Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratory

A University of California regents panel Thursday recommended renewal of five-year contracts under which UC manages two nuclear weapons research laboratories, despite allegations that the university does a poor job of supervising the research and that lab officials are trying to block any comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets.

A big earthquake and resultant fire could trigger potentially deadly releases of radioactive materials from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico due to "major deficiencies" in the nuclear weapons lab's safety planning, federal safety experts warned Tuesday. The warning from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board was sent to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, urging him to "execute both immediate and long-term actions." A spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department, said, "We are currently evaluating the board's recommendation and preparing a formal response."

Wen Ho Lee walked out of court a free man Wednesday after a federal judge repeatedly apologized for incarcerating him for nine months without trial and angrily rebuked the Clinton administration for its handling of a case that "embarrassed this entire nation." In a morning marked by high drama, laughter and tears of joy, the former Los Alamos nuclear weapon scientist agreed in thickly accented English to a negotiated deal that brings an abrupt end to the highly controversial case.

The former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory said Saturday that North Korea is serious about denuclearizing and is willing to contemplate a program such as that used to help former Soviet republics destroy their nuclear weapons. "This is a big deal," said Siegfried Hecker, referring to North Korea's accomplishments so far in shutting down its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang.

A top official at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who has long raised concerns about nuclear safety practices there has been reassigned effective today, a move he sees as an effort to silence his criticisms. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration reassigned the safety official, Christopher M. Steele, to a job overseeing safety training at research and production facilities across the nation.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has started random drug testing of its scientists, engineers and other employees after finding secret nuclear weapons data in a former worker's residential trailer, lab officials told a House investigation panel Tuesday. Police discovered about 1,500 pages of classified information, along with methamphetamine pipes, while responding to a domestic disturbance call at a trailer park in Los Alamos, N.M., in October.

The Department of Energy intelligence chief who led a 1995 probe into suspected Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory blamed the FBI for targeting scientist Wen Ho Lee as the government's prime suspect and denied that racial profiling played a role in the case. "It was the FBI that focused solely on Dr. Lee," Notra Trulock III told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

It grew, secretly, from the desert to house the creators of the atomic bomb. But today--at least before fire ate hundreds of its homes--Los Alamos is a company town like any surrounding an automobile factory or a textile mill. The founding fathers of Los Alamos--physicists from the University of California--arrived from Berkeley soon after the government selected the secluded and idyllic site 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe in 1942.

The University of California has agreed to pay the federal government $2.8 million over a security breakdown at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Under the settlement, the university has accepted responsibility for the violations, the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a statement.

Contradicting his own attorney general, President Clinton said Thursday that he is "quite troubled" that former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was kept in jail for months without bail before a plea agreement set him free. "I always had reservations about the claims that were being made denying him bail," Clinton told reporters, referring to statements of federal prosecutors who were backed by their Justice Department superiors.

The University of California has agreed to pay the federal government $2.8 million over a security breakdown at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Under the settlement, the university has accepted responsibility for the violations, the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday proposed a record $3-million fine against the University of California for a security breach last year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in which a worker took home classified documents on a thumb drive.

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory worker who took classified materials home will face a single misdemeanor charge of negligent handling of classified documents, her lawyer said in Santa Fe. Jessica Quintana, 23, is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, attorney Stephen Aarons said. Police found the data on a portable drive and in about 200 pages of documents in October during a drug bust at her Los Alamos home.

The Department of Energy on Monday cited the University of California for 15 violations of safety rules in 2005 involving nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, including a case of mishandled materials where low levels of radiation were spread across several states. The violations would have carried a $1.1-million fine, but federal law waves such penalties for certain nonprofit contractors.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has started random drug testing of its scientists, engineers and other employees after finding secret nuclear weapons data in a former worker's residential trailer, lab officials told a House investigation panel Tuesday. Police discovered about 1,500 pages of classified information, along with methamphetamine pipes, while responding to a domestic disturbance call at a trailer park in Los Alamos, N.M., in October.

The nation's nuclear weapons chief was fired Thursday, after a long series of security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory and other weapons sites had prompted strong criticism of his performance. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman issued an unusual public statement Thursday saying he had asked for the resignation of Linton F. Brooks, chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which operates eight major bomb facilities across the nation.

A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who was held in solitary confinement for nine months was "badly treated," Gov. Bill Richardson says in his new autobiography. Richardson was former President Clinton's Energy secretary when Wen Ho Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen, became the target of an FBI investigation into Chinese espionage in 1999.

Justice Department officials worried in the summer of 1997 that the FBI investigation of alleged Chinese nuclear spying focused too narrowly on Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told Congress in testimony made public Tuesday. Those concerns led Justice Department lawyers to reject an FBI request to seek court approval for bugging Lee's home and office, Reno told a closed-door meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.

Security at Los Alamos National Laboratory was "seriously flawed" when a worker removed classified documents that were later found in her home during a drug bust, the Department of Energy's inspector general has concluded. In a number of key areas, security policies at the nuclear weapons lab were nonexistent, not followed or were applied inconsistently, according to Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman.

Los Alamos National Laboratory said that the classified documents discovered at a trailer park during a drug investigation last month did not include the most highly sensitive nuclear weapons information. The lab, which designs nuclear weapons, said a "careful and comprehensive analysis" of three electronic memory devices and paper copies of classified documents found in a residential trailer showed that they were mostly low-level secrets that are 20 to 30 years old.