IN BRIEF

NEVADA TEST SITE

Atomic Veterans group to meet on Saturday

An advocacy group for former Nevada Test Site workers, the Atomic Veterans and Victims of America Inc., will hold an organizational meeting Saturday to elect officers and discuss the government's illness compensation program for Energy Department employees and survivors.

John Funk, chairman of the nonprofit group, said the meeting is important "because there is a lot of new information that people don't know about."

He was referring to recent revelations about the Nevada Test Site profile used by contractors for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to reconstruct radioactive exposures that workers received from test site activities.

Funk said other issues related to the Labor Department's Energy Employees Illness Compensation Program will be discussed.

The meeting will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Southwest Regional District Council of Carpenters building, 501 N. Lamb Blvd.

19-YEAR-OLD VICTIM

Skateboarder's death called pedestrian error

A 19-year-old skateboarder was killed Tuesday night after he rode into the street and into the path of a pickup, Las Vegas police said.

The skateboarder, identified as Gabriel Duane Peters of North Las Vegas, was crossing Decatur Boulevard north of Washington Avenue from the west side of the street at 10:12 p.m. He was not in the intersection or a crosswalk, police said.

A 1982 GMC 2500 truck driven by 48-year-old Daniel Ours of Las Vegas was in the middle northbound lane of Decatur and crossed Washington on a green light, police said.

Peters struck the front left of the truck and was pronounced dead at the scene. Pedestrian error was the cause of the accident, police said.

The traffic fatality was the 35th in the Metropolitan Police Department's jurisdiction this year.

BODY RECOVERED

Mohave Valley man suspected of murder

A missing-person case in northwest Arizona is now a homicide.

Mohave County sheriff's office spokeswoman Trish Carter said the arrest of Daniel Leroy Vasquez, 56, on first-degree murder charges evolved from a tip about a slaying on his Mohave Valley property in late 2004.

Carter said investigators determined that the victim lived at Vasquez's home in the 9500 block of Evans Lane. She said Vasquez confessed his involvement in the slaying.

Sheriff Tom Sheahan said the victim's body was recovered from a 5-foot-deep grave near an outbuilding on the Vasquez property.

Sheahan said the victim is thought to be Christopher Smith, 33.

Positive identification and cause of death are to be determined through an autopsy.