By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press
Junelle Lewis was on the hunt for a reprieve from Seattle-area gas prices driven high by the Iran war when an app on her phone gave her the answer: the Tulalip Reservation north of the city, almost half an hour from her home.
She didn't hesitate.
"I purposely drove here just for the gas," Lewis said while filling up her Chevrolet Suburban at the Tulalip Market this week for $4.84 a gallon (3.8 liters) — about 75 cents less than prices near home. "Gas is ridiculous. But I have found, honestly, over the years, this gas station specifically is cheaper than a lot around here. Probably the cheapest."
Lewis isn't the only driver who has discovered that some of cheapest fuel can be found on Native American reservations.
Especially in California, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma and Washington state — places with dozens of tribally owned stations, including some in busy travel corridors — tribes exempt from state fuel taxes can sell for much less than competing stations nearby.
Gas prices push the drive to find bargains
Apps such as Gas Buddy make finding the cheapest gas easier than ever.
Nationwide, gasoline prices have risen by well over $1 since the Iran war began Feb. 28, reaching an average of $4.15 a gallon, according to AAA.
Prices have been higher, topping $5 during the summer of 2022, but economists believe they will continue heading up and contribute to inflation in the weeks of ahead as geopolitical tension persists.
Deals are to be found, though, at many of the almost 500 tribally owned convenience stores with gas stations across the U.S.
Fifty-five are in California. At the Chukchansi Crossing Fuel Station & Travel Center between Fresno and Yosemite National Park, the $5.09 gas was 60 cents less than nearby stations.
New Mexico resident Jamie Cross usually finds savings on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, where gas was as low as $3.79 this week.
"I hope we don't go any higher," Cross said Thursday.
In eastern New York state, on Cattauragus Indian Territory between Buffalo and Erie, Pennsylvania, the cheapest gas was about $3.65 at more than half a dozen stations — 50 cents less than in towns nearby.
Tribal lands find a fuel tax escape
So how do tribes do it? Two words: Tax exemptions.
Generally tribes must pay the federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.3 cents per gallon for diesel, and pass that cost along to drivers. State fuel taxes are a different matter.
For well over a century, U.S. courts have found that states don't have authority to collect taxes from Native Americans on their land, said Dan Lewerenz, a University of North Dakota assistant law professor who specializes in Native American law.
"The Supreme Court consistently held to this view and it's one of the most enduring principles in federal Indian law," Lewerenz said.
Federally recognized Native American tribes are in 35 states with state gasoline taxes ranging from 9 cents per gallon in Alaska to 71 cents in California.
From there, things get complicated based on where the fuel is taxed — at fuel terminals, say, or when distributors buy or sell fuel — and depending on various agreements between states and tribes.
Court rulings come into play. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that off-reservation distributors in Kansas may charge state tax on sales to tribes for on-reservation fuel sales. But in 2019, the Supreme Court held that an 1855 treaty between the U.S. and the Yakama Nation that ensured the free travel of tribal members on roads with their goods prohibited state fuel taxes on tribal lands in Washington state.
"This is a little bit different than the principle that Indians aren't taxed within Indian Country because this particular treaty reserved certain off-reservation rights for the Indians as well," Lewerenz said.
Gas is just one way stores make money
Convenience store gas sales are not as profitable as bringing people inside from the pumps.
Selling snacks adds profit. But tribal businesses are increasingly offering groceries in what otherwise would be "food deserts" far from grocery stores.
"Sometimes these gas stations and convenience stores are the nearest, best place to purchase affordable food or household supplies," said Matthew Klas, with the Minneapolis-based consultant Klas Robinson Q.E.D.
Klas does market research and consults for tribal businesses and tracks the 245 tribes nationwide that, as of 2025, operated 496 convenience stores with gas stations.
Oklahoma, California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York have the most. Some tribes, including the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and Oneida Indian Nation in New York, have their own store chains.
Drive-through smoke shops, car washes and truck stop amenities also bring in revenue. Then there are the casinos: 205 tribally owned gas stations are located at or near casinos.
Some tribal casinos are resorts with gas stations. Some tribal gas stations are casinos of a sort called "gasinos," which only have a small number of gambling machines.
Tribally owned businesses are a major revenue generator for Native American reservations. On the Seattle area's Tulalip Reservation, rising gas sales were being reinvested in the community, helping to cover the cost of roads, police, health care, education, housing and other needs, Tulalip Tribes Federal Corporation CEO Tanya Burns said in a statement.
"Like any government, we provide critical services to our people," Burns said.
It's not just about savings
"It's terrible," Todd Hall of Paden, Oklahoma, said of diesel prices as he spent about $90 to fill up his tow truck at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation gas station about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Oklahoma City.
But, he added: "They're cheaper here than anywhere else."
Hall paid $4.57 per gallon for diesel, and said the price is over $5 at many locations in the area.
Mark Foster said he saves about $5 a week buying fuel at the tribally owned gas station. But he's a faithful customer because the tribe is a good community partner, he said.
"I like the way the tribe operates," he said. "And the price is good too."
At the Tulalip Market north of Seattle, Jared Blankenship was griping not about prices but that he was having to pay for gas at all.
"Yeah, well, my electric car just got totaled," Blankenship said. "So this sucks. This is new. It's either Costco or looking wherever's cheap, like the rez. So here we are."
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Lindsey Wasson in Seattle; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Savannah Peters in Edgewood, New Mexico, contributed.
Reserves of Critical Minerals Driving Mining Interest in South Dakota
By BART PFANKUCH/South Dakota News Watch South Dakota News Watch
As worldwide demand for rare earth elements and other similar minerals rises – as do tensions among the United States, China and now Greenland – South Dakota is experiencing its own debate over its reserves of what are known as "critical minerals."
Rare earth elements are naturally occurring metallic materials found in sub-surface rocks that have been found to possess unique properties that make them highly valuable and highly useful, particularly in a variety of new technologies.
While 17 elements are classified as rare earth, the U.S. government has identified 50 minerals overall that are labeled critical minerals, which also includes a number of other minerals that are seen as essential to economic and military strength of the nation.
