Last week, Everett, Wash., fusion start-up Helion Energy announced that it has received its radioactive materials license and radioactive air emissions license from the state of Washington.

According to the company, these milestones make it “the first company in the world to secure the regulatory licenses needed for a fusion power plant” and represent confirmation that it has the needed facilities, trained personnel, and safety programs in place to safely operate its fusion machine.

Helion has launched a program formalizing its process of funding projects with external research partners. On Tuesday, the fusion company announced it would fund 25 proposals ranging from $50,000 to $500,000, totaling $4 million. The recipients include private companies, universities, and national laboratories.

Hours before the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) opened a scheduled September 19 hearing on fusion energy technology development, CNN published an article titled “The US led on nuclear fusion for decades. Now China is in a position to win the race.” The article was entered into the hearing record, but senators had already gotten the message.

One doesn’t typically come across nuclear fusion in a fashion magazine, but a recent issue of Vanity Fair profiled the creative director of a famous luxury fashion house who has made nuclear fusion a conceptual focus of her clothing creations. According to the article, Gabriela Hearst, the creative director at the New York City office of Paris-based Chloé, has designed a spring-summer 2023 collection “inspired by site visits to labs in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and southern France, where hundreds of scientists and engineers are working to develop technology that will produce a net energy gain through fusion.”