Nuclear

SEOUL -- North Korea announced Tuesday that it would restart nuclear facilities that were closed as part of a 2007 international disarmament agreement. The move comes at the urging of the communist state's leader, Kim Jong Un, for the country to build up its economy and develop its nuclear program. North Korean state media KCNA reported that the move was to make "a positive contribution" to solve the country's acute electricity shortage and to bolster its "nuclear armed force" in quality and quantity.

SEOUL - Escalating the stakes of a standoff with Washington and its allies, North Korea is signaling that it will abandon two decades of negotiations to constrain its nuclear program and will close the door on any deal over its atomic weapons and production facilities. The regime said Tuesday that it would expand all parts of its nuclear arsenal, including reactivating a plutonium-producing reactor complex at Yongbyon shut in 2007 as part of a disarmament agreement. Although restarting the Soviet-era facilities could take more than six months, the announcement sparked concern among world leaders that a miscalculation could lead to military confrontation.

JERUSALEM - In a much-anticipated visit laden with symbols of friendship and words of assurance, President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to set aside past differences Wednesday and project a united front over how to tackle the threat of Iran's purported nuclear weapons program and other regional challenges. But even as they tried to strike a more conciliatory tone, the two leaders stuck to sharply different timetables for potentially taking military action.

WASHINGTON - An offer in the most recent round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program has created anxiety in Israel and injected tension into President Obama's scheduled meetings Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials worry that the United States and five other world powers offered too much to Tehran during Feb. 26-27 talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, aimed at persuading Iran's government to curb its uranium enrichment program.

One of the two reactors at the darkened San Onofre nuclear plant could be restarted at full power and operate safely for almost a year, Southern California Edison officials said Monday. The utility said its analysis confirms that it would be safe to fire up one of the reactors, but that out of an abundance of caution, Edison is proposing running the unit at only 70%. The plant has been shut down since a steam generator tube in the plant's Unit 3 sprung a small leak on Jan. 31, 2012, releasing a small amount of radioactive steam.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon plans to add 14 missile interceptors to a problem-plagued anti-missile system in Alaska aimed at North Korea, which has issued increasingly bellicose threats since it tested an underground nuclear device and launched a small satellite. The upgraded ground-based interceptors would augment 26 interceptors already deployed at Ft. Greely, part of a multi-layered missile defense system that includes up to five Navy Aegis cruisers with tracking radars and their own interceptors in the northern Pacific.

As the ampersand between their names indicates, "Ginger & Rosa" are inseparable, pals since birth, best friends for as long as anyone can remember. At least until now. It's 1962 in London, and 17-year-old Rosa worries about finding true love, "the kind that lasts forever. " Ginger, however, has other, weightier concerns. "If there is a forever," is her immediate response, with a big emphasis on the "if. " An empathetic and aware film, "Ginger & Rosa" is several striking things all at once.

There are train wrecks, and there are train wrecks. Then there's San Onofre. You probably know San Onofre as the full-figured fiasco overlooking the Pacific Ocean near the Orange/San Diego county line. Beginning in 2004, Southern California Edison, the nuclear power plant's principal owner, oversaw a $770-million project to replace its two aging steam generators with new models. The new units, which were supposed to last 20 years, lasted scarcely 20 months before showing alarmingly severe wear and tear.

A report on the root causes of problems at the San Onofre nuclear power plant shows that officials considered making design changes to its new steam generators before they were installed but rejected some fixes in part because they would require further regulatory approvals. Some of the generators began to malfunction a year after they were installed, and the plant has been shuttered for 13 months. The closure has already cost San Onofre's owners, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric, more than $470 million.

A key contractor involved in the troubled cleanup at the former Hanford, Wash., nuclear weapons complex admitted Tuesday that it had engaged in criminal time card fraud and agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle the allegations. The project, which involves construction of a $13.4-billion treatment plant to process highly radioactive bomb waste, is years behind schedule, has exceeded its original cost estimate and is paralyzed by technical issues that have halted the work. The problems, however, have not dimmed political support for the project, given the threat that about 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge at the site could eventually leak and reach the nearby Columbia River.