Workers and leaders of the major trade unions in India came out to protest against the government’s decision to keep them out of the newly constructed Central Minimum Wage Advisory Board on Monday, September 7.

The protest was called by the left-wing Center for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), and the centrist Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), for demanding proper representation in decisions related to salaries.

The three are among India’s largest trade union federations with millions of members each, with AITUC being the oldest in the country.

Protesters say that the central government led by ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is being vindictive towards them because they have been waging fierce struggles against the four new labor codes.

CITU, AITUC, and INTUC are part of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) which have collectively led large-scale protests in the last few months against the new labor codes with millions participating nationally.

The CTUs were created as a common platform for the country’s 10 major trade unions to fight against the new labor codes, which unions claim have nullified the victories won through decades of organizing by the working-class movement in the country.

According to unions, the codes would deprive workers of some of their basic rights, such as the right to collective bargaining and the right to the eight-hour work day, among others. 

By excluding the country’s major trade unions from the board, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has struck “at the very root of its credibility as a tripartite advisory body” CITU claimed in a statement last week.

Claiming that the “cherry picked and exclusionary” Minimum Wage Board is “designed to facilitate and legitimize wage suppression in the name of “ease of doing business,” CITU asserted, claiming the decision was, however, on the expected lines.

The trade unions have called the Modi-led government the most anti-worker government in the history of the country. It has consistently refused to engage with them going ahead with the drafting of the new labor codes without any consultation.

It notified and implemented the codes this year despite multiple national protests.

A decent national minimum wage 

Though India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the wages for the majority of its salaried working population remains very low, rarely enough to meet most of their basic needs. 

There is no national minimum wage in India and every state is free to decide it according to its own assessment. Unions have been agitating for a uniform minimum wage for decades now without much success.

Instead of addressing the demands for a national minimum wage successive governments, including the current one, have adopted policies which actually allow corporate entities/employers to arbitrarily determine them, often in violation of existing norms.

With increased legal restrictions on strikes and other forms of collective bargaining under the new labor codes, decent wages have become even more difficult to achieve in India.

In its statement, CITU stated that the Modi government, through its policies, has ensured “consistent decline of the average earning/income level in real terms of the working people throughout the country” and “severe deterioration of the quality of employment through its corporate-servility.” 

Underlining that “the working class [in India] is left with no alternative but to unite in combating these destructive policy regimes, which display extreme perversion in their every move,” it reiterated its calls for more popular protests against the government policies and the new labor codes in the coming days.

The United Nations General Assembly has backed an African-led initiative calling for a more accurate representation of the world’s continents, particularly Africa, in maps used in education, public communication, and other areas.

On September 4, the General Assembly adopted the resolution titled “Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable Representation of the World’s Regions, Particularly Africa.” The resolution was sponsored by Togo on behalf of the African Group and passed by an overwhelming 164 votes to one, with six countries, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine, abstaining. The United States was the only country to vote against it. Speaking before the vote, Yaryna Ferencevych, deputy US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, dismissed the initiative as an “ideological project” rather than a meaningful priority for the United Nations.

The vote represents an important moment in a campaign arguing that the maps through which generations have learned about the world have not always provided an accurate picture of the relative size of continents.

Introducing the resolution, Togo’s minister for foreign Affairs, Robert Dussey, argued that the issue was not simply about replacing one map with another. It was about looking at how humanity has been taught to see the world.

“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the General Assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination and influence collective perceptions.”

For the African states behind the initiative, the question was therefore not just technical. The way the world is represented, he argued, influences how people understand the relative importance, size and place of different regions and peoples.

What the resolution asks for

Beyond encouraging member states and international organizations to adopt more accurate cartographic representations, he pronounced that the purpose is strictly cartographic, scientific, and educational. “What we are doing here is promoting a more accurate representation of the relative sizes of the world’s regions. I would like to reassure everyone that what we are discussing is fundamentally a matter of science.”

Stressing that the text invites UN entities, regional organizations, academia, think tanks, and technology companies “to cooperate in order to build national capacities, support research and innovation,” with particular attention to developing countries and African countries in map-making, geography, and geospatial technology.

Adding that the resolution “fully respects existing mandates,” creates no new financial obligations, and does not establish any new institutional mechanism at the UN. Education is nonetheless central to it, the text encourages a more critical approach to how maps are taught in school curricula, including an explanation of projection methods, their characteristics, their limits, and their appropriate uses.

