Arizona

Four dead, five wounded in smugglers’ shootout

Immigrant smugglers opened fire on a rival group along a highway Tuesday, killing four people and wounding five, authorities said. Four suspects were later arrested in the desert.

Smugglers in a van chased down a pickup and SUV carrying other smugglers and illegal immigrants, said Pinal County Sheriff Roger Vanderpool.

One group had taken the other group’s human cargo earlier, he said.

The shootout occurred along Interstate 10 outside Casa Grande, about 50 miles south of Phoenix.

Washington, D.C.

Indians’ attorneys suspicious of secretary

Lawyers for American Indians said Tuesday they want Interior Secretary Gale Norton to testify under oath about her role in a legislative plan to block a court-ordered accounting of tribal money that has been mismanaged for more than a century.

Norton said last week that she knew nothing of the bid to prevent the accounting until Congress had already added it to the bill setting budgets for her department. It was worked out between Congress and White House staff, she said.

The accounting, ordered by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, is meant to determine how much more than 300,000 American Indians are owed by the government, which mismanaged oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties for more than a century.

The Indians’ attorneys believe the department sought the language to protect Norton from being held in contempt for not complying with the court order.