America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.
The government approved a $12.5 billion public bailout Wednesday for the operator of Japan's tsunami-devastated nuclear power plant and put it under temporary state control.
Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters: Never have children.

Workers in rubber boots chip at the frozen ground, scraping until they've removed the top 2 inches of radioactive soil from the yard of a single home.
Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters: Never have children.

Radiation is still leaking from the now-closed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, though at a slower pace than it did in the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It's not immediately fatal but could show up as cancer or other illnesses years later. The uncertainty breeds fear.

Japan is attempting to make radiation-contaminated communities inhabitable again — a costly and uncertain effort.
Japan's professional baseball league will hold an All-Star game in quake-hit Fukushima in 2013 to help with the reconstruction of the area following last year's earthquake and tsunami.

Japan's nuclear crisis has turned Mizuho Nakayama into one of a small but growing number of Internet-savvy activist moms.