Why this matters for Africa

The debate centers largely on the widespread use of the Mercator projection, developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

The Mercator projection was designed primarily for maritime navigation. Its ability to preserve directions made it particularly useful to sailors navigating long distances. But that advantage comes with significant distortions in the relative size of landmasses.

The further a territory is located from the Equator, the larger it appears on the map. Greenland, for example, can appear roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is around 14 times larger. Africa covers approximately 30.4 million square kilometers and is the world’s second-largest continent.

The result is a world map in which countries and regions in northern latitudes appear disproportionately large, while Africa and other areas closer to the Equator appear relatively diminished.

Togo’s foreign minister tied the resolution directly to several ongoing African-led initiatives: the Decade for African Roots and the African Diaspora (2021–2031), the Second International Decade for People of African Descent (2025–2034), and the final declaration of the Ninth Pan-African Congress. Correcting “disproportionate cartographic representations” of the continent, he said, is part of ensuring Africa is “appropriately recognized on the international sphere” and of “restoring the dignity of the continent and its diasporas” by correcting “historic distortions that we have inherited from our past legacies.”

Adding, “By adopting this resolution, we’re not just correcting a map, we are contributing to correcting our perception,” he said, adding that knowledge “should elevate,” should “bring us closer, not divide us,” and should reflect the world “in all of its diversity, its truth, and its dignity.”

He rejected the idea that this was a symbolic gesture, “Correcting the map is not simply an aesthetic or symbolic issue, but rather, it is a demand for scientific accuracy and educational accuracy.” Each region, he argued, matters and each people “deserves to be seen as they are” with Africa, “like all other regions,” belonging in humanity’s “universal consciousness,” recognized “in its full reality, its contributions, and its future” rather than “diminished by distortions from the past.”

The overwhelming support for the resolution has been met with broad and positive reception across Africa and in many parts of the world.

On September 2, fragments from a US missile tore through the roof of a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, in Iran’s southern county of Sirik. Four people were killed, including a child, and 68 were wounded. The United States has made a custom of bombing weddings – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and now Iran. When US Vice-President JD Vance was asked about the dead, he shrugged: “Things happen.” The sentence should be entered into the record of this war. Imperialism turns other people’s catastrophes into the passive voice.

The attack on the wedding was part of a new round of US strikes along Iran’s southern coast and around the Strait of Hormuz. Washington said that it had targeted missile and mine-laying capabilities. Tehran replied with missiles and drones against US facilities in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. This was not a ceasefire marred by occasional violations, as much of the North Atlantic press insists on calling it. For six months, the conflict has followed a recognizable cycle: the United States attacks, Iran retaliates, there is a pause and some indirect diplomacy, both sides prepare again, then Washington attacks once more. A pause between blows is not peace.

The Trump administration continues to claim that Iran’s navy, missile forces, and military infrastructure have been destroyed. Yet the evidence of Iran’s repeated retaliation refutes this boast. Iran’s systems have certainly been damaged by ferocious bombardment, but damaged is not disarmed. On September 4, Iranian army spokesperson Brigadier-General Mohammad Akraminia told IRNA that the first Iranian missiles and drones had been launched within fifteen minutes of the US attack. He said that the army struck four US bases in three countries: two in the UAE, Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, and a base in Kuwait. In separate communiqués, Iran said it hit satellite communications, equipment stores, and aircraft hangars at Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, as well as troops and radar systems at Al Minhad in the UAE. The activation of air defenses and acknowledgments by regional governments of these strikes establish the central fact: Iran retains both the capacity and the will to reach the US base structure.

This is the war’s most important development. The United States built its power in West Asia on an asymmetry. It could bomb a country from protected airfields and command centers scattered across the region, while the attacked country was unable, or unwilling, to touch those bases. Iraq fired Scud missiles towards Israel in 1991 but did not systematically attack the vast US military architecture in the Gulf. Baghdad feared that striking US bases would bring down even greater destruction. Greater destruction came anyway. Iran studied that lesson.

Iran has now begun to reverse the asymmetry. The expensive network of bases designed to project US power has become a collection of targets. Al Udeid in Qatar, the headquarters of US air operations across the region; the Fifth Fleet facilities in Bahrain; air bases and logistical hubs in Kuwait and the UAE; Camp Titin in Jordan; and installations in Iraq and Syria can no longer be treated as a secure rear. An Arabic-language assessment published after the latest attacks described this precisely: bases in Kuwait and the UAE have become front-line positions, while combined waves of decoy drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles seek to saturate Patriot and THAAD defenses and then strike command, radar, communications, and logistical systems. The technique matters because an interceptor costing millions of dollars can be drawn towards a drone costing a tiny fraction of that sum.

