Apache

This year's L.A. Taco Festival was a great excuse to take a subway, explore Mariachi Plaza, and listen to live banda music, while supporting the Jovenes Inc. foundation in its efforts to help at-risk Boyle Heights youth. The tacos, as you'd expect, were delicious, although the temperatures were high and the lines were long. Taquerias are as popular as the Dodgers in this part of town. I had a great time. But on the walk back to the car, I couldn't help myself.

WASHINGTON - Iraq's embattled government will be allowed to buy and lease Apache attack helicopters to help fight a renewed insurgency after a U.S. lawmaker lifted his long-running objections to the deal, the Pentagon said Monday. The agreement allows Iraq to lease as many as six Apaches this year and purchase another two dozen for delivery over the next three years, officials said. Iraq's military hopes to use the aircraft against militants from the Al Qaeda-linked group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who have overrun parts of Iraq's Anbar province, including the capital, Ramadi, and the city of Fallouja.

A Northern California school district is recommending that its main high school's Apache mascot be changed. The Apache, adopted decades ago, has long been a sensitive issue for Vallejo High School, and altering it has been raised several times over the years,  according to the Vallejo Times Herald. The matter will be decided at the board's Wednesday meeting. The mascot is offensive to some Native Americans, according to a staff report prepared for the Vallejo City Unified School District's governing board.

Re “Apache tribe fights for place in N.M.,” Jan. 14 Reading about the Fort Sill Apache tribe's plight left me with mixed emotions. For federal agents to have forcibly removed tribal members from their ancestral New Mexico homeland more than 100 years ago constitutes an unfathomable travesty. On the other hand, the tribe's intent to open a gambling casino if it returns to New Mexico disappoints me. Studies show that gaming enterprises are far more detrimental than beneficial to the larger society; gambling's social costs outweigh its economic benefits many times over.

Apache Petroleum Corp., a limited partnership that explores for, develops and produces oil and natural gas, will acquire the interest of Davis in the assets that APC, Apache and Davis acquired from Occidental Petroleum. The firms had jointly agreed to acquire the assets from Occidental on June 30 for $444 million. APC then entered into an agreement to purchase Davis' 50% interest by Dec. 31 for $222 million.

Meet Colt Prattes: He's the young man who costars with Pink in the video the pop star released Tuesday, for her new single "Try. " Sensual, stunning and a bit sad, "Try" has a fiercely choreographed interpretation of the Apache dance, one that's earned praise for Pink and the able-bodied Prattes. The Ministry called Colt at home in Las Vegas and uncovered the following essentials: He's been a dancer since high school: And he did it for the ladies. "I kind of got into it to meet girls," Prattes admitted, but he followed the craft to the University of Cincinnati, where he received a bachelor of fine arts.

Shares of beleaguered BP jumped 8% Monday on hopes for the latest attempt to stop the gulf oil leak and reports that BP may be turning to Apache Corp., a Houston-based exploration and production company, for a $10-billion asset sale. BP's U.S.-traded shares closed at $36.76, up 36% since the company hit a 14-month low in June but down 39% from the stock's value on April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank, leaving a well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The movie "Gunsmoke: The Last Apache" (CBS, Aug. 4) was a clean, enjoyable movie to watch. I wish there were more such movies on TV. Trudy Gagnon, Temecula

I'm not sure of your sources for your editorial, but it is obvious that you have missed the wealth of positive accounts about the AH-64 Apache's performance in the Persian Gulf. I think your readers would be well served if you allowed them to read how well the Apache is doing there--it's ready, willing and able to perform any mission the Army may require. In a recent statement to the news media, McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Co. President Tom Gunn cited his concerns about media attacks on the Apache.

I had a "feel good" lump in my throat all day after reading about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's role in the Apache reservation high school basketball program, indeed, in his immersion into the Apache tribal culture (Feb. 2). What a joy it must be for this man to find this peace. I have always admired his quiet manner and his absence of need for adoration. I am happy for him, for the contribution he is making and what he is receiving. DENNIS DAVIS Anaheim

AKELA FLATS, N.M. - Each year, Emily Haozous joins other Fort Sill Apache tribal members in a mountain spirit dance in Oklahoma. But the spirits they pay tribute to and invoke for power and protection belong to a mountain more than 600 miles to the west, in the tribe's ancestral homeland in southwestern New Mexico. More than a century ago, Apaches with lineage to Geronimo were driven from New Mexico and taken as prisoners of war before eventually being released in Oklahoma. Now, the tribe's 700-plus members want to return to the yucca-speckled desert town of Akela Flats.

