The government has plans for tons of excess plutonium: burn some and bury the rest. The Energy Department is due today to announce its $2 billion plan for disposing of the deadly material. The plutonium, nearly 50 tons of it, is left over from nuclear warheads. The Energy Department said in March that it was considering mixing the weapons-grade plutonium with uranium and then burning it in commercial atomic power plants. It’s not clear how much the plutonium would be encased in glass and buried. A source says about a third of the plutonium has impurities that make it unsuitable for burning. The disposal process could take decades.

NATO’s winter meeting in Brussels will be Warren Christopher’s final as U.S. secretary of state. On the agenda is how to expand NATO without antagonizing Russia. The newest additions to the Western alliance will be former allies of Russia. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are the likely first new members. Christopher is proposing a special relationship, but not NATO membership, for Russia. Christopher is stepping down next month. U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright is waiting in the wings to succeed him.

The Supreme Court will revisit the subject of racial politics today. The court will judge the validity of a Georgia congressional map that features just one majority-Black district. This is the second time the case is appearing in the Supreme Court. In 1995, the justices struck down a redistricting plan under which three Blacks won seats in Congress. In another case, the justices are refereeing a voting rights dispute spawned by school board elections in Louisiana. The case focuses on what standard lawyers should use when deciding whether proposed changes in district boundaries comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rulings in both cases are expected in July.

If you know who planted the pipe bomb in Olympic Park in Atlanta this summer, it could be worth $500,000 to you. The FBI plans to hold a news conference in Atlanta this afternoon to offer a reward for information about the bombing. The move is part of an effort to head off congressional criticism of the FBI’s investigation into the blast. FBI Director Louis Freeh will testify tomorrow in front of the Senate panel regarding the probe. Agents at the news conference are also expected to show the reconstructed knapsack that held the pipe bomb and pictures of its exact location in the park. The 911 call warning of the blast will also be played for the first time in public.