The vulnerability is political as well as military. Every US facility sits on another country’s territory. Governments in the Gulf must ask whether Washington’s military presence is a shield or a lightning rod. Iran need not destroy every base, only demonstrate that the bases impose danger on the states that host them. Gulf governments might then restrict the use of their territory for US attacks, pushing US operations towards distant facilities such as Diego Garcia, the UK’s base in Cyprus, and to US aircraft carriers (increasingly vulnerable themselves to long-term deployment fatigue).

Iran’s escalation ladder

Iran, moreover, has not climbed far up its escalation ladder. It could increase the volume of its launches, widen its targets to logistical hubs, ports, surveillance systems, and fuel depots, or encourage allied forces in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen to enter the conflict fully. It could further obstruct the Red Sea or close the Strait of Hormuz. Any step would deepen the economic crisis produced by the war. This is something that is not wanted by Trump, who faces mid-term elections in November.

Iraq is an especially important hinge. Arabic-language reports describe the government’s September 30 deadline to bring all weapons under state control and the refusal of several armed factions to disarm while US and Turkish troops remain in the country. The factions’ demands are not marginal: they place the continued US military presence at the center of the dispute. An attempt to coerce these groups into disarmament could produce an internal Iraqi crisis. Failure to disarm them leaves tens of thousands of fighters, including units with missiles and drones, as a latent front against US bases. Washington cannot assume that the geography of the conflict will remain wherever it wishes to draw the line.

Then there is the highest rung: the nuclear question. The last verified figure from the International Atomic Energy Agency was that Iran holds 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, recorded before inspections were disrupted by attacks on Iranian facilities. Nobody outside Iran now knows with confidence where all that material is, what condition it is in, or whether enrichment has advanced. Tehran has not declared that it will produce a weapon. But in August, Ebrahim Rezaei of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee argued that withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would be the best response to Trump’s intensified economic war. A withdrawal proposal has already circulated in parliament.

This uncertainty is itself a form of deterrence. US planners contemplating a nuclear or overwhelmingly destructive first strike cannot be certain that Iran has no small weapon or capacity to assemble one. Iran may decide to enrich above 90%, test a device, and demand that attacks cease, the path taken by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after watching Iraq and Libya. That decision would carry immense dangers and has not been taken. But Washington’s war is making imaginable what decades of US policy was meant to prevent.

Iran’s advantage does not lie in possessing greater explosive power. The United States retains the ability to inflict appalling destruction. Iran’s advantage lies in its capacity to impose costs, disperse its forces, keep Washington guessing, and endure blows without surrendering its sovereignty. The US military, meanwhile, is consuming scarce interceptors and long-range munitions while arming Israel and Ukraine, defending installations spread across an enormous arc, and facing an electorate that does not want body bags or another endless war. Iran has converted the US’s geographical reach from an advantage into an exposure.

This does not mean that Iran has won, nor that escalation is safe. A wounded empire is exceptionally dangerous. Trump wants an Iranian surrender that he can display before the US midterm elections, but coercion has not delivered it. The White House has force without a sequenced political strategy: it can strike harder, but each blow opens additional Iranian options. Tehran, by contrast, can move step by step while presenting each action as retaliation. Iran has informed the United Nations that the United States began the attacks and that its own operations are reciprocal acts of self-defense. The civilians dead at the wedding make Washington’s moral position more threadbare still.

The road out is not mysterious. It would require the United States to stop attacking Iran, end its blockade and coercive sanctions, and return to negotiations based on the June memorandum rather than seek capitulation. It would also depend upon regional states declining the use of their territory for further attacks. A credible diplomatic process would be strengthened by a United Nations investigation into the bombing of the wedding and other attacks on civilians. Otherwise, the institution, which is seeking a new secretary general, risks becoming an accountant who arrives only after the building has burned down.

Trump is caught between an opponent that will not surrender and an election clock that will not stop. He may yet order another spectacular strike in the hope that violence can manufacture victory. But Iran has shown that US bases are not sanctuaries, that US weapons are not inexhaustible, and that US escalation does not command the final move. The old asymmetry has been reversed. Washington can still destroy. It can no longer dictate.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured a convincing victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on September 6, 2026. The election was marked by a high turnout of nearly 78% and took place amid a climate of widespread anger against federal policies implemented by the Merz administration – particularly attacks on social services and welfare, and ongoing militarization.

