The Smithsonian National Zoo announced shortly after noon on Tuesday that it would be temporarily closed due to the #bomb threat, noting that it evacuated employees and visitors “out of an abundance of caution.” #DC
#Nuclear deal in tatters, #Iran edges close to weapons capability
Six years after the #Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear accord, Tehran is rapidly accumulating enriched #uranium, some of it very close to weapons grade. Experts fear that a #bomb could be a short dash away.
More worryingly, #Fordow was scaling up production of a more dangerous form of #nuclear fuel — a kind of highly enriched #uranium, just shy of #WeaponsGrade. Iranian officials in charge of the plant, meanwhile, had begun talking openly about achieving “deterrence,” suggesting that Tehran now had everything it needed to build a #bomb if it chose.
Fordow’s transformation mirrors changes seen elsewhere in the country as #Iran blows past the guardrails of the Iran nuclear accord.
I am waiting for the day when Russia will stop this war against Ukraine and maintain peace. I know it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Russia has been increasingly deploying "glide bombs" in its offensive against Ukraine, with over 200 of these weapons used in a single week to target the northern town of Vovchansk during Russia's ongoing cross-border advance near Kharkiv.
The #nuclear reactors on submarines are designed for sustained #power generation to propel the vessel, rather than a single explosive release like the atomic #bomb.
This allows them to be much larger and more powerful than the compact nuclear weapons developed during World War II.
For those keeping track at home, reactors orders of magnitude more powerful than bombs over Hiroshima or Nagasaki are floating around in the world’s oceans and seas.
Today in Labor History January 24, 1961: A B-52 bomber, carrying three 4-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs, broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload over North Carolina. Five crewmen successfully bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely. Another ejected, but did not survive the landing. Two others died in the crash. Each of the bombs had more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb. Each one was large enough to create a 100% kill zone within an 8.5 miles radius. A supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories said that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe." However, there is evidence that the switch of at least one of the bombs was set to ARM. No one knows why none of them exploded. And while the authorities were able to recover the uranium core from two of the bombs, one of them is still lost somewhere in North Carolina.
For a truly terrifying look at just how many times we were just a hair trigger away from a major nuclear accident, read Eric Schlosser’s “Command and Control.”
If you take all the energy buried deep in the earth and under the oceans via photosynthesis and animal metabolism, energy from the sun that was packed away over a span of 500 million years as coal, oil, and gas… and then burn through that fuel in the brief period of about 200 years, what will happen?
Think about it.
We’re igniting all of the stored energy from half a billion years of life activity in only two centuries. That’s a ratio of 2.5 million to one — which means we are using this energy two and half million times faster than it was created and stored.
"The nuclear-armed states must eliminate their nuclear arsenals before they eliminate us."
Leading medical journals published a joint editorial yesterday, calling on world leaders to eliminate atomic weapons, as the threat of civilization-ending conflict continues to grow.
The call was issued in The Lancet, The BMJ, JAMA, International Nursing Review, and other top journals. Dozens more are expected to publish the editorial in the coming days, as we approach the 78th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Doomsday Clock (monitored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) is closer to midnight than ever before, reflecting mounting nuclear tensions amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Today in Labor History November 6, 1971: The US Atomic Energy Commission conducted its largest ever underground hydrogen bomb test, code-named Cannikin, on the tectonically unstable Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. It had an explosive yield of almost 5 megatons of TNT. Greenpeace arose from the opposition movement against this test. By comparison, the largest ever nuclear test was Tsar Bomba (designed by Andrei Sakharov and others), at over 50 megatons, detonated on October 17, 1961. Its mushroom cloud was 8x the height of Mount Everest and its flare could be seen from 1,000 miles away.
What do Alabama, Missouri, Colorado, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Michigan, Georgia, California, Connecticut, Arizona, Washington, and Maine have in common?
Can't guess?
Are you sure?
Ok here you go!
These are all states where a combined total of more than 200 #swatting and #bomb#threats occurred at #synagogues across the US so far just this weekend.
Oppenheimer regretted what he had done. Those who delivered & detonated the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki never did. They remained true believers, to the end. And the U.S. govt will do everything in its power to ensure that the next ones will, too.
Today in Labor History March 1, 1954: The U.S. detonated Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. It caused the worst radioactive contamination ever by the U.S. However, this occurred after years of nuclear testing and contamination of the islands and waters around them. The U.S. detonated 23 nuclear devices on the islands from 1946 to 1958. They blew up the bombs on the reef, in the sea, in the air and underwater. They relocated islanders several times, each time to supposedly safe islands. But they neglected to provide sufficient food and water, causing starvation. When the islanders tried to catch fish to eat, or grow their own crops, they were so contaminated from radioactive fallout, that it poisoned all who ate it. Women started having miscarriages and giving birth to babies with abnormalities.
"The #NYPD is stepping up patrols outside #synagogues and other houses of worship across the city, after more than 20 synagogues received #bomb threats this past weekend. No #bombs were found in any of the buildings."