Of those 50 critical minerals, South Dakota is known to host reserves of 15 of them, none of which are rare earth minerals but which contain some of the same properties that make them valuable for industry and technology.
Critical minerals present in South Dakota
Critical minerals in the state include antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, cesium, fluorspar, graphite, lithium, manganese, niobium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, tungsten and vanadium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Those minerals are located in the western South Dakota counties of Custer, Fall River, Harding, Lawrence, Pennington and Perkins as well as the central counties of Buffalo and Lyman, according to a 2024 analysis by the state Legislative Research Council.
Given its long history of mining, and based on new studies, the Black Hills region is well-known as a place where usable critical minerals are present, which is attracting exploratory mining, said Christopher Pellowski, a geology professor at South Dakota Mines in Rapid City.
Rare earth elements and other critical minerals can be abundant but are difficult to extract because they tend to lie within other minerals that must be mined and separated through chemical processes.
One example, Pellowski said, is that the common Black Hills igneous rock pegmatite can hold deposits of lithium. Pellowski said he doesn't expect large-scale mining to occur in the Black Hills unless and until companies can find substantial levels of critical minerals that can be monetized.
"Mining is important and it's a real economic driver. ... But I don't see us at a point where we're ready for a large commitment (of money and resources)," he said. "They're just going to have to do this in steps. And what they're doing now is the homework to get their heads wrapped around what's there."
Pellowski said modern mining can also be done with far less intrusion on the land than in the past when open pit and strip mines were the norm.
"Mining today is not the mining of 100 years ago," he said. "It's new and improved."
Exploration underway in Black Hills
According to the LRC report and other state records, mining and exploration efforts are underway at several sites in South Dakota, including for graphite, lithium, niobium, tantalum, tellurium, tin and tungsten.
Exploration for lithium has seen the most activity in pegmatite ore near Hill City and Keystone. South Dakota was mined for lithium in the mid-20th century for use in glass, ceramics and grease. But the target products have shifted as technology has evolved.
Lithium is increasingly in demand for use in lithium-ion batteries in handheld technologies such as smartphones and laptops as well as in electric vehicles and for energy storage from wind farms and other electricity sources.
Four lithium exploration projects are now underway in the central Black Hills, the LRC report said.
A licensed pegmatite mine in Lawrence County is seeking ore that could contain critical minerals to include niobium, tantalum, tellurium, tin and tungsten, according to the LRC report. Tantalum, tin and tungsten are also being sought in a separate exploration effort in the central Black Hills, the report said.
The most recent critical mineral exploration is being undertaken by Rapid City-based Pete Lien and Sons, which hopes to find reserves of graphite by drilling 18 holes roughly 1,000 feet deep on federal lands about 3 miles southwest of Rochford, according to U.S. Forest Service documents.
Graphite can be used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, and in lubricants, brake linings, pencils and other products.
South Dakota lawmakers have made recent efforts to further regulate lithium mining, though none has been successful.
In 2023 and 2024, bills were filed to reclassify lithium and add taxation to its production. In 2025, lawmakers tried but failed to increase permitting requirements on lithium mines.
Under current law, lithium mines can be classified the same as sand and gravel mines, which require far less public notification and input and do not require environmental and cultural impact studies that are mandatory for hard rock mines.
That same debate is raging now in Piedmont, where a proposed limestone mine fell under the sand and gravel permit laws and therefore required no notification of the city or its residents that a mine is coming.
Environmental concerns and opposition
A handful of Native American and environmental groups have taken strong stances against further mining in the Black Hills, be it for critical minerals or for uranium at proposed mine sites in the southern hills region.
Native American tribal officials and the NDN Collective political organization have registered opposition to uranium and lithium mining and the efforts by Pete Lien and Sons to hunt for graphite.
The proposed Lien mine site is very close to Pe' Sla, a Lakota ceremonial site in the central hills. NDN has sponsored billboards in the Rapid City area urging the company to end its mining efforts.
The potential negative effects of mining on drinking water supplies is a major concern of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, which opposes further mining of any sort in the region.
Lilias Jarding, executive director of the alliance, said more than 250,000 acres of the Black Hills are already under active federal mining claims and can therefore be mined almost at any time.
"It's an issue of both quantity and quality of water," Jarding told News Watch. "We're in a semi-arid area and mining uses huge quantities of water and makes the quality of the water worse."
Any type of mining can be destructive to the Black Hills, she said.
"Wildlife is displaced and people can be displaced," she said. "An open-pit mine destroys the landscape and contributes to global warming because mining creates 10% of the total carbon emissions worldwide."
Jobs and revenue in eastern Wyoming
While direct comparisons to South Dakota aren't suitable – because the state so far isn't known to have rare earth elements – a project underway in eastern Wyoming shows the potential interest and investment associated with discovery of a strong reserve of a highly valuable material.
With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Wyoming and private investors, the firm Rare Element Resources has invested $170 million into a project to extract and separate rare earth minerals from rocks found in the Black Hills just west of the South Dakota border.
The company has spent $100 million and is seeking final federal permitting to mine rocks from the Bear Lodge region of northeast Wyoming that it believes contain an "incredibly rich deposit" of NdPr oxide (Neodymium-Praseodymium oxide). The mineral is a key component of high-strength permanent magnets.
The company has obtained a 1,000-pound sample of rock from the Bear Lodge area that it will process soon to confirm its predictions, Paul Bonifas, RER director of business development, told News Watch.
To separate the NdPr oxide, RER has built a $70 million demonstration plant in Upton, Wyoming, where more than 20 full-time employees have been hired to process the minerals.
The mineral NdPr oxide is used in magnets that are part of a wide range of consumer and military machines and products, including electric vehicles, robotics, electricity turbines, computers and medical devices such as MRI machines.
"It's no secret that China controls roughly 90% of rare earth processing, separation and production," Bonifas said. "Because all of these things are essential to national defense, it is absolutely a national security imperative that we domesticate the rare earth supply chain."
