Photo by Jack W. Aeby/Department of Defense

The Atomic Hereafter

Seismic shift: How U.S. policies on nuclear weapons are likely to change under Donald Trump

Searchlight spoke with six experts about what the new administration could mean — for everything from Los Alamos National Laboratory to a possible return to underground detonations at the Nevada test site

A nuclear legacy in Los Alamos

After three cleanups, independent analysis shows 80-year-old plutonium persists in Acid Canyon and beyond

The long path of plutonium: A new map charts contamination at thousands of sites, miles from Los Alamos National Laboratory

Plutonium hotspots appear along tribal lands, hiking trails, city streets and the Rio Grande River, a watchdog group finds.

The reawakening of America’s nuclear dinosaurs

Are America’s plutonium pits too old to perform in the new Cold War? Or are new ones necessary?

My nuclear family

The following essay by Alicia Inez Guzmán, the reporter responsible for this coverage, sets out to describe her personal and family history with the Lab. Her essay also serves as an act of disclosure. None of us has the luxury of disinterest when it comes to nuclear proliferation but it can be argued that Alicia has a more personal connection than most journalists.

The ABCs of a nuclear education

New Mexico’s local colleges are training students to work in a plutonium pit factory. What does this mean for their future — and the world’s?

Plutonium by degrees

How local colleges are preparing LANL’s future workforce

Safety lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory

A history of flooding, an earthquake and little fires in the belly of the beast

The terrible emptiness of “Oppenheimer”

The blockbuster movie leaves out the real story’s main characters: New Mexicans

Chess, cards and catnaps in the heart of America’s nuclear weapons complex

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, workers collect full salaries for doing nothing

Buried secrets, poisoned bodies

Why did a Truchas woman die with extraordinary amounts of plutonium in her body — and why was she illegally autopsied? For this reporter, the answers hit close to home.

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