The AfD won approximately 44% of the vote, more than double its result in the 2021 election. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) saw its support halve to barely over 17%, followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the progressive party Die Linke – all recording less than 10% of the vote. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) crossed the 5% electoral threshold.

Despite the result, it remains unclear whether the far right will be able to form a government, as mainstream parties have historically maintained a “firewall” against cooperation with the AfD. For his part, AfD state leader Ulrich Siegmund indicated the party’s preference is forming a non-coalition administration, even if it means going to the polls again. He assured that, in that case, the AfD would win over 50% of the vote.

Read more: Germany’s ‘summer of reforms’ to accelerate militarization

While mainstream parties across Germany expressed shock over the election result, critics on the left argue this is the result of their own unwillingness to break with neoliberal policies and attacks on labor rights. Ever since the far right began to record stronger electoral results, the mainstream parties’ focus has remained almost exclusively on the AfD’s anti-immigrant discourse, even embracing growing chunks of this narrative in an attempt to preserve votes. 

These same parties fail to recognize the importance of the cost of living crisis and massive job losses for voters. The fear of not being able to make ends meet was one of the top concerns in Saxony-Anhalt. This indicated that many votes for the AfD were cast in the attempt to find an alternative to the mainstream. Merz’s administration, however, is apparently still oblivious to these concerns.

The AfD coming into power would also not translate into a change of economic policy, considering their program remains aligned with neoliberal principles. While this leaves room for the left to act and shape a socially just strategy, notable social mobilizations are yet to be fully recognized as pointers for progressive parties.

Read more: Insurgent left candidate may spoil far right’s plans in 2027 French presidential election

AfD’s success has been noted with concern by progressive politicians across the region. They pointed to the stubborn insistence of mainstream parties on austerity policies even as it becomes apparent that they are pushing people into the arms of the extreme right.

“The far right is back in Germany,” French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted. “This is a catastrophic demonstration of the blindness of Europe’s centrist politicians. The disaster is of their making.”

“Things didn’t turn out well under the far right last time, and they won’t this time either,” echoed Slovenian progressive party Levica. “The only answer to the consequences of capitalism is socialism.”

Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss | The Atavist Magazine | July 2026 | 2,284 words (8 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 178, “Toxic Lies.”

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January 3, 2026

In the isolation ward of a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, a nurse approaches Ron Fowler’s bed, cell phone extended in her hand.

“You have a call,” she says.

Fowler’s eyes flutter open. He tugs off his oxygen tube and, with trembling fingers, accepts the phone.

“Thanks,” he whispers, before turning his attention to us—the callers.

From his voice it’s clear that something is very wrong; he sounds nothing like his usual self. He’s due the next day to meet us for an interview in Paducah, Kentucky, where he and his friend Chuck Deuschle worked at a uranium-enrichment plant that helped fuel America’s nuclear arsenal. Years ago they blew the whistle on the government and its contractors for poisoning thousands of atomic workers. “Can’t make it,” Fowler chokes out. “Blood clots. Hospital. They may have to remove some toes—if those clots don’t reach my heart first. If they do…” He trails off, the terrible ending hanging in the air.

Fowler, soon to turn 77, is desperate to talk before it’s too late—to pull up the memories one more time and commit them to the historical record. He and Deuschle had both moved to Kentucky to work at the nuclear plant, only to discover a grim secret: The facility was exposing people to dangerously high levels of radiation and toxic chemicals, and had concealed the truth about it from employees and the surrounding community. This went on for decades. Faced with a choice—either walk away or stay and sound the alarm—Fowler and Deuschle returned to work, day after day.

More than thirty years later, lying in the hospital with cancer, Fowler is certain that the plant doomed him to a slow, painful death. At 83, Deuschle is also fighting a serious health issue: an unexplained autoimmune disease. They believe their fellow whistleblowers—Deuschle’s wife, Kay, and their friend Garland “Bud” Jenkins—succumbed to illnesses caused by the plant. Still, they’d do it all again. Someone had to reveal the callous disregard the government and the plant’s operators had shown their own people.

Fowler and Deuschle have never shared their story in full—the details of what it was like to live, breathe, and possibly die from their commitment to the truth. But they want people to know, particularly in light of recent news reports: In August 2025, more than a decade after the plant was shut down, a private firm announced that it planned to revive uranium-enrichment operations there. To Fowler and Deuschle, it seems wrong to begin a new chapter in Paducah’s nuclear story. Many former employees are still seeking compensation for their exposure to radiation. Will future generations of workers be any safer?

