UKRAINE….

An ice storm snapped power cables and forced the shutdown of the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl nuclear-power station on November 27. The station, site of the 1986 disaster that led directly to hundreds of deaths from radiation poisoning and indirectly to thousands of cancers, birth defects and other health problems, had been slated to close December 15 in any case. It closes early now, thank God with a whimper.