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World in brief
Compiled from Times wires Tennessee is site for uranium fuel plantNASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A private consortium picked Tennessee's Trousdale County as the site of a $1.1-billion high-tech uranium enrichment plant to make fuel for nuclear reactors, company officials announced Monday. The site in Hartsville is on property where the Tennessee Valley Authority began building a nuclear power plant more than two decades ago before eventually abandoning construction. Hartsville, about 40 miles east of Nashville, was selected by Louisiana Energy Services, a consortium of U.S. and European companies including Westinghouse and three major domestic power companies. The company also considered land adjacent to where TVA began building a nuclear power plant years ago, Bellefonte, near Hollywood, Ala. Nuke plant employees may talk of exposureIOWA CITY, Iowa -- The federal government will allow former employees at a nuclear weapons plant in Iowa to talk to doctors and researchers about their exposure to harmful materials, despite an oath the workers took not to discuss details about their jobs. The oaths have been a hurdle for thousands of employees seeking medical care or federal benefits, or who want to take part in health studies. Word of the easing of restrictions came in a Pentagon report released Monday. It said letters will soon be mailed to employees alerting them to the change. Workers will still be prohibited from divulging any classified nuclear secrets. According to a copy of the employee letter, workers will be able to say which harmful materials they worked with, but not how each substance was used. From the late 1940s through the mid-1970s, the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown assembled and test-fired nuclear weapons components. It continues to produce conventional weapons. The employee letter says workers may have been exposed to silica, beryllium, solvents, explosives, epoxies and heavy metals. Ammonium nitrate missing from companyGEORGETOWN, Texas -- About 330 pounds of ammonium nitrate, which can be used as fertilizer or in explosives, was reported stolen Monday from a business in central Texas. The chemicals were taken from behind a fenced area at Austin Powder Co. some time after midnight, said FBI Special Agent Darren Holmes in San Antonio. There was no sign of forced entry, he said. "The only thing unaccounted for was the tubes of ammonium nitrate," Holmes said. "We suspect they might be sold on the black market." Williamson County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Lummus said there was no immediate evidence the theft was linked to terrorism. Also . . .PROVIDENCE DIOCESE REACHES SETTLEMENT: The Providence Diocese said Monday it has reached a $13.5-million settlement with 36 people who say they were molested as youngsters by members of the clergy. The settlement covers all but two of 38 men and women who sued in the early 1990s, accusing 11 priests and a nun of abusing them. Negotiations are continuing in the last two cases. The diocese said it will seek both internal and external financing to cover the cost of the settlement. CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES: A brush fire erupted Monday in a wilderness park surrounded by suburbs, sending a plume of smoke over the Los Angeles area and forcing the evacuation of more than 30 homes. The fire just north of downtown Los Angeles in Brand Park quickly spread over 325 acres on the Verdugo Mountains. Thirty-three homes were evacuated along Glendale's border with Burbank. About 25 miles east in the San Gabriel Mountains, a wildfire was burning across 19,000 acres in Angeles National Forest. It was 75 percent contained, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Susie Wood.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
