ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A top Democrat in the U.S. House says it will take a shift of power in Congress to ensure that legislation is finally passed to extend and expand a compensation program for people exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out by the federal government.
Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar joined Tuesday with members of New Mexico congressional delegation to call on voters to put more pressure on Republican House leaders to revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
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U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Tina Cordova, center, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, points to audience members who have been dealing with the consequences of radiation exposure, while politicians gathered for a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat, discusses legislative efforts to extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. ( AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, center, talks about efforts to revive legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a visit to Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
With his party seeking to win back majorities in Congress, the California congressman made campaign pitches for New Mexico Democrats and vowed they would support the multibillion-dollar compensation program.
“I would say this is both a failure in government and this is a failure in leadership,” Aguilar said, referencing House inaction on the legislation.
The Senate passed the bill earlier this year, only for it to stall in the House over concerns by some Republican lawmakers about cost. GOP supporters in the Senate had called on House leadership to take up a vote on the measure, but the act ended up expiring in June.
Native Americans who worked as uranium miners, millers and transporters and people whose families lived downwind from nuclear testing sites have been among those arguing that the legislation was sidelined due to political calculations by the chamber's majority party rather than the price tag.
Advocates for decades have been pushing to expand the compensation program. Front and center have been downwinders in New Mexico, where government scientists and military officials dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945 as part the top secret Manhattan Project.
Residents have made it their mission to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Test Site in southern New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activists.
The chorus grew louder over the past year as the blockbuster “Oppenheimer” brought new attention to the country’s nuclear history and the legacy left behind by years of nuclear research and bomb making.
Freshman Congressman Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat from New Mexico who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that national defense spending tops $860 billion every year.
“So when you tell me that we can’t afford to compensate people who have suffered through pancreatic cancer, miscarriages, the horrors of nuclear fallout and the generation that have suffered from it, it is a joke to me,” he said.
Vasquez, who is facing GOP challenger Yvette Herrell in his bid for reelection, suggested that the legislation be included in a defense spending measure and that lawmakers find ways to offset the cost by saving money elsewhere.
There's still an opportunity for House leaders to “do the right thing,” he said.
The law was initially passed more than three decades ago and has paid out about $2.6 billion in that time. The bipartisan group of lawmakers seeking to update the law has said that the government is at fault for residents and workers being exposed and should step up.
The proposed legislation would have added parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada to the program and would have covered downwinders in New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Residents exposed to radioactive waste in Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky also would have been covered.
In New Mexico, residents were not warned of the radiological dangers of the Trinity Test and didn’t realize that an atomic blast was the source of the ash that rained down upon them following the detonation. That included families who lived off the land — growing crops, raising livestock and getting their drinking water from cisterns.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Tina Cordova, center, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, points to audience members who have been dealing with the consequences of radiation exposure, while politicians gathered for a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat, discusses legislative efforts to extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. ( AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, center, talks about efforts to revive legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a visit to Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people, including over a dozen women and children, local health officials said Sunday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to the United States to meet with President Donald Trump about the war.
Israel last month ended its ceasefire with Hamas and has seized territory to pressure the militant group to accept a new deal for a truce and release of remaining hostages. It has blocked the import of food, fuel and other supplies for over a month to the coastal territory heavily reliant on outside assistance.
Israel's military late Sunday ordered Palestinians to evacuate several neighborhoods in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah shortly after about 10 projectiles were fired from Gaza — the largest barrage from the territory since Israel resumed the war.
The military said about five were intercepted. Hamas’ military arm claimed responsibility. Police said a rocket fell in Ashkelon city and fragments fell in several other areas. The Magen David Adom emergency service said one man was lightly injured. The military later said it struck a rocket launcher in Gaza.
Israeli strikes overnight into Sunday hit a tent and a house in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing five men, five women and five children, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
The body of a toddler took up one end of an emergency stretcher.
A female journalist was among the dead. “My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” said her mother, Amal Kaskeen.
“Trump wants to end the Gaza issue. He is in a hurry, and that is clear from this morning,” said Mohammad Abdel-Hadi, cousin of a woman killed.
Israeli shelling killed at least four people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The bodies of seven people, including a child and three women, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, according to an Associated Press journalist there.
And a strike in Gaza City hit people waiting outside a bakery and killed at least six, including three children, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in Jabaliya for new anti-war protests. Footage on social media showed people marching and chanting against Hamas. Such protests, while rare, have occurred in recent weeks.
There is also anger inside Israel over the war's resumption and its effects on remaining hostages in Gaza. Families of hostages along with some of those recently freed from Gaza and their supporters have urged Trump to help ensure the fighting ends.
Netanyahu on Monday will meet with Trump for the second time since Trump began his latest term in January. The prime minister said they would discuss the war and the new 17% tariff imposed on Israel, part of a sweeping global decision by the U.S.
“There is a very large queue of leaders who want to do this with respect to their economies. I think it reflects the special personal connection and the special connection between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time,” Netanyahu said while wrapping up a visit to Hungary.
The U.S., a mediator in ceasefire efforts along with Egypt and Qatar, had expressed support for Israel's resumption of the war last month.
Hundreds of Palestinians since then have been killed, among them 15 medics whose bodies were recovered only a week later. Israel's military this weekend backtracked on its account of what happened in the incident, captured in part on video, that angered Red Cross and Red Crescent and U.N. officials.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Fifty-nine hostages are still held in Gaza — 24 believed to be alive.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 50,695 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants but says more than half were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Early Monday, strikes hit inside the compound of Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an Associated Press camera caught the sound of the explosions. Smoke and fire were seen from distance, and there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said one Palestinian-American teen was killed and two others were injured — one in critical condition — and asserted that Israeli settlers had shot them.
Israel's military said it was looking into the incident in Turmus Ayya town, which is near Jerusalem and has a large population of Palestinian-Americans.
The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with Israel's military carrying out military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Associated Press writer Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
The body of Palestinian Ramzi Abu Maghaseem killed by an Israeli army bombardment is brought to a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip on Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry the bodies of two of the 15 people killed overnight in two Israeli army strikes during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The body of journalist Islam Meqdad, killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike on their house, lies on the floor at Nasser Hospital before her burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Children walk by the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Oman looks at the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Children walk by the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Children look at the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A man passes by the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A woman holds a sign as people take part in a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, April 5,2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Palestinians pray over the bodies of some of the 15 people, including 5 children and 5 women, killed in two Israeli army strikes during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
