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WASHINGTON -- Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters' confidential sources. Lee will receive $895,000 from the government for legal fees and associated taxes in the 6 1/2-year-old lawsuit in which he accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy rights by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for China. The Associated Press and four other news organizations have agreed...

When the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory resigned last year, the University of California, which runs the lab, agreed to keep him on the payroll in a new job for up to 28 months so he would qualify for the university's retirement plan, according to a copy of the director's separation agreement obtained by The Chronicle. The university is paying the annual $235,000 salary of G. Peter Nanos -- at a likely total cost of about $548,333. He is now at a job with the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency in Virginia, which is trying to develop...

In February last year, the chairman of the Senate energy committee sat down at Los Alamos National Laboratory for a private briefing on climate change. Was global warming real, Sen. Pete Domenici wanted to know. He turned for answers to a federal lab that he had gazed on admiringly since he was a boy. In a barrage of computer slides, Los Alamos scientists showed the 72-year-old Republican senator a planet tipping into uncertainty. Greenhouse gases were increasing in the atmosphere and the trapped solar radiation was boosting temperatures worldwide, with cascading impacts on natural and human welfare. Natural causes alone...

For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards. If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated factory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads. "We are on the verge of an exciting time," the nation's top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory. Teams of roughly 20 scientists...

WASHINGTON — A Texas congressman has received "most of the materials'' he requested about why the U.S. Energy Department awarded a contract for Los Alamos National Laboratory to a team that includes the University of California, his spokeswoman said. Lisa Miller, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that Joe Barton heads, said discussions between DOE and the committee were continuing. She had no details about Barton's reaction. Barton, R-Texas, demanded the information last month when the DOE awarded the contract to run the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab to UC and three corporations instead of to a team...

In a surprise finish to months of battle, the University of California prevailed yesterday in its bid to run Los Alamos National Laboratory, the storied weapons research center in the mountains of New Mexico and the birthplace of the atomic bomb. The university teamed with the Bechtel Corporation, the world's largest construction and engineering company, and two other industrial giants to win the contract. It is the first time the laboratory's management has been put up for bidding. Federal officials announced the winner in Washington yesterday. Most analysts expected that the contract would be wrenched away from the University of...

A team led by the University of California has won the contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory, sources say. The Department of Energy is scheduled to make an official announcement at 2 p.m. today in Washington, D.C. (noon Mountain Time).

Enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs hasn't been accounted for at the UC-run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and may be missing, an activist group says in a new report. There is no evidence that the weapons-grade plutonium has been stolen or diverted for illegal purposes, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said. However, the amount of unaccounted-for plutonium -- more than 600 pounds, and possibly several times that -- is so great that it raises "a vast security issue," the group said in a report to be made public today. The institute, which is...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans have been migrating south and west for decades, but it appears they've been leaving some high-paying jobs behind. While there are many pockets of wealth in the South and West, the states with the highest wage earners line the East Coast, according to Census data released Tuesday. Connecticut, with a median household income of $56,409, supplanted New Jersey as the country's highest wage state in 2003, the most recent year available. New Jersey slid to second, at $56,356, followed by Maryland, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Mississippi had the lowest median income, at $32,397. West Virginia, Arkansas,...

The Greek historian Heraclitus observed, “A man’s character is his fate.” I’ve always found that to be true. I’d go further though. I think it is as applicable to institutions as it is to individuals. If I’m right, the end result of the Wilson/Plame hoax – described by Christopher Hitchens Hitchens as “the non-commission of non-crimes and the non-outing of a non-covert CIA bureaucrat” – will be how it has exposed this fact: Our major media have been so hopelessly corrupted by partisanship that, either willingly or through credulousness, they have become little more than an agent of the Democratic...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Many people in this isolated mesa-top community are anxious or fearful about who will win a contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. The main contenders for the contract are two limited liability corporations, one headed by Lockheed Martin and the University of Texas and the other led by Bechtel Corp. and the University of California, which has been the sole manager of the lab since Manhattan Project scientists gathered in World War II to develop the world's first atomic bomb. The first contract competition in the lab's 62-year history is expected to usher in...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton called Congress' impeachment of him an "egregious" abuse of the Constitution and challenged those who say history will judge him poorly because of his White House tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Speaking at an academic conference examining his presidency here Thursday, Clinton challenged historian Douglas Brinkley's comments in a newspaper interview that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment. "I completely disagree with that," Clinton said in his speech at Hofstra University. "You can agree with that statement, but only if you think impeachment was justified. Otherwise, it...

Sixty years ago the Manhattan Project carried out its first test of a secret weapon, forged from a metal first detected in sub-microgram amounts fewer than five years before. By David FishlockOn Thursday 12 July 1945 a US Army sedan drove Philip Morrison the 210 miles from Los Alamos to Alamagordo with the plutonium core of the world’s first nuclear weapon on his lap. At dawn four days later the priceless hemispheres the physicist had helped forge, then assembled, vanished in the highly successful Trinity nuclear test. The scientists who witnessed the test estimated the energy released equivalent to 18,600t...

SANTA FE (AP) - Santa Fe police believe a Los Alamos National Laboratory whistleblower beaten outside a Santa Fe bar could have been attacked because he allegedly struck a pedestrian in the parking lot. They do not believe the beating of Tommy Hook had anything to do with his status as a whistleblower. Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson says the investigation is leaning toward a fight in the parking lot leading to the beating Sunday. Johnson says Santa Fe police do not plan any immediate arrests. He says the department is turning the case over to the district attorney. He...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Authorities said Thursday that the beating of a Los Alamos nuclear lab auditor outside a bar was unrelated to his status as a whistleblower. Police did not say that Tommy Hook, 52, had offered false information when he said he was beaten to keep him from talking about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear lab. But the version of events set forth in the police statement was sharply at odds with what Hook and his supporters said happened in Santa Fe early Sunday. "Facts, evidence and information obtained during the course of this investigation has led investigators...

SANTA FE -- A lawyer in Santa Fe has been hired to represent a man who says he was involved in the beating. The man reportedly claims the attack has nothing to do with the fact that the victim is the Los Alamos National Labs whistleblower. Santa Fe investigators also have some new questions as they continue to investigate the details surrounding the beating of a Tommy Hook earlier this week. Hook says he was told to keep his mouth shut when he was getting hit by at least four men early Sunday morning. He is set to testify before...

There's no evidence that a Los Alamos lab whistleblower who was beaten up outside a topless bar had been in a minor accident in the parking lot or had cavorted with dancers at the bar, his lawyer says. Tommy Hook, 52, suffered a fractured jaw, a back injury and other injuries in the beating early Sunday. He was released Tuesday evening, a hospital spokesman said. Authorities say they are still investigating whether the beating was deliberate. But Hooks, his wife and lawyer say he was attacked to keep him quiet about his accusations against lab management. "This individual was telling...

Los Alamos Whistleblower Severely BeatenNewsMax.comTuesday, June 7, 2005 A Los Alamos National Laboratory whistleblower who has uncovered irregularities involving millions of dollars of taxpayer money at the government-backed facility was brutally beaten this past weekend. According to several news reports, auditor Tommy Hook was violently attacked by three or four anonymous assailants, who allegedly ordered him to keep quiet. Hook was scheduled to testify before Congress later this month, but is now in the hospital. Story Continues Below On Saturday night, Hook went to a Santa Fe bar, ostensibly to meet a person claiming to be a fellow Los...

Steve Doran helped unearth the case then got fired because, he says, management wanted a cover-up, not the truth. (CBS) It was the most sensational of all the suspect purchases made with government credit cards. A custom black Mustang, charged by Los Alamos National Laboratory employee Lillian Anaya. After a year-long investigation, the New Mexico lab exonerated her, and even claims she's the victim. But a CBS News investigation casts serious doubt on that story. FBI documents show Anaya "denied any knowledge or involvement" with the car and said she "never heard of" the car company. When the FBI showed...

A Los Alamos whistleblower scheduled to testify before congress later this month is now in the hospital, according to news reports. Auditor Tommy Hook was brutally beaten by three or four anonymous assailants who allegedly ordered him to keep quiet. On Saturday night, Hook went to a Santa Fe bar ostensibly to meet a person claiming to be a fellow Los Alamos whistleblower that called that night. When the person did not show, Hook left the bar after consuming two drinks. Whistleblowing auditor Tommy Hook before and after the beating. (CBS News photos) In the parking lot, he was yanked...