Qualified downwinders were eligible for a one-time payment of $50,000. The program later was amended to include downwinders in Apache, Coconino, Gila, Navajo and Yavapai counties.

Downwinders are defined as those present in Guam from 1946 to 1962 and who have been diagnosed with one of the cancers associated with radiation exposure.

Among the organizations that have joined the eventual class-action suit is Downwinders at Risk, a 30-year-old clean air and environmental justice organization based in Dallas.

It’s been one year since Congress allowed the program offering payments to downwinders to expire. Now, advocates are hoping the Senate will revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or ...

Tuesday marked one year since the expiration of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a statute that helped thousands who became sick from nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s and years after.

Following the expiration of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act last June, today U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), along with U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) reintroduced the bill to compensate ...

Downwinders like Becky Ruffner are hoping they do. Ruffner grew up in Yavapai County and received RECA payments after her mother and grandfather died.

For more than three decades, the federal government sought to make amends to countless Americans who developed cancer after being exposed to radiation from nuclear testing in the Southwest or ...

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium demonstrates at the Stallion Gate entrance to White Sands Missile Range, Oct. 19. WSMR opens the Trinity Site to visitors once a year and the downwinders ...

Monday, Oct. 21, 2024 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV Stream now with the PBS app. In the 1950s and '60s, the U.S. government conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. The resulting fallout ...

RECA aims to expand and extend compensation for thousands of people, known as "downwinders" exposed to radiation via blowing fallout.

The downwinders have vowed to make it a campaign issue in the must-win district as well as in the dozens of other Republican districts around the U.S. that would benefit from an expansion of RECA.