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Energy Secretary Rick Perry tours birthplace of atomic bomb

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — Energy Secretary Rick Perry is scheduled to tour Los Alamos National Laboratory, the federal installation in northern New Mexico that helped develop the first atomic bomb during World War II. During Wednesday's visit, Perry will be briefed on current work at the lab related to nuclear deterrence. He'll also meet with employees. The Energy Department's multibillion-dollar program aimed at cleaning up waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research also will likely be a topic as Perry's visit follows the collapse of a tunnel containing radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. Los Alamos has had its own problems related to legacy waste. It was a container inappropriately packed at the lab that caused a 2014 radiation release and the costly shutdown of the federal government's only underground nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico.