Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear | featured news

The U.S. government's only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.

In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb.

The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs -- a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima -- is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War.