Fowler struggles for each breath.

“Time’s up,” the nurse says gently, reaching for the phone. “You need to rest.”

Fowler grips the device tighter.

“Call tomorrow when you meet with Chuck,” he implores. “I’m staying alive until then.” He pauses for a moment. “Just make sure Chuck’s with you. Promise me.”

We promise.

1.

One morning in late 1991, Ron Fowler stood in front of the bathroom mirror, parting his hair to the side and noting the first strands of gray at his temples. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black slacks and white dress shirt crisply pressed. He was ready. Today would be his first day at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium-enrichment facility about ten miles outside Paducah, Kentucky. This was more than just a job—it was the start of a new life.

Fowler was a health physicist, an expert in the science of radiation protection. For years he’d traveled the country to train workers at nuclear plants in safety protocols. The pay was great, but being on the road weeks at a time had worn him down. When he moved to Paducah in his early forties, Fowler had already lived in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Arkansas. Paducah promised stability: the perfect place to settle through retirement. His wife’s parents even moved from Illinois to be nearby.

After eating breakfast—a sausage patty and a scrambled egg—he kissed his wife, Sandi, goodbye and slipped out the door. He steered his green Oldsmobile Delta 88 through the country roads outside Paducah and let his mind drift back to his childhood in Florence, South Carolina. Life there had been simple. His father, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, supported the family by working on the railroad. Florence was a place where men had jobs, women tended to the home and children, everyone went to church, and neighbors helped neighbors who fell on hard times. Paducah felt just as close-knit. Folks looked out for one another, and honest labor was rewarded.

Situated on the Ohio River where it meets the Tennessee, Paducah owes its origins to trade; it was founded in 1827 by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and named for a powerful Native American tribe. The area is naturally beautiful—the city is surrounded by rolling hills and sprawling plains dotted with ponds. For Fowler, a keen fisherman, it was paradise. Paducah had about 27,000 residents when he arrived. It was big enough to have all the right shops, yet small enough that restaurant owners knew whether regulars preferred barbecue or fried catfish, the local staples.

As Fowler drove, the plant appeared in the distance. It spread over some 3,500 acres—750 of them secured by fences and gates—and sat amid modest homes and farms. The community was proud of this place because of its long history supporting the military. Originally, it was a TNT munitions factory, built during World War II. Later, as Cold War tensions escalated, officials scouted locations for a uranium feed facility to supply weapons-production sites in Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the material required to make nuclear bombs. Paducah native Alben Barkley leveraged his position as Harry S. Truman’s vice president, campaigning aggressively to repurpose the munitions factory in his hometown. He recognized that the project likely would inject billions into the local economy and transform living standards for the region’s blue-collar workforce.

Construction of the nuclear plant began in 1951. By the following year, it was enriching uranium for atomic bombs and the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Rising from the countryside, the gleaming buildings looked like modern marvels, and the economic windfall lifted Paducah residents’ spirits. Meanwhile, employees at the plant—everyone from nuclear technicians to welders, cooks, and janitors—were united in patriotic pride. Their jobs paid well, and the workers believed that they were helping fend off communism. It was no wonder Life magazine printed a photo spread of the site.

As the Cold War thawed, the mission changed but the jobs remained. The plant began recycling materials—gold, among other things—extracted from dismantled atomic weapons while continuing to enrich uranium, now for nuclear power plants instead of bombs. Wages allowed families to buy homes and cars and afford vacations—the American middle-class dream. The plant operated like a self-contained town for its 1,700 employees: It had its own security force, fire department, library, post office, and health clinic. A shuttle service ferried employees around the plant’s grounds. Workers participated in golf leagues and fishing tournaments. The Uranium Enrichment News kept everyone informed about goings-on at the site.

Though the plant was owned by the Department of Energy, it was run by contractors. Union Carbide initially oversaw operations, followed by Martin Marietta, which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Management changed, but to employees that just meant a different name on their paychecks. The people on the ground were like family—fiercely loyal to one another and to the plant they called the Atomic City.

Fowler smiled as he drove through a security gate into a sprawling lot. He parked by the administrative building and checked in with a secretary, who called someone to escort him to his department. From there he would lead health and safety training sessions. The federal government had known as early as 1944 that radiation was hazardous and had issued policies to limit worker exposure. It was Fowler’s job to help ensure that regulations were enforced, to protect both employees and the surrounding community from contamination.

He had barely settled in when a coworker poked his head in.

