WASHINGTON – The Interior Department says its own audits of accounts it manages for thousands of American Indians have found few errors and little evidence that anyone tampered with the records.
The agency’s position, in a report to Congress on Monday, runs contrary to that of American Indians who filed a 1996 class-action lawsuit arguing that they were cheated out of more than $100 billion due to mismanagement of oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties from their lands.
A federal judge has ordered that Interior officials account for every dollar received and paid to American Indians since 1887.
The Interior Department says the audit the judge ordered would cost $12 billion and that efforts so far have found that errors make up less than 1 percent of the dollars reconciled.
Millions sought to save frogs
International conservation groups proposed a $404 million effort Monday to preserve frogs and other amphibians whose sensitive, porous skins often make them the first indicator of when nature goes awry. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Conservation International and other groups said they plan actions and research that includes describing at least 1,000 new species, preventing future habitat loss and reducing trade in amphibians for food and pets.
No clear schizophrenia drug choices
The nation’s leading schizophrenia drug doesn’t work much better than an older, far cheaper medicine, says a major government study that found no clear winner in comparing treatments for the devastating mental illness. An overlooked generic drug called perphenazine – around since the 1950s but seldom used – proved as effective as all but one of a class of newer treatments called atypical antipsychotics that make up 90 percent of schizophrenia-related prescriptions today, said the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the research.
Texas: Private to fight abuse charge
Army Pfc. Lynndie England will abandon her earlier courtroom strategy and fight charges that she was a key participant in detainee abuse by guards at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, her lawyer said. The 22-year-old reservist, who appears in a series of graphic photos taken inside Abu Ghraib, was to go on trial today at Fort Hood on seven counts of mistreating prisoners. Her lead defense lawyer, Capt. Jonathan Crisp, said he plans to base much of his defense on England’s history of mental health problems that date back to her childhood.
Wyoming: Missiles deactivated
Soldiers, civilians and officials participated in a ceremony Monday at F.E. Warren Air Force Base to officially deactivate the Peacekeeper nuclear missile. F.E. Warren oversaw the only squadron of 50 Peacekeepers deployed in the United States. Each 71-foot-tall, 8-foot-diameter missile carried 10 warheads.
N.Y.: Possible Gotti jury deadlock
A federal jury deliberating the case of John A. “Junior” Gotti indicated Monday that it was deadlocked on a racketeering charge against the son of the late mob boss. Jurors, at the urging of the judge, were to resume deliberating today in federal court in Manhattan. Gotti, 41, claims he quit the Gambino organized crime family before July 22, 1999, meaning the five-year statute of limitations would have expired on racketeering charges.
N.J.: Vioxx called dangerous at trial
Intermittent use of Vioxx or even a day’s use of the painkiller could be enough to cause a heart attack, Dr. Benedict Lucchesi, a prominent heart and medication expert testified in Atlantic City on Monday on behalf of an Idaho man who is suing the maker of the drug, Merck &Co, claiming it caused his heart attack. Vioxx, launched in May 1999, was pulled from the market in September 2004 by Whitehouse Station-based Merck after its own research showed the blockbuster arthritis drug doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke after 18 months’ use.
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