American Indian Movement Leader Clyde Bellecourt Dies at 85

Clyde Bellecourt in earlier years.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Clyde Bellecourt, a leader in the Native American struggle for civil rights and a founder of the American Indian Movement, has died. He was 85.

Bellecourt died Tuesday morning from cancer at his home in Minneapolis, Peggy Bellecourt, his wife, told the Star Tribune. Lisa Bellanger, the current co-director of AIM, also confirmed his death to The Associated Press.

``Clyde was a really good man and influenced a lot of people,'' said Winona LaDuke, an American Indian activist and the executive director of Honor the Earth, a group dedicated to raising awareness for Indigenous environmental issues. ``He was very influential in my life.''

Bellecourt was a co-founder in 1968 of the American Indian Movement, which began as a local organization in Minneapolis that sought to grapple with issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans.

One of the group's first acts was to organize a patrol to monitor allegations of police harassment and brutality against Native Americans who had settled in Minneapolis where AIM is based. Members had cameras, asked police for badge numbers and monitored radio scanner traffic for mention of anyone they might recognize as Indigenous to ensure their rights weren't being violated.

The group quickly became a national force. It would lead a string of major national protests in the 1970s, including a march to Washington, D.C., in 1972 called the Trail of Broken Treaties.

At times, the American Indian Movement's tactics were militant, which led to splintering in the group. In one of its most well-known actions, the group took over Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1973 to protest U.S. and tribal governments. The 71-day occupation turned violent, and two people died in a shootout.

The group called out instances of cultural appropriation, provided job training, sought to improve housing and education for Indigenous people, provided legal assistance, spotlighted environmental injustice and questioned government policies that were seen as anti-Indigenous.

Bellecourt was born and raised on the White Earth Indian Reservation. His Ojibwe name is Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, which means ``Thunder Before the Storm.`` He was the only remaining living founder of the AIM movement, Bellanger said.

Bellecourt was among those who protested the 1992 Super Bowl in Minneapolis, when the Washington Football Team beat the Buffalo Bills. The Washington team dropped its old name in 2020 after decades of criticism it was offensive to Native Americans and after pressure from sponsors amid a national reckoning on race in the U.S. Bellecourt long called for the team's name to be changed.

Bellanger said condolences have been coming in from around the globe.

``He was known worldwide,'' she said.

Editor’s Note: This post will remain until February 8.

Group Studies Scourge of Missing, Murdered Native Hawaiians

By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) _ At first, he was just a boyfriend. He gave Ashley Maha'a gifts and attention. But then he gave her drugs and became controlling and abusive. He would punish her for breaking ambiguous, undefined ``rules,'' only to later say he was sorry and shower her with flowers and lavish presents.

After a while, he led the Honolulu high school senior _ a 17-year-old minor _ into Hawaii's commercial sex industry.

``I shouldn't be here with everything that was going on. I should be dead. And the majority of the people who are in my situation are missing or dead,`` said Maha'a, who is Native Hawaiian.

Maha'a got out of that world years ago and is now a married mother of four. But it's on her mind as she joins a new task force studying the issue of missing and murdered Native Hawaiian women and girls. She reminds herself of her plight every day so she can fight for others similarly trapped and vulnerable.

The panel, created by the state House earlier this year, aims to gather data and identify the reasons behind the problem. As of now, few figures exist, but those that do suggest Native Hawaiians are disproportionately represented among the state's sex trafficking victims.

Its work comes amid renewed calls for people to pay more attention to missing and killed Indigenous women and girls and other people of color after the recent disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white woman, triggered widespread national media coverage and extensive searches by law enforcement. Petito's body was later found in Wyoming.

Several states formed similar panels after a groundbreaking report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that of more than 5,700 cases of missing and slain Indigenous girls in dozens of U.S. cities in 2016, only 116 were logged in a Justice Department database.

Wyoming's task force determined 710 Indigenous people disappeared there between 2011 and September 2020 and that Indigenous people made up 21% of homicide victims even though they are only 3% of the population. In Minnesota, a task force led to the creation of a dedicated office to provide ongoing attention and leadership on the issue.

The Urban Indian Health Institute's report didn't include data on the state of Hawaii because the organization is funded by the Indian Health Service, a U.S. agency that serves Native Americans and Alaska Natives but not Native Hawaiians. The Seattle institute didn't have the resources to extend the study to the islands, Director Abigail Echo-Hawk said.

It's not the first time Native Hawaiians have been sidelined in the broader national conversation. The federal government's efforts to tackle the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women often focus on Native Americans and Alaska Natives _ in part because it has authority over major crimes on most tribal lands, and Native Hawaiians don't have such lands in the same sense as many other U.S. Indigenous communities. An Interior Department spokesman said it instead works to support and collaborate with state programs in the islands.

Yet Hawaii faces many of the same challenges as other states, including a lack of data on missing and murdered Indigenous women. The precise number of nationwide cases is unknown because many have gone unreported or have not been well-documented or tracked.

Public and private agencies don't always collect statistics on race. And some data groups Native Hawaiians with other Pacific Islanders, making it impossible to identify the degree to which Hawaii's Indigenous people are affected. About 20% of the state's population is Native Hawaiian.

Its task force is being led by representatives from the Hawaii State Commission on the State of Women and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a semi-autonomous state agency directed by Native Hawaiians. The panel also includes members from state agencies, county police departments and private organizations.

Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the commission and co-chairperson of the task force, suspects its work will show Hawaii's large tourism industry and military presence fuel sex trafficking. Money to be made from these sectors gives people an incentive to take girls and women from their families, she said.

``It's not like someone is kidnapped off the street. It's that person is enticed and convinced to cut off their family if they're a child, or a teenager,'' Jabola-Carolus said.

Advocates for Native American and Alaska Native women and girls say sex trafficking affects them as well, particularly in areas with high populations of transitory male workers.

Maha'a said the extent of the commercial sex industry in Hawaii also is illustrated by the number of girls and women brought to the islands from other states.

``I've met so many people on the mainland, and so, so, so many of them have told me that when they were being trafficked nationally, they would be flown here for a period of time and work here when things were slow, because the demand is so high,'' Maha'a said.

Advocates say a number of systemic issues contribute to the problem. Native Hawaiians have the highest poverty rate _ 15.5% _ of any of the five largest racial groups in Hawaii, which is also one of country's the most expensive places to rent or own property.

The history of colonization has torn Native Hawaiians from their land, language and culture, similar to Indigenous communities in other states.

Rosemond Pettigrew, board president of Pouhana 'O Na Wahine, a grassroots collective of Native Hawaiian women advocating against domestic and sexual violence, said land is family, and not being connected to it severs Native Hawaiians from their past.

``When you separate yourself from what you know or what you believe, and you're no longer on land, then you're left where you don't know where you come from and who you are, and your identity becomes lost,'' she said.

Echo-Hawk, of the Urban Indian Health Institute, said Hawaii's task force is ``monumental'' and necessary to understanding the full scope of the problem.

She suspects some of its biggest obstacles will be in getting cooperation from law enforcement agencies and not having dedicated funding. Lawmakers didn't allocate the panel any money, so its members are relying on existing resources to do their research. The most successful state task forces had funding, Echo-Hawk said.

It will be important for the task force to recognize the problems are rooted in government policies, said Paula Julian, senior policy specialist with the Montana-based National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. The solutions for Native Hawaiians, meanwhile, must come from Native Hawaiians, she said.

Pettigrew said she'd like to see resources put into prevention. For example, Hawaii's public schools could teach students about healthy relationships, starting as early as elementary grades. Lessons could address dating once students get to middle and high schools.

State Rep. Stacelynn Eli, a Native Hawaiian and a Democrat who sponsored the resolution creating the task force, said she has friends and classmates who were trafficked. She doesn't want her nieces to face the same thing because no one knew enough to take action.

``We are surviving, and I would like to see our people get to a point where we are thriving. And I think we won't get to that point until we know for sure that we are protecting our Native women and children and holding those who try to harm them accountable,'' she said.

The panel is expected to produce reports for the Legislature by the end of 2022 and 2023.

Infrastructure Deal Makes Investments Throughout Indian Country

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal passed by Congress makes historic investments in Indigenous communities’ efforts to tackle the climate crisis and boost resilience of physical and natural systems.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal’s historic investments in Tribal communities will help bolster community resilience, replace aging infrastructure, and provide support needed for climate-related relocation and adaptation.” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

It includes a $736 million investment for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), including for infrastructure projects and climate resiliency initiatives.

• $270 million for BIA’s road maintenance program to improve the safety and condition of BIA-owned roads;
• $250 million for construction, repair, improvement and maintenance of irrigation and power systems, safety of dams, water sanitation and other facilities; and
• $216 million for Tribal climate resilience, adaptation and community relocation planning, design and implementation of projects which address the varying climate challenges facing Tribal communities across the country.

The infrastructure deal also includes a historic investment of $2.5 billion to help the Department fulfill settlements of Indian water rights claims and deliver long-promised water resources to Tribes, certainty to all their non-Indian neighbors, and a solid foundation for future economic development for entire communities dependent on common water resources in the face of climate change.

With this transformational funding, the Interior Department will support collaborative and community-led planning, relocation expenses, infrastructure investments, and other forms of assistance to Tribal communities. The infrastructure deal’s investments would also advance our equity and environmental justice goals by helping safeguard vulnerable Tribal communities and making our economy fairer and more equitable. Secretary Haaland previously highlighted these investments in a trip to the Quinault Nation, as well as in a Seattle Times op-ed.

As part of this broader commitment, the Interior Department also recently awarded nearly $14 million to dozens of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Nations and organizations to support their climate adaptation planning, ocean and coastal management planning, capacity building, and relocation, managed retreat, and protect-in-place planning for climate risks.

This all-of-government approach is essential to supporting and empowering Tribal communities as they simultaneously face environmental impacts to physical, cultural, and subsistence-based infrastructure and relocate to higher ground.

About the U.S. Department of the Interior

The Department of the Interior (DOI) conserves and manages the Nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people, provides scientific and other information about natural resources and natural hazards to address societal challenges and create opportunities for the American people, and honors the Nation’s trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities to help them prosper.

Review: Johnson Explores Violence Against Native Americans

By BRUCE DESILVA
Associated Press

``Daughter of the Morning Star,'' by Craig Johnson (Viking)

Cheyenne Tribal Police Chief Lolo Long's niece, Jayla, star of the Lame Deer Lady Stars High School basketball team, is in danger. The girl has been getting credible death threats, so Long asks her friend, Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire, to help her find out who is responsible.

What makes the case especially ominous is that Jayla's older sister, Jeanie, disappeared months ago. Longmire figures the disappearance and the threats are probably related. With the help of his pal Henry Standing Bear, he sets out to discover what happened to Jeanie while trying to keep Jayla safe at the same time.

So begins ``Daughter of the Morning Star,'' Craig Johnson's 17th novel featuring Longmire. This time, the author uses the mystery genre to raise awareness about violence against Native American women, half of whom are reported to have been victims of sexual violence and who are murdered at ten times the national average.

In pursuing the case, Longmire encounters dysfunctional families and white supremacists while grappling with a life-draining Cheyenne spirit known as The Wandering Without, ``the nothing, the thing that takes and never gives.'' Johnson's series often contains spiritual elements, and this time around there are moments in which neither the reader nor Longmire can be sure what is real and what is not.

Longmire also has to contend with Jayla, who is as uncooperative with him as she is with her frustrated coaches and teammates.

As usual with this series, the characters are well drawn and the suspenseful plot takes some surprising twists. However, the author's prose, which is usually first-rate, falters when he writes about basketball. In the acknowledgements, he credits a high school basketball coach with helping him understand the game, but the descriptions of practices and tournament games are clumsy and sometimes hard to follow.

___

Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including ``The Dread Line.''

Dakotas Natives Who Died at Pennsylvania School Coming Home

By ELISA SAND
Aberdeen American News

ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) _ An effort to return the remains of young men and women who died at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania will include those of two young men from the Sisseton area.

While Carlisle is just one of many Indian boarding schools used across the country starting before the 1900s, this cemetery is unique.

Unlike many of the school cemeteries, these grounds, which were once operated by the Department of Interior, are now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army, which is working with tribes from across the country who are interested in claiming the remains of their ancestors and bringing them home. That process started in 2016, according to Justin Buller, an attorney with the U.S. Army General's office at a public meeting in Sisseton last week.

Tamara St. John, tribal historian for Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, has been looking into the lives of six children who left the Sisseton area in 1879. They're significant, she said, because these two girls and four boys were the first to leave the area. Of this group, three of the boys died at the school and two are buried in the school cemetery.

St. John's work has taken many twists and turns, and sparse documents available from that time period have made it a challenge, but through the help of the few documents she's found and local tribal veterans, she's been able to confirm the remains of two students buried in the school cemetery are local ancestors of significance, the Aberdeen American News reported.

Now, the Lake Traverse and Spirit Lake Indian reservations will be working together to bring these remains home next summer.

The remains belong to Amos LaFramboise and Edward Upwright, both of whom are descendants of tribal leaders.

LaFromboise went to school with his sister Emily, who completed her education at the boarding school and returned home. St. John said the fact that she completed her education at Carlisle was a point of pride for the family.

Amos, however, died Nov. 26, 20 days after his arrival in Pennsylvania. Their father, Joseph LaFromboise, was a founding father who helped set up the Lake Traverse Reservation government after the Sisseton Wahpeton treaty was signed in 1867.

``He's the first to die at Carlisle,'' St. John said, noting he was initially buried in the county cemetery, but the county residents objected to having a Native American buried there and Amos was ultimately moved onto the school grounds.

Though her research has been ongoing since 2016, St. John said only recently she was able to confirm Upwright's ancestry as the son of Waanatan II, an early tribal chief.

``We all as tribal nations have our historical figures, and American history doesn't even touch that,'' she said. ``And so for us, our children here, we try to educate them.''

Upwright died in March 1881.

St. John said limited information is available about the cause of death, but many at that time died from tuberculosis. In Upwright's case, he caught the measles. When she thinks about bringing Upwright home, St. John said, ``It would be much like the Lakota were bringing back a child of Sitting Bull.''

The balance of the group included John Renville, his sister Nancy and George Walker.

St. John said she's still piecing together Walker's story, and although he was the last of the four to die, she believes his health was failing and he left the school. That, she said, is supported by two letters written by Walker in the Dakota language.

``He's lonely,'' she said. ``He wants to go home and he's very hopeful.'' In one letter, St. John said, Walker talks about leaving the school with an agent and another student. This leads her to believe Walker died after leaving the school.

``I couldn't find any record after that,'' she said. ``The idea that he wanted so desperately to come home, it speaks to the level of loneliness and sadness.''

The Renville siblings were also the children of tribal chief Gabriel Renville. ``He was chief until 1892,'' St. John said. ``The Renville family has a huge presence.''

John Renville would have been the oldest son, who was 13 when he died. St. John said according to documentation at the school, Renville and his classmates were heading out to camp in the area and he became sick after drinking water from a stream. When Gabriel Renville came to the school to pick up his son's body, St. John said, Nancy Renville returned home. But, the fact that Gabriel Renville was able to come get his son and bring him home was a rare occurrence.

``Gabriel Renville had resources that many of our chiefs would not,'' she said. Raised by a fur trader, Renville's ancestry was a mix of both French and Sioux.

St. John said in the case of Waanatan, he had a signed pass that allowed him to go certain places. ``How do you go get your child if you needed a written document that says you have permission to go off the reservation?'' she asked.

These six weren't the only Sisseton Wahpeton tribal members who attended Carlisle. St. John said there's a long list of youth who attended the school, but these six were the first to leave the area in 1879 and, within a very short period of time, the four boys were gone.

St. John said discussion about bringing these youth home started with a group of Rosebud youth who visited Carlisle, saw the graves and started asking about who they were. ``They looked at the kids... and realized that some were from Rosebud,'' she said. ``They saw names that were familiar to them. That sparked something within them and they started to ask about their story.''

In 2016, they met with them in Rosebud, St. John said. By then, she said, several tribes were looking at this cemetery to see if there was a way to bring their ancestors home.

These children arrived at Carlisle not long after the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.

``I tried to remind people to take into consideration the political climate at the time,'' she said. Through her research she found an article from the time that references a meeting of tribal chiefs in Washington, D.C. and how the chiefs were able to see their children while they were there. ``That says right there they were used as a pawn,'' she said.

While some didn't make it home, others did. St. John said her grandmother attended a boarding school in Rapid City. `There are a lot of things that happened, but she said there's a lot of things a person could learn,'' St. John said. ``The fact remains that those things are a part of people today.''

The first meeting to discuss the process of digging up the remains from the cemetery was last week at the Sisseton Wahpeton College in Agency Village. That's when Buller explained how disinterment works.

Buller said the process requires a signed affidavit from the closest living relative, which is a determination made locally. This process is outlined in U.S. Army regulations for any family wishing to claim the remains of a relative in a military cemetery.

``The family and tribe can decide who is the closest living relative,'' he said.

Once that affidavit is received, he said, a notice about the planned disinterment is published in the federal register. If another tribe objects, Buller said, the tribes are asked to settle the dispute.

Some tribes have chosen to leave the remains where they are, he said. Others have asked for modified gravestones with the removal of the cross at the top of the headstone and corrections to the children's names.

Expenses for the disinterment process and gravestone modifications are covered by the U.S. Army, Buller said, but also limited. As an example, Buller said the U.S. Army will cover travel expenses of two family members and two tribal leaders for each disinterment.

Because the extended families of these two boys are significant, those limited travel expenses were a point of concern by tribal members who were at the meeting, which was recorded and posted on YouTube.

Buller said the graves have already been moved once in 1927. That's when the Army decided to move the cemetery, because it was next to a dump. In retrospect, he said officials should have moved the dump, but as early as 1927, families were asking for the return of family members.

Those requests went unanswered.

In 2016, notices were sent to every tribe giving them an opportunity to decide if they want to claim the remains of children in the cemetery. Since then, he said, 21 of the 188 Native American children buried there have been disinterred.

Buller said the original cemetery site has been subject to extensive excavation and no remains were found and documentation they have supports the fact that the cemetery was moved.

Once excavated, remains are evaluated to confirm they are the person who should be in that place. Buller said that's done by checking to make sure they are the correct gender and the size matches a person of that age.

The final resting place for Upwright and LaFramboise is yet to be determined, and is a decision that will be made by the families, but, St. John said, some possible sites are under discussion.

For example, Joseph Lafromboise is buried near Veblen in St. Matthew's cemetery. Waanatan is buried at St. Michael's cemetery in North Dakota. Now, with the tribe's involvement and participation from family members who can help with the process, St. John said, she doesn't see any roadblocks. ``I don't see anything that would stop us from moving forward in their next cycle of disinterment,'' she said.

Alaska Native Artist Creates Stamp for Postal Service

By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press

Tlingit artist creates stamp for U.S. Postal Service - Indian Country Today

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ Alaska Native artist Rico Worl said he jumped at the chance to create for the U.S. Postal Service a stamp he hopes will be a gateway for people to learn about his Tlingit culture.

``I think a lot of people already are learning that there's a lot more richness in authentic work, and authentic work from Indigenous people and the stories that are there,'' he told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

A ceremony marking the release of Worl's Raven Story stamp was held Friday in Juneau, where Worl lives. The event featured dancers, including Worl, and the telling of a version of the Raven story.

Two ravens, birds that are ubiquitous in Juneau, happened to fly overhead after the story was told.

Worl said his Twitter following exploded from five to more than 8,000 after he shared the Postal Service's tweet highlighting the stamp announcement earlier this month, with his own quote tweet adding: ``I did a thing.''

People seem excited, he said. ``They know it's something different, and they want to be a part of that,'' Worl said.

Raven, a trickster or transformer, is a key figure in Tlingit culture. Worl described as an influence for the stamp a story in which Raven discovers that a clan leader had in his possession the sun, moon and stars. Raven assumed human form to share those items with the world. The stars were in the last box Raven opened.

In a statement, Worl said he wanted to showcase ``a bit of drama,'' with Raven trying to hold onto as many stars as possible while transforming back into bird form during a frenzied escape.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute, which hosted the unveiling in front of its building, said this is the first stamp by a Tlingit artist.

Marlene Johnson, chair of the institute's board, said she has known Worl all his life. Worl has a goal ``to tell the story of Indigenous people today, a story that we are all still here. We have been here for at least 10,000 years, and we will be here for 10,000 more,`` she said.

``Rico, I say, you did good,'' Johnson said.

The Postal Service posted on social media a video featuring an illustrated version of the Raven story and Worl discussing the story behind the stamp and his process. Jakki Krage Strako, an executive vice president with the Postal Service, was on hand for Friday's ceremony.

Antonio Alcala, an art director for the Postal Service who worked with Worl on the stamp, said he became aware of Worl's work while at a gift shop at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The shop carried work by Worl and his sister, Crystal Worl, through their Trickster Co. Alcala said a basketball stood out.

``There are many typical types of books, art, and crafts on display in the gift shops of museums presenting American Indian history and culture. But this was the first time I saw a basketball. The fact that it featured a piece of formline art seemed incongruous at first and also very cool,'' said Alcala, who noted he's ``always looking for visually appealing artwork.``

He remembered the ball being credited to Trickster Co., and looked up the business when he was looking for an artist for the stamp.

Worl, who is Tlingit and Athabascan, has a background in anthropology and considers himself a social designer, who uses design to address societal concerns. One of the first products he designed were playing cards, which Worl said was in response to concerns about seeing a tourism market for Native-inspired art not produced by Native artists.

``It was me, experimenting, how can we, as Indigenous artists, break into this economy?'' he said. Worl said he hopes more people buy Indigenous pieces, such as art work or hand-carved items. ``I think there's a growing demand for authenticity in the world. But at the same time not everyone can afford that.'' For some people, he said, a deck of cards ``is a lot more accessible.''

He said he likes to infuse modern, traditional and playful touches in his work. He cites Trickster's basketballs, with traditional formline designs, as a way for members of the Native community to ``represent who they are'' in a light-hearted way.

Art directors can work with photographers, designers, artists or others to bring a stamp from concept to final design. Final designs undergo a legal review and, once cleared, advance to the postmaster general for the last stamp of approval.

David Rupert, a Postal Service spokesperson, said 18 million Raven Story stamps are being produced. He said a stamp unveiling, like the one held Friday in Juneau, is meant to be a ``momentous occasion.''

Other stamps announced by the Postal Service for this year include those celebrating flowers, the late nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, Japanese American soldiers of World War II, lighthouses, the 200-year anniversary of Missouri statehood, America's ``love of coffee'' and barns.

``We look at stamps as often little pieces of art, really, and they represent America,'' Rupert said, adding later: ``We want to celebrate America and all the great things about it.''

Cleveland's Baseball Team Goes From Indians to Guardians

By TOM WITHERS
AP Sports Writer

CLEVELAND (AP) _ Known as the Indians since 1915, Cleveland's Major League Baseball team will be called Guardians.

The ballclub announced the name change Friday _ effective at the end of the 2021 season _ with a video on Twitter narrated by actor and team fan Tom Hanks. The decision ends months of internal discussions triggered by a national reckoning by institutions and teams to drop logos and names considered racist.

The choice of Guardians will undoubtedly be criticized by many of the club's die-hard fans, some of whom quickly went on social media to vent.

The organization spent most of the past year whittling down a list of potential names that was at nearly 1,200 just over a month ago. But the process, which the club said included 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders, front office personnel and a survey of 40,000 fans.

Owner Paul Dolan said last summer's social unrest, touched off by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, spurred his intention to change the name.

Dolan is expected to provide more details on the choice and background on the change at a news conference at Progressive Field before the Indians host the Tampa Bay Rays.

Dolan said the new name mirrors the city and its people.

``Cleveland has and always will be the most important part of our identity,'' he said in a statement. ``Therefore, we wanted a name that strongly represents the pride, resiliency and loyalty of Clevelanders. `Guardians' reflects those attributes that define us.''

``It brings to life the pride Clevelanders take in our city and the way we fight together for all who choose to be part of the Cleveland baseball family. While `Indians' will always be a part of our history, our new name will help unify our fans and city as we are all Cleveland Guardians.''

The change comes as the Washington Football Team continues to work toward a similar makeover. The franchise dropped its Redskins name before the 2020 season. Washington recently said it will reveal a new name and logo in 2022.

Cleveland's new name was inspired by two large landmark stone edifices near the downtown ballpark _ referred to as traffic guardians _ on the Hope Memorial Bridge over the Cuyahoga River.

The team's colors will remain the same, and the new Guardians' new logos will incorporate some of the architectural features of the bridge.

In 2018, the Indians stopped wearing the contentious Chief Wahoo logo on their jerseys and caps. However, the team continues to sell merchandise bearing the smiling, red-faced caricature that was protested for decades by Native American groups.

Numerous Native American groups have protested Cleveland's use of the Wahoo logo and Indians name for years, so the latest development brought some comfort.

``It is a major step towards righting the wrongs committed against Native peoples, and is one step towards justice,'' said Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director and founder of IllumiNative, a group dedicated to fighting misrepresentations of Native Americans.

The name change has sparked lively debate among the city's passionate sports fans. Other names, including the Spiders, which is what the team was called before 1900, were pushed by supporters on social media platforms.

But Guardians does seem to fit the team's objective to find a name that embodies Cleveland's hard-working, loyal, Midwestern-valued ethos while preserving the team's history and uniting the community.

The rebranding comes as the Indians, who have one of baseball's lowest payrolls, try to stay in contention despite a slew of injuries as the July 30 trading deadline approaches.

``This is a historic moment for our franchise, and we are excited for our players and staff to debut our new team name and look in 2022,'' said Chris Antonetti, the club's president of baseball operations. ``We look forward to our team proudly representing the city of Cleveland as the Guardians.''

Guardians is the fifth name in franchise history joining the Blues (1901), Bronchos (1902), Naps (1903-1914) and Indians (1915-2021).

Water Crisis Reaches Boiling Point on Oregon-California Line

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press

TULELAKE, Calif. (AP) _ Ben DuVal knelt in a barren field near the California-Oregon state line and scooped up a handful of parched soil as dust devils whirled around him and birds flitted between empty irrigation pipes.

DuVal's family has farmed the land for three generations, and this summer, for the first time ever, he and hundreds of others who rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake aren't getting any water from it at all.

As farmland goes fallow, Native American tribes along the 257-mile (407-kilometer) long river that flows from the lake to the Pacific Ocean watch helplessly as fish that are inextricable from their diet and culture die in droves or fail to spawn in shallow water.

Just a few weeks into summer, a historic drought and its on-the-ground consequences are tearing communities apart in this diverse basin filled with flat vistas of sprawling alfalfa and potato fields, teeming wetlands and steep canyons of old-growth forests.

Competition over the water from the river has always been intense. But this summer there is simply not enough, and the farmers, tribes and wildlife refuges that have long competed for every drop now face a bleak and uncertain future together.

``Everybody depends on the water in the Klamath River for their livelihood. That's the blood that ties us all together. ... They want to have the opportunity to teach their kids to fish for salmon just like I want to have the opportunity to teach my kids how to farm,`` DuVal said of the downriver Yurok and Karuk tribes. ``Nobody's coming out ahead this year. Nobody's winning.''

With the decadeslong conflict over water rights reaching a boiling point, those living the nightmare worry the Klamath Basin's unprecedented drought is a harbinger as global warming accelerates.

``For me, for my family, we see this as a direct result of climate change,'' said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, which is monitoring a massive fish kill where the river enters the ocean. ``The system is crashing, not just for Yurok people ... but for people up and down the Klamath Basin, and it's heartbreaking.''

ROOTS OF A CRISIS

Twenty years ago, when water feeding the farms was drastically reduced amid another drought, the crisis became a national rallying cry for the political right, and some protesters breached a fence and opened the main irrigation canal in violation of federal orders.

But today, as reality sinks in, many irrigators reject the presence of anti-government activists who have once again set up camp. In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, irrigators who are at risk of losing their farms and in need of federal assistance fear any ties to far-right activism could taint their image.

Some farmers are getting some groundwater from wells, blunting their losses, and a small number who get flows from another river will have severely reduced water for just part of the summer. Everyone is sharing what water they have.

``It's going to be people on the ground, working together, that's going to solve this issue,'' said DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association. ``What can we live with, what can those parties live with, to avoid these train wrecks that seem to be happening all too frequently?''

Meanwhile, toxic algae is blooming in the basin's main lake _ vital habitat for endangered suckerfish _ a month earlier than normal, and two national wildlife refuges that are a linchpin for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway are drying out. Environmentalists and farmers are using pumps to combine water from two stagnant wetlands into one deeper to prevent another outbreak of avian botulism like the one that killed 50,000 ducks last summer.

The activity has exposed acres of arid, cracked landscape that likely hasn't been above water for thousands of years.

``There's water allocated that doesn't even exist. This is all unprecedented. Where do you go from here? When do you start having the larger conversation of complete unsustainability?'' said Jamie Holt, lead fisheries technician for the Yurok Tribe, who counts dead juvenile chinook salmon every day on the lower Klamath River.

``When I first started this job 23 years ago, extinction was never a part of the conversation,`` she said of the salmon. ``If we have another year like we're seeing now, extinction is what we're talking about.''

The extreme drought has exacerbated a water conflict that traces its roots back more than a century.

Beginning in 1906, the federal government reengineered a complex system of lakes, wetlands and rivers in the 10 million-acre (4 million-hectare) Klamath River Basin to create fertile farmland. It built dikes and dams to block and divert rivers, redirecting water away from a natural lake spanning the California-Oregon border.

Evaporation then reduced the lake to one-quarter of its former size and created thousands of arable acres in an area that had been underwater for millennia.

In 1918, the U.S. began granting homesteads on the dried-up parts of Tule Lake. Preference was given to World War I and World War II veterans, and the Klamath Reclamation Project quickly became an agricultural powerhouse. Today, farmers there grow everything from mint to alfalfa to potatoes that go to In 'N Out Burger, Frito-Lay and Kettle Foods.

Water draining off the fields flowed into national wildlife refuges that continue to provide respite each year for tens of thousands of birds. Within the altered ecosystem, the refuges comprise a picturesque wetland oasis nicknamed the Everglades of the West that teems with white pelicans, grebes, herons, bald eagles, blackbirds and terns.

Last year, amid a growing drought, the refuges got little water from the irrigation project. This summer, they will get none.

SPEAKING FOR THE FISH

While in better water years, the project provided some conservation for birds, it did not do the same for fish _ or for the tribes that live along the river.

The farmers draw their water from the 96-square-mile (248-square-kilometer) Upper Klamath Lake, which is also home to suckerfish. The fish are central to the Klamath Tribes' culture and creation stories and were for millennia a critical food source in a harsh landscape.

In 1988, two years after the tribe regained federal recognition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed two species of suckerfish that spawn in the lake and its tributaries as endangered. The federal government must keep the extremely shallow lake at a minimum depth for spawning in the spring and to keep the fish alive in the fall when toxic algae blooms suck out oxygen.

This year, amid exceptional drought, there was not enough water to ensure those levels and supply irrigators. Even with the irrigation shutoff, the lake's water has fallen below the mandated levels _ so low that some suckerfish were unable to reproduce, said Alex Gonyaw, senior fish biologist for the Klamath Tribes.

The youngest suckerfish in the lake are now nearly 30 years old, and the tribe's projections show both species could disappear within the next few decades. It says even when the fish can spawn, the babies die because of low water levels and a lack of oxygen. The tribe is now raising them in captivity and has committed to ``speak for the fish`` amid the profound water shortage.

``I don't think any of our leaders, when they signed the treaties, thought that we'd wind up in a place like this. We thought we'd have the fish forever,`` said Don Gentry, Klamath Tribes chairman. ``Agriculture should be based on what's sustainable. There's too many people after too little water.''

But with the Klamath Tribes enforcing their senior water rights to help suckerfish, there is no extra water for downriver salmon _ and now tribes on different parts of the river find themselves jockeying for the precious resource.

The Karuk Tribe last month declared a state of emergency, citing climate change and the worst hydrologic conditions in the Klamath River Basin in modern history. Karuk tribal citizen Aaron Troy Hockaday Sr. used to fish for salmon at a local waterfall with a traditional dip net. But he says he hasn't caught a fish in the river since the mid-1990s.

``I got two grandsons that are 3 and 1 years old. I've got a baby grandson coming this fall. I'm a fourth-generation fisherman, but if we don't save that one fish going up the river today, I won't be able to teach them anything about our fishing,'' he said. ``How can I teach them how to be fishermen if there's no fish?''

`IT'S LIKE A BIG, DARK CLOUD'

The downstream tribes' problems are compounded by hydroelectric dams, separate from the irrigation project, that block the path of migrating salmon.

In most years, the tribes 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the southwest of the farmers, where the river reaches the Pacific, ask the Bureau of Reclamation to release pulses of extra water from Upper Klamath Lake. The extra flows mitigate outbreaks of a parasitic disease that proliferates when the river is low.

This year, the federal agency refused those requests, citing the drought.

Now, the parasite is killing thousands of juvenile salmon in the lower Klamath River, where the Karuk and Yurok tribes have coexisted with them for millennia. Last month, tribal fish biologists determined 97% of juvenile spring chinook on a critical stretch of the river were infected; recently, 63% of fish caught in research traps near the river's mouth have been dead.

The die-off is devastating for people who believe they were created to safeguard the Klamath River's salmon and who are taught that if the salmon disappear, their tribe is not far behind.

``Everybody's been promised something that just does not exist anymore,`` said Holt, the Yurok fisheries expert. ``We are so engrained within our environment that we do see these changes, and these changes make us change our way of life. Most people in the world don't get to see that direct correlation _ climate change means less fish, less food.``

Hundreds of miles to the northeast, near the river's source, some of the farmers who are seeing their lives upended by the same drought now say a guarantee of less water _ but some water _ each year would be better than the parched fields they have now. And there is concern that any problems in the river basin _ even ones caused by a drought beyond their control _ are blamed on a way of life they also inherited.

``I know turning off the project is easy,'' said Tricia Hill, a fourth-generation farmer who returned to take over the family farm after working as an environmental lawyer.

``But sometimes the story that gets told ... doesn't represent how progressive we are here and how we do want to make things better for all species. This single-species management is not working for the fish _ and it's destroying our community and hurting our wildlife.''

DuVal's daughter also dreams of taking over her family's farm someday. But DuVal isn't sure he and his wife, Erika, can hang onto it if things don't change.

``To me it's a like a big, dark cloud that follows me around all the time. It's depressing knowing that we had a good business and that we had a plan on how we're going to grow our farm and to be able to send my daughters to a good college,`` said DuVal. ``And that plan just unravels further and further with every bad water year.''

____

Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus

U.S. to Review Native American Boarding Schools' Dark History

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

The federal government will investigate its past oversight of Native American boarding schools and work to ``uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences'' of policies that over the decades forced hundreds of thousands of children from their families and communities, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday.

The unprecedented work will include compiling and reviewing records to identify past boarding schools, locate known and possible burial sites at or near those schools, and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of students, she said.

``To address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools and to promote spiritual and emotional healing in our communities, we must shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past no matter how hard it will be,'' Haaland said.

A member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, Haaland outlined the initiative while addressing members of the National Congress of American Indians during the group's midyear conference.

She said the process will be long, difficult and painful and will not undo the heartbreak and loss endured by many families.

Starting with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and policies to establish and support Indian boarding schools across the nation. For over 150 years, Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools that focused on assimilation.

Haaland talked about the federal government's attempt to wipe out tribal identity, language and culture and how that past has continued to manifest itself through long-standing trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, premature deaths, mental health issues and substance abuse.

The recent discovery of children's remains buried at the site of what was once Canada's largest Indigenous residential school has magnified interest in the troubling legacy both in Canada and the United States.

In Canada, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and were not allowed to speak their languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.

After reading about the unmarked graves in Canada, Haaland recounted her own family's story in a recent opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

Haaland cited statistics from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, which reported that by 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations. Besides providing resources and raising awareness, the coalition has been working to compile additional research on U.S. boarding schools and deaths that many say is sorely lacking.

Interior Department officials said aside from trying to shed more light on the loss of life at the boarding schools, they will be working to protect burial sites associated with the schools and will consult with tribes on how best to do that while respecting families and communities.

As part of the initiative, a final report from agency staff is due by April 1, 2022.

Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, which had about 80 boarding schools, called the announcement encouraging and said anything that can be done to address those ``troubling chapters of history'' is a positive thing.

``I hope we don't discover gruesome incidents like were discovered in Canada. I just think it's good in this country to have conversations about what happened to Native American children,'' Hoskin said.

Navajo Nation President Nez also offered his support for the initiative, noting discrimination against Native Americans continues today on many fronts _ from voter suppression to high numbers of missing and murdered people.

``Last week, Congress and President Biden established `Juneteenth' as a national holiday, in observance of the end of slavery, which I fully support as a means to healing the African American community,`` Nez said. ``Now, from my perspective as a Navajo person, there are so many atrocities and injustices that have been inflicted upon Native Americans dating back hundreds of years to the present day that also require national attention, so that the American society in general is more knowledgeable and capable of understanding the challenges that we face today.''

This is not the first time the federal government has attempted to acknowledge what Haaland referred to as a ``dark history.''

More than two decades ago, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Gover issued an apology for the emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual violence committed against children at the off-reservation schools. Then in 2009, President Barack Obama quietly signed off on an apology of sorts that was buried deep in a multibillion-dollar defense spending bill; the language had been watered down from the original legislation introduced years earlier.

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Haaland Sends Recommendation on Utah Monuments to President

By BRADY McCOMBS
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has made her recommendation about whether to reverse former President Donald Trump's decision to downsize two sprawling national monuments in Utah, but details of her decision were not released.

The Interior Department gave her report to President Joe Biden on Wednesday, according to a court filing Thursday in a legal battle that began more than three years ago after Trump's decision.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys mentioned the report as part of a request to have until July 13 to address the judge's question about whether the legal battle has become a moot point.

Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz declined to provide any information about the report.

Haaland traveled to Utah to visit the monuments in April as she became the latest cabinet official to step into a public lands tug-of-war that has gone on for years. She is the first Indigenous official to get involved in the decision.

A string of U.S. officials has heard from advocates for expanding national monuments to protect archaeological and cultural sites, and from opponents who see such moves as federal overreach.

Biden asked Haaland to research whether the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante should be restored. Native American tribes supported the creation of Bears Ears by President Barack Obama, but Republican state leaders opposed it. Grand Staircase is older but has long been a point of contention for conservative state leaders who consider both monuments U.S. government overreach.

Bears Ears was downsized by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante cut by nearly half under the Trump administration.

The reductions paved the way for potential coal mining and oil and gas drilling on lands that used to be off-limits, though such activity has been limited because of market dynamics.

Bears Ears covers lands considered sacred to Native Americans where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive twin buttes bulge from a grassy valley.

Interior officials told Utah Gov. Spencer Cox that the report had been given to the White House but didn't provide any information about the findings, said his spokeswoman, Jennifer Napier-Pearce.

Cox and other prominent Utah Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, have expressed concern with the review. They met with Haaland on her visit. Cox has said the state would likely sue if the monuments are enlarged without approval from Congress.

Pat Gonzales-Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said the group found out about the report being done from the court filing and hasn't been provided any additional information. The coalition remains hopeful that the Biden administration will reverse Trump's decision.

``We're standing on the sidelines, but with great optimism,'' Gonzales-Rogers said.

Navajo Nation Tops Cherokee to Become Largest Tribe in US

By FELICIA FONSECA
Associated Press

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) _ The Navajo Nation has by far the largest land mass of any Native American tribe in the country. Now, it's boasting the largest enrolled population, too.

Navajos clamored to enroll or fix their records as the tribe offered hardship assistance payments from last year's federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. That boosted the tribe's rolls from about 306,000 to nearly 400,000 citizens.

The figure surpasses the Cherokee Nation's enrollment of 392,000. But it, too, has been growing, said tribal spokeswoman Julie Hubbard. The Oklahoma tribe has been receiving about 200 more applications per month from potential enrollees, leaving Navajo's position at the top unstable.

The numbers matter because tribes often are allocated money based on their number of citizens. Each of the 574 federally recognized tribes determines how to count its population. Navajo, for example, requires a one-quarter blood quantum to enroll. Cherokee primarily uses lineal descent.

Tribal governments received $4.8 billion from the CARES Act based on federal housing population data for tribes, which some said was badly skewed. The Treasury Department recently revised the methodology and said it would correct the most substantial disparities.

The Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, one of three tribes that sued the Treasury Department over the payments, said it's satisfied with an additional $5.2 million it's set to receive. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida and the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas would get $825,000 and $864,000 under the new methodology. Both said those amounts didn't make sense when broken down to a per-person figure. They plan to continue their fight in court.

``We just cannot accept this as it is,'' Carol Heckman, an attorney for Prairie Band, said in a court hearing last week. ``We're happy to keep talking about it, but Treasury would have to sweeten the pie.''

The Miccosukee Tribe amended its lawsuit Wednesday to reflect the latest arguments.

The Treasury Department will avoid much of the problems it encountered with CARES Act funding in the distribution of the $20 billion for tribes under the American Rescue Plan Act. The department said it will use tribally certified enrollment figures to pay out $12.35 billion and tribal employment data for $6.65 billion.

Another $1 billion will be divided equally among eligible tribal governments, the Treasury Department said. Alaska Native corporations, which own much of the Native land in Alaska under a 1971 settlement, aren't eligible for any of the $20 billion in funding. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether the corporations will get a slice of the CARES Act money.

The Treasury Department set a Monday deadline for tribal governments to submit their enrollment information online for the American Rescue Plan funding. It acknowledged that no formula perfectly can capture the needs of tribes, which have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic.

Tribes also won't be under as tight of a deadline to spend the money as they were for the CARES Act and will have more flexibility. They can spend the money to replace lost revenue and improve water, sewer and broadband infrastructure that often lags behind the rest of the U.S.

