Lab workers win preliminary redress

WASHINGTON - Los Alamos National Laboratory workers who developed cancer after being exposed to a radioactive substance during two decades of nuclear weapons experiments in Bayo Canyon may soon qualify for automatic payments from the government.

Between 1944-63, lab employees set off about 250 tests of atomic bomb components using radioactive lanthanum.

Officials now say the substance endangered workers, and an advisory board has recommended to Congress and the Bush administration they be eligible for compensation.

If the recommendation is not approved, the workers will have to go through a lengthy application process and prove their exposure to be eligible for compensation.

Adviser gets prison time in fraud case

A Roswell financial adviser convicted of stealing nearly $1 million from five elderly clients over four years has been sentenced to 27 months in federal prison.

David Keith Heine had pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

Court records say Heine, 48, moved mutual funds out of the clients' accounts and into an account he set up for his son.