four not to do so at the Idaho lab.

The El Segundo, California-based developer's 75-foot-long, 15-foot-wide micro-reactor could generate up to five megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, and be portable by truck, train, or plane. In February, the 120-ton Ward 250 was transported from California to Utah in a U.S. Air Force C-17.

Ward 250 is designed to be planted up to 80 feet underground and, because it is fueled by TRISO - a uranium fuel designed to prevent radioactive release - there's no need for large cement containment structures.

Valar followed criticality by using Ward 250 on July 1 to briefly power a website hosted on an Nvidia Blackwell AI chip. Nvidia is building a data center complex near Valar's factory in Orangeville, Utah, and has agreed to purchase up to 30 megawatts of electricity from the company by decade's end.

Deployable Energy's Unity

Houston-headquartered Deployable Energy's Unity reactor was the third new design, and second at the Idaho National Lab, to attain criticality in June, when it achieved operability at 11:55 p.m. on June 30.

Deployable founder and CEO Bobby Gallagher hauled Unity's reactor core, designed to fit in a 20-foot shipping container, from Texas to Idaho in a Ford F-150 pickup bed, proving its portability just by showing up at the lab.

The high-temperature, water-moderated, helium-cooled one-megawatt reactor - generating enough to power around 800 homes - is fueled with standard low enriched uranium, was built in partnership with Texas A&M University, and has drawn more than $10 billion in letter-of-interest queries "ranging from data centers to remote island community power," it maintains.

While one megawatt is not a lot of electricity, isolated communities, emergency responders, military installations, and industrial developers will see value in a reactor that can be "dropped in wherever you need it and left alone," Deployable Energy co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Sanjay Mukhi said in late June, four days before Unity achieved criticality.

Deployable, which was only incorporated in 2025, was banking on that prospect when it was accepted into the reactor pilot program and arrived at the Idaho National Lab "150 days ago," he said, building a 340,000-square-foot structure dubbed "Studio 54," because it houses the 54th new reactor type to reach criticality at the lab.

Mukhi said one-megawatt reactors can be "scaled out" to meet tailored needs.

"We can deploy many at a time to meet the actual power requirements of specific sites," he said. "If you require 122 megawatts, instead of getting a 350-megawatt unit, you could actually get the exact power requirement and a little bit more."

The reactor, anchored in a 19-foot-deep basement chamber, looks like a laundry wash drum serrated by 696 holes where uranium rods will radiate heat in 63 gallons of water.

"It doesn't require a lot of water," Deployable co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Lance Maul said. "That's one of the other benefits to being able to go into different markets that have water restrictions."

Deployable's goal, he said, is to produce 1,000 reactors a year by decade's end and "by the mid-30s, 10,000 a year."

"That's the idea," Mukhi said. "From order to delivery, six months."

Aalo Atomics' Aalo-X

After Aalo Atomics of Austin, Texas, was selected to participate in the pilot program at the lab, the three-year-old startup's 200 employees built a 3,600-square-foot structure in 36 days. Then, over the next 40 days, they installed a 10-megawatt test reactor, which reached criticality 20 minutes into July 4.

"From founding to fission in under three years," Aalo spokesperson Ashley Cohen said. "One of the fastest reactor builds in modern American history."

It was the second-fastest build in history for a first-of-a-kind reactor, clarified Aalo co-founder and CEO Matt Lozak, and the swiftest in 80 years since Clementine, the world's first plutonium-fueled fast-neutron reactor, achieved criticality in November1946.

The test reactor is a full-scale prototype of its 20-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide Aalo-X micro-reactor - small enough to haul on a tractor trailer flatbed, big enough to power 10,000 homes.

Lozak projects that Aalo will be selling its next-generation 10-megawatt, 4.95 percent LEU-fueled Apollo X reactors at "commercial-scale" in 2027, and assembling its Aalo Pod power plants, which can house up to five 10-megawatt reactors, for commercial buyers by 2029 at its 40,000-square-foot Texas factory.

The Aalo Pod power plant will be mobile, won't need refurbishment for 40 years, and will be purpose-built to specifications - attributes the company says make it ideal for military, disaster response, and industrial applications.

Aalo co-founder and President Yasir Arafat noted that the Department of Energy has approved the company's request to build a data center on its national lab site.

"These things go hand-in-hand," he said. "AI is so power-hungry, and there's no better way to power AI than nuclear."

During a tour of the company's 2-acre site at the national lab, Lozak and Arafat said reaching criticality by July 4 would prove concepts key to their commercial model.

Mission accomplished.

"We proved all the major hard questions," Lozak said. "Can you construct? Yes. Can you build your reactor in a factory? Yes. We built our reactor in four weeks, did 80 percent of the installation within the first week in the factory, and shipped it across the country in two days."

Radiant Nuclear's Kaleidos

El Segundo, California-based Radiant Nuclear's one-megawatt Kaleidos reactor, designed to fit inside a 20-foot shipping container, is expected to reach criticality and then follow up with a 150-hour demonstration of sustained "hands off" operability this summer.