The Navajo Nation is on track to get the largest share of the enrollment-based funding. About half of its members live on the vast 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) reservation that extends into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

The tribe opened the hardship assistance program in November, up against an initial deadline to spend federal virus assistance by the end of the year. It required that applicants be enrolled as Navajo citizens. The response was huge, with the tribe paying out more than $322 million to more than 293,000 applicants, the tribal controller's office said. Adults received up to $1,350 and children up to $450.

On the American Rescue Plan Act funding, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez questioned the fairness of awarding more money to tribes that enroll people with less than one-fourth blood quantum.

``Here on Navajo, we verify blood quantum, and that's a requirement,'' he told The Associated Press. ``If they had that same requirement, one-quarter Cherokee, just imagine.''

The U.S. Census reflects higher numbers for Native Americans than tribes' enrollment records because it allows people to self-identify as Native American and Alaska Native and report ties to multiple Indigenous groups across North America, Central America and South America. Not all of those 5.2 million people are eligible to enroll in tribes. The 2010 count put the Cherokee Nation around 820,000 and Navajo at 332,000.

Cherokee Native Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said the recent higher enrollment figure from the Navajo Nation government shows Natives are strong and an important force for economies, education and environment.

``It's truly a positive anytime our citizenship grows and thrives,'' he said in a statement.

Lummi Nation Totem Pole Making Journey to Biden

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) _ A totem pole carved at the Lummi Nation from a 400-year-old red cedar will begin a cross-country journey next month, evoking an urgent call to protect sacred lands and waters of Indigenous people.

The journey, called the Red Road to DC, will culminate in early June in Washington, D.C., The Seattle Times reported.

The expedition will start at the Lummi Nation outside Bellingham, Washington, and will make stops at Nez Perce traditional lands; Bears Ears National Monument in Utah; the Grand Canyon; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; the Black Hills of South Dakota; and the Missouri River, at the crossing of the Dakota Access Pipeline, where thousands protested its construction near Native lands.

This fall, the pole will be featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. A special exhibition was developed by The Natural History Museum and House of Tears Carvers at the Lummi Nation, which is gifting the pole to the Biden administration.

Head carver and Lummi tribal member Jewell Praying Wolf James said he and a team ranging in age from 4 to 70 carved the pole beginning this winter.

They carved the pole one figure at a time, led by spirit, inspiration and dreams, James said. The figures include Chinook salmon, a wolf, a bear, an eagle diving to Earth, and even a child in jail _ a reference to children presently incarcerated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pennsylvania High School Keeps 'Warriors' Name, Drops Mascot

GLEN ROCK, Pa. (AP) _ A school board in southern Pennsylvania voted to keep the name of the Susquehannock High School mascot the ``Warriors,'' but will drop an image meant to portray a Native American fighter.

The school board for the Southern York County School District made the decision in a 7-2 vote on Thursday, The York Dispatch reported.

The decision followed a review by the board's diversity committee, a hearing with testimony from Native American advocates and a petition against removing the mascot that garnered 3,800 signatures. Another petition supported removing the mascot, the newspaper reported.

Students will design the new logo and Superintendent Sandra Lemmon said the board will get an update about it next month, the newspaper reported.

Research from the board's diversity committee found that there are no longer members of the Susquehannock tribe living in the district. It also found that the district's curriculum does not mention the Susquehannock tribe except in a section in the 4th grade curriculum, the newspaper reported.

Some 1,900 schools across the U.S. have Native American-themed mascots. That is according to a database kept by the National Congress of American Indians, a nonprofit established in 1944 to protect Native American and Alaska Native rights.

Many schools have debated changing mascots that represent Native Americans in stereotypical or demeaning ways, but others have kept their mascot's names while removing the logo, like Susquehannock High School.

New Mexico Tribes Sue US Over Federal Clean Water Rule

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Two Indigenous communities in New Mexico are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a revised federal rule that lifts protections for many streams, creeks and wetlands across the nation, saying the federal government is violating its trust responsibility to Native American tribes.

The pueblos of Jemez and Laguna are the latest to raise concerns over inadequate protections for local water sources in the desert Southwest. The challenge filed last week in federal court follows a similar case brought in 2020 by the Navajo Nation, the nation's largest Native American tribe, and several environmental groups.

Like other Indigenous communities, the Laguna and Jemez pueblos said in the court filing that waters flowing through their lands are used for domestic and agricultural purposes and are essential for cultural and ceremonial practices.

Removing or limiting access to clean water for both rural communities directly threatens to diminish tribal resources and adversely affect cultural practices, the lawsuit stated.

Both pueblos have small populations with poverty rates surpassing the national average. Laguna encompasses nearly 20 square miles (50 square kilometers) just west of Albuquerque. Jemez Pueblo covers mountainous and desert regions in northern New Mexico.

The tribes argue that water holds a special value because of its scarcity in the arid Southwest. They describe the gullies, arroyos and seasonal streams inscribed into the landscape as ``a vein of life'' that channels rain or snowmelt to their communities.

``Any water pollution in and around the pueblos has a disproportionate impact because of the scarcity and preciousness of the resource in the region,'' the lawsuit stated.

The rule change, which took effect in June, narrowed the types of waterways that qualify for federal protection under the half-century-old Clean Water Act. As a result, critics have said that the number of waterways in New Mexico and other arid states in the West that were previously protected under the act were drastically reduced.

The Navajo Nation, environmental groups, public health advocates and some Western states that are waging their own legal battles over the rule have said the rollback left many of the nation's millions of miles of waterways more vulnerable to pollution since permits are no longer necessary for discharging pollution into many rivers, lakes and streams.

In adopting the change, federal officials argued last year that a previous Obama-era rule imposed unnecessary burdens on property owners and businesses and that the change would bring regulatory certainty for farmers, homebuilders and landowners.

Since January, the Biden administration has been reviewing numerous rules adopted over the last four years and is expected to reverse many of them.

New Mexico was among the states that went to court last May seeking to prevent the rule from taking effect.

At the time, New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney warned that the rule would leave nearly 90% of the state's rivers and streams and about 40% of its wetlands without federal protection.

He predicted that would ``devastate New Mexico's scarce and limited water resources.''

The state in comments previously submitted to the federal government noted that New Mexico has no state protections to fall back on. New Mexico is one of three states that do not have delegated authority from the EPA to regulate discharges of pollution into rivers, streams, and lakes.

Laguna Pueblo relies on the federal government to implement nearly all of the Clean Water Act's pollution programs on its behalf and does not have the financial or administrative capacity to administer the programs itself.

According to the lawsuit, up to 97% of Laguna waterways are affected and the pueblo has concerns about contamination upstream from past uranium mining and milling.

Jemez Pueblo depends on federal authority under the act to protect waters outside its jurisdiction. About 94% of the Jemez watershed was affected by the rule change.

Disney Updates Jungle Cruise After Insensitivity Criticism

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) _ Jungle Cruise, one of the original Disney parks' rides, is getting a 21st century remodel, criticized for its depiction of animatronic indigenous people as savages or headhunters.

It's the latest update to a legacy theme park ride criticized in years past as being racist.

The ride will updated by Disney ``imagineers`` at the Disneyland park in California and the Magic Kingdom park in Florida with a new storyline and characters that ``reflect and value the diversity of the world around us,`` Disney said in a blog post Monday.

``As Imagineers, it is our responsibility to ensure experiences we create and stories we share reflect the voices and perspectives of the world around us,`` said Carmen Smith, a Disney executive, in the blog post.

The ride first opened at Disneyland in 1955.

Last summer, amid calls to change the Splash Mountain theme park ride over its ties to ``Song of the South,'' the 1946 movie many view as racist, Disney officials said it was recasting the ride so that it is based on ``The Princess and the Frog,'' a 2009 Disney film with an African American female lead.

Disney said at the time that the changes had been in the works since the previous year, but the announcement came as companies across the U.S. were renaming racially charged, decades-old brands amid worldwide protests for racial justice after the police custody death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Three years ago, Disney eliminated a ``Bride Auction`` scene, deemed offensive since it depicted women lining up for auction, from its Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Red Lake Nation Uses Crowdfunding to Bet Big on Solar Energy

By FRANK JOSSI of Energy News Network.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) _ The Red Lake Nation is betting big on solar energy.

The Chippewa Indian reservation in northern Minnesota will soon be home to one of the region's largest solar arrays, a 240-kilowatt installation atop a workforce training center that will generate about half the building's electricity needs.

The real power, though, could be in the emerging model to use solar, microgrids, and a tribal-run utility as a path to energy sovereignty.

``We have to prove that we can do this and we have to do this not only for ourselves but for other tribal nations,'' said Red Lake member Bob Blake, the founder and owner of Solar Bear installation company.

The workforce training center solar array is the second of 12 solar projects planned for the reservation. The first sits not far away atop the Red Lake Government Center, a building distinguished by incorporating a two-story face of an eagle with wings spread across the facade.

The projects are the first two solar installations in Minnesota to be financed through crowdfunding, in which dozens of small investors lend to businesses to support entrepreneurs and their products.

The nonprofit news outlet Energy News Network provided this article to The Associated Press through a collaboration with Institute for Nonprofit News.

The tribe has a separate initiative to construct a utility-scale 13-megawatt solar farm in partnership with Allete, one of the region's primary electricity providers.

Ralph Jacobson, founder and chief equity officer of Impact Power Solutions (IPS) in the Twin Cities, developed the Red Lake Nation crowdfunding approach. Still, even he's not confident it will continue to pay for all tribal projects even as new potential lenders seem willing to hear his pitch.

The dream of establishing a tribal utility in Minnesota will take years, requiring regulatory approval and careful negotiations with the tribe's incumbent utility, a small cooperative. But Blake figures good things always take time. This will eventually pay off in energy self-sufficiency, higher-paying jobs and a healthier psychological and physical environment.

Located in northwest Minnesota 160 miles from the Canadian border, Red Lake Reservation sprawls over 1,259 square miles and is home to about half of the tribe's 14,000 members. According to a 2015 report by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 90% of Red Lake's members qualified as low income _ 65% lived on less than $12,000 a year _ and half of the tribe's working-age population was unemployed.

Red Lake retained sovereignty over its original land and links that status to its pursuit of energy sovereignty. Tribal Council Chair Darrell Seki has said he sees a future where members receive free energy and the danger of being disconnected no longer exists. Blake believes the solar program will create jobs with livable wages and educate a workforce capable of succeeding in a growing industry.

The tribe's casino has been a significant economic driver. But tribal leaders four years ago tapped Jacobson to conduct a solar feasibility study to reduce Red Lake's energy bill and create jobs. He developed a plan to spread 4 megawatts of panels over several tribal-owned buildings. He established a vision statement calling on the solar initiative to ``vault the Red Lake Nation into the forefront of the movement to modernize the national power grid'' through energy storage, microgrids and information technology.

Jacobson, 68, is one of Minnesota's solar pioneers. He started his solar installation company in 1991 and barely made a living at it in the beginning. As the state's solar economy has boomed over the past several years, Impact Power Solutions blossomed through commercial and community solar garden projects, leading to recognition as one of Minnesota's fastest-growing companies. In his career's twilight, Jacobson's role as the company's chief innovation officer allows him the freedom to nurture a new generation of minority entrepreneurs and target clean energy projects in Indian Country.

In working with the Red Lake Nation, Jacobson discovered nonprofit organizations trying to finance solar usually turn to outside investors because they cannot use tax credits generated by projects. They work to attract outside investors who help pay for the project in return for the tax credits and accelerated depreciation of panels.

When corporate money failed to materialize for the government center project, Jacobson recalled what he had learned at a conference in St. Paul about crowdfunding. The word describes a process common to many entrepreneurs who reach out to family and friends to invest in their startups, with the promise of someday receiving interest on their loans or at least payback on their principal. Crowdfunding web platforms offer venues for people worldwide to fund the creations of artists and entrepreneurs, but Jacobson preferred reaching out personally to friends and family capable of lending small amounts of capital.

He had more than 50 conversations, meeting with people, mainly fellow Quakers, who lent at least $1,000, driven in part by the desire to help a struggling reservation. Based on those discussions, Jacobson raised $115,000 and added $15,000 of his own money.

``In order to pull all the little pieces of capital from unsophisticated investors in the community who want to see some cool things happen _ and when nobody has a lot of money, but everybody's got a little _ you got to be the community organizer,'' he said.

No other Minnesota solar project has ever used crowdfunding, said David Shaffer, executive director of Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association. He believes solar micro-lenders investing in Native American initiatives worry less about earning interest and more about their impact. ``You might see the benefit here if what you're trying to do is help out with and make good on some of the past challenges that Indian people face in this country,'' Shaffer said.

Before the first project, Jacobson met Blake and they both agreed Red Lake Nation could use the solar investments to hire local workers and train future ones. Blake hired tribal members with construction skills to work on the first project and heard later that several sought more solar energy training to expand their skills.

``Workers came to me and said, `Bob, this makes me feel good because we're doing it for the community, but it also has a purpose that goes along with native values and protecting the environment and the earth,''' he said. ``I'm so proud of them because it showed me that this could be a kind of an entryway into other things for them.''

Jacobson has found financing the second project as challenging as the first. Five fruitless meetings with banks led him back to crowdfunding. This time Jacobson used MnVest, a nonprofit allowing companies to raise to $10,000 from individual private investors. Created by the Legislature and managed by the Department of Commerce, MnVest gives startups a secure web-based platform for collecting money from individuals, family members, friends, and others.

Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light helped introduce Jacobson and his pitch to churchgoers and faith groups interested in supporting solar that benefits low-income communities. Jacobson raised $250,000 from religiously inclined microlenders and plans to add $50,000 of his own money to finish the project. Solar projects depreciate over six years, a point at which their owners often sell or donate them. Jacobson plans to transfer to the tribe ownership of the projects for low prices after they fully depreciate.

The workforce center solar system will annually generate about half the building's electricity needs, he said. After hearing that the local utility had no interest in buying excess electricity, Jacobson added large scale storage and microgrids for the workforce center and other Red Lake projects. ``Probably anywhere from half to two-thirds of that power that comes in the middle of the day would have to be curtailed if we didn't store it,'' he said.

After the workforce center project is finished, Jacobson hopes to have raised enough money to continue installation throughout next year on two of the four schools slated to receive solar installations. Who the lenders are for those projects remains unclear. However, he hopes to tap the religious community again and entertain offers from other tribes interested in lending cash for clean energy. Some tribal members receive payments from fossil fuel companies who do business on their land and want to use part of the proceeds to reduce carbon.

Corporations have also reached out to learn more about supporting the tribe's solar program. ``More resources are starting to percolate because this will be a model for other tribes,'' Jacobson said.

A separate project came about after Allete subsidiary Minnesota Power studied land assessments with the tribe for a section of a 224-mile, high-voltage transmission line from Roseau to Grand Rapids. The transmission line began carrying power in 2019 from Manitoba Hydro into Minnesota Power's territory.

The company established ``great rapport'' with the tribe and learned its interest in clean energy and economic development opportunities, said Al Rudeck, Jr., Allete Clean Energy's president. The two parties formed a partnership to build and market the solar farm, with an anticipated start date next year. ``We have some interesting prospects on our list,'' Rudeck said. ``We're pretty excited about it. It's really a chance to help the band with some of their longer-term goals.''

As Jacobson works behind the scenes on financing, Blake, of Solar Bear, has become the spokesperson for the Red Lake Nation's solar enterprise. A Red Lake tribal member, he lives in St. Paul, where he has nurtured a career in various fields ranging from entertainment to energy. Blake traveled with the pop star Prince as a security detail member and later worked for a financial firm before being let go during the 2008 recession.

A handful of jobs followed as he sought a new career. Van Jones's book ``The Green Collar Economy'' led him to pursue a new career in clean energy that began with a brief stint selling solar garden subscriptions before joining Interfaith Power & Light as an organizer of its ``Just Solar'' program. During his time at the interfaith group, Blake, 45, kept hearing about the lack of non-white representation in the solar industry, which led him to do something about it.

Three years ago, he founded Solar Bear and began hiring Native Americans to work in the industry. This year Blake created another nonprofit to educate and train people for jobs in renewable energy. He found his calling as an advocate for the environment and as a job creator who opens doors to clean energy opportunities for tribal members.

A gregarious personality, Blake has become an in-demand speaker as other tribes seek to learn about his effort to build a native workforce in a growing field. He continues educating himself while pursuing advanced degrees in policy and economics at the University of Minnesota.

At Red Lake, he wants to direct his energy to produce job opportunities and work with Red Lake on energy independence projects. A future where tribes own their power generation and no longer rely on ``the colonial capitalism'' of extractive industries remains his goal. ``I'm fortunate to be along for the ride,'' he said, ``and I want to be a service to my community to help them in any way I can.''

Tribal leaders back bill on teaching Native American history

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Leaders of American Indian tribes in Connecticut voiced their support Monday for proposed state legislation that would require the teaching of Native American history in public schools.

The tribal leaders issued a statement with state Sen. Cathy Osten, a Sprague Democrat, in support of the bill she plans to introduce within the next several weeks. The legislation would require all public schools to include Native American studies in their social studies curricula, with a focus on the tribes that lived in what is now Connecticut.

``We fully support this bill, which will assist in public re-education that includes an accurate portrayal of the First Nations People in Connecticut,`` said Katherine Sebastian Dring, chairwoman of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation. ``The Pequots were not destroyed, we survived. Truth may lead to positive change if we work together for a good life for all nations.''

Joining Dring in the statement were leaders of the other four state-recognized tribes: Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation; Beth Regan, vice chair of the Mohegan Tribal Nation's council of elders; Leon Brown of the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation; and Richard Velky, chief of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

Osten and other lawmakers introduced a similar bill earlier this year that drew concerns from state Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, teachers' unions and municipal leaders. The bill died as the coronavirus shut down much of the legislative session.

Cardona said in March that while it is important to teach about Native Americans, the bill would be an unfunded mandate for school districts that are still working to implement other courses lawmakers and the governor have required them to teach.

New state laws passed in the past two years require schools to teach African American and Latino studies, as well as courses on the Holocaust and other genocides. Many schools have had curriculum on these subjects already in place, but the laws solidify their teachings.

Mississippi Choctaws to Install Wireless Internet in Two Areas

CHOCTAW, Miss. (AP) _ The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians says it will install fixed broadband internet service in two communities after winning federal licenses.

The 11,000-member tribe announced that it won licenses to install the services in the Bogue Chitto and Conehatta communities. Bogue Chitto is a part of the Choctaw reservation northeast of Philadelphia, while Conehatta is a part of the reservation northwest of Newton.

The tribe says it applied for telecommunications spectrum licenses in all eight of its communities, but could only win the two because all the spectrum was already licensed in the six other areas, including the largest community of Choctaw, just west of Philadelphia.

Choctaw Economic Development Director John Hendrix said connectivity is a ``primary consideration'' for the tribe. He said better broadband service will help keep people connected to schooling and health care during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and also make the areas more attractive to businesses.

The tribe said it's looking for ways to expand internet connections in its six other communities through business partnerships and other wireless technologies.

New Mexico Tribe Transforms Old Casino into Movie Studio

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS

Associated Press

TESUQUE PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) _ A small northern New Mexico Native American tribe has opened a movie studio in a former casino that it hopes will lure big productions.

The Tesuque Pueblo recently converted the building near Santa Fe into a movie studio campus called Camel Rock Studios with more than 25,000 square feet (2,323 square meters) of filming space.

The tribe's lands feature stunning desert and the iconic Camel Rock formation in the red-brown foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and tribal officials said outdoor filming can take place on 27 square miles (70 square kilometers) of the reservation.

The tribe with about 800 members decided to open the studio after scenes from the Universal Pictures western movie ``News of the World'' starring Tom Hanks were filmed last year in the Camel Rock Casino, which closed in 2018.

Universal's use of the casino for filming helped convince tribal officials to transform the empty building into studio space, said Timothy Brown, president and CEO of the Pueblo of Tesuque Development Corporation. Also influencing the decision were investments in New Mexico movie studios by Netflix and NBCUniversal in recent years, said Tunte Vigil, Tesuque Pueblo's business development associate.

``The Pueblo of Tesuque Development Corporation wants to bring different businesses to the pueblo and the market is really open,'' Vigil said. ``So this is a good opportunity.''

No productions are happening now and none are planned for the immediate future because the pueblo and most of the state remains under strict COVID-19 business restrictions. But Brown said that that hasn't stopped potential productions from contacting the pueblo and asking to reserve studio time.

Cheyenne and Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre, a Santa Fe resident and an advisor to Camel Rock Studio, said the studio's unique aspect is that its former makeup as a casino provides the site with pre-made infrastructure that can be used for filming different types of movie scenes

``It's a museum. It's an opulent hotel lobby. It's a capitol building,'' said Eyer, who directed the 1998 film ``Smoke Signals'' about two Coeur d'Alene tribal members who travel from Idaho to Arizona to retrieve the remains of their father after he died alone. ``There are sorts of interesting standing sets that can be creatively (crafted) for all sorts of scenes.''

The site also has a set workshop called a mill that can be used by crews to build sets for use inside the casino or on the tribe's land, Eyer said, adding that he could envision movies filmed there that are set in the Middle East or the U.S. Southwest.

Older movies filmed on the Tesuque Pueblo include the 1955 western ``The Man from Laramie'' starring James Stewart and the 1988 ``Young Guns'' with Emilio Estevez and Kiefer Sutherland.

