LLNL - The True Story -

  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/ensuring-continued-accountability-in-federal-hiring/  Trump on late Wednesday signed a new executive order that told agencies to restrict hiring throughout the federal government, providing some exceptions related to immigration enforcement, national and public security, and political appointees. Does this affect the labs, NNSA, DOE? 

  Heard that lab furloughs will be on the way if the shutdown lasts much longer. The question is really how long the shutdown will last. Lost of rumors (1) Until next Monday after the no Kings rally. (2) Until, Nov 1st because some other things kick in (3) Until Thanksgiving when people cannot fly and demand something. (4) Until Christmas (See 3) I have no idea but we did 35 days before so we still have some time. I am betting for 30-35 days again. Somehow the lab just seems much more nervous about this one.

  Governor Newsom just signed SB 79 into law, and it will go into effect July 1, 2026. 1. Will existing and under development, low density neighborhoods pushback in court? 2. Will the passage of SB 79 be helpful or a headwind to the expansion of ACE and other mass transit proposals and expansions throughout the Bay Area and the rest of California? Protesters rally against California Senate bill that increases housing density near transit hubs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1y9SLg-26BY&pp=ygUlY2JzIDggcHJvdGVzdGVycyByYWxseSBhZ2FpbnN0IHNlbmF0ZQ%3D%3D California ACE train expansion is coming https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F7iGUZW_sqA&pp=ygUeY2FsaWZvcm5pYSBhY2UgdHJhaW4gZXhwYW5zaW9u

  American Physical Society Fellows 2025 highlights decline of NNSA labs. Worse year ever for NNSA labs LANL 1 Sandia 0 LLNL 0 Comparison ORNL 4 Fermilab 4 Brookhaven 3 LBNL 2 SLAC 1 ANL 0 PNNL 0

  California FAIR Plan seeks huge rate hike. Map shows which ZIPs hit hardest “The California FAIR Plan has proposed raising home insurance rates by an average of 35.8% starting next spring - a hike that, if approved in full, would be its largest in at least seven years.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/california-fair-plan-seeks-largest-231104839.html

 This is a very interesting claim : that a devastating earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, could also trigger an earthquake on the San Andreas, perhaps one might suppose even affecting the entire West Coast of the United States. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-cascadia-megathrust-earthquake-trigger-san.html

On September 25, 2025, Antifa was designated as a “domestic terrorist organization.” Under the “Adjudicative Guidelines” to acquire or maintain a security clearance, this may fall under “Allegiance to the United States” as defined by the Guideline. Are Lab employees, with any past or present association with Antifa, being required to promptly update their “Questionnaire for National Security Positions” as of September 22, 2025?

 Universities are being asked to endorse Trump agenda in order to obtain priority access to funding: https://www.kjzz.org/politics/2025-10-02/university-of-arizona-among-9-colleges-trump-offered-access-to-funds-to-follow-his-agenda

  The DOE is killing a number of energy projects: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/02/nx-s1-5560869/energy-trump-democrats-shutdown https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-termination-223-projects-saving-over-75-billion

  This is an interesting video, a graduate student who is angry at the government since NSF funding has been cut. In his own words, he is "pissed off" because graduate students were "blindsided" and "screwed over" by "having the rug pulled out from under them". https://youtu.be/pI83VnkV0iQ?si=rJ2GRUc4b4QQXyaE

  ABQ ( Albuquerque,NM) gets new energy lab. Pacific fusion has selected Albuquerque NM for its new $1 billion fusion research and manufacturing campus.   https://www.abqjournal.com/business/article_354dbfa4-79f6-48f4-87c2-6fda68367881.html

  Well, Trump just declared "an idea" as a terrorists threat! Section 1. Antifa as a Terrorist Threat. Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals. This campaign involves coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists. Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanism

  Will decreasing international students and new H1B1 visas rule cause issues at the NNSA labs. This could cripple the high tech job market and STEM research so no matter what this will directly or indirectly cause big issues at NNSA labs. Kaku sums this up. The fact is that the U.S. might be a dynamo for capital but not when it comes to what economists crudely call “human capital.” The point applies not only to immigrant workers who do jobs Americans won’t, but also those who do jobs Americans can’t, because, as physicist Michio Kaku argues above, “the United States has the worst educational system known to science.” Were it solely up to U.S. graduates, the scientific establishment and tech economy would collapse, he says, “forget about Google, forget about Silicon Valley. There would be no Silicon Valley.” Instead, U.S. science and tech thrive because of immigrants who come on H‑1B visas. https://www.statista.com/topics/13734/international-students-in-the-united-states/ https://w...

 The Dodo bird is being brought back from extinction: https://gizmodo.com/iotech-startup-claims-its-getting-closer-to-resurrecting-the-extinct-dodo-2000660052