NATION : Radiation Victims Bill Signed

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed into law today a bill to compensate hundreds of American civilians whose health and lives were scarred by radiation in the name of national security during the Cold War.

The measure authorizes a $100-million trust fund to pay damage claims to people who developed cancer and other ailments as a result of exposure to fallout from open-air atomic weapons tests in Nevada or radioactive dust they breathed while mining uranium for nuclear bombs.

The fallout victims, also known as the “downwinders,” would be eligible for individual payments of $50,000, and the miners, many of them Navajo Indians, could receive $100,000 each. For cases in which would-be beneficiaries already have died, their families or estates can qualify for compensation.