But Eyer said previous productions had stereotypes about Indigenous people and limited Native American input and that tribal officials hope future productions don't follow in their footsteps.

The studio is being established at a time when Native American writers including Pulitzer Prize-winning Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange and Inupiaq American poet Joan Naviyuk Kane are transforming American Literature _ and putting pressure on Hollywood to incorporate more Native American stories.

Tribal officials plan to create internships and movie training programs for Tesuque Pueblo members and hope that the studio will foster a new storytelling movement, Eyer said.

``Native Americans are natural storytellers,'' he said. ``What better place to do it?''

___

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP's Race and Ethnicity team. Follow Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras

String of 27 Fires on Crow Reservation Chalked up to Arson

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) _ Firefighters extinguished more than two dozen small fires on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeast Montana that were believed to be started by an arsonist, officials said.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs said the first of the fires was reported north of Crow Agency. About 17 fires were ignited between Crow Agency and Hardin, and 10 more were ignited south of Crow Agency.

The blazes were stamped out before they grew large, officials said.

But Fire Management Officer Bob Jones says the alleged arsonist put property owners and firefighters in jeopardy and interrupted operations along a BNSF railway line.

Fire managers and Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement officers were seeking a vehicle thought to be linked to the fires, but no details on the vehicle or any suspects were provided.

Ronan Native Uses Photojournalism to Reveal Native Stories

By LAURA SCHEER

Missoulian

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) _ When Tailyr Irvine applied for funding to tell a story her community on the Flathead Reservation, and Native communities across the country, had been living with for more than a century, she thought she'd maybe get one response to get her project off the ground.

Instead, she heard back from both global media titans she pitched to, National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institute, who wanted her work.

The first installment of Irvine's project on blood quantum requirements for tribal enrollment was recently published by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian through its ``Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field'' series, reaching an international audience and garnering attention on social media.

``Reservation Mathematics: Navigating Love in Native America,'' a photo essay, tells the story of how the blood quantum system affects everything from dating to health care to who you choose to marry and have children with. A blood quantum is a fraction that Native Americans get assigned at birth showing how much Native blood from a specific tribe they have. The fraction is used to determine enrollment, and many tribes require a certain amount of blood to be a member.

``This story has been in my brain for a really long time,'' Irvine told the Missoulian in a recent interview in Missoula. The University of Montana graduate has been working on the project for a year and a half and said she's proud to have a story Native Americans have been grappling with for decades reach a wider audience.

``It shows the complexities of Native life outside of the stereotypes you see, and I think that's what I really am excited about with this project,'' she said. ``It lines up with my goal to show Native Americans in a contemporary sense.''

Irvine grew up in Ronan on the Flathead Reservation surrounded by her extended family.

``It's a small community, so I really liked growing up the way I did, where everyone knows everyone and everyone kind of raises each other,'' she said.

It wasn't until she left the reservation to attend Washington State University that she realized her people were often misrepresented.

``I was the only Native on my dorm room floor, I was the only Native some people had ever met in their life, and it was just a really big culture shock for me,'' she said. ``It wasn't until I left for college that I realized, oh wow, no one thinks Natives exist, and that's because no one sees them, and when they do, it's like poor and alcohol addicted . that's not really what I grew up around, and so it's kind of pushed me to how I cover tribal communities and why I cover them.''

After a tough semester, she returned to the reservation and eventually decided to go to UM.

She applied to the journalism program, where she realized she could actually effect change for her community and fill a gap in storytelling with her real-world perspective.

In September 2016, after seeing Native friends on social media posting rumblings around growing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Reservation, she questioned why it wasn't getting more widespread attention outside the Native community.

``I'd been hearing about this thing, and I hadn't seen a lot in the media about it yet, so I just wanted to check it out,'' she said, adding she visited three times to report and photograph, each time the media presence growing.

``That was the first time I really felt like a journalist I think, and I felt like my viewpoint mattered and that it mattered maybe more than other journalists there.''

While most of the nation was getting fed reports of violence and protest, Irvine spent her time telling a different story.

``(It was) less about the protest and the dog biting and all the violence that you've seen a lot, and it was more about, what does life look like in a camp that you've been staying at for six months? What did the schools look like?'' she said.

Through college and after graduating in 2018, Irvine spent time at daily newspapers, including the Flathead Reservation's Char-Koosta News, where she said she was able to ``cut her teeth'' in her own community, The Billings Gazette, the Dallas Morning News and finally the Tampa Bay Times.

Last year, after layoffs decimated the photo staff in Tampa Bay, she decided to take what many would consider a giant leap early in her career and go freelance.

``Daily jobs at newspapers don't really feel that safe anymore, so it wasn't super hard to leave. When I started, there were 20-something photographers, and when I left they were in the single digits,'' she said, adding the daily grind also didn't allow her to do the bigger, in-depth projects she got a glimpse of at Standing Rock. ``I really wanted to tell my own stories.''

It also didn't hurt that ESPN had been in contact with her about taking photos for a story on the Blackfeet Reservation. Her images appeared in an article about the sports network's documentary, ``Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible,'' which screened at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

During the same period, she met Daniella Zalcman, founder of Women Photograph and co-founder of Natives Photograph, organizations that create databases of women, nonbinary and Native American photographers.

``She really created a pipeline for me to come from Montana and go into the national scene with photography and editors,'' Irvine said.

Zalcman said the Natives Photograph database is an effort to help elevate voices of Native storytellers working in their own communities. It's also a response to editors claiming they want to hire Native photographers, but don't know who or where they are.

``Photojournalism is a tricky business to get into, it's a tricky business to sustain once you're in it,'' Zalcman said. ``It's still a very privileged, classist industry where so much of success is predicated on who you know.''

Irvine said Zalcman has since been a mentor, helping her navigate the beginnings of a freelance career _ reading fine print contracts from big-wig corporate lawyers and filing taxes.

Introducing the issue of blood quantum to people outside of Native communities would be difficult without a direct understanding like Irvine has, Zalcman said.

``It's a complicated thing with roots in colonialism and ramifications that we're seeing still today. There's so many levels, it requires such a degree of care, nuance and context,'' she said. ``Tailyr is perfect for it because she deeply understands the system, she can tackle all aspects, and she's also telling it from such a personal perspective as well.''

With the first chapter published, Irvine is now working on a second chapter with funding from National Geographic.

Her decision to go freelance has paid off. Her work has been published with HuffPost, Buzzfeed, High Country News, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

She's also currently reporting a Nat Geo-funded project that's taken her across the country, photographing Native Americans participating in a nationwide ``Social Distance Powwow,'' and another article about COVID-19 in the national parks is also in the works.

She also loves shooting sports and sprinkles in those assignments when she has time. She understandably doesn't want to get pigeon-holed into only getting calls for Native assignments, but said she hopes she can continue to cover Native issues and culture so she can start to shift the narrative around her people.

``How I grew up and what that looked like for me looks really different in the media,'' she said. ``It's my story, but it's not really my story. It's their story.''

Endangered Trout Species Thriving in Remote Nevada Lake

RENO, Nev. (AP) _ A half-century after being added to the endangered species list, Lahontan cutthroat trout are thriving with help from a Native American tribe at a remote lake in northern Nevada.

For nearly a decade, members of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and scientists at the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno have studied the robust Lahontan cutthroat trout population at Summit Lake, a small high-desert lake into which water flows in but not out.

The lake ecosystem has little human impact and could provide a model for recovery efforts in other lakes ``that are less fortunate and that have lost their trout like the Walker and Tahoe,'' university researcher Sudeep Chandra told the Reno Gazette Journal.

The Lahontan cutthroat is Nevada's state fish and North America's largest freshwater native trout species. It was listed as endangered in 1970 and upgraded to threatened in 1975, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The fish has crimson red-orange slash marks on the throat under the jaw and black spots over steel gray to olive green scales. It holds cultural significance for the Summit Lake tribe, whose name _ ``lake trout eaters'' in the indigenous language _ reflects the importance of the fish, said Rachael Youmans, tribal natural resources director.

The species is found in cold-water habitats in parts of Nevada, Oregon and California, including terminal lakes such as Pyramid and Walker; alpine lakes such as Tahoe; rivers such as the Humboldt, Carson, Walker and Truckee; and tributary streams.

The fish can grow to 50 inches (1.27 meters) and live for up to 14 years in lakes. River dwellers grow to about 10 inches (25 centimetres) and live less than five years. The species spawns between February and July, depending on stream flow, elevation and water temperature.

In 1844, there were 11 lake-dwelling populations of the trout, and 400 to 600 stream-dwelling populations that spanned more than 3,600 miles of waterways, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Today, the fish are found in just five lakes and fewer than 130 streams in the Lahontan Basin in the northeast corner of Nevada, and several dozen streams outside the basin. Their habitat now covers less than 500 miles (800 kilometers) of waterways.

Declines have occurred due to water diversions, changing habitat and invasive species, Chandra said.

Summit Lake, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) north of Reno, is closed to non-tribal members, and fish catches are limited for members. The tribe erected grazing enclosures that prevent trampling from livestock and stopped diverting freshwater in streams for the reservation. Mahogany Creek flows into the lake unimpeded.

``It's a very healthy riparian corridor here now,'' Youmans told the Gazette Journal.

Summit Lake is mildly saline, and healthier than other terminal lakes in the huge Great Basin watershed of central Nevada, scientists say. Many terminal lakes have higher dissolved salt levels than lakes that flow to the sea.

Walker Lake in Nevada, also a terminal lake, has a salinity level of about 20 parts per thousand and is too saline for most fish, Chandra said. Summit Lake has less than 2 parts per thousand.

Archaeologists Unearth Artifacts From Abenaki Village

FARMINGTON, Maine (AP) _ A team of archaeologists has unearthed artifacts from the 17th century Abenaki village along the Sandy River.

Archaeologists from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission are leading an effort that has been underway since the summer of 2018, when the Maine Department of Transportation deemed the bridge connecting Chesterville and Farmington Falls in need of replacement.

The team has been surveying the land around the Farmington Falls and Chesterville bridge on Routes 41 and 156 ever since, the Sun Journal reported.

Finding the Abenaki glass trade and shell beads was the most memorable feature of his team's dig, project archaeologist John Mosher said.

Because of the location at falls, he knew there could be artifacts associated with American Indians. He said he thinks the dig site is near a native village.

Denver Group Delivers 500 Homemade Masks to Navajo Nation

DENVER (AP) _ A couple from Colorado has traveled to Arizona to deliver 500 homemade face masks to the Navajo Nation intended to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

A group of volunteer sewers, all from the Denver area, originally started making masks for frontline workers but have since delivered to about 100 different organizations, KCNC-TV reported.

The Denver Mask Task Force organized in March and has since ``grown to over 1,500 volunteers on our Facebook page. We've donated over 11,000 masks,'' co-group organizer Amanda Glenn said.

Task force volunteer Lloyd Chavez recently suggested the group make masks for the Navajo Nation, which spans three states and is home to about 170,000 people.

``There's not a lot resources that make it to reservations around the country,'' Chavez said. ``They're kind of put on the back burner.''

The Navajo Nation would have one of the highest per capita rates of coronavirus in the country if it was a state. Tribal leaders have imposed strict curfews and preventive measures.

Chavez and his wife Cindy drove nine hours to Chinle, Arizona, to drop of the package. They arrived Wednesday.

``I'm just so incredibly inspired by the generosity of so many strangers. It's been this incredibly magic experience where everything we ask for just shows up,'' Glenn said.

Glenn told KCNC-TV that the delivery to the Navajo Nation is just the first of several donations of its kind and the ``stitch ninjas'' are working on filling mask orders for tribes in other states.

Alaska Villages Implement Travel Restrictions Amid Pandemic

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) _ About 70 Alaska tribes have implemented travel restrictions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, limiting incoming air, land and water traffic in remote villages scattered across the state.

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has given communities regulation leeway through their councils and other governmental entities, so travel restrictions vary throughout the state, Indian Country Today reported.

Essential workers and their necessary travel are still permitted.

``But the less mixing we have going on at this point, the more we slow the virus down,'' Dunleavy said. ``Right now they are (helping out), but if there are issues or incidences where folks, let's say go overboard, then we can have that discussion with them.''

Residents of the Northwest Alaska Inupiat village of Kivalina, population 379, who want to leave must notify the tribal administrator of departure and return dates, the reason for the trip and must self-quarantine for 14 days upon return, community leaders said.

Those rules apply to travel by flights and snow-machine from neighboring communities, since the village is not connected by road to any other community, leaders said.

Alaska had reported about 250 known cases of COVID-19 and seven related deaths as of Friday. Most are in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and other communities connected by road, but there no confirmed cases in any small off-road villages.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.

Elders are cautious because some experienced the aftermath of the 1918 influenza epidemic in Alaska when villages were wiped out and others lost more than half of their population, said tribal administrator Millie Hawley, Inupiaq.

``Everyone's doing their part . just staying home, hunkering down, they call it,'' Hawley said.

Others are not as willing to listen to direction.

``You have certain people that are attracted to living out in remote Alaska'' because ``they can live their life without being told by outsiders how to do that,'' said Natasha Singh, Athabaskan, general counsel for the regional nonprofit tribal entity Tanana Chiefs Conference.

Sharing information from outsiders and medical experts ``can be a difficult education process,'' she said.

The pandemic also heightens the ``extreme needs and disparities'' between urban and rural Alaska, with gaps in the high cost of living and of transportation, access to medical care, and public safety, Singh said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized tribes' inherent authority to protect the health of its members, and tribes have taken appropriate steps within their legal authority and tailored to their specific needs, she said.

Navajo Poet Jake Skeets Wins Whiting Award

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) - Navajo poet Jake Skeets has been named one of the winners of this year's Whiting Award.

The Gallup Independent reports the Giles Whiting Foundation recently announced Skeets as one of the 10 writers to receive the honor.

Last year, he was named the winner of the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, one of the most honored literary prizes in America.

Skeets says he writes from personal experiences and focuses on Native American issues and challenges.

"I write a lot of poetry, and poetry isn't always a bestseller, but this is really affirming," said the Vanderwagen, New Mexico, writer. "I hope to continue to write about things that I have experienced growing up near Gallup."

Skeets holds a master of fine arts in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts and teaches English at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona.

In his book, "Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers," Skeets focuses on stereotypical depictions of Gallup through his mind's eye.

New App Can Teach Math to Children in the Lakota Language

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) _ A new app is helping American Indian youth learn math that can be taught in their native Lakota language.

The bilingual English and Lakota math video game was created by the Thunder Valley Community Development Corp., a South Dakota nonprofit that promotes Native American issues.

The ``Making Camp: Lakota'' app is free and can be downloaded on mobile devices and computer desktops, KOTA-TV reported. It is meant mainly to help fourth- and fifth-grade students.

A historical video introduces each section of the game explaining cultural symbols like eagle feathers, buffalo and horses.

Mary Bowman, an Oceti Sakhalin teacher with the Rapid City Area School District, said it's a key part of the curriculum. Culturally responsive teaching increases children's achievement levels because the children are more engaged and learn more, she said.

``It's so important because, you know, Lakota people have lived here for centuries. And the influence that the culture has is here and great. It's good not just for Native students to learn but all kids to learn,`` Bowman said.

Lakota is part of the Dakota language group and is one of the most commonly spoken Native American dialects in the country. Most of its speakers live in the Dakotas.

Vandals Cover Plymouth Rock in Red Graffiti

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) _ The iconic Plymouth Rock and other sites were covered in red graffiti during a vandalism spree discovered at the site marking the landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts 400 years ago.

Officials in Plymouth discovered the vandalism early in the morning. Workers had removed the red spray paint, which included the letters MOF and the numbers 508, from the rock before noon.

Authorities say no arrests have been made and the site was open to tourists.

The rock has come to symbolize the spot where William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims disembarked before founding Plymouth Colony in December 1620.

Police said the vandals also targeted a seashell-shaped sign celebrating the upcoming 400th anniversary of the 1620 Mayflower landing, the Pilgrim Maiden statue and the National Monument To The Forefathers.

It was not immediately clear if this graffiti incident had any connection to the anniversary celebration, but Plymouth Rock has been the site of political demonstrations before.

United American Indians of New England holds the solemn remembrance on every Thanksgiving Day since 1970 there to recall what organizers describe as ``the genocide of millions of native people, the theft of native lands and the relentless assault on native culture.''

Fiscal Reports Show Revenue Declines at Connecticut Casinos

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Revenue at Connecticut's two casinos declined in fiscal 2019 amid new regional competition, according to new fiscal reports.

Mohegan Sun's net revenues for the fiscal year were $992 million, down about 7% from the nearly $1.1 billion it took in the previous fiscal year, though revenue for parent company Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment increased, The day reported.

Net revenues at Foxwoods Resort Casino were $787.8 million, down 5% from $828.9 million in fiscal 2018.

The annual fiscal reports, filed in late December, both attribute the decline to lower gaming revenues. The workforce at both casinos continues to shrink, according to the reports.

The casinos, owned by Connecticut's two federally recognized tribes, face competition from the new MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor casino, and from Rhode Island's two casinos that launched sports betting a year ago.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont tried to reach a wide-ranging gambling agreement with the tribes last year that would've included sports betting, but did not succeed.

Bighorn Sheep Coming to MHA Reservation

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ A new agreement between the state and Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation means bighorn sheep could be roaming the reservation in the next couple weeks.

North Dakota Game and Fish director Terry Steinwand says 30 to 40 bighorns will be brought to North Dakota once they are captured on a Montana reservation. They'll be released in the Mandaree and Twin Buttes areas.

The Bismarck Tribune says the state-tribal agreement includes a provision for a ram hunting season. Williams says that will depend on how well the animals to in their new habitat.

``If the population does well enough and to where there's mature rams out there, that's something that our agency and Three Affiliated Tribes will be in discussion about, and then we're going to be sharing those licenses for that opportunity,`` Williams said.

The pact is the third such agreement between the state and tribal nation.

The others are twin agreements with MHA Nation in 2008 related to hunting and fishing access issues and a 2017 pact with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for an elk hunting season.

New Mexico Has Goal to Boost Rural Art, Culture Partnerships

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ One of the top priorities for officials who oversee New Mexico's system of museums and cultural offerings will be forming more partnerships with rural communities and Native American tribes over the next year.

State Cultural Affairs Secretary Debra Garcia y Griego testified before a legislative committee that oversees crafting of the state budget. She told the panel that expanding access to arts and culture beyond New Mexico's metropolitan areas will be critical.

``We all know that arts and culture can be incredibly important to a community's quality of life but also its economic well being. This is particularly true for our rural communities,'' she said.

Garcia y Griego shared statistics that showed how many people were visiting museums, historic sites and libraries. She also said the agency relies heavily on the support of volunteers and private foundations. In the last fiscal year, such groups contributed nearly $5 million in support of special exhibitions and educational programs at state museums and historic sites.

Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Democrat who chairs the Legislative Finance Committee, said during the meeting that many of the prominent families from New Mexico's oil and gas patches are among those who support the arts. He pointed to a 1952 Peter Hurd mural that was rescued from a building in Texas that was slated for demolition. An anonymous patron paid for the mural and its costly transportation to Artesia, New Mexico, where it was installed at the public library.

He acknowledged the criticisms environmentalists and some Democratic politicians have of the industry. But Smith said ``oil and gas and sources of revenue shouldn't be dividing us. We have a lot of common respect and appreciation for the arts.''

Revenues from the oil boom have helped the state's general fund budget overall, but Smith and others are warning about expanding spending.

``The puzzling question is we don't know how long that's going to last _ and that presents a real challenge for this committee ... to still be responsible and fend off the charges that we're not spending enough. We're a little apprehensive,'' he said.

Garcia y Griego is asking for a budget increase of more than 13 percent, saying much of that would go to basic operating costs as the state runs dozens of sites that are open to public almost every DAY of the year.

The Cultural Affairs Department is responsible for 191 structures, 100 of which are designated as state cultural properties or on the National Register of Historic Places, according to agency officials.

Historic structures are more expensive to maintain and renovate, officials said.

Garcia y Griego told lawmakers there's currently more than $9.25 million worth of construction underway on historic buildings using state and federal tax credits. Department officials are looking for ways to boost the amount of recurring money that can be dedicated to the maintenance effort.

Research Team to Take Fresh Look at Delicate Artifacts

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Sandals and baskets that have withstood the ravages of time will be among the perishable artifacts analyzed by a team of scientists looking to learn more about a corner of the southwestern United States that was first excavated decades ago.

Depending on what they uncover, officials are hopeful that the $200,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will lead to more research opportunities in the Guadalupe Mountains, which straddle the New Mexico-Texas line and are situated within one of the nation's busiest oil and gas basins.

The University of New Mexico is partnering with the Lincoln National Forest, the University of Pennsylvania, the Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Guadalupe Mountains National Park and the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center.

The team plans to use existing museum collections to build a time line of basket and sandal styles used by those who once inhabited the area. They also will take a new look at two rock shelter sites using new technologies, including a drone and photogrammetric mapping.

The project is spearheaded by Robert Dello-Russo and Alexander Kurota of the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archaeology.