As proof of concept, and evidence of the high value of rare earth element and critical minerals mining, Bonifas pointed out that RER's market value in January 2026 was nearly $440 million.
"This is much bigger than the Black Hills and just trying to get these projects going," he said. "As ridiculous as it sounds, this is Upton and Sundance, Wyoming, versus Beijing."
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This story was originally published by South Dakota News Watch and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Minnesota Native Groups Expand Efforts to Protect Unhoused Women
By SHUBHANJANA DAS/Sahan Journal Sahan Journal
This summer, Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center opened a 24-unit Permanent Supportive Housing community on their property in the East Phillips and Ventura Village neighborhood of Minneapolis. Named Oshki-Gakeyaa, which means "New Way" in Ojibwe, its newly renovated apartments were instantly occupied by unhoused Native individuals or families.
Twenty of those units are for high-priority individuals as well as those experiencing long-term homelessness, while four units are reserved for people with disabilities. There is now a waitlist for the apartments, a sign of the deep and persistent demand for housing, especially as temperatures drop and tents reappear in the heart of Minneapolis' Native community. Currently, a majority of these units are occupied by Native women.
This is the latest effort from the Native community to combat the disproportionate number of individuals and families from its community who are experiencing homelessness.
Minneapolis has been confronting an ongoing homelessness crisis, and Native Americans are overrepresented in the homeless population, despite making just 2% of the state's population. Native women are especially vulnerable, and can face additional risks of being targeted if they are unhoused.
Homelessness and safety concerns of Native women have been two of the top concerns Ruth Buffalo has had to address this year at MIWRC, a nonprofit that offers holistic services to Native women and families that are rooted in American Indian traditions.
Buffalo said in early October, a group of three men and one woman from Oklahoma attempted to traffic Native women from the MIWRC grounds in the pretext of offering addiction treatment and shelter in San Francisco. MIWRC helped the victims report the incident to the Minneapolis Police Department.
This recent incident is only one of the many instances of unhoused Native women being accosted or harmed in some capacity, Buffalo said.
"For a number of reasons, our Native women are more susceptible to being unsheltered, whether (because) they were tricked into believing they were getting in a relationship with someone, or fell into active addiction and are stuck there," she said.
Native Americans are 30 times more likely than white Minnesotans to experience homelessness. In 2023, they made up 20% of the state's homeless population, according to a Wilder report, a disparity that was even more pronounced in the Twin Cities metro area. The report also found that 44% Native adults have been attacked or assaulted while homeless, compared to 33% of non-Native adults.
For Native American women, these disparities are even higher.
The Urban Indian Health Institute placed Minnesota among the top 10 U.S. states reporting the highest number of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls.
While specific, up-to-date comparative statistics are limited, existing research strongly indicates that Native women in Minnesota face disproportionately high risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking compared to their share of the population.
Allison Haro was homeless for over 10 years, living in encampments across the Twin Cities. "I was in survival mode," she said. "Moving from place to place, you know, experiencing a lot of trauma. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get my next meal, or how I would stay warm through the winters, just trying to live for the next day." During that time, Haro said she regularly saw people trying to prey on Native women and traffic them.
"There would be these random cars; they would try to pick up women in our community by offering them substances, a place to stay, or offering them food," she said. "A lot of these traffickers know that a lot of these women who are in the streets and who are homeless, they know that they're vulnerable, so they're going to take every chance they get to try to pick up our women, especially our younger women."
Now, she works at MIWRC as a sexual assault advocate. She said she wants to use her lived experience to offer Native women the space to speak up, one she didn't have when she was homeless. "Our women, we always get put on the back burner," said Haro. "Because we get treated so differently that we don't get to express or even talk about how we're feeling or what we're going through."
The high rate of assault that Native women experience is not treated as a crisis, said Travis Earth-Werner, CEO at the American Indian Community Development Corp, which offers sober and multifamily housing, along with a shelter and a drop-in center for unhoused community members. It's "an afterthought," he said.
Perpetrators feel a sense of immunity and victims go unacknowledged. "And when that's the case, individuals feel like they can get away with so much more, and it's an escalating behavior, which often goes to further violence," he said.
A policy brief from the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center says that Indigenous survivors of violence face "unique intersection of housing instability and homelessness and domestic and sexual violence."
Many Native American women experiencing homelessness become victims of violence and exploitation before and during their time without housing. A 2020 study by multiple Native organizations stated that 98% of the women interviewed that had been prostituted and sex trafficked were either currently experiencing or had experienced homelessness. Over half the Native women experiencing homelessness said that they stayed in an abusive situation because they had no other housing options, the same Wilder report found.
These numbers confirm a persistent crisis, both in Minnesota and nationally: that violence, in its many shapes and forms, against Native women is extremely common, and homelessness is often both a cause and effect of that.
"(Homelessness) creates a perfect storm for missing and murdered women," said Guadalupe Lopez, director of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office. "This is something that we have to keep within our scope at all times and within this office, because we know that that is a high indicator that that is where harm is caused."
"It's a huge risk factor in not only being sexually exploited and used in trafficking, but also going missing or being murdered," she said.
Nicole Matthews, CEO at the Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition said that homelessness is "a huge risk factor" and "critical" to the work that MIWSAC does in addressing sexual violence and sex trafficking of Native women.
'Enmeshed in intergenerational trauma'
For the Native community, homelessness and violence are rooted in a long history of discrimination and unjust policies that produced this heightened vulnerability.
"We often talk about colonization as if it happened, you know, hundreds of years ago, and it's kind of over now, and so everything is fine, but the impact is still very relevant today," said Matthews.
Decades of federal policy that deliberately disrupted Native communities, through removal from their land, forced assimilation through boarding schools, relocation from reservations to cities, and even the forced sterilization of Native women, still reverberates today.
Amy Arndt was raised by a mother who was trafficked and raised in 16 different white foster homes. When she found herself in south Minneapolis surrounded by the Native community, she was around people grappling with addiction and became addicted herself. Arndt's mother was raised by grandparents who were forced to go to American boarding schools.