“Want to see the place?”

The complex was huge—more than five hundred buildings connected by nearly twenty miles of access roads. Fowler was impressed until, as he rounded a corner on his tour, a yellow triangular sign with the radiation symbol caught his eye. There was no step-off pad in sight. In a nuclear facility, a step-off pad is a buffer zone between a hazardous area and a clean one. Workers at the Paducah site were supposed to remove radiation-tainted clothing and footwear before crossing through these zones to ensure they didn’t unwittingly transfer dangerous materials to other parts of the plant or transport it home with them.

Fowler flagged down a worker leaving the building where the warning sign was posted. “You don’t have a step-off pad down here,” Fowler said. The worker shrugged and said there was nothing to worry about.

“That sign says otherwise,” Fowler said. He explained that protocol required a pad and training for workers so they knew how to use it.

The worker’s expression was unchanged as he walked away.

Fowler’s pulse quickened as he imagined invisible particles on boot soles spreading throughout the plant or, worse, tracking onto kitchen floors or into rooms where children played. He hurried to his division manager’s office. The supervisor listened, then leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen on his desk calendar. He said he’d call a meeting about the issue.

That night at home, Fowler sat at the kitchen table watching Sandi cook. Normally, he’d have been joking with his wife about her limited culinary range—she often made breakfast for dinner—but tonight his mind was elsewhere. The sizzle from the stove filled the silence between them.

Sandi knew something was wrong. In the years since they first met at a bar in Joliet, Illinois, she’d become attuned to her husband’s moods. Despite his imposing frame—six foot two, 245 pounds—Fowler had always been the gentle sort and quick to laugh. Their courtship progressed quickly, and within four months of meeting Fowler had moved in to her family’s home in Aurora. They married there so her father, a former school principal paralyzed from a stroke, could attend.

“What is it, Ron?” Sandi asked, spatula in hand.

He sighed. “Something’s not right at work.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way they treat radiation—like it can’t hurt them. No precautions,” Fowler said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sandi replied, frowning.

“I know.” Fowler shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Uranium is a silvery-white radioactive metal. More than 99 percent of it found in nature is U-238, and the rest is U-235, an isotope that can sustain the chain reactions needed to fuel nuclear power production and atomic weapons. Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 in a supply of uranium. At different points, enrichment produces one powder Paducah workers called black oxide—not to be confused with the coating of the same name applied to some metals to improve corrosion resistance—and another, uranium tetraflouride, that’s known as green salt. Eventually, uranium hexafluoride, a colorless crystalline solid, is heated into a gas that’s pushed through microscopic porous barriers. This process, called gaseous diffusion, separates U-235 from U-238; at plants like the one in Paducah, it’s done hundreds of times in a cascade until the desired enrichment level is reached.

Uranium enrichment is hazardous business. Fowler knew that any leak, spill, or accident at the Paducah plant could damage kidneys and lungs, irritate skin, and increase cancer risk. More insidiously, simple mistakes or oversights by workers could have that same result. During his first few weeks on the job, Fowler explored the plant on his own, and what he found unsettled him. Employees worked in radioactive areas without protective suits or masks. Some couldn’t read and might not understand warning signs. People left the site after their shifts without changing clothes or showering, likely conveying radioactive dust home to their families. Some workers even warmed their lunch on top of machines in hazardous areas.

Fowler knew that things needed to change, and quickly. He took his concerns to the plant manager, Steve Polston, who heard him out and then called a meeting about step-off pads—the very issue Fowler had flagged on his first day. At the meeting, Fowler outlined the safety gaps he’d observed at the plant, but it seemed to him as though the senior managers in the room could barely feign interest. He heard what would become something of a refrain: “We’ve been doing it this way for years.” He was also told that Department of Energy officials visited the site regularly and hadn’t raised concerns.

More worried than ever, Fowler spent the next several months developing new safety protocols. He beamed with satisfaction as he handed the plan to Polston. In the period that followed, however, he became frustrated with how officials implemented the measures. Even when company-issued safety equipment was made available, Fowler noticed that much of it was obsolete. And he watched in disbelief as employees poked holes in respirator masks to smoke while working.

“I’m not making progress,” he told Sandi one night between sips from a can of Miller Lite. “No one is listening.” He likened his work to “scooping water out of the ocean.”

Sandi, who had studied his training manual to understand his work, gently touched his arm. “Be patient,” she suggested. “Maybe you just have to get to know the people better.”

Fowler’s shoulders dropped. “It seems like more than that,” he said.