Kaleidos is installed in the Idaho lab's Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME), a 100-foot-tall structure on the Materials and Fuels Complex, where micro-reactors up to 20 megawatts were tested in the 1960s and '70s.

Radiant Nuclear President Tori Shivanandan said in late June that the company was engaged in "rigorous component testing on every single part of this system" it built inside the DOME.

The reactor's helium circulator, for instance, has received more than 150 start-stops "as though [it] just lost power" so the company can "understand that data prior to the system even shipping," she said. "We're still 'iterating' on the product."

There are five phases to reactor testing, Shivanandan said, "and we pause, we review the data, between each one."

Some Kaleidos components have undergone extensive testing at university labs nationwide, "but this will be the first time they're receiving dose under the full system, and so we want to again see 150 hours of what we call 'hands-off operations,' and monitor the environment, see what's going on," Shivanandan said.

The shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant stands in the middle of the Susquehanna River near Middletown, Pa., on Oct. 10, 2024. Since 1990, only two new nuclear reactors have been built in the United States, in large part because of public perception after nuclear accidents such as the 1979 partial meltdown at the plant. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Tyler Durden Wed, 07/29/2026 - 09:30

Watch: Fauci's Invokes 5th, Lawyer Forcibly Removed From Hearing

Update (0920ET): As Dr. Anthony Fauci continues to invoke his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself - something we were all told he couldn't do due to his pardon by former President Joe Biden. 

The hearing kicked off at 8:30 a.m. EDT with Fauci appearing under subpoena from Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY). 

• Fauci’s opening statement: He invoked the Fifth Amendment and announced he would refuse to answer questions. He said it “pains” him to do so given his long record of cooperating with Congress, but he was following his attorneys’ advice. He accused Paul of an “obvious obsession” / “unhinged” campaign aimed at getting him “behind bars,” and said the hearing’s real purpose was to trap him into making statements that could support prosecution (especially perjury). He also criticized the recent public release of his personal diary entries as an effort to embarrass and intimidate him.
• Paul’s opening remarks: The chairman framed the session around COVID origins, NIH-funded research (including gain-of-function issues), inconsistencies between Fauci’s public statements and private diary notes, and accountability for the pandemic response. He noted that a presidential pardon does not rewrite history or prevent Congress from examining the facts.
• Questioning: As Paul (and possibly other senators) and others posed questions about origins, research funding, past testimony, and the diary, Fauci repeatedly responded along the lines of: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

Paul went ballistic on Fauci's lawyer for speaking when he was not recognized, and then had security remove him.

Fauci lawyer is removed- round of applause pic.twitter.com/sZroNpcAAs

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) July 29, 2026

Watch:

* * *

Dr. Anthony Fauci is testifying today before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committe, after Chairman Sen. Rand Paul compelled him via subpoena. 

Fauci, the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH (1984–2022) and a leading public face of the U.S. COVID-19 response, is appearing as the sole witness.

So far: 

•  Fauci is invoking his 5th amendment right not to incriminate himself by answers Paul's questions - something legal scholars widely expressed he could not do leading up to the hearing. 

"Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the Legislative Branch for government, and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions," Fauci, 85, repeated over and over.

Paul reminded Fauci that it's illegal "to refuse to answer any questions pertinent to the question under inquiry."

🚨 JUST IN: Sen. Rand Paul just told Dr. Fauci to his face it's ILLEGAL to incessantly plead the 5th Amendment and refusing to answer relevant questions when testifying before the Senate under subpoena

PROSECUTE NOW!

PAUL: "Section 192 of Title II of the U.S. Code...that… pic.twitter.com/uXE2jLNNeE

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 29, 2026

It's too bad Fauci is refusing to answer questions:

pic.twitter.com/XgNdlsUIHL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 29, 2026

This marks another round of congressional scrutiny of Fauci since his 2022 retirement, centered on long-running criticisms of pandemic-era decisions and messaging. Key focuses include:

• COVID-19 origins: Whether NIH-funded research (including work connected to labs in China) played any role, versus the prevailing scientific view of a natural zoonotic spillover (likely amplified at the Wuhan wildlife market). Paul has long pressed lab-leak possibilities and alleged inconsistencies in Fauci’s public statements.
• Recently released diary entries: Paul made public more than 1,000–1,500 pages of Fauci’s personal notes from the pandemic years. Critics highlight passages they say differ from Fauci’s public comments (e.g., early notes on the virus and the market); Fauci’s attorneys have called the related allegations baseless.
• Broader issues of public-health messaging, school closures, gain-of-function research debates, and Fauci’s interactions with officials across the Trump and Biden administrations.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer and others have noted that a prior presidential pardon does not cover potential false statements in today’s testimony. Fauci has previously rejected claims of lying or cover-ups as preposterous; scientists and supporters have defended him ahead of the session.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/29/2026 - 09:00

Si Woo Kim and Russell Henley headline our picks at the Rocket Classic.

Bet $10, get $150 in bonus bets with the bet365 bonus code for Yankees vs. White Sox.