"We're still enmeshed in this intergenerational trauma," said Arndt. "They came out (of boarding schools and foster homes). They couldn't handle it, they didn't feel like they belonged to the family anymore. There's sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional, mental abuse … They had so much trauma that they self-medicated." This generational as well as historical trauma of the Native community causes a breakdown of family units, separating people from their relatives, Arndt said. "Our youth are so incredibly vulnerable."
Now, as the director of Youth and Family Services at Ain Dah Yung Center, which offers shelter and housing for Native youth from ages 5 to 24, Arndt's work is informed by her lived experiences. She said that over half the residents across its shelters are female presenting.
Culturally aware interventions
Apart from poverty, income disparity and lack of affordable housing, Native leaders in the community also point to ongoing systemic racism, discrimination, and institutional apathy as factors that have led to Native women developing deep-seated mistrust in non-Native governing bodies.
Native leaders in the community think a systemic change is required to address this issue at its roots: from culturally aware interventions to coordinated response systems.
Earth-Werner said that for social systems to respond better to unhoused Native women's concerns, there needs to be accountability by identifying and punishing perpetrators of violence against Native women. He also stressed the importance of building a long-term approach through helping unhoused Native women develop skills, coping mechanisms and offering dedicated housing as they rebuild their lives.
And that needs to be a consolidated effort, which is missing, according to Lopez, of the state's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office.
"The services don't always talk to each other," she said. "There's big, huge cracks within the ways that systems might work or not work together. We don't ask that we don't always make a space and clear sacred, special space for the most impacted, and really listen and say, 'What can we do?'"
Ain Dah Yung offers an example of what traditionally rooted interventions could look like. From sweat lodges to traditional healing and medicine, Arndt said that it helps bring the community together with "support and unconditional love."
"We're seeing increasing homelessness and an increase in the violence and exploitation," said Matthews. "And sometimes I wonder, is it that we're seeing more violence, or is it that we're paying more attention? And I'm not sure. Maybe it's both."
Even as MIWRC supports the women living in Oshki-Gakeyaa through recovery, Buffalo says "it is only the beginning."
"There's a huge transition period that takes place and additional support is needed to assist their solid road to recovery and building a stronger path forward," she said.
New Tribal National Park in North Dakota Aims to Preserve Rugged and Scenic Landscape
By JACK DURA Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A new tribal national park in North Dakota's rugged Badlands is opening a little-seen area of the dramatic landscape to hikers and other outdoors enthusiasts, part of a Native American tribe's efforts to preserve the land and encourage recreation.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation established Three Affiliated Tribes National Park with the purchase of 2,100 acres (850 hectares) of a former ranch adjacent to the Fort Berthold Reservation's boundaries on the south side of the Little Missouri River.
The area was in the tribe's original treaty lands but a government allotment act later reduced the reservation's size, said Mary Fredericks, director of the tribe’s Parks and Reserve Program. The reservation's boundaries have expanded to include the park.
Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said the goal is to establish a park for cultural and recreational purposes such as canoeing, kayaking and viewing wildlife.
“It's part of our history, our lands, very significant to us, the whole area,” Fox said. “This is just another strong move to reacquire some of our lands and then do something very effective with it, so to speak” to aid tourism and the economy through recreation.
Park officials are being careful with how they plan and develop the park to be thoughtful about impacts on the landscape.
“This place will be here in perpetuity and it will be better when we are done than it was when we got it, and that’s what we’re pushing for, that’s where we’re headed,” Park Superintendent Ethan White Calfe said.
North Dakota's Badlands — the name denotes the difficult terrain — comprise a stark, erosive, colorful landscape with dramatic shapes, petrified wood and ancient fossils. The area draws hikers, campers, hunters, bicyclists and other outdoors enthusiasts.
The park, which held a soft opening in September, is open only to foot traffic by a free permit online. Park officials require visitors to register their plans and hikers must park at a grass lot. By the end of the summer, organizers hope to have 10 miles (16 kilometers) of trails finished, Fredericks said.
Plans to build a visitor center and campground are in the works. Park officials also intend to work on native prairie and soil restoration in the erosive environment where some native plants that thrive in the area have been pushed out by invasive species, White Calfe said.
“We're looking at it as how do we help this area look like it did 300 years ago? How do we help this area heal to where it is in a lot of more of a state of equilibrium,” White Calfe said.
It's a beautiful and picturesque but deceptive and steep landscape, Fredericks said.
The park is bisected by a state highway that drops from a flat into a rugged river bottom. People can see parts of the park while driving, but not its interior, she said.
Eventually, the park could be a gateway for visitors to the reservation, Fredericks said. Outdoor recreation is available at Lake Sakakawea, which straddles the vast reservation, and nearby at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Maah Daah Hey Trail.
The MHA Nation benefits from oil development on its reservation, which helped the tribe to afford the land for the park, Fredericks said.
“But in that we have to be careful and preserve and conserve,” she said. “I'm very, very proud of our tribal council for having the foresight to buy this land with the intent of making it into a national park ... because we don't know what's going to happen 50 years from now and what our landscape is going to look like, but we can preserve this part of it.”
The park neighbors Little Missouri State Park, which draws horseback riders to its 40 miles (64 kilometers) of trails in the Badlands.
The rugged landscape “kind of has that almost spiritual feel to it. It's peaceful,” state Parks and Recreation Department Director Cody Schulz said.
State park officials have worked with the tribe for about two years on its plans and partnering together, such as connecting trail systems, Schulz said. Tribal park officials are collaborating with anyone willing, Fredericks said.
White Calfe said the park is an opportunity “to tell our own story, our own narrative from our own perspective in a place like this. That's pretty valuable.”
Montana Budget Includes New Investments in Tribal Colleges, Repatriation
By NORA MABIE/Montana Free Press
Gov. Greg Gianforte last week finalized Montana’s two-year budget, which contains several new investments for Indian Country, including a historic increase in funding for tribal colleges and money devoted to repatriation efforts.
Though Gianforte made several vetoes in the last few weeks that trimmed hundreds of millions in spending approved by lawmakers, the money that will help fund priorities set by the Legislature’s American Indian Caucus made it through the session that adjourned in April and survived the governor’s scrutiny.
Tribal Colleges
Montana is the only state in the nation where every reservation is home to a tribal college.
Tribal colleges, which together serve thousands of Native and non-Native students in Montana, provide affordable education, boost workforce development in rural areas and revitalize tribal languages and culture. Despite their outsized role in communities, however, the schools survive on meager budgets and are reimbursed at rates substantially lower than community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities.
Tribal colleges receive, on average, between 71% and 74% of their total funding from the federal government, according to an American Council on Education report. The federal Bureau of Indian Education allocates money to tribal colleges based on the number of “full-time enrolled Indian students.” And Montana is one of a few states that appropriates money to tribal colleges to support non-Native students, also called non-beneficiary students.
The Legislature for years has allocated a maximum of $3,280 to tribal colleges per non-Native student. By comparison, lawmakers in 2019 funded full-time resident students at Montana’s three community colleges at about twice the rate of non-beneficiary tribal college students.
While past legislative attempts to raise that $3,280 non-beneficiary ceiling have failed, this year was different.
Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, worked to add a line in House Bill 2, the state’s budget bill, that increases state funding to tribal colleges. The addition raises the state’s allocation for non-beneficiary students by about 27% to $4,183.
The boost in state money comes as President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal slashes federal funding for tribal colleges nationwide. Though the budget must ultimately be approved by Congress, Trump’s proposal asks lawmakers to reduce federal funding for tribal colleges by nearly 90%.
“The federal funding (for tribal colleges) does not cover the non-Native students who attend, so it’s up to the state to cover that cost,” Windy Boy told Montana Free Press in a recent interview. “And there’s a good number of non-Natives who attend.”
About 20% of students at Fort Peck Community College in northeastern Montana are non-Native. FPCC President Craig Smith wrote in an April email to MTFP that it was “refreshing” to see the Legislature increase those funds. In past years, he said non-beneficiary funds have supported faculty positions, classroom materials and equipment, among other things.
“While not quite at the equitable level of the Montana University System higher education institutions’ funding levels, I think (the funding increase) shows solid validation of the role that tribal colleges play in the higher education scenario in Montana,” he wrote.
Repatriation Efforts
HB 2 also appropriates $367,665 to the University of Montana Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act team to support repatriation efforts.
Congress in 1990 enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which establishes a process for tribes to request the return of Native American remains and cultural items from institutions that have them.
More than 30 years later, however, not all institutions comply with the law. A ProPublica investigation revealed that the remains of more than 90,000 Native Americans had not been returned as of January 2025. While UM has made efforts to return remains and other items, the school reported still having the remains of at least 25 Native Americans, according to ProPublica’s database.
Windy Boy called NAGPRA “an unfunded mandate.” The new, one-time-only funding, he said, is meant to assist UM’s work, which is otherwise supported through grants.
“There was so much grave robbing … we’ve been pillaged and robbed for so many years,” Windy Boy said. “Please just let our ancestors rest and let their funerary objects rest with them, that’s why it’s important.”
Courtney Little Axe, repatriation coordinator at UM, said the funding will support a new team of NAGPRA tribal liaisons. Doctoral student Mikalen Running Fisher has been working in that capacity for more than one year, facilitating the return of meaningful items.
“What keeps me going in (this work) is thinking of the future generations,” she told MTFP last spring.
With funding from HB 2, Little Axe said UM could hire eight NAGPRA student liaisons — one for each tribal government in the state. The investment, she said, will help students learn more about repatriation while strengthening UM’s relationships with tribes.
Kelly Dixon, a member of UM’s NAGPRA team, said the group had been “limping along” financially and is grateful for state support.
“It is not going to be easy to rectify all that has happened over the past century plus,” Dixon said. “But we have a team and we have an institution and now a state that supports that.”
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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Schatz, Curtis Introduce Tribal Energy Fairness Act
Bipartisan Legislation Removes Barriers and Boosts Tribal Access to Federal Energy Resources
U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and John Curtis (R-Utah) today introduced the Tribal Energy Fairness Act, bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding Tribal access to federal energy programs by removing unnecessary barriers and making technical fixes.
“Tribes deserve a fair shot at energy development, particularly on their own lands,” said Senator Schatz. “This bipartisan bill will provide Tribes with the flexibility they need to access existing federal programs to lower costs, boost reliability, and strengthen their energy sovereignty.”
“Unnecessary red tape and outdated restrictions are holding back access to energy development opportunities,” said Senator Curtis. “By removing these bureaucratic barriers, our legislation levels the playing field for Tribal communities—ensuring fair access to programs that strengthen grid resilience and support other critical energy projects.”
"Energy production has long been vital to the modern Navajo economy and sustaining in our energy economy requires investing in its future. By removing unnecessary restrictions and financial burdens, the Tribal Energy Fairness Act will help the Navajo Nation pursue energy projects that create jobs and strengthen our communities,” said Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo Nation.
“The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma fully supports the bill, which will honor Tribal sovereignty and enable tribes to fully utilize the Grid Resiliency Grant funds and provide much needed services to Tribal Nations when natural disasters hit our communities,” said Jacob Keyes, Chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
The bill addresses longstanding technical issues for Tribes in two key Department of Energy (DOE) programs. First, the legislation would eliminate the “double benefit restriction” under the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program, allowing Tribes to use other federal funds alongside a loan guarantee to cover up to 100 percent of project costs. It would also remove the cost-match requirement and permanently authorize DOE to provide technical assistance to potential loan awardees. Second, the bill would remove a requirement that Tribes sub-grant Grid Resilience awards to utility providers and would eliminate the cost-share requirement, making it easier for Tribes to directly access and benefit from resilience funding.
The Tribal Energy Fairness Act reflects technical assistance provided by DOE and incorporates feedback from Tribal leaders and advocates. Schatz previously introduced the bill at the end of the 118th Congress and filed it as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The issues it addresses have been repeatedly raised during Committee oversight hearings, roundtables, and meetings with Tribes.
