The agency that builds and maintains America's nuclear weapons has its biggest workload since the Cold War. It also has 236 fewer federal employees than it did in early 2025. A new GAO report shows where the cuts landed, from nuclear engineers to field offices at Los Alamos and Nevada, and what NNSA officials told auditors about oversight of nuclear material security after one office lost about 40% of that staff.

The law says only U.S. citizens and U.S.-incorporated companies can hold mining claims on federal land. A new GAO report says the agency in charge rarely checks. In a sample of 15 business claimants, GAO couldn't find evidence that 7 were U.S. companies. A companion report found 14 of 32 companies behind critical mineral mines were subsidiaries of foreign firms, and in at least two cases Chinese entities had a stake in the parent company.