``This study will ensure meaningful consultation with, and self-determination for, the Native American tribes who claim ancestry with the Guadalupe Mountain region,'' Dello-Russo said in a statement.

No ceremonial artifacts will be subjected to any kind of analysis as part of the project, officials said.

The Guadalupe Mountains still represent an important spiritual sanctuary for the Mescalero Apache, a once nomadic Native American tribe now based in south-central New Mexico.

The Mescalero Apache harvested plants such as agave, sotol and bear grass. The agave's fibers were used for ropes, blankets and sandals.

According to the Bureau of Land Management, excavations of Burnet's Cave and Hermit's Cave during the 1930s uncovered artifacts made of fiber, wood and feathers. They included sandals, baskets, ropes, fiber bundles and grass rings that are now part of museum collections.

Officials say most of the artifacts have not been examined since their excavation some 80 years ago, before the development of radiocarbon dating. The new analysis will allow the artifacts to be placed into more precise time periods.

The research will determine whether the perishable artifacts can be linked to farmers of the Formative era, which dates from 1000 BC to 500 A.D., or to hunter-gatherer communities stretching back thousands of years.

The researchers say the preservation of such perishable items is of utmost importance as they can provide invaluable knowledge about the daily lives of those who lived on the land long ago.

They're hoping to answer questions about what native plants were used and whether certain weaving or construction techniques were favored at certain times.

Elsewhere across the Permian Basin, contracts have been awarded for other archaeological work, including surveys and limited excavation at 36 sites located in Salado Draw in southeastern New Mexico.

Officials say a number of prehistoric sites were found there _ all discovered while surveying for oil and gas wells or pipelines. They believe human activity in the draw dates as far back as 12,000 B.C.

That work will include looking at pollen and charred plant materials found in hearths or roasting pits.

University in New Mexico Proposes Cultural Resources Degree

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Highlands University says it’s developing a special anthropology master’s degree program focused on cultural resource management.

If approved by higher education officials, the program would be delivered through distance learning.

Highlands professor Orit Tamir developed the proposal with the goal of preparing people to work in the private sector or with tribal, state and federal agencies.

In New Mexico, Tamir says a master’s degree in anthropology is needed to be a principal or lead investigator on a cultural resources project or other forms of professional anthropology analysis.

University Provost Roxanne Gonzales says offering the program through distance learning will allow working professionals to bolster their skills and make themselves more marketable.

The program could begin as soon as fall 2020 once it gets final approval.

Grand Canyon to Make Second Run at Corralling Bison Herd

By Felicia Fonseca 

Fish Farmer, Government, Tribe Partner on Salmon Stocking Program

CUTLER, Maine (AP) _ A fish farming company says it's working with government agencies and a tribal group to raise salmon to be released into a Maine river.

Cooke Aquaculture says it's working on the project with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the federal government and the Penobscot Indian Nation. The company says the project involves growing juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens near Cutler and releasing them into the Penobscot River's East Branch.

Salmon were once plentiful in Maine's rivers, but the fish are now listed under the U.S.'s Endangered Species Act. Cooke says about 5,000 adult salmon will be taken to the East Branch and tributaries in fall 2021 or 2022. It says that will result in the most spawning adults in the Penobscot River in decades.

Corps: No More Dakota Access Pipeline Study Needed

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ An attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers is asking a judge to sign off on the Corps' conclusion that the Dakota Access oil pipeline doesn't harm American Indian tribes.

The Corps wants U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to rule in favor of its August 2018 finding that no more environmental study is needed on the $3.8 billion pipeline. The pipeline has been moving North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois for more than two years.

The Standing Rock Sioux want the pipeline shut down and more study done. The tribe fears an oil spill could contaminate the Missouri River.

The Bismarck Tribune reports that a Justice Department attorney argues that the Corps ``carefully and reasonably considered the environmental impacts'' before it permitted the pipeline.

Pipeline developer Texas-based Energy Transfer says the line is safe.

___

Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com

Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Opening Behavioral Health Center

TOWAOC (AP) – The night she lost her teenage cousin to suicide, a boy she considered her brother, Cheyenne Hayes thought her mind was going crazy.

As the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community mourned the deaths of two middle school boys – Andrew William Cuch Jr., 14, and Jeit Redrock Height, 15 – on the same January night, Hayes and her friends grieved.

She could hear her friends’ pain as they spoke about their own lives. Hayes found her own mind traveling down a similarly dark road.

“I told myself I couldn’t go down the same path my brother went down,” Hayes said. “Because that wouldn’t solve anything.”

But as the 17-year-old counseled her struggling friends, she scoffed at the idea of seeing a therapist. Most of her friends felt the same way. And the few who did seek help said the professional didn’t understand what they were going through.

“I already know what to do on my own,” Hayes said.

The deaths of two middle school boys have forced the Ute Mountain Ute tribe to confront long-held stigmas surrounding suicide and mental health, which plague Native Americans at a higher rate than any other population in the United States.

This fall, a new behavioral health building five years in the making will open on the reservation. Tribal leaders have touted its potential to bring much-needed help to the Ute people: trained clinicians on site, specialists to help clients navigate the world of behavioral health and a culturally relevant program designed for a population saddled with hundreds of years of historical trauma, high rates of substance abuse and domestic violence.

The new resources come as communities across the state confront a troubling rise in youth suicides.

But as the Ute Mountain Ute tribe prepares to cut the ribbon on its new facility, it must convince members young and old to open up about an immensely painful topic that hits everyone close to home.

‘Subject that nobody wants to talk about’

Colorado leaders, community residents and teenagers have sounded the alarm over the recent surge in youth suicides, which have risen to become the leading cause of death for people between 10 and 24. Between 2015 and 2017, there were 533 suicides by teens and children, up from 340 such deaths between 2003 and 2005, according to a report by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

While suicide affects all populations, Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the highest rates of any racial/ethnic group in the United States, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the rates of suicide in Native American populations have been increasing since 2003.

Montezuma County, where the Ute Mountain Ute reservation lies, has the fourth-highest suicide rate in Colorado at 42 deaths per 100,000 people – more than double the statewide average.

And on a Native American reservation of fewer than 2,200 people, tragedy reaches everybody.

From teens up through elders, the entire tribe had some connection or relation to the two middle schoolers who died by suicide on that January night.

The Ute Mountain reservation has seen suicide before. Since 2004, there were at least 13 suicides among Native Americans in Montezuma County, according to state data. Suicide among Native American populations, however, is notoriously underreported, health officials say.

But the most recent deaths shocked the community, given the age of the boys. “It’s really opened a lot of people’s eyes,” said tribal councilwoman DeAnne House.

The sheer number of tragedies have made it hard for people to move on.

“Grief has cycles,” House said. “And we don’t get to see the full cycle because people lose someone the next week and it just keeps going. We don’t ever get that chance to take a breath and relax and accept what’s happening with our people.”

Prisllena Nightstarr, the tribe’s treasurer, has been through the grieving cycle with her own daughter, who killed herself at age 24.

Nightstarr now talks to schools, adults and other groups about suicide, about opening up, about forgiveness and acceptance.

“This is a subject that nobody wants to talk about because it’s embarrassing, it’s belittling,” Nightstarr said. “But you know what the bottom line is? It’s a reality of what our people are going through.”

She has encouraged people to talk, to share their emotions.

“When you share your experience, it heals and mends the soul,” Nightstarr said.

'Confronting stigmas'

Despite prodding from those such as Nightstarr, the stigma surrounding mental health discourages many Native Americans from seeking help.

“It’s still seen as shameful and deficient of moral character to be depressed,” said Dr. Spero Manson, director for the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health at the University of Colorado.

There used to be similar stigmas in Native American communities surrounding alcohol abuse, Manson said, but through years of discussions and prominent role models, those stigmas have largely abated.

“We have much less of that with depression, anxiety and suicide,” Manson said.

Kamea Clark, 18, has seen friends go to therapy, only for their families to find out and share a big laugh.

“Everyone knows where to go for help,” Clark said, “but they’re too scared and intimidated by family members because on reservation, everyone’s tough.”

Teenagers going through a hard time often don’t want to talk to their parents because they might just tell them to toughen up, she said. Instead, if teens choose to open up, it’s with each other.

“I feel like my friends are more accepting,” Clark said. “They understand mental health is a big problem all over the world, but parents think it’s more of a phase.”

“‘Oh, she’s just a teenager,’” Clark said, quoting a phrase she’s heard from parents. “‘She’s upset; she’ll get over it.’”

The tribe has worked to fight this sentiment and raise awareness of mental health issues. The Ute Mountain Utes were one of four tribes nationwide to be included in the Tiwahe program, an Obama-era initiative that provides additional resources to Native American communities for health, housing, culture and public safety.

One of the Tiwahe projects included a series of short films shot and produced by teenagers, including Clark and Hayes.

In the 2015 short film “Escape,” Clark plays a 14-year-old girl named Rachel who’s constantly bullied by her sister and other classmates. The film follows Rachel and her best friend, Adam, 17, who has been shunned by his alcoholic stepfather after coming out of the closet. Feeling rejected by their peers and family, Rachel and Adam make a suicide pact, but decide in the end to live.

“Once we got to the point where we were going to do it, it just didn’t seem like a good solution,” Rachel tells the camera.

At the end of the film, a transformed Rachel chastises Adam’s father for being drunk before confronting the group of girls who had previously tortured her, a smile crossing her face as the screen fades to black.

The themes depicted in the film – alcoholism, sexuality, suicide and bullying – are ones that Clark sees every day on the reservation.

“I wanted to send the message that it’s OK to ask for help,” Clark said about the film. “It’s OK to talk to people. If you’re having mental issues or not feeling OK, you can make a change and get the help you need.”

DeAnne House said she’s seen an awakening from young people when it comes to the recent suicides.

“There are things happening with our youth that they have always kept covered,” she said. “They’re finally speaking and saying, ‘This is what’s wrong. This is where our disparities are, this is how we feel, and these are our needs.’”

‘Story of a transformed heart’

When House won a seat on the tribal council, she made it her mission to get behavioral health services to the reservation.

After all, House has seen the need in her own family: She lost all but one of her uncles to substance abuse issues.

Her niece has struggled with addiction.

As a trained addictions counselor, House has worked with countless people in need of help. She knew the tribe needed more resources.

After five years of discussions, planning sessions and grant-writing, House learned they would receive funding for the new behavioral health center.

“It was a very emotional day,” House said, looking out the window at the excavated lot that will soon house the new facility. “We will finally have something that we can actually see and feel out there.”

The behavioral health center, which is scheduled to open in October, will be called Mógúán – “my heart” in the Ute dialect.

“The building is the story of a transformed heart,” said Todd Giesen, the health center’s project director. “When a young person comes in, they’ve got a broken heart. But when they walk out, they’ve got a transformed heart.”

Mógúán will include two new clinicians, two staff members to help people navigate the behavioral health system, and one nurse, Giesen said. One clinician, who specializes in crisis intervention and suicide prevention, has already provided nearly 50 hours of clinical services, he said.

“It’s amazing to see how people have responded to her,” Giesen said.

Mógúán will be centered around trauma-informed care that takes into account the history of Native American people, he said. It aims to be restorative and holistic, with particular focus on the behavioral health needs of those younger than 24.

As Giesen worked to develop concepts and plans for the new facility, he struggled with the same problem encountered by reservations across the country: finding Native American mental health clinicians.

It is the most underrepresented minority group in psychology, Greywolf said.

There are about 400 doctorally trained Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian psychologists in the United States, said Dr. Joseph Gone, a Harvard professor who focuses on psychology in indigenous communities.

But the majority of the highly skilled practitioners – more than 75%, Gone estimated – do not work on reservations or with Native American populations.

Experts say there’s a laundry list of reasons why it’s hard to recruit and retain trained professionals to work on reservations: lower pay; steep learning curves, especially for non-Native American providers; fewer resources and a lack of colleagues doing similar work, leading to high burnout rates.

“It’s hard to get people,” Giesen said. “The pond is definitely smaller.”

As the tribal council looks forward to the new facility and Giesen assembles his staff, some members of the tribe remain skeptical.

“They’re wasting their money,” said Hayes, the 17-year-old. “None of these kids are gonna go. I wouldn’t.”

Teens on the reservation don’t want to express their feelings to a random person, she said.

Even though the stigma of mental health remains prevalent, Clark sees the new center as a positive.

“I think it’ll be a great thing,” she said. “I think people will actually go down and get the help they need.”

Tribal Flags on Permanent Display at North Dakota Capitol

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ The flags of North Dakota's five tribal nations will be on permanent display outside the governor's office at the state Capitol.

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum announced the decision to display the flags during his State of the State address in January.

The bipartisan Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee approved making the display permanent.

They represent the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation; the Standing Rock Sioux; the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa; the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate; and the Spirit Lake Nation.

The relationship between North Dakota officials and tribes has been strained in the past, especially during protests three years ago against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

Burgum says the tribal flag display was done ``in the spirit of mutual respect.''

Suspicious Fires on Navajo Nation Spark Investigation

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) _ Investigators are asking for help from the public in connection with a string of suspicious fires on the Navajo Nation.

The Farmington Daily Times reports the Bureau of Indian Affairs Wildland Fire Management Navajo Region is offering a reward to anyone with information about fires that have occurred since July at Navajo Agricultural Products Industry.

An alert was posted on Sept. 4 on the agency's Facebook page, stating that a series of fires have occurred at Navajo Agricultural Products Industry in areas south and east of Ojo Amarillo.

Authorities say there have been at least four fires since July 26.

Johnson Benallie, regional assistant fire management officer for the Navajo Region of the BIA Fire and Aviation Management, says the investigation remains open.

Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com

Native Council Announces Opposition To Alaska Gold Mine

BETHEL, Alaska (AP) _ An Alaska Native council has announced its opposition to a proposed gold mine project, a report said.

The Quinhagak Native Tribal Council has issued a resolution opposing the Donlin Gold mine project, KYUK-AM reported.

Council members are concerned residents will leave Quinhagak for work at the mine site 280 miles (451 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Many younger men may leave and take entire families, while women and elders would need to hunt and fish for the community, said Council President Darren Cleveland.

``We feel that if it becomes real, that instead of slow trickle of people moving out, all of a sudden a group of people just moving and it would be a culture shock for families,'' Cleveland said.

A mining accident could contaminate the main food source for the village near a Kuskokwim River tributary, Cleveland said, although Quinhagak is almost 200 miles (322 kilometers) away.

``That could be devastating for our way of life that has always been, and we don't want to add on risks that are already being done,'' Cleveland said.

The declaration is meant to show support for tribes closer to the mine that have passed resolutions against Donlin Gold, he said.

The 12 other tribes with opposition resolutions in the past year include Chefornak, Chevak, Chuloonawick, Eek, Emmonak, Kasigluk, Kongiginak, Kwigillingok, Napakiak, Nunapitchuk, Tuluksak, and Tununak.

``If there was mining here in our area, we'd want the support of other tribes to help us out to be against it,'' Cleveland said.

Donlin Gold did not immediately respond to KYUK's request for comment.

Information from: KYUK-AM, http://www.kyuk.org

Famed French Explorer Jean Nicolet Gets Historical Revision

By BARRY ADAMS
Wisconsin State Journal

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ Patrick Jung was in fourth grade at 81st Street School in Milwaukee when he learned of the travels of Jean Nicolet, the famed French explorer.

According to Jung's social studies book, Nicolet traversed the Great Lakes in 1634 seeking a passage to China but ended up just northeast of what is now the city of Green Bay. That is where Nicolet, dressed in a colorful Chinese robe, came ashore and met members of a local Native American tribe and fired his two pistols into the air to celebrate his arrival.

Only now, more than 45 years after his grade school history lessons, Jung has a very different take on Nicolet's journey. And it's one that is likely to bring change to textbooks, roadside markers, plaques beneath bronze statues and websites.

Jung, a historian and researcher at Milwaukee School of Engineering, has spent years studying Nicolet and believes Nicolet wore a cape, not a Chinese robe. Had Nicolet pointed his pistols into the air, gun powder would have fallen from the trays and the guns would not have fired. Jung said with a ``good degree of probability'' that Nicolet landed in a large Native American village in what is now Marinette, not at Red Banks on the bay of Green Bay's southeastern shore.

And that trip to find a passage to China is also incorrect, Jung writes in his new book, ``The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet,'' published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

Jung contends Nicolet wasn't an explorer but a diplomat sent by Samuel de Champlain to negotiate peace with the Puan Indian Tribe, ancestors of the Winnebago who are now known in Wisconsin as the Ho-Chunk. Jung's book builds upon the research of the late scholar Nancy Oestrich Lurie, a longtime anthropologist at the Milwaukee Public Museum who specialized in the study of North American Indian history and culture. She also recruited Jung to help her write part of a 2009 book on Nicolet.

``She was right about a lot of things, but if she were alive today, I think she would agree with me,'' Jung told a gathering in May at the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum. ``The human past often gives up its secrets very grudgingly. There's a lot of things that we know very, very well and there are some things we don't know very well. Part of the problem is how well something is documented. In the case of Nicolet, there's a total of four printed pages that describe his mission into Wisconsin.''

And it's those four pages that through the years have led to assumptions, speculation and the continuation of historical errors, the Wisconsin State Journal reported .

Nicolet's name is all over Wisconsin. It has been used to name paper mills, banks, a northern Wisconsin forest, roads, schools and even bottled water.

Jung, who in 2007 published a book on the Black Hawk War of 1832, is not debating the importance of Nicolet in Wisconsin's history. He's just trying to ensure that an accurate story is told after more than a century of images that are inaccurate.

Paintings of Nicolet's historic moment were based on the research of historians between the 1850s and 1880s. Those works of art include Hugo Ballin's 1912 painting that hangs in the Governor's Conference Room in the state Capitol. A mural painted by Franz Rohrback was installed in 1910 in the rotunda of the Brown County Courthouse in Green Bay.

But the most recognized image is from Edwin Willard Deming, who spent a lifetime using a brush to document Native American history around the country. In 1907, Deming painted his own colorful version of Nicolet's historic moment that appeared in Jung's grade school textbook and in textbooks read by perhaps millions of other students through the years. In 1935, the U.S. Post Office issued a 3-cent stamp that included Deming's painting.

``Part of the problem is the indelible images that have been burned into our minds since we were children,'' Jung said. ``I've seen this as a kid and Nancy (Lurie) has seen this as a kid. Historical errors often have a way of perpetuating themselves.''

It was Lurie, who died in 2017, who uncovered one of the inaccuracies in the Nicolet story. The early writings of Nicolet's trip by Jesuit missionaries were brief and lacked detail, which allowed, through the years, scholars to insert ``any number of factual conclusions, poorly supported conclusions and even outright fabrications into their analysis,'' Jung wrote in his book's introduction.

A perfect example involves Nicolet's clothing when he arrived in Wisconsin. Lurie said Nicolet was actually wearing a cape of China de masque, a silk popular and prevalent at the time. It had nothing to do with China but was mentioned in the four pages written by the Jesuits and was misinterpreted by early scholars.

``I don't mean to criticize the early historians, but they didn't really understand what they read when they read `China de masque,''' Jung said. ``A cape like this would have been worn by somebody who was in the upper classes and Nicolet came from the upper classes and it would have been made of silk.''

Jung supports his theory on Nicolet's landing spot in Marinette because of the large Menominee village that was there and evidence that shows Nicolet had met with the Menominee, while the Puan, a tribe of an estimated 20,000 people, lived further to the south and west. Jung said the claim that Nicolet was an explorer also doesn't match what was happening politically in the region, as de Champlain would have been more worried about security than finding a route to China, something he himself had tried to find years earlier without success.

But while changing textbooks, murals and other historical interpretations are difficult, and in many cases unlikely, the Wisconsin Historical Society is in the process of reviewing historical signage for all of its markers throughout the state. The brown, wooden sign about Nicolet along Highway 57 at Wequiock Falls County Park would be prime contender for a major edit.

A bronze statue of Nicolet, paid for by contributions from school children, was erected in 1951 along with a wooden marker at Red Banks overlooking the bay of Green Bay. The wooden marker was replaced with an aluminum sign in 1957, but both the sign and the statue of Nicolet were moved in 2009 to Wequiock Falls, a mile to the east, after the reconstruction of Highway 57. That's when the brown wooden historical marker was added.

``It is possible to replace the existing marker with a new version that reflects current knowledge of Nicolet,'' said Kristin Gilpatrick, sales and marketing manager for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. ``The Patrick Jung book documents a great deal of outdated information about Jean Nicolet.''

But Brown County isn't the only community that claims to be the home of Nicolet's landing. Another historical marker is located in the city of Neenah where some believe Nicolet first came ashore on Doty Island after paddling up the north-flowing Fox River from Green Bay. Jung, however, would like to see more research and recognition of the tribes that were already living in the region when Nicolet arrived.

``The fact that we have two historical markers that say exactly the same thing, separated by a span of about 50 miles _ that's a problem,'' Jung said. ``We worry too much about historical markers and bronze statues. We have to go for the deeper, deeper questions. Who was already there? That's a much more important question.''

Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj

Oglala Sioux Tribe Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) _ The Oglala Sioux say they are the first tribe in South Dakota to legalize same-sex marriage.