The legislation is backed by Tribal organizations and energy advocates working to expand energy access and resilience in Native communities.
The full text of the Tribal Energy Fairness Act is available here.
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art Presents the Intermountain Intertribal Indian School Murals
Through December 6, 2025
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) at Utah State University (USU) is presenting an exhibition examining the artistic legacy of the Intermountain Intertribal Indian School (Intermountain) that was active from 1950 to 1984 in Brigham City, Utah. Repainting the I: The Intermountain Intertribal Indian School Murals, on view January 25 – December 6, 2025, comprises 11 recently restored murals that once adorned hallways and dorm rooms at the boarding school and examines this little-known chapter in American history. This will be the first time that these murals will be on display since the demolition of the campus in 2013. In conjunction with the Intermountain exhibition, NEHMA will present Eagle Village: Sheila Nadimi featuring thirty-eight photographs of Intermountain taken by Nadimi of the vacated and abandoned facility between 1996 and 2021.
During the first 25 years of its existence, the school admitted exclusively Diné (also historically known as Navajo) students, but later modified its policy to accept students from all tribes and renamed itself the Intermountain Intertribal Indian School in 1975. By the time the school closed in 1984, the majority of students were O’odham (Papago). The school was the largest boarding school for Native Americans in the United States, and throughout its operation housed over 20,000 students from 99 tribes across the country.
“A tradition that started at the school and continues to this day is that students who attended Intermountain have gathered over the years to repaint the monumental ‘I’ sign, symbolic of ’Intermountain,’ on the property overlooking the former campus. The tradition of celebrating school pride and civic identity with these hillside letters—practiced across the Western states—ensures that the school and the thousands of youths who attended it are not forgotten,” said Intermountain alumna Lorina Antonio (Diné). This image shows alumni repainting the I during their reunion in May 2024.
While the Native American boarding school era in North America is heavily marked by the abuse, mistreatment, and systematic erasure of students’ identities, Native students at Intermountain found ways to assert their cultural heritage and navigate the constraints of an assimilationist system. Most other boarding schools primarily focused on strict policies to eradicate all forms of Native American cultural expression. At Intermountain and a small number of other schools, students leveraged opportunities such as the school’s robust arts programs to express their cultural identities and depict familiar landscapes. Through their creativity and perseverance, students incorporated tribal themes and imagery into their artwork, much of which was prominently displayed across campus. These acts of artistic expression highlight the agency of Native students and the contributions of allies (primarily supportive educators and Native faculty and staff) who recognized and celebrated their resilience and strengths as Indigenous peoples.
Intermountain employed renowned Native American artists as instructors including Allan Capron Houser (Chiricahua Apache) John Huskett (Diné), and Urshel Taylor (Ute and Pima). The school was also home to students such as Zig Jackson (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara,) who became the first Native American photographer collected by the Library of Congress. By the time the school closed, Intermountain provided an environment replete with physical manifestations of heritage.
In 2013, when USU purchased the land on which the former school sat, these murals were found detached and in deteriorated condition in a garage. Since then, NEHMA has partnered with Intermountain alumni, scholars, and tribal leaders to preserve—and now display—these significant artworks.
“The murals are an important part of regional and national history, as they demonstrate the high quality of art education at Intermountain and they are important artifacts to preserve and share with future generations. While most muralists’ identities remain unknown, we hope that by making this history accessible to the public, we can find out more information about who created these incredible artworks,” said Katie Lee-Koven NEHMA’s Executive Director and Chief Curator. “Following the exhibition, we are identifying permanent homes for the murals in Utah, so they remain on public view,” said Lee-Koven. The exhibition has been made possible in part through the support of The Terra Foundation for American Art. The conservation of the murals was made possible in part by support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Exhibition Highlights
Among the works featured is The Returning Home Mural, 1965 (below) by T. Draper (Diné) that was displayed in the school cafeteria. Most Intermountain students were Diné who came from different parts of the Navajo Nation, including in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Having this mural in the cafeteria would have provided them with something familiar —a sense of home. In the mural, a Diné family stands in front of their hogan (a traditional Diné dwelling) as a family returns home in their wagon on a dirt road lined with sagebrush. Even in the 20th century, horse-drawn wagons were used on the reservations for transport.
The Hopi eagle dancer, circa 1975 (pictured above) by Rex Walter embodies the spirit of the sacred eagle, a revered creature symbolizing strength, courage, and connection to the spiritual world. The dancer’s movement mimics the majestic flight and behaviors of an eagle, creating a powerful and spiritual performance. The dance is a form of prayer and a way to honor the eagle's role in the natural and spiritual realms.
Another large mural by T. H. White (pictured at the top of the release) shows a Diné couple dressed in their traditional attire on horseback overlooking the beautiful landscape of Monument Valley. Their attire indicates they are heading to a traditional or ceremonial event. In the foreground a young Diné boy herds his family's dibé (sheep) and tł’ízí (goat) who are usually taken to the water mid-morning, then to a green pasture to feed, after which they amble home as evening arrives.
Eagle Village: Sheila Nadimi - January 24- December 6, 2025
Visual artist Sheila Nadimi photographed what was left of the Intermountain Intertribal Indian School over a twenty-five-year period beginning in 1996. The campus buildings at the time comprised of twenty-seven dormitory buildings, two school buildings, a gymnasium, and a maintenance building. Initially intrigued by the austere architecture, once inside, she found the imprint of former Native American students in artwork on the walls throughout the buildings. Using a manual Hasselblad medium-format camera, Nadimi chose photography as a medium for this project to convey the overall sense, which the artist calls ‘mapping,’ of this architectural site.
About The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary visual art to promote dialogue about ideas fundamental to contemporary society. NEHMA provides meaningful engagement with art from the 20th and 21st centuries to support the educational mission of Utah State University, in Logan, Utah. NEHMA offers complementary public programs such as lectures, panels, tours, concerts, and symposia to serve the University and regional community. Admission is free and open to the public. http://artmuseum.usu.edu/
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Image Captions:
T.H. White, Mural, 1980, oil on Masonite, 4 x 16 feet. Collection of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.
