Every few years the defenses of the nation’s nuclear plants are tested. What’s scary is how often they fail. Dan Stone reports.

Transitions: From Elizabeth Edwards to J.D. Salinger, a look at those we lost this year.

From Newsweek’s Daniel Klaidman, “The president told Woodward that “we can absorb” another terrorist attack—implying that we won’t be able to prevent every attempted act of terror. The conservative blogosphere lit up. Liz Cheney accused Obama of an “alarming fatalism” and of abdicating his paramount responsibility: to do everything in his power to protect the American people. Obama’s approach to terrorism is not immune from criticism. But he deserves credit for treating voters as grownups. ”

For Vets Day, our amazing video and design teams visualize the dreams of soldiers suffering from PTSD. See the rest of the video series, and our full Veterans Day package.

As Veterans Day approaches, Newsweek is exploring the way American combat veterans have remade their lives after serving their country. We’re looking for stories from veterans, their family members and friends about the trials and triumphs of fighting today’s wars, as well as what it takes to live life afterward. Poems, essays, videos, songs, photos, drawings—whatever you might be willing to share with us, we’d be interested in seeing.
 
Please send us your submissions at nwktumblr@gmail.com.

(Check the guidelines for additional info. Basically, if you send it, we can publish it.)

Victory or failure, advocates say this election will go down in history as a turning point in the fight for pot reform—and one that changed the national discourse for good.

Down, But Not Burnt Out: Prop 19 may have failed, but advocates say this election was a turning point for marijuana reform. Why 2010 may still be the Year of the Bud.

Catching up on last week: an artist imagines life if pot were legal (or even if it weren’t). Californians will vote tomorrow on Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize recreational pot.

We love this photo! By Sean McCabe. Check out the full gallery.

(via jessbennett)

…from punditry to wifedom to science. David Graham breaks it down.

It used to be that you couldn’t attack a female candidate without helping her … [But] the power of gender as a deterrent to political attack (and off-the-cuff remarks) is being tested, so far to no advantage, in this election cycle as California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman tries to rally women voters after the word “whore” was applied to her by the camp of her rival, democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown.

Our own Eleanor Clift, on Hillary Clinton, Meg Whitman and the “whore” slur