For most of those who live and play on Cape Cod Bay and the northern coast at the New Hampshire and Massachusetts borders, the cement structures housing aging nuclear generators have become just another part of the landscape.

But some 45 years after the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth received the first of three 20-year licenses, the breakdown of the systems are thrusting the nation’s nuclear power program back into the limelight and moving up the anxiety list of many. The Cape Cod Times, which has been far ahead of all other media in the region in its coverage of Pilgrim, steps out with an exhaustive look at the history and current problems of the country’s nuclear power plants and some of the findings are alarming. There’s even a glossary of terms to reacquaint readers with the issue.

A team of nearly two dozen experts sent by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the midst of a comprehensive inspection of the beleaguered plant, which is scheduled to shut down in 2019 because its owner, Entergy, can’t justify the costs of running it. Pilgrim has slowed down or stopped operating numerous times over the past two years because of mechanical and power issues. Earlier this year, the NRC ranked it as one of the nation’s worst three nuclear power plants.

Accompanying the series, reported solely by Christine Legere who is the Times resident expert on Pilgrim, are a handful of sidebars that will open the eyes of those who have become complacent with the presence of nuclear generators in their backyards. Legere cobbles together pieces about troubled reactors around the country, from Seabrook in New Hampshire to crumbling facilities out west.

Perhaps most alarming is a running list compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists of “near misses” in the industry. Those “near misses” are described as problems at individual plants that the NRC says increases the chances of a reactor meltdown by 10 times. Pilgrim was on the 2015 “near miss list” and three of the eight reactors on the list are owned by Entergy.

Increasing the concerns for Pilgrim and other older plants is the lack of storage facilities for spent fuel rods after the rejection of Yucca Mountain as a potential site. Pilgrim is planning to store the rods in dry casks on site, potentially for decades after the closure.

Nuclear was touted as a clean energy when it first came into vogue a half-century ago and while the promise of reduced carbon has been fulfilled, the threat of cataclysmic failure is the tradeoff. The Times series reminds readers about the Three Mile Island failure and the accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. With President-elect Donald Trump’s support for building more nuclear plants, the battle lines between proponents and critics has been drawn. And the anxiety increases.

“As the nuclear plants age, they’re going to have more and more problems,” US Sen. Edward Markey, a strong proponent of renewable energy, told Legere. “Going forward, the nuclear industry is no longer ‘too cheap to meter,’ as it was promised to be. The truth is, nuclear energy is meeting its maker in the marketplace, becoming less competitive against renewable energy resources.”

JACK SULLIVAN

BEACON HILL

Attorney General Maura Healey’s office corrects flaws in its cost-of-fundraising report. (Telegram & Gazette)

Healey touts transparency in government, but her office hours later overturns a public records ruling by Secretary of State William Galvin’s office requiring the release of an MBTA report. Healey’s office rules the report was exempt from the Public Records Law under an attorney-client exemption. (Boston Herald)

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a vocal opponent of relaxing drug law and he could throw a big federal wrench into legalization of marijuana by states like Massachusetts, where voters legalized it last month. (Boston Globe) CommonWealth reported last week on the potential for Sessions to upend state-based approaches to pot laws.

Senate President Stan Rosenberg took his turn in the Keller@Large Sunday interview seat to talk about his support for legal marijuana and his continuing concerns about casino gambling but also said he was “disappointed” in Hampshire College’s initial decision to remove the American flag to stem protests.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

A massive 10-alarm fire on Saturday displaced more than 100 Cambridge residents, but caused only five or six minor injuries. (Boston Globe)

Break a leg, Santa — so he did. The big guy’s annual parachute jump in Quincy was troubled by high winds which caused The Claus to hit a tree on his landing, resulting in a fractured leg and a trip to the hospital. (Patriot Ledger)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

President-elect Donald Trump has named Ben Carson, a retired surgeon with no background in housing or urban policy, to be housing and urban development secretary. (Boston Herald)

Matt Viser had this look over the weekend at the odd rapprochement apparently reached between Trump and Mitt Romney, who declared him a phony and a con man, but is now in the running to be his secretary of state. (Boston Globe) The reality show that is the search for a new secretary of state has taken a new turn, however, with word that the hunt is widening to other candidates, a development that seems unfavorable for Romney. (New York Times)

Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s leader was months in the making, and presages a new approach to mainland China. (Washington Post)

National Guard armories across the country have exposed soldiers and visitors to dangerous levels of lead dust. (A series from The Oregonian) The Baker administration says it plans to investigate armories in Massachusetts. (MassLive)

The Globe digs into the high-profile legal showdown between Attorney General Maura Healey and Exxon Mobil over the company’s climate change policies.

Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, Rep. Tom Price, has lots of stock holdings in companies in the health and pharmaceutical sectors, raising questions about possible conflicts of interest in his decision-making. (STAT)

Several Massachusetts CEOs will have a good line into the new Trump administration. (Boston Globe)

ELECTIONS

A federal judge orders Michigan to begins its presidential election recount. (Time)

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

If Trump cuts corporate tax rates and firms bring lots of profits back that they’ve been sending overseas, will it actually help boost hiring and the US economy? Probably not much. (Boston Globe)

Movie-making produces a lot of blue collar jobs, says Chris Moore, the producer of Manchester by the Sea, which was shot entirely on the North Shore. (Gloucester Times)

EDUCATION

Massachusetts is looking to expand beyond test scores the criteria used to evaluate how well schools are doing. (Boston Globe)

Worcester is exploring pushing back school start times, but the cost is significant. (Telegram & Gazette)

A walkout at Boston public schools is being planned by students for this afternoon to protest threats to minority students and other groups from the incoming Trump administration. (Boston Herald)

Higher education: Boston University’s Robert Brown tops out the list of top paid area college presidents, raking in a cool $1.2 million. (Boston Globe)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Heroin use among whites has increased dramatically but needle exchange programs that have helped reduce HIV among blacks and Latinos has not had the same result with whites because they are more likely to share used syringes. (U.S. News & World Report)

A UMass Boston professor has developed a smartphone app he says can measure marijuana impairment. (GateHouse News Service)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

In a stunning turn of events, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it will not issue a permit for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and will instead seek alternate routes around the sacred Native American land. (New York Times)

The energy supply landscape in New England has undergone a profound change since the turn of the century with natural gas the dominant source and likely to remain that way even with the new state law opening the door for more sustainable forms of power. (Wicked Local)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

A 16-year-old boy is arrested in the decapitation murder of another teenager in Lawrence. Relatives of the victim say police didn’t take their concerns seriously when their son went missing. (Eagle-Tribune)

A lawsuit filed by four current or former state troopers is alleging race and sex discrimination on the part of the State Police. (Boston Globe)

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans is off on an eight-day trip to Israel to learn about counterterrorism efforts there. (Boston Herald)

A former police officer in Adams, convicted in 2011 of possession of child pornography, is facing similar charges again. (Berkshire Eagle)

The New York Times offers an in-depth and searing look at racial bias in discipline in the New York prison system with indications it is not an outlier.