Indian Tribe

The bison pause on a high, grassy ridge and gaze lazily at the humans in the field below -- but Carl Scheeler isn't fooled. A check of the massive trap nearby tells Scheeler that the herd has visited it and even wandered inside the rounded, open-air structure to munch on sweet hay and salt left as bait. That's encouraging news for Scheeler, who has spent the last few weeks scrambling to catch the buffalo.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Double-crested cormorants, the fish-gobbling water birds widely despised by fishing groups and resort operators, may soon find Michigan's waters less hospitable. Skyrocketing cormorant populations have prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to propose lifting some federal protections, meaning that Michigan and 23 other states may be able to kill cormorants in areas where the birds damage fish and vegetation.

The chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians had a tone of pride in his voice last week as he strode through his new super-sized Chumash Casino, rapidly rising amid the pastures and rolling hills of the serene Santa Ynez Valley. "I think it looks pretty good myself," Vincent Armenta said. "A couple of people may never stop criticizing this. But the vast majority realizes that this is going to be a classy place that just adds to the beauty around here."

An unlikely savior is bringing hope to one of California's poorest counties, where the glory days of fishing and logging are long gone. About the only good economic news people in this impoverished coastal town can recall came more than a decade ago in the form of a maximum-security prison. The town's only claim to fame: a tsunami that nearly wiped it off the map in 1964 and left a lingering economic scar on its tiny downtown. Now all that is changing.

An Indian tribe that vowed not to open a casino has changed its plans. Graton Rancheria is taking steps to build a hotel and casino on ranchland in southern Sonoma County. The tribe will soon take possession of 2,000 acres of land just southeast of Petaluma. The cost of the land is $24 million. The tribe will ask the federal government to place the land in trust.

The vast gray-brown bluff overlooking the Columbia River is wind-swept and empty, save for a pile of rusted irrigation pipes and hundreds of Canada geese that flock to nearby wetlands. A rutted dirt road winds aimlessly across the flat scrubland. Yet Les Minthorn, treasurer and tribal elder of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, doesn't see desolation.

The WNBA is betting professional women's basketball will be successful in Connecticut. The former Orlando Miracle, a team led by former Connecticut standout Nykesha Sales, was purchased by the Mohegan Indian Tribe and became the Connecticut Sun, WNBA Commissioner Val Ackerman said Tuesday. The Sun will be the first independently owned and operated team in the WNBA.

Federal officials will allow a California Indian tribe to vote today on changing its constitution despite congressional concerns that the election could be rigged. Assistant Interior Secretary Neal McCaleb, who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, told a West Virginia congressman that he would not intervene in a long-running dispute that has divided families in the Ione Band of Miwok Indians. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.

Under a sky as wide as the world, Willard Rhoades comes to the lake to heal himself. He wades into turquoise waters frigid with snowmelt, like countless Native American ancestors before him. Tribal lore has it that the Creator bathed in Medicine Lake, and it remains a place of raw spiritual power to elders such as Rhoades, 83. A dunking, he believes, washes away sickness of body and soul. Now a big energy company has come to tap a different kind of power at Medicine Lake.