Native American

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

The Catalina Island Museum has opened a window into a dark period of life on the island with an exhibition devoted to a pseudoscientist who looted Native American graves for profit eight decades ago. "The Strange and Mysterious Case of Dr. Glidden," which opened over the weekend, examines the life and times of Ralph Glidden, a hucksterish entrepreneur who in the 1920s and '30s excavated bones and relics from Tongva Indian burial grounds for sale...

When Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" premiered last December, the action-filled film set against the backdrop of the Maya empire launched the career of a young Texan named Rudy Youngblood. In interviews plugging the movie, Youngblood, who plays the film's central character, Jaguar Paw, routinely discussed his Indian ancestry and his connections to three American tribes.

When Native American activists from around the U.S. took over Alcatraz in 1969, George P. Horse Capture was a steel inspector for the state Department of Water Resources - a young man on his way to a solid career and ever further away from any sense of pride in his Montana reservation roots. "I was very happy climbing that white mountain of success," he once said. "But then I looked down over the top, and there was nothing there. " The solution was to switch mountains. Joining the protesters for short periods over their 19-month stay, Horse Capture went on to become a passionate advocate for Native American culture and a museum curator who helped give his people an unprecedented voice in how their heritage would be presented and their artifacts displayed.

The only part of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian regularly open to the public -- the museum store that had weekend hours only -- will close next month when its space is taken over by a conservation project. The decision by the Autry National Center of the American West, which runs the Southwest Museum in Mount Washington and the larger Museum of the American West in Griffith Park, to virtually suspend public operations for an estimated three years immediately inflamed the already heated suspicions of some Southwest Museum supporters.

When Karen Adams of West Covina saw the snapshot of the two black-haired babies with pink bows, she said she felt a flower blossom in her heart. They were her granddaughters, but she had never seen them because they had been given away to adoptive parents half a continent away. No matter how well the couple cares for them, Adams, a descendant of Native Americans from a Northern California Pomo tribe, said the twins, now 2, don't belong with outsiders.

EUREKA, Calif. - Carole Lewis throws herself into her work as if something big is at stake. " Pa'-ah ," she tells her Eureka High School class, gesturing at a bottle of water. She whips around and doodles a crooked little fish on the blackboard, hinting at the dip she's prepared with " ney-puy " - salmon, key to the diet of California's largest Native American tribe. For thousands of years before Western settlers arrived, the Yurok thrived in dozens of villages along the Klamath River.

Lingerie maker Victoria's Secret's annual fashion show is typically an extravagant display of all the ways that underwear can tip into costume. This year one leopard-print outfit featuring a Native American headdress has the retailer apologizing profusely. The controversial number was modeled by Karlie Kloss, who was bedecked with turquoise jewelry along with the headdress made of red, black and white feathers at the Nov. 7 runway show. The headdress, also referred to as a war bonnet, is traditionally worn during special occasions by men who have done brave deeds in battle.

Re "Oregon forbids Native American mascots," May 20 Native Americans have faced numerous battles. They have been victims of genocide - and people continue to view them as mascots? Team mascots are typically animals, occupations and objects. With so many Native American mascots, are Native Americans part of that group as well? Nobody seems to care about the things these people have already faced. I am glad some are finally reversing course. Every board of education throughout the country should follow Oregon's lead and ban such offensive mascots.

The Mohawk, the Onondaga, the Seneca, the Oneida, and the Cayuga made up the Iroquois League of Nations in eastern New York state. The Iroquois Nation's democratic government had been operating successfully for hundreds of years and greatly influenced the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. The executive, judicial and legislative branches were based in part on this Native American government.

Only hours after a new trailer for "Lone Ranger" debuted online last week, the blogosphere flew into a tizzy questioning whether Johnny Depp's portrayal of Tonto is racist. In the upcoming western, Depp's Tonto -- the sidekick to a masked Texas ranger played by Armie Hammer -- sports face paint and a headdress with a dead raven atop it. Some critics have taken issue with both Depp's costume and the fact that the role was not portrayed by a Native American actor. (For the record, Depp told Entertainment Weekly that in 2011, "I guess I have some Native American somewhere down the line....

Archie Thompson, the oldest living member of California's Yurok tribe and the last known active speaker raised in the tribal language, has died. He was 93. Thompson died March 26 at a Crescent City, Calif., hospital after an apparent stroke, according to his daughter Sherry O'Rourke. "It's our language that truly gives us our identity as Yurok people," said Thomas P. O'Rourke Sr., the tribal chairman and Thompson's son-in-law. "He is very much responsible for preserving not just a way of life, but the identity of a people.

David Sutherland is the director of three remarkable documentary films - I should say at least three, having seen only the last three - notable for their length and their depth: "The Farmer's Wife," from 1998, a 61/2-hour look at a farm family in crisis; the six-hour "Country Boys," from 2005, about two teenagers in Appalachia; and now "Kind Hearted Woman," set in North Dakota, Minnesota and southern Canada, which follows a Native American woman and...

The bigger the fight between a screenwriter and a director, the better the picture. It's an arrant generalization but not necessarily an errant one. Look at Budd Schulberg's battles with "On the Waterfront," or Robert Towne's over the ending of "Chinatown," or most if not all the writers on director Otto Preminger's best movies - few if any of whom could stand ever to work with him again. "The Searchers," which many critics and filmmakers consider the best western ever made, was written by a former film critic named Frank Nugent.

After more than a year of bitter partisan fighting, Congress on Thursday finally reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, including new provisions that will extend the law's protections for gay, lesbian, transgender and Native American victims of domestic violence. It's about time. There is no rational explanation for why lawmakers took so long to reauthorize this legislation, which was first enacted in 1994 and had been renewed twice with broad bipartisan support. Admittedly, the revised law covers a broader group of victims.

Situated in the southeastern corner of California, bordering Arizona and Mexico, Imperial County has long depended on agriculture and cash crops that grew from the good earth. But lately the region - which carries the dubious distinction of having the state's highest unemployment rate at 25.5% - is betting its future on a different kind of farm: green energy. Spurred by a state mandate that requires utilities to get a third of their electricity from green sources by 2020, renewable energy companies are leasing or buying thousands of acres in Imperial County to convert to energy farms providing power for coastal cities - bringing an estimated 6,000 building jobs and billions in construction activity to the county.

For 90 tense minutes last month, Sheriff Mike Lacy in Utah tried to prevent yet another person connected to the theft of Native American artifacts from committing suicide. Two defendants had already taken their own lives after federal authorities charged 24 people in June with looting Native American sites in the West. Now a despondent relative of a third defendant had called Lacy. The sheriff of San Juan County kept the caller on the phone until deputies could arrive and make sure everything was OK. But there was still another suicide to come.

WASHINGTON - With broad support from the Senate, legislation to renew and expand the Violence Against Women Act is heading to the House, where a previous renewal bid failed over Republican concerns about new services for gay, immigrant and Native American victims of domestic violence. The Senate's 78-22 vote Tuesday reauthorizing the act extends central provisions, such as funding for investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, while also expanding services to groups it did not previously serve.

EUREKA, Calif. - Carole Lewis throws herself into her work as if something big is at stake. " Pa'-ah ," she tells her Eureka High School class, gesturing at a bottle of water. She whips around and doodles a crooked little fish on the blackboard, hinting at the dip she's prepared with " ney-puy " - salmon, key to the diet of California's largest Native American tribe. For thousands of years before Western settlers arrived, the Yurok thrived in dozens of villages along the Klamath River.