Nuclear Energy

As steam billowed out of two giant hourglass towers in the distance, John McCain visibly stepped up his support Tuesday for nuclear power, an embattled industry that he argues must be part of America's energy future. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee toured the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant, a 1,100-megawatt boiling water reactor on the shores of Lake Erie. The site seemed an odd choice for a campaign event intended to promote the safety of nuclear power.

The House voted overwhelmingly to approve a landmark pact that would allow the U.S. to provide nuclear materials to India. The deal still faces obstacles in the Senate, making prospects uncertain for passage before President Bush leaves office in January. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a supporter, promised a Senate vote on the accord this week, possibly Monday.

When President-elect Barack Obama introduced James L. Jones Jr. as his national security advisor Monday, he emphasized the retired Marine general's understanding of "the connection between energy and national security." Obama sees that as a plus, but some environmental groups and global warming activists view Jones' environmental record with suspicion. Jones will not be responsible for environmental policy, but he has said energy is a vital national security issue.

The United States and the United Arab Emirates have hammered out a nuclear cooperation deal that would bring U.S. atomic technology and know-how to a site less than a hundred miles from Iran's shores, an envoy from the Persian Gulf monarchy confirmed Monday to state media. The deal, if implemented, would be the first of its kind involving the U.S. and an Arab country, experts said.

On Christmas eve in 1938, the physicist Lise Meitner took a walk in the snowy woods of Kungalv, Sweden, with her nephew, Otto Frisch, also a physicist. A Jewish refugee who had recently escaped from Hitler's Germany, Meitner began discussing with Frisch some puzzling experimental results from a lab in Berlin.

Two inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Iran to inspect the country's nuclear facilities, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Iran's parliament urged the government in late December to reexamine its ties with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.

Iran will not suspend its uranium enrichment work as demanded by a United Nations resolution, the country's top nuclear official said Sunday as a deadline loomed. On Dec. 23, the Security Council imposed limited sanctions on Iran after it refused to suspend its atomic program, which Western powers worry will be used to produce nuclear weapons. It gave Iran 60 days to halt enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors, which Tehran says is its aim, or material for warheads.

It is a few weeks before the Iranian new year, and already the narrow market streets in south Tehran are boiling with extra shoppers. Houses must be cleaned, new curtains hung on the windows, the table laid with fresh linens. No child should leave home without new clothes and a few crisp bills in his pocket.

Tens of thousands of flag-waving Iranians converged on Azadi Square on Sunday to voice support for Iran's bid for nuclear energy, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to press forward with the nation's uranium enrichment program. "When we suspend our activities, they will never let us resume them," the president told a crowd of cheering, chanting supporters who alternately sang patriotic anthems and burned Uncle Sam-hatted effigies of President Bush.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said that Moscow would consider helping Saudi Arabia with a possible atomic energy program and that he hoped to build stronger ties with Muslim countries. "Russia is willing to look into cooperation opportunities in the area of atomic energy," Putin told Saudi businessmen in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.