Forget white-knuckling it in silence. Now, at places like Carillon Wellness Resort in Miami Beach, menopause comes with a robe, an ocean view and a plan.

The Bravo stars, who announced their split in January, opened up about their marital problems during the "In the City" reunion.

The Bravo stars, who announced their split in January, opened up about their marital problems during the "In the City" reunion.

Kaylee Goncalves said she was being watched outside her home before Kohberger killed her and three friends.

Pete Alonso was stunned. 

NFL training Camp doesn't sound so great after all.

WASHINGTON -- President Trump vowed Wednesday to "beat the f—ing s— out of" Iran in response to a surprise missile attack by the Islamic Republic targeting US troops stationed in Jordan.

New investigative findings reveal Nolan Wells had been drinking heavily before disappearing on a remote Mississippi island and may have stayed behind with an unknown woman. The new witness accounts deepen the mystery surrounding the 18-year-old’s death as his official cause of death remains undetermined. Also, newly released bodycam footage captures the harrowing moments officers...

“With broken hearts we announce the passing of Glen Hansard in the early hours of this morning,” a statement issued by the musician's management read.

DOJ And Trump Ask Supreme Court To Review $83.3 Million Carroll Verdict

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the U.S. Supreme Court on July 28 to intervene in the defamation dispute between President Donald Trump and writer E. Jean Carroll.

The DOJ is arguing in the petition in United States v. Carroll that the federal government - not Trump personally - should be the defendant in the case that led to an $83.3 million verdict against Trump.

At the same time, Trump’s private attorneys filed a petition with the high court in the case of Trump v. Carroll, asking the justices to review the same verdict, largely on grounds of presidential immunity.

The DOJ’s petition, a copy of which was obtained by The Epoch Times, focuses on the federal Westfall Act, which shields federal employees from personal liability for common law tort lawsuits arising from their government employment.

Common law refers to the body of law developed over centuries by court rulings, as opposed to statutes passed by legislatures. A tort is a wrongful act or infringement of a right that gives rise to civil liability.

When the U.S. attorney general certifies that a federal employee—including a president—was acting in an official capacity, the United States is usually substituted as the defendant, and the individual ends up being dismissed from the lawsuit.

The $83.3 million verdict arose from statements Trump made in mid-2019 while he was president, in which he denied Carroll’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the claim in an official White House statement and again when speaking to reporters—statements the jury found defamatory.

In 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr, who served in Trump’s Cabinet, certified under the Westfall Act that Trump’s statements were within the scope of his official duties. As a result, the case, which had been pending in New York state court, was transferred to federal court. Then in 2023, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, who served in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, took the unusual step of withdrawing the certification, the petition said.

This allowed the lawsuit to move forward against Trump personally, after which the jury found for Carroll, rendering the $83.3 million verdict.

While an appeal was pending, Trump was reelected, and in April 2025, his attorney general appointee, Pam Bondi, recertified Trump’s conduct and made a motion to substitute the United States as the defendant in the case. The Second Circuit blocked Bondi’s recertification, an action the DOJ argues the court was not entitled to take.

The DOJ also argues the Second Circuit misinterpreted the Westfall Act.

“This petition presents the question whether the Westfall Act contains an implicit timing restriction barring the Attorney General’s posttrial recertification. Such a restriction does not exist,” the petition said of Bondi’s action.

If the United States replaces Trump as the defendant, Carroll’s defamation claim would almost certainly fail. The Federal Tort Claims Act, which covers lawsuits against the government, specifically excludes defamation claims.

The DOJ urged the Supreme Court to take the case, arguing it raises potentially significant institutional stakes.

Trump may have to pay almost $100 million in damages and interest “for issuing a press release and answering reporters’ questions, from the White House, defending against attacks on his fitness for office,” the petition said.

Trump’s petition in Trump v. Carroll argues that the Second Circuit was wrong to treat presidential immunity like an ordinary legal defense that can be lost if not raised in time, and that the appeals court didn’t actually decide whether immunity protected Trump’s 2019 statements.

If the Second Circuit’s “mistreatment of Presidential immunity and the Westfall Act” are not corrected, there will be reverberations far beyond this case, as the threat of a single judgment for damages based on official acts will prevent presidents from “fearlessly” executing their duties, the petition said.

The $83.3 million verdict is separate from a prior $5 million civil verdict Carroll secured in 2023. In that case, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s and for defaming her again in 2022 when he was out of office.

The Supreme Court recently declined to take up Trump’s challenge to the $5 million verdict, but Trump has asked the court to reconsider its ruling.

It is unclear whether the Supreme Court will take up the two new petitions.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/29/2026 - 08:35

Your lag-free laptop solution.

They know what they like! 

The "Once" star was killed in a single-vehicle crash at the Strawberry Beds in West Dublin just before 4:30 a.m., the Irish Times reported.

The "Once" star was killed in a single-vehicle crash at the Strawberry Beds in West Dublin just before 4:30 a.m., the Irish Times reported.