The U.S. Senate has endorsed a major expansion of a compensation program for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing and the mining of uranium during the Cold War, with a vote Thursday on a massive defense spending bill.
Advancing on a 86-11 Senate vote, the provisions would extend health care coverage and compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from Guam to the New Mexico site where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.