Alumni from Intermountain repainting the I during their reunion in May 2024, Brigham City, Utah. Photo courtesy of Sheila Nadimi.
Rex Walker, Mural (Dancer), circa 1975, oil on drywall, 3.5 x 3 feet. Collection of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.
- Draper,The Returning Home Mural,circa 1965, oil on Masonite. 3 x 12 feet. Collection of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University.
Sheila Nadimi, Eagle Village, 1996-2021. Archival inkjet pigment print on Hahnemühle paper. 20 x 20 inches
Collection of the artist
Unsolved Violent Crimes in Native American Communities to Get More Attention with FBI Surge
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press
The FBI is sending extra agents, analysts and other personnel to field offices in 10 states over the next six months to help investigate unsolved violent crimes in Indian Country, marking a continuation of efforts by the federal government to address high rates of violence affecting Native American communities.
The U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday that the temporary duty assignments began immediately and will rotate every 90 days in field offices that include Albuquerque, Phoenix, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon, and Jackson, Mississippi.
The FBI will be working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, tribal authorities and federal prosecutors in each of the states.
"Crime rates in American Indian and Alaska Native communities are unacceptably high," U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. "By surging FBI resources and collaborating closely with U.S. attorneys and tribal law enforcement to prosecute cases, the Department of Justice will help deliver the accountability that these communities deserve."
Work to bring more attention to the crisis has spanned decades. President Donald Trump was the first president to formally recognize the issue when he signed an executive order during his first term establishing a task force to tackle the high rate of killings and disappearances among Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
He also signed legislation in 2020 that directed the Justice and Interior departments to consult with tribes while developing national law enforcement guidelines and a separate measure that called for a federal commission to be established to find ways to improve how government responds to Indian Country cases.
President Joe Biden issued his own executive order on public safety in 2021, and then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland launched efforts to implement the Not Invisible Act and the federal commission. Public meetings were held around the country as part of the effort, survivors and family members told heartbreaking stories and recommendations were crafted in 2023.
The Justice Department that year also established its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons outreach program, dispatching more attorneys and coordinators to certain regions to help with unsolved cases.
In past years, the FBI's Operation Not Forgotten had deployed about 50 people for the temporary duty. This year, it's 60.
But without consistent resources and trained detectives investigating the crimes, advocates say many cases go unsolved. They called the FBI's latest surge an essential investment, saying it should be made permanent.
"This shouldn't be just a one-time, six-month effort," said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Seattle-based Urban Indian Health Institute. "We need this type of investment to continue and for Indian Country to get the resources that we so desperately need."
Being able to investigate and hold people accountable can serve as a deterrent, Echo-Hawk said, adding that she's hopeful some families can find justice as a result of the effort.
It took about four months for the Biden administration to issue a response to the congressionally mandated recommendations submitted by the Not Invisible Commission, acknowledging at the time that more needed to be done across the federal government to resolve the crisis and support healing from the generational traumas. But it's unclear what has become of the recommendations now as a Justice Department webpage that included a link to the report no longer exists.
Echo-Hawk hopes Trump follows through with the promises made and the work he started during the first term to address the problem.
"The Not Invisible Act Commission recommendations need to be restored," she said, "and we need to look at opportunities to actualize them."
According to federal authorities, the FBI's Indian Country program had 4,300 open investigations at the beginning of the fiscal year. That included more than 900 death investigations, 1,000 child abuse investigations, and more than 500 domestic violence and adult sexual abuse cases.
The operation in the past two years has supported more than 500 investigations, leading to the recovery of 10 children who were victims and the arrests of more than 50 suspects.
Purdue Pharma and Owners to Pay $7.4 Billion in Settlement of Lawsuits Over the Toll of OxyContin
By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press
Members of the family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, and the company itself, agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion in a new settlement to lawsuits over the toll of the powerful prescription painkiller, the attorneys general from several states announced Thursday.
The deal, agreed to by Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family members who own the company and lawyers representing state and local governments and thousands of victims of the opioid crisis, replaces a previous settlement deal that was rejected last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the new one, the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6.5 billion and give up ownership of the company, which would pay nearly $900 million. The maximum contribution from family members is $500 million more than the previous deal.
It’s among the largest settlements reached over the past several years in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for a deadly epidemic. Aside from the Purdue deal, others worth around $50 billion have been announced — and most of the money is required to be used to stem the crisis.
The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out. An arm of the federal Department of Justice opposed the previous settlement, even after every state agreed, and took the battle to the U.S. Supreme Court. But under President Donald Trump, the federal government is not expected to oppose the new deal.
“We are extremely pleased that a new agreement has been reached that will deliver billions of dollars to compensate victims, abate the opioid crisis, and deliver treatment and overdose rescue medicines that will save lives,” Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue said in a statement.
Representatives for Sackler family members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kara Trainor, a Michigan woman in recovery for 17 years, said she became addicted to opioids after receiving a prescription for OxyContin to deal with a back injury 23 years ago. She praised the deal.
“Everything in my life is shaped by a company that put profits over human lives,” she said.
“While no amount of money will ever fully repair the damage they caused, this massive influx of funds will bring resources to communities in need so that we can heal,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 15 state attorneys general involved in negotiating the deal.
In West Virginia, the epicenter of the opioid crisis, Attorney General JB McCuskey agreed to the deal but had harsh words for the company and its owners. “While West Virginians' lives were being destroyed by opioid addiction, the Sacklers were cashing in every time someone got hooked — getting rich with no regard to the toll their drugs were taking on people, families and our communities,” the Republican said in a statement.
Not every state has signed on yet. A spokesperson for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said the office is still reviewing the deal and weighing its options.
Under the new proposal, like the previous one, members of the Sackler family would also give up ownership of Purdue. They've already stepped down from the company's board and have not taken distributions from Purdue since before the bankruptcy filing. The company would become a new entity with its board appointed by states and others who sued the company.
