News In Brief

A-panel gets leeway to issue full license to Diablo Canyon

A court order apparently leaves the Nuclear Regulatory Commission free to issue a full-power license for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, allowing it to operate above 5 percent capacity for the first time in its two-decade history.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington lifted its own seven-week-old injunction Wednesday which had blocked commercial operation of the plant. It became a nationwide symbol of the controversy over nuclear power, in part because of its location on the California coast about three miles from an undersea fault line.