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DOE secretary said he is avoiding energy prices predictions

 The administration had previously said the increase in prices would be temporary and minimal.

Now, DOE secretary is saying "he is avoiding price predictions." 

Wow! Incompetence? fear of MAGA?

Any idea?

https://www.newsweek.com/energy-secretary-says-hes-avoiding-price-predictions-as-gas-prices-climb-11933777

Is this the end of LLNL and LANL scientists?

Undergraduate students have mostly already given up on learning. Graduate students (sometimes) still see the value in learning how to do things that ChatGPT can easily do. What will happen when it becomes clear that any research contribution that they can hope to make as a junior researcher can also easily be done by AI? There has been a lot of great discussion about where the real value of mathematics lies, how humans can best contribute in the future, and how the role of professionally trained mathematicians will have to evolve. However, unless the academic community can very quickly figure out how to offer young scientists a viable career path amid such rapid and far-reaching disruption, the human mathematical community will be on the path towards extinction. I am sure there are many people who think there is nothing wrong with that, but every other community that is based on human creativity will face similar existential threats. I am not excited about living in such a world.

Is it another pandemic?

 These are good articles on the latest viral outbreak -- going into some of the details. To be clear, it does not look like the start of a pandemic, so far, to informed observers

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15802895/Nightmare-cruise-rat-virus-horror.html

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/cruise-ship-center-hantavirus-outbreak-dock-spain-sunday

"The CDC has fewer staff to respond to the outbreak due to massive staffing cuts over the past year. The top US official responsible for public health on cruise ships has recently retired, according to an internal memo obtained by STAT.

Experts in infectious disease and public health have criticized the CDC’s relative silence on the outbreak, arguing that the US response so far suggests the country is ill-prepared to handle another major health crisis."

How does it feel?

 Hey Lab employees,

How does it feel to have a MAGA DOE secretary in charge? Check out this video. Fast Forward to 9'40".

This is unbelievable!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNjrhbVjqlw

Top AI companies propose the LANL employment model for our post work future

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-force-silicon-valley.html

"Even their own berths may not be safe, implies their boss: “It may be feasible to pay human employees even long after they are no longer providing economic value in the traditional sense. Anthropic is currently considering a range of possible pathways for our own employees,” Mr. Amodei wrote.

While the American public ordinarily hesitates to support left-wing policies like a jobs guarantee or single-payer health care, A.I. seems to expand the political Overton window. “Right now, the argument is, ‘You’re all about to lose your jobs, and the choice is either you get nothing and starve, or we do something fair,’” Mr. Shor said. “People don’t want to be members of the permanent underclass.”

Not all policies are created equal, however. A universal basic income is unpopular, but a federal jobs guarantee has legs, Mr. Shor found. American voters don’t care about beating China, but they are excited about A.I. curing diseases. And, crucially, populism sells. In one of the top-performing political ads that Mr. Shor’s data firm tested, the nameless narrator declares: “We make the corporations and billionaires who profit from A.I. pay their fair share.” The ad concludes: “They work for the bots. We work for you.”"

Reducing attrition at DOE physics design labs

 (There is an) effort to reduce attrition at Bechtel managed DOE physics design labs.

At LANL management has implemented a new policy of external hiring only until the end of October. Prior to this was you needed to be in your position for a year before you could apply for another job. Got to get those employment numbers up at TA-55