The tribal council last week approved a same-gender marriage ordinance in a 12-3 vote with one abstention. The new marriage ordinance amends marital and domestic law that has not changed on the Pine Ridge reservation since 1935.

Monique ``Muffie'' Mousseau and Felipa De Leon grew up on the reservation, but found they could not be married there in 2015. The couple received a license in Pennington County and wed at a group ceremony at Mount Rushmore.

The two women began petitioning for changes in the reservation's law, resulting in the passage of same-sex marriage.

``We are looking out for future generations, for protections and for equality,'' Mousseau told the Rapid City Journal . ``These foundations of laws have to be in place because we have grandkids. And that next generation coming up, we don't want them experiencing the same (gay) bashing, we don't want them to get to a point where somebody says a bad word to them because they like somebody of the same sex and they hang themselves. We don't want that.''

Mousseau and De Leon live in Rapid City, but three of their five children and four of their five grandchildren live on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, but not for the 573 federally recognized tribes.

``Tribes have the right to make the decision themselves,'' said Marcia Zug, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law who specializes in family and federal Indian law.

In 2016, the Cherokee Nation's attorney general legalized gay marriage for the tribe, which at the time was among a handful of federal recognized tribes that had explicit bans on gay marriage. After a two-year legal battle, a tribal court cleared the way in 2017 for gay couples to marry on an American Indian reservation in the Phoenix area. The court ruled that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry under the constitution of the Ak-Chin community and the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Mousseau said she was happy to see the tribe approve of same-sex marriage through its own sovereign process even if meant waiting longer.

``We're doing this for all the children, everybody's grandchildren, everybody's great-grandchildren. Not just ours. But all the whole next generation,'' De Leon added.

Exhibit Shares History of Native American Veterans

FORT CALHOUN, Neb. (AP) _ A traveling Smithsonian exhibit about the history of Native Americans in the U.S. military is on display at Fort Atkinson State Historical Park in eastern Nebraska.

``Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation's Armed Forces'' tells the story of the American Indian and Alaska Native men and women who served the country in every major U.S. military encounter since the Revolutionary War.

``Patriot Nations'' will be on display through Sept. 2 in the Harold W. Andersen Visitor Center, which is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Fort Atkinson sits on the east side of Fort Calhoun, which is situated 15 miles north of Omaha. A park entry permit is required for all vehicles and can be purchased at the park.

Benched: Chief Wahoo Not All-Star This Time in Cleveland

By TOM WITHERS
AP Sports Writer

CLEVELAND (AP) _ An hour before the first pitch of a series opener against Kansas City, a steady flow of fans stream into the Indians' team shop at Progressive Field to buy new All-Star merchandise and other Cleveland gear _ some bearing his unmistakable smiling face.

Chief Wahoo still plays here.

The Indians' fiercely debated logo and longtime mascot _ a shameful racist figure to some, source of civic joy to others _ is no longer on the field, but he hasn't completely gone away. He appears to be as visible as ever.

While Major League Baseball and the Indians mutually agreed in 2018 to completely remove him from the team's jerseys and caps as well as banners and signage in the ballpark starting this season, when Cleveland hosts the All-Star Game for the sixth time, the red-faced, toothy caricature remains omnipresent across town.

Look on the concourses and in the seats and Wahoo is on caps, jerseys, T-shirts, hoodies, tank tops, jackets and even baby clothing. For just $10, a red foam Wahoo finger can be yours.

In some ways, he seems more popular.

``We can only hope,'' said Richard Stevens of Rochester, New York, who did a little pregame shopping with sons Jesse and Zac.

``I was very sorry to see it go,'' Jesse said.

Not everyone shares that view .

There are Native Americans who have fought for decades to eliminate Chief Wahoo and wish the Indians would change a nickname they feel mocks their proud culture.

``The team still doesn't understand,'' said Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio. ``They're still profiting off of us by being racists.''

But unlike in 1997, when Cleveland last hosted Major League Baseball's best players and Indians catcher Sandy Alomar became a hometown favorite with a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning while wearing a grinning Wahoo on his left shirt sleeve, the contentious symbol won't be on display to the world.

Not between the lines at least.

Wahoo may no longer be a symbol on the field, but he's still got status.

``I miss him,'' said John Adams, who has given the Indians their baseball heartbeat by pounding a bass drum for the past 45 seasons from high in the outfield bleachers. ``It's an emblem that we take pride in _ pride in Cleveland. And the fact that wherever you saw him, you didn't even have to ask. People would look at Chief Wahoo, and they would go, `Cleveland.' And that's anywhere in the world.''

Adams' stance is shared by many Clevelanders who felt MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred's push to eliminate the contentious chief following the 2016 postseason was heavy-handed.

Manfred and Indians owner Paul Dolan agreed something needed to be done, when Wahoo's likeness, which appeared on the All-Star logo when the game was previously held in Cleveland, led to a court battle in Canada and a glaring national spotlight in the World Series.

On the eve of Game 3 of the AL Championship Series, an indigenous group asked the Supreme Court of Justice in Toronto to block the Indians from using its nickname or Chief Wahoo on Canadian TV, arguing they were offensive and discriminatory. The court rejected the request and dismissed the case, but the sensitive situation induced the need for action.

Then, during Cleveland's appearance in the World Series against the Chicago Cubs, Manfred went further than any previous MLB official by acknowledging the Wahoo logo was ``offensive to some people, and all of us at Major League Baseball understand why.''

Manfred's comment led to substantive discussions with Dolan and a joint announcement in January 2018 that the cartoonish figure was ``no longer appropriate for on-field use.'' The Indians said their decision to keep selling Wahoo gear was to protect the club from losing ownership of the trademark.

The agreement to strip Wahoo from the team's caps and jerseys _ but still allow his likeness to be manufactured and sold on merchandise _ was seen by critics as a concession by the Indians, who were perhaps afraid of losing their All-Star bid by being defiant.

Both sides claimed the decision had no impact on Cleveland's choice to host the event, but it would be hard to imagine the Indians keeping it if they had refused Manfred's request.

There are still fans angry the Indians buckled. They feel part of their past has been stolen.

``I miss him because he was an icon,'' said Kristi Upperman of Lake Milton, Ohio, sporting a blue ``Wahoo True `Til The day I'm Through'' T-shirt while waiting in a concession line. ``I think the world is too sensitive. It's not derogatory to any race or any nation or any ethnic group. It's a baseball mascot. And I think that nowadays everybody is too sensitive and taking things a little bit too far. Everything is too politically correct and it's driving me crazy.''

She's not alone.

``It's just the way society is,'' said Jesse Stevens, a red-billed Wahoo cap perched on his head. ``Wahoo's still out there. But MLB forcing it out, I think is stupid.''

That kind of talk pains Yenyo.

For the past 25 years, he and other protesters have gathered on opening day outside Progressive Field, demanding the team change a logo and nickname they find demoralizing.

Yenyo said the move to take Wahoo away was a ``positive step, but not enough.''

``We're still hoping for more,'' said Yenyo, adding protesters have been subjected to more hostility the past two years. ``People feel like we've taken away part of their childhood, part of their memories. But if your memories are wrapped around a racist symbol, what kind of memories are those?''

An Indians spokesman said the organization is not considering a change of the team's nickname.

There will not be any protests during All-Star events next week because Yenyo and others in his movement will be out of town taking part in various American Indian ceremonies across the country.

One day, he hopes to meet Manfred, who he said hasn't returned any calls or emails.

``I just hope I could sit down with him and talk about this like adults,'' he said. ``We can resolve this.''

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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

New Mexico Mural Focuses on Missing Native American Women

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) _ A new mural in southern New Mexico seeks to honor missing and slain Native Americans amid a nationwide push to bring more attention to the issue.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports artist Sebastian ``Vela'' Velazquez recently erected the mural in Las Cruces in conjunction with the city's eighth annual ``Illegal'' graffiti art show.

The work is part of a large-scale mural wrapping around the entirety of the Cruces Creatives building. In the mural, a Native American woman stands in front with her fist raised. She's screaming and the words below say: ``NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS!''

``The news gets turned off and Facebook gets put down and turned off, and those issues kind of disappear, and everything that comes with it,'' Velazquez said. ``Having that piece up there, and why we sponsored it, is because you can't really turn off a mural. It's there every day and every night.''

Last month, federal lawmakers re-introduced legislation that calls for the Justice Department to review how law enforcement agencies respond to cases of missing and killed Native Americans.

The legislation is named Savanna's Act for 22-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, whose body was found in a North Dakota river in 2017.

The bill was unanimously approved in the U.S. Senate last year but died in the House.

Velazquez said the mural also honors missing indigenous Mexican women. ``Art is medicine to people of color. I think aerosol art is a healing method, rather than a criminalizing method,'' he said.

Earlier this year, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill to develop a task force to investigate the issue of missing and slain indigenous women in the state.

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Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, http://www.lcsun-news.com

South Dakota Project Fights Financial Crimes Against Tribes

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) _ The U.S. Attorney's Office in South Dakota says a project has uncovered dozens of people and organizations that collectively stole millions of dollars from nine Native American reservations.

The office's spokeswoman, Aileen Crawford, tells the Rapid City Journal that the Guardians Project has led to 42 convictions on federal charges including fraud, theft and embezzlement from tribes and tribal organizations.

The project, which launched in 2015, brings together local and federal agencies to investigate allegations of corruption and financial crimes against the state's Native American communities. Many of the convictions have involved tribal employees, tribal executives and out-of-state business owners.

A former cashier for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's bingo operations was most recently charged with embezzlement and larceny after being accused of stealing more than $1,000 from the business.

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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com

Tribes Across Country Push For Better Internet Access

By FELICIA FONSECA
Associated Press

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) _ In a remote, roadless Arizona canyon that is home to a small Native American tribe, there's a natural skepticism toward the internet.

The telemedicine equipment that health care officials promised would work gathers dust. School children who have online homework struggle to get online. And streaming a web-based conference or taking classes remotely? Well, ``that's a lot of luck you'd have to get,'' said Ophelia Watahomigie-Corliss, who sits on the Havasupai Tribal Council.

Things started to change after a small company approached the tribe with a plan to broaden coverage for educational use. It's now using the experience to help push the federal government to give tribes priority for broadband spectrum largely unassigned across the western United States.

The Federal Communications Commission has not issued any new permanent licenses for the Educational Broadband Services spectrum in more than 20 years. It asked the public a year ago to weigh in on possible changes to the licensing system to better define geographic areas, build in flexibility, create priorities for tribes and educational institutions, and possibly auction off the 2.5 GHz-band spectrum. It's not clear when the FCC will act.

The agency estimates that about one-third of the people living on tribal lands don't have access to high-speed internet, but others say the figure is twice as high. That's partly because homes on remote reservations are spread far apart.

And tribes say large telecommunications companies are unwilling to expand to tribal lands because of the cost.

The internet on the Havasupai reservation has been a mixed bag. Tribal employees could sign on to their email and do internet searches but not much else. Public access for 450 residents was centered on the community building in the village of Supai. Thousands of tourists who trek 10 miles (16 kilometers) down a winding trail to see the reservation's famed blue-green waterfalls have no internet access at their campsites away from the village.

The tribe began working with a company called MuralNet in 2017 to get teachers and students better access. They successfully sought temporary authority from the FCC to use the Educational Broadband Services spectrum _ a sort of channel of electromagnetic waves _ that wasn't being used. Flagstaff-based Niles Radio Communications helped build the network.

``We're really putting our chips on EBS,'' said Mariel Triggs, chief executive of MuralNet. ``It works in extreme cases. It's cheap; it's reliable.''

Jacqueline Siyuja now has a wireless router to take online classes for her job at the tribe's Head Start program. A few years ago, she and her colleagues had to fly out of the canyon and drive more than two hours to a community college in Flagstaff for classes. She also had to take her young daughter with her.

``It was really challenging for us,'' she said.

Jordan Manakaja eventually wants to get her bachelor's degree and become a therapist in the community. She prefers online classes at home where she can interact with an instructor.

``We have the opportunity to wind down and get comfortable before we're in a classroom,'' she said. ``That was more beneficial to us mentally.''

The tribe won't know whether it can make other plans for the spectrum, like using telemedicine, transmitting medical records electronically or starting an online high school, until the FCC decides whether to grant the tribe's application for a permanent license.

Nearly 2,190 licenses that generally cover a 35-mile radius have been granted to 1,300 licensees, according to the FCC. The agency has asked for public comment on realigning the boundaries of the licenses, eliminating the educational use requirement, and allowing tribes, current licensees or new educational entities to access unassigned spectrum before a possible auction.

Despite its name, the spectrum isn't used solely for educational purposes. Licensees can lease it to commercial providers. Sprint is among the largest users.

Tribes in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Washington, Idaho and others in Arizona also are pressing the FCC for a priority filing window.

On the Havasupai Tribal Council, Watahomigie-Corliss is dubbed the telecommunications member and she's the youngest at 33. When she presented the project to colleagues, she was well aware of their doubts.

``It was my job to prove to them it could possibly work, and that comes with the territory of so many people trying to make things work at Supai that work on the outside,'' she said.

UW System to Create Tribal Consultation Policy

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ University of Wisconsin System officials say they're starting to craft a new policy governing consultations with Wisconsin's American Indian tribes.

UW System officials said in a news release Monday announcing the effort that they hope to foster greater American Indian enrollment and improve graduation rates.

System officials say the policy will mirror a similar plan the Arizona Board of Regents adopted in 2016 that guides interactions between Arizona's public universities and that state's tribal American Indian nations on issues such as land use, education policy and research.

A dozen American Indian nations are located within Wisconsin. In the fall of 2017, the most recent data available on the UW System website, 628 American Indian students were enrolled at system institutions. They made up 0.4% of the system's total enrollment.

South Dakota Cake Decorator Creates Native American Designs

By VICTORIA LUSK
Aberdeen American News

EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. (AP) _ When Leah Red Bird put her decorating tip to an ice cream cake nearly three years ago, she had no idea what was about to happen.

But as each colorful diamond met the next, her star quilt design took shape. Rave reviews followed.

It was her 19th year at the Dairy Queen in Eagle Butte. She started in 1997, and she's now been decorating cakes for about 15 years.

A May 9, 2016, post on the Eagle Butte Dairy Queen Facebook page celebrating Leah and her unique designs has been seen by 250,000 people. It also garnered more than 4,000 shares, 4,500 reactions and 300 comments.

Some of those comments inquired about shipping the cakes, but no one has followed through on that, Dairy Queen manager Barb Jensen, told the Aberdeen American News.

Jensen ``came with the building,'' Jensen said. The Eagle Butte store will celebrate its 29th year in business come April.

Red Bird creates about 30 cakes a week, Jensen said.

``And our store isn't even a big cake store,'' she said.

As far as she knows, Red Bird, 52, is the only decorator in the area who does the Native American designs.

They don't last long.

``The minute we put the cakes out, they are gone within a day or two,'' Jensen said

The Native American art is perfect for the area the Dairy Queen serves, she said.

Red Bird's newest design is an intricate web of lines that form each strand of a dream catcher.

Traditionally, dream catchers are hung above beds to sift dreams and visions or so that bad ideas get trapped in the web, according to information from the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center in Chamberlain.

Red Bird needs 24 hours notice for a custom cake. An ``easy'' cake might only take her an hour to decorate, but a sheet cake will take an entire day, depending on the design, she said.

Next, Red Bird said, she'd like to create something with a horse.

She said she gets her ideas from other cakes, artwork and things she sees.

Her favorite part of the cake-decorating gig is how her designs look when they are completed.

``I just have to think about it first, and then I put it together,'' she said.

``She's being modest,'' Jensen said. ``She's very creative.''

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Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com

Wild Onion Dinner benefits Indian Women's Pocahontas Club

By John Klein
Tulsa World

CLAREMORE, Okla. (AP) _ Ollie Starr can't recall her first taste of wild onions or drink of sassafras tea.

``We grew up gathering, preparing and eating those foods,'' said Starr, former president of the Indian Women's Pocahontas Club. ``So I don't remember the first time I ever had wild onions or grape dumplings.

``That's just the way it always was. We didn't know any different.''

The Tulsa World reports the Indian Women's Pocahontas Club, the oldest chartered club in Oklahoma, will celebrate one of its oldest traditions with its Wild Onion Dinner, open to the public, on March 23.

``One of the most important things we do is preserve the history and culture of the Cherokee people,'' said Debra West, another former president of the Indian Women's Pocahontas Club. ``So preparing this meal every spring is one of the ways we preserve and educate people about Cherokee culture.

``It is great for us, too. We prepare this meal as a family. We have generations of our family involved. We are passing along knowledge to a new generation.''

The Indian Women's Pocahontas Club has been preserving Cherokee Nation culture and history for 120 years.

``When the club was formed, and for many years after, one of the most important things we did was preserve our history through documents,'' said Starr. ``We have a treasure trove of historical documents of the Cherokee people because we were the only group preserving the documents.

``Recently, through an agreement with Rogers State University, we now have a facility on their campus where we can store documents and preserve them.''

The Pocahontas Club has about 200 members. A monthly meeting is hosted in Claremore, but Pocahontas Club has members across the country.

``We have members from California and Arizona and Florida and Texas _ they live in all areas of the country,'' said West. ``There are major pockets of Cherokees in most of the major cities in the U.S. As a result, we have Pocahontas Club members from most major cities.

``The Indian Women's Pocahontas Club was formed as an important part of the Cherokee people. Although Pocahontas was not Cherokee, she was the most well-known Native American woman of her time. The stories about her at the time said she was a strong, brave and smart woman. The name will never change. It is the first thing in our charter.''

Cherokee Principal Chief Bill John Baker, writing in the Tulsa World last summer, said club members ``serve as valuable caretakers of our culture, our heritage and our communities.''

The club formed on June 29, 1899, in Oowala, in the Cooweescoowee District of the Cherokee Nation. That's present-day Rogers County.

The club is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance. The average age of Pocahontas Club members is increasing, prompting a push to recruit younger members. Of the 200 members, 40 are at least 80 years old; 14 members in their 90s, and one member is 103 years old.

``Obviously, we want to work on getting a new, younger generation interested in what we do,'' said Clarice Doyle, another active member of the club. ``Our history has to be kept and preserved. That will take a new generation of Cherokee women.''

A grandmother-granddaughter event is among recruitment activities.

``We have to pass on this history and culture by teaching it to younger women,'' Starr said. ``They live in a far different world than the one we grew up in.''

Although it is now a women's club, it counts famed actor and storyteller Will Rogers as a former member. The Indian Women's Pocahontas Club hosts an annual picnic at the Dog Iron Ranch _ birthplace and home of Rogers _ and members lay a memorial wreath at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum during the Will Rogers Days annual celebration in November.

``That is an important part of preserving Cherokee history,'' said West. ``We also are very interested in education. We give out scholarships and are very involved in promoting education. Education was a very important part of Cherokee culture.''

The club is planning a major celebration June 29 for the 120th anniversary of the founding of the club.

In 1899, members came from all over and attended Indian boarding schools across the state.

``So we were a very diverse group of women and we still are,'' said Starr.

Members of the modern Pocahontas Club must be Cherokee women who can trace their ancestry back to the Dawes Roll, a federal census of those living in the Cherokee Nation that was used to allot Cherokee land to citizens in preparation for Oklahoma statehood. The rolls were closed in 1907.

``The best thing we do every year is the Wild Onion Dinner because it is such a family event,'' said Starr.

The Wild Onion Dinner was a Cherokee spring tradition.

``When the wild onions would start coming up, and the sassafras trees had the green bark, which is perfect to make the tea, you knew it was spring,'' said Starr. ``It was always such an exciting time of the year for us as young girls.

``I still get very excited for the Wild Onion Dinner every year. It signals the start of spring. It is about taking from the earth and giving back to the earth.''

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Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com

Demand Rising for Diversity Training in St. Paul

By BOB SHAW
St. Paul Pioneer Press

PAUL, Minn. (AP) _ Someone has been teasing Samantha.

``Samantha lives with her aunt because her mom is in jail,'' teacher Mary Ross said to her St. Paul kindergarten class. ``Someone said to her, `You don't have a mom! She doesn't love you!' ``

It didn't matter that Samantha was a doll on the teacher's lap. Cries of outrage filled the room: ``Stop saying that!'' ``No way!'' ``Don't worry _ your mom loves you!''

Ross smiled and put the doll aside. It had performed its duties well _ teaching a rudimentary lesson to a receptive audience, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

The dolls were provided by St. Paul-based Amaze consultants, where the business of diversity training is booming. In fact, a spot check of metro-area diversity consultants shows that demand has as much as doubled in the past two years.

It's a response to, among other things, shootings of unarmed black men by police, the Black Lives Matter movement and white supremacist rallies.

The training is usually focused on race, but can be used to address other forms of discrimination, said Victoria Amaris, owner of Putting Change in Motion and a former manager of cultural dynamics for the Greater Twin Cities United Way.

She said diversity consultants offer a grab-bag of awareness-building programs involving Native Americans and Hispanic immigrants, along with groups such as women, bullying victims, gay people and transgender people.

``Don't forget disabilities. I want to be inclusive of everybody,'' said Amaris, who has even given a workshop on obesity discrimination.

