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IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI)—Idaho State Police is marking its ninth year of the “10 counties of Christmas.” It’s a charity drive to provide holiday meals across ten counties.

Troopers partner with local businesses to help families in need.

The program delivered 53 bags of food in its first year.

This year, they’re on track for 731.

“And all of us have come together to be able to put these meals together, that we go to our very remote areas here in our District six, and we cover ten counties and we deliver those meals for about the next two weeks,” said ISP District 6 Captain Chris Weadick.

Donations are easy. You can buy a meal kit at the ISP table at the front of Broulim’s in Idaho Falls. 

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – The Friends of the Marshall Public Library are excited to open their Holiday Store on the first floor of the Marshall Public Library in Pocatello. The store features discounted books, games, movies, stocking stuffers and more.

The Holiday Store is open throughout the month of December during the library’s winter hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

All the proceeds go directly towards funding the Friends of the Marshall Public Library to help keep their programs and projects running. The store can help local people find meaningful gifts on a budget this holiday season. Items start as low as 25 cents and most are $5 or less. The store also has several antique collectible items at discounted prices.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — The artificial intelligence arms race is on — and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) researchers are helping support the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Genesis Mission to create the world’s most intelligent, scientific instrument ever constructed.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright visited INL on Monday and spoke about the powerful combination of artificial intelligence and nuclear power.

“AI is this tool talked about when I was in college, but now it’s coming to fruition. It can massively enhance the productivity of each and every one of us,” Wright said. “It’s not going to replace us. It’s going to make all of us just massively more productive.

Announced in an executive order by President Donald Trump on November 24, the Genesis Mission will “connect the world’s best supercomputers, AI systems, and next-generation quantum systems,” according to a DOE press release.

The project will connect federal scientific datasets, “the world’s largest collection of such datasets,” with AI systems “to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs,” the executive order states.

Nuclear AI applications in Idaho

Secretary Wright highlighted the lab’s initiatives harnessing artificial intelligence in nuclear operations.

“Also learned today about the use of artificial intelligence to not only run existing reactors today better, but to develop a system that can design a reactor, that can operate a reactor, that can optimize a reactor, that can comment on the fuel cycle and the future progress, future pathway of where those fuels might go, and also enable the rapid monitoring licensing of a nuclear reactor,” Wright said.

During his tour, Secretary Wright was briefed on how Idaho National Laboratory is supporting the Genesis Mission with its advanced AI and digital engineering capabilities.

“Project Genesis is a really exciting mission that unites all of our 17 laboratories and many industry partners that many have heard of — think of Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia — together to build a unique scientific platform that connects all of our data, all of our AI technologies together to realize new scientific discoveries, to realize new developments for national security, and to solve problems for energy innovation,” said INL Director of Scientific Computing and AI Chris Ritter.

Idaho Governor Brad Little emphasized that the AI boom is fueling tech companies’ interest in small modular reactors.

“The demands, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence, is just going to require, pick your number — a 12, 20, 25 percent increase in energy, ” Little said.

Nuclear is a natural fit for tech companies with the resources required to invest in advanced reactor technology.

“What’s fantastic about nuclear technology is the high energy density, small amount of land, small amount of fuel, large amount of energy, weather independent,” Wright said. “It doesn’t matter if the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing, or what the weather is — you can get reliable, dependable power.”

Across the United States, the ambitious Genesis Mission project aims to “double the impact of U.S. scientific research and engineering in one decade,” the release states.

INL will continue to lead the way in AI research, Ritter said, finding new applications for advanced fission and nuclear energy.