The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a “Mark 1” nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment.
G.E. began making the Mark 1 boiling-water reactors in the 1960s, marketing them as cheaper and easier to build — in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.
A third man has filed a civil lawsuit charging officials from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up sexual assault allegations against a priest who molested him. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in the city's Court of Common Pleas says the man was assaulted as a boy by a priest from St. Francis Xavier parish and Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia.
According to Biff Bradley, the director of risk assessment for the Nuclear Energy Institute, it's almost impossible to try to rank the absolute safety risk of a plant, due to the number of variables that would be involved in any sort of direct comparison.
The number and strength of earthquakes in central Arkansas have noticeably dropped since the shutdown of two injection wells in the area, although a state researcher says it's too early to draw any conclusions.
The US has been sending unarmed drones over Mexico since February to gather intelligence on major drug cartels, the New York Times reports. Useful information has already been turned over to Mexican authorities, US officials told the paper.
Police from around the world say they have broken up the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered. Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, the European Police Agency, said the abuse network had 70,000 members and links to 30 countries.
Middle East arms sales, such as the massive $67 billion military package for Saudi Arabia, are keeping the U.S. defense industry in business. These days, with the Arab world in turmoil, two presidents booted out and a third fighting for survival of his authoritarian regime, that strategy is being questioned.
The cholera epidemic affecting Haiti looks set to be far worse than officials had thought, experts fear. Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.
Prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is being heavily criticised in Israel for his blatant exploitation of the murder of five members of one family (including three children) at the Itamar settlement near Nablus.