All kinds of discrimination are increasing, she said, with racial discrimination leading the way.

``Minnesota Nice has kind of disappeared,'' said Amaris.

The website of the nonprofit Minnesota Compass lists 55 groups that are, not surprisingly, extremely diverse. They sometimes consist of a single person, and sometimes represent international corporations. Fees vary from free to thousands of dollars for multi-month classes.

The results vary, and there are no industry standards to make sure it works.

Indeed, diversity training does not always go smoothly. From 2010-13, the St. Paul school district paid $1.2 million to a San Francisco firm with the goal of running all 6,000 employees through the diversity training.

Results were mixed. Suspensions of minority children dropped, but no evidence emerged that the achievement gap between black and white students was closing. Several teachers said they felt alienated, saying they were expected to ignore student misbehavior because of cultural differences.

The St. Paul district frequently uses outside consultants, according to Hans Ott, assistant superintendent for the Office of Teaching and Learning. He said the outside consultants train teachers more efficiently than the district can do it internally. They also help the district follow its own policies regarding student inclusion.

Although there is no known way to measure the impact of the training sessions, officials say it's worth the money. The cost is often shared by grants, which come from nonprofits or businesses to address issues of discrimination. ``This is good value,'' said Ott.

He has been through training and endorses it. ``I had a positive experience,'' said Ott.

In the 1990s, said Amaris, consultants like her were asked to address discrimination against black people, and little else.

``Today, it's not so much focused on that,'' she said. ``Now, it's diversity and inclusion.''

The change hit Amaris when she got a contract with a chain of beauty salons. If that small business was worried about diversity, she said, the concern was trickling down. She has given workshops for police and dental school students, and got an inquiry recently from a bee-pollinators group.

``People are motivated now,'' said Amaris.

The approaches of the consultants vary.

Often, they are called to act as cultural firefighters, putting out flare-ups of discrimination. Sometimes consultants are expected to fix problems that may have been building for years.

Non-emergency calls happen when a group simply wants to do the right thing, and counter prejudice in any form. For them, consultants prefer to schedule a series of meetings, giving people time to think about the sessions.

That can be effective, said Amaze director Michael _ but the clients should be able to show they are open to change.

Businesses, for example, call when they want to hire more employees of color. ``That's a great thing to strive for,'' said Michael. ``But if you do that, will they be welcome? Will they fit into the culture you have?''

She tries to make individuals aware of bias _ even unconscious bias. All group members should take the training, she said. ``I ask that the maintenance staff be included,'' said Amaris.

Many do not understand the issue. ``They say, `Why can't we just get along with each other?' We have no idea why we are not getting along with each other.''

Interest in the Antiracism Study Dialogue Circles Partnership, based in St. Paul, spiked about three years ago, according to the single-named director, Okogyeamon.

``Not just for us, but across the board,'' he said.

He has taught sessions at the University of Minnesota and Carleton College, and is hosting workshops for officials in the state Department of Human Services.

Only recently, he said, have elements of society realized that racism is their problem _ not the problem of some distant ``other.''

``What is new is the recognition that this truly is an issue, and that it is pervasive,'' said Okogyeamon. ``Racism is playing itself out in life all around them.''

In the kindergarten class at Expo Elementary School recently, the different threads of discrimination were woven together _ with the help of dolls.

Ahlaam, a 5-year-old girl in a black hijab, carried a doll named Sitra to the teacher. The doll, too, wore a hijab. Instead of making the girl an example, the teacher looked at the doll.

``If someone teased her about that, what words would you use?'' teacher Ross asked the class.

``Knock it off!'' shouted one student.

The teacher pointed to another doll, clutched by 5-year-old Finnian. The doll, named Nick, had long curly hair. ``What if someone said to Nick, `You have long hair like a girl'?'' said the teacher.

Finnian clutched the doll defensively. ``Leave him alone!'' he said.

After the class, the teacher said the dolls allow kids to model compassionate behavior, without embarrassing anyone. ``It's easier for kids to talk about someone like them,'' said Ross.

The dolls came in handy when one student announced recently that his mom was in jail.

Soon after, the teacher revealed that the doll Samantha had a secret _ her mom had been locked up. She asked the class how they might respond. ``You could say, `You aren't the only one with a mom in jail,' `` suggested Ross.

Immediately, the sympathetic class practiced what they would say to the doll _ or to anyone facing a similar situation.

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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com

Grand Canyon Looking into Possible Radiation Exposure

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) _ Grand Canyon National Park officials say they are investigating whether anyone was exposed to radiation at unsafe levels while samples of uranium ore sat in plastic buckets in a park research building.

Three 5-gallon (18.93-liter) buckets have been removed from a building about a half mile (8 kilometers) from the South Rim that houses the park's archives and artifacts. About 550 people tour the collections each year, mostly by appointment.

The National Park Service is working with Arizona health and workplace safety officials on the investigation. The agency also plans to set up a hotline for anyone concerned about potential radiation exposure, said spokeswoman Vanessa Lacayo.

``One of the important pieces is looking and determining the level of exposure and risk,'' she said.

The Arizona Republic cited the Grand Canyon's safety director, Elston ``Swede'' Stephenson, in saying the park failed to warn workers or the public of the potential harm that existed for years. Stephenson did not return messages left by The Associated Press at his work email and on social media. A call to a number listed for him in a park directory went unanswered.

Uranium is naturally occurring in northern Arizona and was mined for decades, including at the Orphan Mine on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that ceased operations in 1969. A temporary ban prohibits the filing of new mining claims within 1 million acres (0.405 million hectares) outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. The Navajo Nation no longer allows uranium mining after it left a legacy of death and disease on the reservation.

Still, companies have active claims that weren't affected by the ban and could resume mining.

Lacayo said the area where the plastic buckets were stored was not a part of the tour of the building known as the Museum Collection, though people did walk past the area.

Stephenson told the Arizona Republic the buckets were near a taxidermy exhibit where children sometimes stopped for presentations, and the lid on one bucket wasn't sealed.

Jani Ingram, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, said it's not uncommon for uranium ore to be used in research. But, she said, it's typically sealed in a metal container so that radon gas and dust aren't released into the air.

Uranium can be harmful to people's health depending on the amount and grade of ore, how people interact with it and the exposure time, she said. Geiger counters can be a good, initial indication of the presence of radiation but further study would be needed to determine the risk.

``You can't say, `oh my gosh, all those kids are going to develop cancer in five years' because you just don't know how close they were, how long they were there,'' she said. ``But that open bucket was probably the most concerning. It seemed that maybe whoever it was didn't understand what they had.''

Calista Corp. Shareholders Protest Western Alaska Gold Mine

BETHEL, Alaska (AP) _ More than 130 shareholders of Calista Corp. are protesting a massive open-pit gold mine proposed in western Alaska.

KYUK-AM reports the group of shareholders, all women, sent a letter to the Alaska Native corporation, citing concerns about how the Donlin Gold Mine would affect the salmon-spawning Kuskokwim River.

Calista owns the subsurface rights to the mine planned for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region.

Bev Hoffman, a long-time protester of the mine, led the effort to draft the letter and gather signatures.

She says Calista signed the lease two decades ago without shareholder input, so this letter shows the corporation that not all shareholders support the mine.

Calista defended its support for the mine in a statement, saying its staff members have the same stake in the environmental health of the region.

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Information from: KYUK-AM, http://www.kyuk.org

Kansas Woman Donates Part of Farm Sale Profits back to Tribe

NORTH NEWTON, Kan. (AP) _ A Kansas woman who sold land that was farmed by her family for five generations has donated a portion of the profits to help preserve the heritage of the Kaw Nation, the Native American tribe that claimed the land as its territory more than a century ago.

Florence Schloneger, a retired Mennonite minister in North Newton, told the Wichita Eagle that she gifted $10,000 to the nonprofit Kanza Heritage Society to acknowledge that her family's ownership of the McPherson County land ``came at a great cost'' to the Kaw, or Kanza, people.

Schloneger's family owned 320 acres (130 hectares) of prairie that was historically Kaw hunting grounds before several treaties with the federal government reduced the tribe's holdings. The tribe was forcibly removed from Kansas to Oklahoma in 1873, and their population declined drastically over the years.

Schloneger's great-great grandfather, Henrich Gronemann, settled on the homestead in 1879. The land was available for settlement because of the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, which gave away public land under the terms that individuals would live on the land for at least five years and improve it through cultivation.

``As my eyes have been opened, I have experienced great sorrow,'' Schloneger wrote in her donation letter to the nonprofit. ``Not only were your hunting grounds appropriated, but your rich culture and language was nearly lost through assimilation. My hope is that this small gift can help build and restore the strength of Kanza traditions for coming generations.''

Jim Pepper Henry, the nonprofit's board president, said Schloneger's donation is a first for the tribe. Henry believes many are starting to understand the lands their families acquired over the years were swindled, coerced and forcibly taken from the Kaw people.

``Our intent is that this could set an example for others who want to help with the preservation of Kansas history, especially with the Kaw Nation,'' Henry said.

The Kaw Nation currently has about 3,500 members and its reservation is located in Kaw City, Oklahoma.

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Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, http://www.kansas.com

Diocese Finds Kentucky students didn't start confrontation

VINGTON, Ky. (AP) _ Investigators hired by a Kentucky diocese have found that Catholic school boys didn't instigate a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial that went viral on social media.

Covington Bishop Roger Foys initially condemned the students' behavior after a video showed a teenage boy face-to-face with a Native American man. Days later, Foys apologized for ``making a statement prematurely.''

The students were in Washington for an anti-abortion rally last month when they encountered a group of black street preachers who were shouting insults at both them and a group of Native Americans. The bishop now says the students ``were placed in a situation that was at once bizarre and even threatening.''

``The immediate world-wide reaction to the initial video led almost everyone to believe that our students had initiated the incident and the perception of those few minutes of video became reality,'' Foys wrote this week in a letter to parents.

Both the Native American man, Nathan Phillips, and the Covington student facing Phillips have said they were attempting to defuse the situation.

The four-page report on the investigation said a group of investigators from a firm called Greater Cincinnati Investigation interviewed 43 students and more than a dozen chaperones who were on the trip to Washington. Investigators reviewed social media videos, tried to contact Phillips and traveled to Michigan to attempt to speak to him, but he was not interviewed.

The videos show Phillips surrounded by students. Many interviewed students told investigators that they felt Phillips was coming into their group to join their own cheers, which were meant to drown out insults from the street preachers, who referred to themselves as the Black Hebrew Israelites. Many students reported that they were confused but did not feel threatened by Phillips, the report said.

``We found no evidence of racist statements to Mr. Phillips or members of his group,'' the report said. ``Some students performed a `tomahawk chop' to the beat of Mr. Phillips' drumming and some joined in Mr. Phillips' chant.''

The investigators also reviewed related videos, including one made the same day in which a young person says, ``It's not rape if you enjoy it.'' The investigators say they concluded that person was not a Covington Catholic student.

The investigators were hired by a law firm that represents the school and the Catholic diocese, the report said.

Oklahoma Governor Taps Chickasaw Nation Official for Cabinet

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has named Chickasaw Nation lawmaker and former state Rep. Lisa Billy as secretary of Native American Affairs.

Billy has served in the Chickasaw Nation Legislature since 2016 and served previously in the tribal Legislature between 1996 and 2002. She served in the Oklahoma House between 2004 and 2016 and held various leadership roles in the chamber, including majority Floor Leader from 2014 to 2016 and vice chair of the House's Republican Caucus from 2006 to 2008.

Billy formed the Oklahoma Legislature's Native America Caucus in 2006 and has been recognized for her work in the Legislature on prison reform policies.

Billy's appointment to the cabinet-level position requires Senate confirmation. She will replace former House Speaker Chris Benge, Native American Affairs secretary under former Gov. Mary Fallin.

Bill to Legalize Casinos in Virginia Advances, Fate Unclear

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Legislation to legalize casinos in Virginia is advancing in the General Assembly, but the odds of passage are still unknown.

A pro-casino bill was approved with bipartisan support Monday by the General Laws and Technology Committee in the state Senate.

The legislation would allow developers to build casinos in Bristol, Danville and Portsmouth if residents approved local referendums. The legislation now also lets the Pamunkey Indian Tribe build casinos in Richmond and Norfolk with local approval.

Supporters of casinos said Monday's vote was a good first step. But hurdles remain.

It's unknown if Republican leaders of the General Assembly will let the measure advance much further. And Gov. Ralph Northam has voiced concerns about casino legalization being rushed through without proper study.

New Mexico to Focus on College Affordability, Financial Aid

ALBUQUERQUE — The former leader of the Taos campus for the University of New Mexico was named Wednesday by Democratic Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham to lead the state's higher education department when she takes office next week.

Kate O'Neill will oversee the state's network of community colleges and public universities. She will be inheriting the agency at a time when many schools around the state are grappling with funding cuts and enrollment declines.

O'Neill most recently served as CEO of the University of New Mexico at Taos, a position she held for years. She started at the campus as an adjunct faculty member in 1994 and worked her way up. During her leadership tenure, she developed a nationally accredited nursing program and increased the campus' budget.

O'Neill and Lujan Grisham said affordability for students will be among the priorities for the new administration. They discussed the importance of the state's lottery-funded scholarship program while acknowledging that it's not currently sustainable because revenue from ticket sales has declined and tuition costs have increased.

O'Neill called the scholarships essential, noting that many students depend on the financial aid and that the program needs to be maintained.

Some things will have to be done differently to make higher education more affordable, Lujan Grisham said, indicating that an all-of-the-above approach is needed. It possibly could be a combination of new revenue sources or eligibility changes. "I'm hoping that with some of the economic ideas that we put before the Legislature and their own ideas that we're going to have a variety of options to sustain a scholarship formula and system that's meaningful to New Mexicans," the incoming governor said.

Lujan Grisham also announced appointments for the departments of transportation, cultural affairs and information technology.

Still pending are decisions on other key agencies that oversee public safety, public education, health and the environment.

Debra Garcia y Griego, the director of the city of Santa Fe Arts Commission, was named as the cultural affairs secretary. During her time working in Santa Fe, she developed the nation's first municipal ordinance addressing the forgery of Native American arts and crafts and led the development of the city's first cultural plan.

Michael Sandoval was appointed as transportation secretary. He has worked for the agency for more than 20 years, most recently overseeing hundreds of contracts, the state's 12 ports of entry and programs including the Rail Runner Express commuter train.

A former state lawmaker, Vincent Martinez was named head of the state's information technology department. He's currently the managing director of cloud and communications at the department. Martinez has a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix.

Delaware Tribe Ends Plans for Heritage Center Near Lawrence

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) _ The Delaware Tribe has abandoned plans to develop an agricultural heritage center northeast of Lawrence.

Chief Chester Brooks said the tribe's council decided the proposed center would not produce enough revenue to cover the estimated $500,000 cost of developing it.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the tribe, based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is now trying to lease the 92-acre site to another agricultural user. The property is just northeast of the Kansas Turnpike's interchange in North Lawrence.

Brooks says the Delaware Tribe would prefer to sell the land.

The tribe bought the property in 2013 with plans to open a casino. The casino plan stalled because most of the site is within the Kansas River flood plain. Brooks says the state also was unwilling to expand gaming to out-of-state tribes.

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Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com

Lakota Nation Invitational Features Voices of Young Poets

RAPID CITY, S.D.  (AP)_Tyra Akers, a junior at Pine Ridge High School, said she's only been writing poems for a year. Her literary hero?

By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with whether an Indian tribe retains control over a vast swath of eastern Oklahoma in a case involving a Native American who was sentenced to death for murder.

Some justices said they fear a ruling for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation could have big consequences for criminal cases, but also tax and other regulatory issues on more than 3 million acres of Creek Nation territory, including most of Tulsa, Oklahoma's second largest city.

The issue is before the high court in the case of Patrick Murphy, who was convicted of killing a fellow tribe member in 1999. A federal appeals court threw out his conviction because it found the state lacked authority to prosecute Murphy. The appeals court ruled that the crime occurred on land assigned to the tribe before Oklahoma became a state and Congress never clearly eliminated the Creek Nation reservation it created in 1866.

Lawyers for the state and Trump administration, supporting Oklahoma, told the justices that the practical effects of ruling for Murphy would be dramatic, after more than 100 years of state control over the area. Violent criminals could go free and the state would lose its ability to tax a chunk of the population, the lawyers said. Other Native American prisoners and defendants in Oklahoma have asked to have their convictions overturned or their cases thrown out as a result

With so much potentially at stake, maybe the court should ``leave well enough alone here,'' and side with Oklahoma, said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that 1.8 million who live in the affected area have built their lives on a long-accepted understanding of local regulations and state law. "What happens to all those people?'' he asked.

Lawyers for Murphy and the Creek Nation said fears of chaos that would result from a ruling for Murphy are overstated. The Creek Nation already has agreements with 40 local governments that allow its police to work collaboratively with other law enforcement agencies, said Riyaz Kanji, representing the tribe.

No one has a greater interest than the tribe ``in law enforcement and security within the Creek reservation,'' Kanji said.

The court's liberal justices seemed generally more sympathetic to the tribe, while the conservatives appeared likely to side with the state. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote a unanimous opinion in 2016 in favor of a different tribe's claim to a reservation, asked no questions, as is his custom.

One potential wrinkle is that Justice Neil Gorsuch stepped aside from the case because he participated in it at an earlier stage when he was a judge on the federal appeals court in Denver. A 4-4 tie would affirm the appellate ruling in favor of Murphy, but leave the larger issue of tribal sovereignty unresolved.

If he wins at the Supreme Court, Murphy could potentially be retried in federal court. But he would not face the death penalty for a crime in which prosecutors said he mutilated the victim and left him to bleed to death on the side of a country road about 80 miles southeast of Tulsa.

A decision in Carpenter v. Murphy, 17-1107, is expected by late spring.

PBS’ KCET and Link TV Announce Series TENDING NATURE

PBS Docuseries 'Native America' Recreates Cultures Pre-1492

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ The story of Native America taught in U.S. public schools usually begins at contact with European explorers. Children then get lessons about Thanksgiving, maybe the Trail of Tears or the 19th century wars over the removal of tribes in the American West. Rarely discussed is life in the Americas before Columbus' 1492 voyage.

A new four_part PBS docuseries entitled ``Native America'' seeks to recreate a world in the Americas generations prior to the arrival of Europeans. Using archaeology, Native American oral traditions, even high_tech 3D renditions, viewers are presented images of busy cities connected by networks that span from the present_day United States to South America.

The docuseries shows how Chaco Canyon in New Mexico became a busy spiritual and commercial center that stood five stories high in the desert sky, centuries before skyscrapers went up in New York.

They also discuss the tunnel under a pyramid in Teotihuacán, Mexico, that revealed an intricate belief system that was also found elsewhere. And outside present_day St. Louis, Missouri, 10,000 people helped erect massive earthwork pyramids into a city now known as Cahokia around the time the real_life Macbeth ruled Scotland.

Series executive producer and director Gary Glassman said the project took more than a year to plan because producers wanted to make sure they had buy_in from Native American communities the documentaries sought to cover. Filmmakers wanted to include animated pieces of sacred art and stories to illustrate the importance of the site and wanted to be sensitive, Glassman said.

``We wanted to give them ownership to their own stories,'' Glassman said. ``It was about building trust.''

That's how producers convinced Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office of the Arizona tribe Hopi, to allow directors to briefly film a group of elders conducting a smoking ceremony at Chaco.

In one episode, Kuwanwisiwma explains the religious significance of the Kiva and how elders used the smoking ceremony to contemplate the power of the universe. ``The bird world, the reptilian world, the animal world, the insect world...they are all part of who we are as Hopi people,'' Kuwanwisiwma tells viewers.

The docuseries then takes viewers to the rock art of the Amazons and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of New York to show how similar spiritual theologies through diverse practices linked people thousands of miles apart from the pyramids of Mississippi to the Andes in present_day Peru.

The first episode of ``Native America'' is scheduled to air on most PBS stations on Tuesday. Other episodes will air on following Tuesdays until November 13.

Episodes will be streamed for free for a limited time after airings.

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Associated Press writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP's race and ethnicity team. Follow Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras

Native American Leader Takes Aim at Cuomo's Statue Plans

NEW YORK (AP) _ The head of the American Indian Law Alliance is taking aim at Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plans to nominate New York City's statue of Christopher Columbus to the National Register of Historic Places.

Betty Lyons said on Tuesday that the 1892 statue represents genocide, enslavement, exploitation of children and land grabs.

She says the Democratic governor is insensitive to the concerns of 100,000 indigenous peoples living in New York state.

Cuomo says many historical figures, including Columbus, did bad things as well as great things and that's ``part of the lesson.''

A city commission appointed to review historical statues decided to keep the Columbus Circle monument, which Italian-American groups view as a source of ethnic pride.

The city is adding markers to contextualize the figures such statues depict.

Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs Director Leaves Job

CORTEZ, Colo. (AP) _ The executive director of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs is leaving the position after 11 years in the job.

The Cortez Journal reports Ernest House Jr. has resigned to take a job with the Keystone Policy Center.

House was the first member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to work as the commission's director, which serves as the liaison between native American tribes and the state.

Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne says House has played a major role in making sure tribal communities have a seat at the table and a strong voice.

House says he will continue to advocate for tribes in his new job as senior policy director with the Keystone Policy Group.

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Information from: Cortez Journal, http://www.cortezjournal.com/

Hopis Asking Feds to Explore Other Options for Power Plant

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. (AP) _ Hopi tribal officials are calling on the federal government to explore other options for the Navajo Generating Station near Page.

Two companies that were negotiating to take over a coal-fired power plant on the Arizona-Utah line ended the effort last week, saying the challenges were too great.

The 2,250-megawatt plant could close at the end of 2019.

That would be a huge blow to the economies of the Navajo and Hopi tribes: The Hopis rely on coal revenue for about 85 percent of their budget and the Navajos 20 percent.

Hopi Vice Chairman Clark Tenakhongva says the U.S. government must either continue to buy power from the generating station or provide the tribe with support necessary to avoid an economic catastrophe. He's asking the government to act without delay.

Group Marks Potawatomi Trail of Death from Indiana to Kansas

By MITCHELL KIRK
Pharos-Tribune

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP) _ This month marks 180 years since over 850 Potawatomi Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homeland in northern Indiana.

Many walked the 660-mile, two-month journey. Over 40 died _ mostly babies, children and elderly.

It's known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death. Every five years since 1988, a group of Potawatomi, historians and other interested persons take a week to travel the trail that starts south of Plymouth, Indiana, and ends in Kansas.

The commemorative caravan recently passed through Logansport, where they visited a marker recognizing part of the trail at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Fulton Street.

In 1838, Indiana Gov. David Wallace appointed Gen. John Tipton of Logansport to lead the removal of Potawatomi from the area, according to information from the Potawatomi Trail of Death Association.

Tipton planned the capture in a trading post on the Tippecanoe River north of Rochester. He rode to Twin Lakes near Plymouth on Aug. 30 to meet with Potawatomi Chief Menominee to inform him of the removal and take him prisoner. Tipton then sent soldiers out in all directions within about a 30-to-50-mile radius to collect Potawatomi.

The march began on Sept. 4, 1838. They went down through Indiana, then across Illinois and Missouri before arriving in what later became Kansas, stopping in what is now known as Osawatomie on Nov. 4. Those who died on the march were buried in unmarked graves along the trail.

The Trail of Death Commemorative Caravan has set out every five years for the past three decades during the third week of September after the annual Trail of Courage Living History Festival in Rochester. Participants start at a Chief Menominee monument south of Plymouth and end at St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park south of Mound City, Kansas, which is south of Osawatomie. The park is named after a French nun who ministered to the Potawatomi upon their arrival.

Fulton County Historian Shirley Willard started the caravan in 1988 after learning that the Potawatomi were marched at gunpoint through Rochester.

``I thought that was pretty terrible and most people didn't know that it had even happened,'' Willard said.

About 35 to 40 people will be making the entire journey this year, Willard said, adding others take part in stretches of the trek along the way.

Janet Pearl of Parma Heights, Ohio, is part of the 2018 caravan. She's participated in several over the decades with her father, who has been a part of all of them. Both are members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Pearl's Potawatomi name is Wichap Gishek, which means Blue Sky.

Pearl's Potawatomi great-great-grandmother was about 10 or 11 when she was forced along the Trail of Death. Her name was Equa-ke-sec, which means Rising Sun. After surviving the ordeal and arriving in Kansas, she was baptized with the name Theresa Living.

Pearl and her father regularly attend Potawatomi functions across the U.S. and Canada.

``It's really important to us to renew our culture connections and stay abreast of everything that's going on,'' she said.

She called the Potawatomi Trail of Death Commemorative Caravan a unique experience. People often come out to greet her and her fellow participants in the various towns along the trail, she went on to recall.

``They show a lot of compassion and concern for what happened to the Potawatomi way back when,'' Pearl said.

She finds it encouraging.

``It's really a positive experience,'' she said. ``It's spiritual too because you just feel so uplifted by this outpouring of concern and caring. People are just really nice about it.''

Pearl said her grandmother taught her father and his siblings not to focus feelings of bitterness toward the Potawatomi Trail of Death. Instead she encouraged them to be forgiving and concentrate on how their ancestor survived and that they were able to come into being because of that survival.

Pearl said much of that forgiving attitude can be credited to St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, who ministered to the Potawatomi after they arrived in what later became Kansas. While Duchesne couldn't speak Potawatomi, Pearl said she showed kindness by example.

``We felt our ancestors were influenced by her spiritual guidance,'' Pearl said.

According to historical information from the Potawatomi Trail of Death Association, Duchesne was a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart and prayed so often that the Potawatomi called her ``She Who Prays Always.''

Duchesne was canonized in 1988, the same year the Potawatomi Trail of Death Commemorative Caravan started. This year also marks two centuries since she came to the U.S. from France.

Pearl said she is looking forward to having several nuns of the Society of the Sacred Heart on the caravan this year.

She also seconded Willard's desire for the caravan to serve an educational purpose.

``What we hope today is that people will learn a lesson from hearing about this event and that it won't happen again,'' she said.

While the Potawatomi Trail of Death occurred 180 years ago, the feelings that spurred it still exist today, Pearl said, offering immigration issues as an example.

``There's a lot going on where people are persecuted and we're just hoping that people will let a little more love come into their life and try to respect everybody and get along with people,'' Pearl said.

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Source: (Logansport) Pharos-Tribune

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Information from: Pharos-Tribune, http://www.pharostribune.com

Tribes Want Feds to Explain Controversial Land Decision

MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) _ The country's largest Native American organization is calling on the Trump administration to explain its decision not to recognize the reservation of a Massachusetts' tribe.

The National Congress of American Indians said Tuesday it ``disagrees strongly'' with the U.S. Department of the Interior's decision to reverse an Obama-era ruling placing land in trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag (MASH'-pee WAHM'-puh-nawg) tribe.

The organization wants the agency to explain what the decision signifies for Indian land policy going forward.

The Interior Department took 321 acres into trust for the Mashpee in 2015, but a federal judge ordered the agency to reconsider the decision after local residents sued.

Bureau of Indian Affairs spokeswoman Nedra Darling declined to comment, citing pending litigation. She confirmed the Mashpee land, for now, remains in trust pending a final court order.

OSU to Start Tribal Finance Certificate Program

By MOLLY M. FLEMING

The Journal Record

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — In the last year, Victor Flores has focused on bringing tribal accounting and finance training inside the state. He organized the Oklahoma Tribal Finance Consortium, which has met twice this year.

But one of the main goals of the consortium will start in November, when Oklahoma State University will hold the Introductory Tribal Finance and Accounting Certificate four-day pilot program, with the full kickoff scheduled for May.

Flores, who is the Absentee Shawnee Tribe’s chief financial officer, told The Journal Record that he plans to take about 15 people from his office to the conference in November. The introductory level is ideal for people who do not have a finance or business background, such as elected officials or directors of different entities within the tribe.

There are intermediate and advanced-level programs being developed as well. The intermediate program will launch in summer 2019, and the advanced level doesn’t have a launch date yet, said Lindsey Kirksey, program director at the OSU Spears School of Business’ Center for Executive and Professional Development.

The center has also developed a tribal leadership certificate program, which can be completed over a two-year period.

The accounting and finance classes will be taught by different industry professionals, such as BKD Managing Director Joel Haaser, based in Tulsa. The University of Oklahoma College of Law is helping to provide legal professionals as well.

Haaser said tribal accounting operations vary from state and local government, so this type of training is needed. Tribes tend to get more federal grants than cities, and that money can be used for housing or even road construction. At the same time, tribes operate for-profit businesses, such as casinos.

“That puts tribes in between a government and a commercial organization, which is really the difference (between tribes and state and local governments),” Haaser said. “It creates a lot of unique accounting challenges.”

Flores said it’s especially important to have these programs in Oklahoma because the tribes’ histories are different than in other states. With the Native Americans being forced to settle here, they’re not on reservations like in other states.

“We’re vastly different (from other states),” he said. “We have our own idiosyncrasies. When (my office) goes to training, we have to tell our employees that what they learned may not apply in Oklahoma. We’re talking apples and oranges. That’s why we’re trying to create our own training.”

The November program has about 10 people enrolled so far, but Center for Executive and Professional Development Director Julie Weathers said she expects that to double. The November class is being offered to tribal members on the advisory board, who are expected to give feedback after the pilot program. The May class is already opened for registration.

The center offers professional development training for several industries, such as energy and municipal governments.

Tribal leaders from Texas and Kansas have been invited to the May conference, Flores said. Since there are four tribes in Kansas and three nations in Texas, they often send representatives to events in Oklahoma.

Weathers said the center is excited to work with the Oklahoma Tribal Finance Consortium on the training.

“As a land-grant university, we feel it’s our duty to offer this type of education in business, so we’re certainly glad to be a part of it,” she said. “Kudos to the tribes for coming together and voicing their concerns to all work together and offer a solution to the challenges in the accounting and finance area.”

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Information from: The Journal Record, http://www.journalrecord.com

Archaeologists Dig Native American Fort Found in Connecticut

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press

NORWALK, Conn. (AP) _ Archaeologists are marveling at the site of a 1600s Native American fort in Connecticut that was uncovered as part of a rail bridge replacement project.

About 20 of them gathered for a tour of the site in Norwalk on Tuesday. They said it is one of the most important finds in the Northeast in terms of Native American history and shines some light on Native Americans' first dealings with Europeans.

Not only did experts find the remains of the 17th century fort, they discovered some artifacts including arrow and spear tips that date back an estimated 3,000 years, indicating Native Americans were active at the site for generations. No evidence of human remains has been found.

``It's one of the earliest historic period sites that has been found so far,'' said archaeologist Ross Harper. ``And it's very rich in artifacts including Native American pottery and stone tools, as well as trade goods such as glass beads, wampum, hatchets and knives. It's definitely one of the more important sites, not just for the area but New England in general.''

Harper said it appears the Norwalk Indians, a tribe that historians know little about, had a fort at the site from about 1615 to 1640 and used it to trade goods with early Dutch settlers. The site is on a small sliver of land next to railroad tracks that carry Amtrak and Metro-North commuter trains. A 19th century history of Norwalk mentions an old Native American fort, and a road near the site is still named Fort Point Street.

The site was found during preliminary archaeological surveys ordered as part of the state's upcoming replacement of the 122-year-old Walk Bridge, which spans the Norwalk River and swings open to allow boats to pass. The bridge has gotten stuck in the open position several times and caused massive rail service delays. Construction is set to begin next year.

Harper works for Archaeological & Historical Services Inc., a Storrs, Connecticut-based firm that is painstakingly removing artifacts from the site and taking them back to its offices for cleaning and further study. Some of the artifacts may be headed to museums. The firm will write a lengthy report on the artifacts and its findings.

The firm, which plans to completely remove all artifacts from the site by the fall, has been working in consultation with the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans _ the two federally recognized tribes in the state. There is no known opposition to the removal of the artifacts.

The two tribes issued a joint statement on the project this week.

``Any time a Native American site or artifacts are found, the utmost sensitivity should be used,'' the statement said. ``While the Walk Bridge construction site in Norwalk may or may not have direct ties to the Mohegan or Mashantucket Pequot tribes ... we take the matter seriously. In fact, Tribal Preservation Officers from both tribes have actively been working with people on the ground there for over a year to offer their expertise.''

The site is one of only about a half-dozen in the Northeast known to have contained evidence of Native Americans' first encounters with Europeans, and most of the sites have been destroyed or removed during development of the lands, Harper said.

The rare find is what drew archaeologists from the region to Tuesday's tour in oppressively hot weather.

``For me, it's like a gold mine,'' said Kevin McBride, an anthropology professor at the University of Connecticut and research director at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum. ``I think the reason the site is so important is that there's a lot of material here. It's definitely one of the most important sites we've found in a long time.''

McBride said items found at the site provide some insight into Native Americans' first interactions with Europeans and show how they incorporated European products such as iron tools and knives into their culture.

SC County Evaluating Archaeological Site Under Construction

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ A project to build a parking lot alongside South Carolina's Saluda River may have wrecked an archaeological site where Native Americans lived for thousands of years.

The State reports that arrowheads and other artifacts were found in June after bulldozers went to work at the Saluda Riverwalk project, which Richland County is developing in conjunction with the Riverbanks Zoo.

State archaeologist Jonathan Leader says the site's was considered to be too ``scattered'' to be officially protected. He planned to witness a private archaeology firm's inspection of the damage on Wednesday.

Alexis Norris of Columbia collected boxes of arrowheads and other artifacts during construction, and has agreed give them to the zoo.

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Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com

New Mexico City near Navajo Nation Sees Tourism Jump

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) _ A western New Mexico city surrounded by Navajo culture and Native arts and crafts is experiencing a tourism boom not seen since the 1970s.

The Gallup Independent reports officials in Gallup, New Mexico, says the city has seen an increase of around 7 to 10 percent in visitors thanks to foreign tourists.

Officials believe a favorable exchange rate and increased interest by the media in anything to do with Native culture and crafts led to millions of foreigners vacationing in the United States each summer.

Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce director Bill Lee says the area is seeing visitors from Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and Belgium.

Gallup is located on the edge of the Navajo Nation and sits along the historic Route 66.

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Information from: Gallup Independent, http://www.gallupindependent.com

Montana Officials Work to Boost Tribal Tourism

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) _ Montana officials are working to inform tourists of the state's Native American tribal history.

The Missoulian reports the Montana Office of Tourism and Development and the state Tribal Economic Development Commission are pushing to promote tourism to the state's reservations and tribal nations.

Carla Lott, the state tribal tourism officer and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, and Heather Sobrepena, a member of the Crow Tribe and the state's Indian Country economic development program manager, are leading the charge.

Lott says the goal is for tribal tourism to benefit underserved, rural areas of the state while promoting a greater understanding of modern Native American culture.

In 2017, the state conducted a national survey of potential visitors and found that 82 percent of leisure travelers express interest in exploring sites related to Native American culture.

Supreme Court Sends Land Dispute back to Wash. Top Court

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Supreme Court is asking Washington state's highest court to take another look at a land dispute between a Native American tribe and its neighbors.

The dispute concerns a roughly 40-acre plot of land purchased by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe in 2013. A land survey convinced the tribe that a barbed wire fence between its land and land owned by Sharline and Ray Lundgren is in the wrong place. The tribe wanted to tear down the fence and build a new one in the right spot. The Lundgrens sued, but the tribe argued it was immune from suit.

The Washington Supreme Court sided with the Lundgrens. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday the court's reasoning was flawed and asked the court to take another look at the dispute.

Illinois group needs $500K to restore Black Hawk statue

OREGON, Ill. (AP) _ A group needs to raise $500,000 to complete the restoration of a century-old landmark in northern Illinois known as the Black Hawk statue.

Restoration efforts began five years ago on the 48-foot-tall, 270-ton landmark in Lowden State Park, but the project stalled in 2016 amid a lack of state funding and a dispute on the restoration team, the Rockford Register Star reported . The statue's been covered in black protective sheets since work stopped.

``People were bewildered when it came to a screeching halt. People were confused about what happened and what will happen,'' said Jan Stilson, a historian who's leading the 20 volunteers on the Black Hawk Team.

Lorado Taft sculpted the statue to pay homage to the region's American Indians. The work, which is also known as the Eternal Indian Statue or the Rock River Colossus, was dedicated in 1911 in the Ogle County seat of Oregon.

The Black Hawk Team has gathered volunteers to begin fundraising efforts to continue the restoration project. That team is part of Oregon Together, an organization that aims to improve quality of life in the area.

Work on the statue could resume this summer if fundraising goes well. That work would continue through October and then pause for the winter.

The restoration project will include recreating the statue's original mix of concrete, cement and red granite, Stilson said. The statue will still require annual upkeep.

Money raised for the effort would be monitored by the Illinois Conservation Fund, a nonprofit that supports programs by the Department of Natural Resources.

Stilson said she hopes the state will approve a $350,000 grant for the state Department of Natural Resources for restoration. The statue sits on property owned by the state agency.

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Information from: Rockford Register Star, http://www.rrstar.com

Study: Decline of salmon also impacts salmon genetics

By CHAD SOKOL
The Spokesman-Review

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) _ As Chinook salmon populations declined across the Pacific Northwest, scientists suspected the fish lost a great deal of genetic diversity, too.

But until recently, the theory hadn't been tested. Ancient salmon bones are hard to come by, and it's even harder to extract workable DNA samples from them.

``Science finally caught up with what we already believed and allowed us to test it,'' said Bobbi Johnson, the lead author of a new Washington State University study that raises concerns about the Chinooks' ability to respond to environmental change.

Starting in 2010, Johnson's team collected hundreds of salmon bones from Native American archaeological sites some more than twice as old as the first Egyptian pyramid and compared their DNA with modern samples from the same areas.

The researchers found that Chinook in the upper Columbia River, where the Grand Coulee Dam cut off about 40 percent of the species' historic habitat, have lost about two-thirds of their genetic diversity. In the Snake River, they lost about one-third, a difference that surprised the researchers.

That basically supports the longstanding assumption that the Chinook gene pool was much larger before European settlement in the Pacific Northwest.

The researchers also analyzed ancient samples from Spokane River Chinook, finding that population had a large gene pool and at least six lineages. They had no modern samples for comparison. The Little Falls Dam has blocked salmon migration on the Spokane River since it was built in 1911.

Genetic variation is critical for the survival of any species. It would enable salmon to pass on needed traits if disease strikes, water levels drop or temperatures rise.

``You want there to be differences between individuals, so that when change does happen, there's room for adaptation and natural selection,'' Johnson said.

In a population with low genetic diversity, she added, ``If something comes in that's bad for anybody, that's bad for everybody.''

The study, part of Johnson's doctoral dissertation, was published this week in the journal PLOS One. Her co-authors are Gary Thorgaard, a WSU emeritus professor of biological sciences, and Brian Kemp, a former WSU molecular anthropologist now at the University of Oklahoma.

They wrote that Chinook research and management practices have mostly focused on ``the four H's'' habitat, harvest, hatcheries and hydropower.

Johnson said they have now considered a fifth H, history. The study reflects millennia of dramatic changes to the Chinook's habitat, both natural and man-made, from glacial floods to commercial fishing to the construction of giant dams.

The ancient bone samples, Johnson said, ``just track that story so nicely.''

The 346 vertebrae samples were part of collections held by the Spokane and Colville tribes and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, among other entities. Johnson said many of the bones were retrieved from ancient Native American garbage heaps, called middens, in archaeological digs beginning in the 1940s.

Some of the samples dated back about 7,000 years. Many were about 3,000 years old. The youngest ancient sample came from a Chinook caught 150 years ago near Fort Colville.

Johnson said the samples were immensely challenging to work with, and she credited Kemp, an ancient DNA expert, for overseeing the extraction process. Researchers wore face masks, hairnets and double sets of latex gloves to avoid contamination, and they were able to tease out sequences of mitochondrial DNA, the kind passed down only from mothers.

Johnson said the Colville Tribe ``definitely took a risk'' by providing the first samples for preliminary testing. Samples are largely destroyed in the process, and there's no guarantee it will yield useful data.

``They gave us samples before we could prove that we could do something like this,'' Johnson said.

Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest have caught Chinook for more than 9,000 years, often near waterfalls and other natural bottlenecks along the region's river network.

Europeans introduced commercial fisheries after arriving in the 1860s, and, from 1889 to 1922, they harvested more than 24 million pounds of Chinook each year, according to the researchers. That fell to about 15 million pounds a year by the late 1950s, and annual harvests now stand at less than 5 million pounds.

The first dam on the main stem of the Columbia, the Rock Island Dam in Chelan County, was built in 1933. The Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams were built in 1941, blocking ocean-going salmon from more than 1,000 miles of the upper part of the river. Dams on the Snake came more than a decade later.

Today there are more than 400 dams in the Columbia River Basin, blocking more than half of the river system's spawning habitat, according to the researchers.

Johnson said her team can't conclude if commercial fishing or the dams are to blame for the declining genetic diversity of the Chinook. To make that connection, the researchers would need samples from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The researchers did acquire some tissue samples from that period from the University of Washington, but they were stored in formaldehyde, Johnson said.

``Formaldehyde is like cement for DNA,'' she said. ``You just can't get DNA after that.''

Johnson said her team's findings have few applications on their own, but she hopes they will inform future discussions about Chinook conservation as the effects of climate change come into focus.

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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com

Thousands of Native American artifacts found at Camden sites

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) _ Archaeologists have found nearly 10,000 Native American artifacts at two sites in Camden, New Jersey.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the items include a rectangular ceramic vessel, tool fragments, arrowheads, and hearthstones as well as animal bones and remains of plants likely used for food, medicine and fuel.

RGA Inc. conducted the excavations for the Holtec International campus project at the former New York Shipbuilding Co. site.

Senior archaeologist Ilene Grossman-Bailey says the intact remains of Native American activity on the site can help researchers understand the lives of people who camped along the Delaware River as early as 4,000 years ago.

Some of the objects will be donated to the Camden County Historical Society and may be displayed in the museum. Executive director Jack O'Byrne calls the discovery ``mind-blowing.''

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Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.inquirer.com