Radiators

Austria--Environmental officials in the province of Carinthia advise parents to keep infants indoors. Federal officials report above-normal radioactivity readings across the country but say they pose no health hazards. The VOEST-Alpine company charters a special flight to evacuate relatives of Austrian steel specialists from Shlobin, about 100 miles west of the crippled Soviet reactor.

When music and movement are energetically fused, great things can happen. Such was the case Saturday night at Los Angeles Theatre Center, where the locally based company Jazzantiqua presented "Midtown Sunset," a jazz ballet suite celebrating the Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by the art of Romare Bearden and poetry of Langston Hughes, the previously seen work exudes a heartfelt and compelling honesty.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who underwent prostate surgery last week, has cancerous tissue and will undergo radiation therapy, his doctors said today. Dr. George Yamauchi, a urologist, and Dr. Michael Perlman, Hahn's personal physician, said in a prepared statement that Hahn would be treated on an outpatient basis and that "his prognosis is excellent." The radiation therapy is scheduled to begin sometime in the next month.

After hearing emotional appeals to right "one of the great wrongs that we Americans committed against our own citizens," the House gave final congressional approval Thursday to legislation that compensates radiation victims of nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining.

I applaud the action of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary in demanding a report on acts of atrocity on human beings committed by the Atomic Energy Commission between 1944 and 1974. I also agree with the general content of your July 28 editorial, "Coming Clean After Decades of Dirty Science." However, I am disturbed by the statement that says: "Doctors at the University of Cincinnati exposed indigent cancer patients to radiation 10 times higher than considered safe, and several died as a result."

Two maintenance workers were exposed to radioactive materials Wednesday when 20 gallons of heavy water escaped from a reactor pipe at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant. A plant spokesman said protective suits limited the pair's exposure.

Missing from "Radioactive Waste Seeps Toward Columbia River" (March 12) was any realistic assessment of the dangers to people or the environment from the leaking radiation. I am deeply concerned about many environmental issues, such as global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, destruction of the rain forest, etc. However, from what I know about radiation, the Hanford situation wouldn't even be on my top-100 list of environmental worries. In many parts of the world the natural background radiation is from 10 to 100 times larger than the average level.

Summer's near and so is the temptation to worship the sun. But fried skin, premature wrinkles and melanoma hardly make a healthy fashion statement. So cosmetic makers such as Elizabeth Arden offer bronzing powders great for any skin tone. EA's Sunshine Bronzing Powder ($25) "gives skin a nice glow with an ultra-fine sheen," says spokeswoman Susan Arnot Heaney. "Every grain of powder is encapsulated in natural flower extracts so it won't fade or streak."

I am not satisfied with the level of coverage that our media provided in our recent city election. I believe that the media had a responsibility to reveal that there were candidates who were only self-serving and working for a manipulative vote. I believe that our citizens were the losers on April 8 when they voted for one councilperson and one councilperson only or, what is worse, failed to vote at all. Someone once said that the person who is successful in only one area of life is a failure.

From the '50s through the '70s, a number of fiercely idiosyncratic singers took Latin American popular music to new levels of sophistication. Artists such as Rolando Laserie, Tito Rodriguez and Jose Jose had vision and romanticism to spare. Watching Luis Miguel on Wednesday during his second of six evenings at the Gibson Amphitheatre, you could not help but think that the Mexican pop star wishes he was one of those crooners from the good old days.