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Quechan sue federal government over health careJanuary 28, 2011 11:52 AM BY JOYCE LOBECK - SUN STAFF WRITER **SNIP** The Quechan Tribe filed its lawsuit after IHS disclosed last year that 44 tribal members were potentially exposed to blood-borne viruses such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C from October 2008 to July 2009 as a result of IHS' failure to use the autoclave sterilizer for instruments used to provide open-wound treatment for patients at the Fort Yuma clinic. “This is just the most dramatic example of the United States' breach of its trust obligations to the tribe in the...

SACRAMENTO – The stark disparity in wealth and political power that Indian gambling has brought to California reservations has taken two tribes on decidedly different journeys in recent weeks. The Agua Caliente band of Palm Springs already has 2,000 slot machines in two casinos that generate more than $250 million a year for the 400-member tribe. The Quechan band, whose remote reservation straddles the California-Arizona border in Imperial County, has fewer than 800 slots in two small casinos that produced $71 million last year for the 3,600-member tribe. Both tribes negotiated new gambling agreements that would permit expansions – a...

SACRAMENTO – As congressional leaders and others call for new constraints on off-reservation Indian gaming, the Schwarzenegger administration is preparing to roll out its fourth such casino compact in two years. The pending agreement would allow the North Fork Rancheria band of central California to build a large casino-resort adjacent to busy state Route 99 just outside the city of Madera. The deal is expected to be announced within weeks, sources close to the negotiations said. The proposal is sailing into a stiff political head wind, with bipartisan opposition to off-reservation gaming building from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. Sen. John...