RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Radioactive contamination is spreading inside a deteriorating processing plant on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state that was last used in the 1950s and 1960s to process plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Defying U.N. warnings, North Korea on Tuesday conducted its third nuclear test in the remote, snowy northeast, taking a crucial step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile capable of striking the United States. North Korea said the atomic test was merely its “first response” to what it called U.S. threats, and said it will continue with unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity” if Washington maintains its hostility.