They were two veteran emissaries for a Los Angeles-based philanthropy, tasked with staging a clandestine operation to rescue a series of Native American spiritual artifacts from public sale half a world away. This month, Annenberg Foundation staffers Allison Gister and Carol Laumen found themselves making anonymous telephone bids at a Paris auction to secure rarities considered sacred by the Hopi and San Carlos Apache tribes in Arizona, including exotic mask-like visages that had been lost - some say looted - over the last century.

A Northern California school district is recommending that its main high school's Apache mascot be changed. The Apache, adopted decades ago, has long been a sensitive issue for Vallejo High School, and altering it has been raised several times over the years,  according to the Vallejo Times Herald. The matter will be decided at the board's Wednesday meeting. The mascot is offensive to some Native Americans, according to a staff report prepared for the Vallejo City Unified School District's governing board.

Meet Colt Prattes: He's the young man who costars with Pink in the video the pop star released Tuesday, for her new single "Try. " Sensual, stunning and a bit sad, "Try" has a fiercely choreographed interpretation of the Apache dance, one that's earned praise for Pink and the able-bodied Prattes. The Ministry called Colt at home in Las Vegas and uncovered the following essentials: He's been a dancer since high school: And he did it for the ladies. "I kind of got into it to meet girls," Prattes admitted, but he followed the craft to the University of Cincinnati, where he received a bachelor of fine arts.

This year's L.A. Taco Festival was a great excuse to take a subway, explore Mariachi Plaza, and listen to live banda music, while supporting the Jovenes Inc. foundation in its efforts to help at-risk Boyle Heights youth. The tacos, as you'd expect, were delicious, although the temperatures were high and the lines were long. Taquerias are as popular as the Dodgers in this part of town. I had a great time. But on the walk back to the car, I couldn't help myself.

After the first five days of football practice in a dusty corner of Compton, Hell Week rises to a new boil. Jimmy Nolan, the new coach of the Compton Centennial Apaches, is wondering how he can unlock the potential in his young football team when he doesn't even have the keys to the stadium. Some days he scales the wrought-iron gates. Some days, his players climb with him. "Right now we may not be too good at football, but we're great at hopping fences," Nolan says.

This just in: Dorothy Benally of Beclabito needs a reliable sheepherder. He must be willing to take the flock up into the mountains for at least two months. Call collect . . . . The squaw dance for Frank Woody at Ojo Encino has been postponed . . . . And to anyone who's listening, Elmer Bigben would like the people of Red Mesa to leave messages at the chapter house. Rise and shine.

Editor's Note: The following essays by Sherman Alexie, J.D. McClatchy, Robert Pinsky, Mona Simpson and Ted Kooser are included in a recent anthology published by Milkweed Editions, entitled "The Most Wonderful Books: writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading." They are reprinted here with the kind permission of the publisher and the authors. * I learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose.

Beleaguered petroleum giant BP agreed Tuesday to sell oil and natural gas fields in the United States and other countries to rival Apache Corp. for $7 billion in its biggest move yet to raise money to pay reparations for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The company announced plans to sell its Permian Basin fields in Texas and New Mexico — acquired as part of the purchase of Los Angeles-based Arco in 2000 — as well as properties in Canada and Egypt. Apache was said to be interested in BP's Alaskan assets, but they weren't part of the deal.

Apache Corp. said Tuesday it agreed to buy a handful of BP's oil and natural gas fields throughout North America and Egypt for $7 billion, though the oil giant's Prudhoe Bay, Alaska operations were not part of the deal. Apache Corp., known for purchasing mature oil and gas properties and wringing more value out of them, will scoop up BP properties in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and Egypt's Western Desert. All told, the Houston oil and gas company will add estimated proved reserves of 385 million barrels of oil equivalent to its portfolio.