Between $800 million and $850 million is also to go to victims of the opioid crisis or their survivors, said Ed Neiger, a lawyer for individual victims; that's a feature something that most opioid settlements do not include. The deal also includes as much as $800 million set aside to pay for future settlements if new lawsuits arise against the Sacklers, according to the New York attorney general’s office.
The Supreme Court blocked the earlier agreement last year because it protected members of the wealthy family from civil lawsuits over OxyContin — even though the family members themselves were not in bankruptcy. The new agreement protects family members from lawsuits only from entities that agree to the settlement.
If a new deal is not approved, it could open the floodgates to lawsuits against Sackler family members. A U.S. bankruptcy judge is expected to decide Friday whether to keep temporary protections for them in place through February.
The new settlement could bring to a close a chapter in a long legal saga over the toll of an opioid crisis that some experts assert began after OxyContin hit the market in 1996. Since then, opioids have been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. The deadliest stretch has been since 2020, when illicit fentanyl has been found as a factor in more than 70,000 deaths annually.
Members of the Sackler family have been cast as villains and have seen their name removed from art galleries and universities around the world because of their role in the privately-held company. They’ve continued to deny claims of any wrongdoing.
Collectively, family members have been estimated to be worth billions more than they'd contribute in the settlement, but much of the wealth is in offshore accounts and might be impossible to access through lawsuits.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, said the settlement would not bring the family financial ruin.
“This is about families impacted by this crisis. And this is about a group of people and a family that are among the most notorious wrongdoers … and we are holding them accountable,” he said.
Purdue sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 as it faced thousands of lawsuits over the opioid crisis. Among the claims are that the company targeted doctors with a message that the addiction risk to the powerful painkillers was low.
In an October 2024 filing, one branch of the family pledged to defend itself in any cases that are allowed to move ahead, saying that the legal theory at the heart of the lawsuits — that Purdue and Sackler family members created a “public nuisance” — “is utterly devoid of merits.”
Harassment Investigation Clears Navajo President and Stokes New Wave of Political Upheaval
By MORGAN LEE Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Political turmoil erupted within one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S. as the attorney general for the Navajo Nation announced that an investigation had cleared the tribal president of sexual harassment allegations by the vice president.
Even as results of the investigation were announced Monday, Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch was removed from office by the Navajo Nation Council in a 13-6 vote without public discussion or a reason outlined in the legislation.
The tribe has been mired in political upheaval since April, when Navajo Vice President Richelle Montoya publicly outlined allegations of intimidation and sexual harassment against President Buu Nygren, stemming from interactions at an August 2023 meeting in Nygren's office.
Outside counsel investigated the allegations and found the incident doesn't constitute sexual harassment under tribal policies and is not a crime under tribal law, according to an excerpt of the findings.
Nygren expressed vindication and described a "need to heal from this and focus on moving forward." But he also warned that the removal of the attorney general without a clear explanation sends a message of political instability, with implications for major government ventures.
Branch, a Harvard-educated attorney who served a previous stint as attorney general under Navajo President Russell Begaye, recently worked on a proposed settlement that would ensure water rights for the Navajo Nation and two others tribes in the drought-stricken Southwest and regulations aimed at safe transportation of radioactive materials across the reservation.
Montoya said she is eager to read the full investigative report once it's released publicly. She said she's heard from an "avalanche" of people who have endured harassing behavior in tribal government workplace settings.
"Then I'll know what definition they utilized to say that I wasn't sexually harassed," Montoya told The Associated Press. "I do know that the Council and the people of the Navajo Nation have been frustrated with this investigation."
Branch said she was "satisfied that no rock was left unturned in the search for evidence of any potential wrongdoing" in the harassment investigation by outside counsel.
"I do not believe it is in the best interest of the (Navajo) Nation to continue spending the Nation's money on allegations that, even if taken as true, would not amount to any violation of Navajo law," Branch said. "I encourage any Navajo employee who feels they have been subjected to sexual harassment to report it."
But Branch also announced the termination of contracts with the law firm for outside counsel in the harassment probe, expressing frustration at an "inordinate delay" in completion of the investigation that "exacerbated the instability in Navajo government that the allegations induced."
Nygren's critics are circulating a petition for a recall election to remove the president, gathering signatures at local meeting centers and weekend flea markets across the vast Navajo Nation that spans portions of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Nygren in October announced he would take away official responsibilities from the vice president, saying she no longer represents his administration and should consider resigning. Montoya says she continues to work on behalf of the Navajo people.
Peyote Sacred to Native Americans Threatened by Psychedelic Renaissance and Development
By DEEPA BHARATH and JESSIE WARDARSKI Associated Press
In this corner of southern Texas, the plump cacti seem to pop out of arid dust and cracked earth, like magic dumplings.
It's only here and in northern Mexico that the bluish-green peyote plant can be found growing naturally, nestled under thorny mesquite, acacia and blackbrush.
For many Native American Church members who call this region the "peyote gardens," the plant is sacrosanct and an inextricable part of their prayer and ceremony. It's believed to be a natural healer that Indigenous communities have counted on for their physical and mental health as they've dealt with the trauma of colonization, displacement, and erosion of culture, religion and language.
Lack of access for religious use
The cactus contains a spectrum of psychoactive alkaloids, the primary one being the hallucinogen mescaline, and is coveted for those psychedelic properties. Even though it is a controlled substance under federal law, an exemption afforded by a 1994 amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act made it legal for Native Americans to use, possess and transport peyote for traditional religious purposes.
For over two decades, Native American practitioners of peyotism, whose numbers in the U.S. are estimated at 400,000, have raised the alarm about lack of access to peyote, which they reverently call "the medicine." They say poaching and excessive harvesting of the slow-growing cactus, which flowers and matures over 10 to 30 years, are endangering the species and ruining its delicate habitat.
Native American Church members say the situation has worsened with demands from advocates of the psychedelic renaissance seeking to decriminalize peyote and make it more widely available for medical research and treatment of various ailments. Agriculture, housing developments, wind farms in the region and the border wall, are also damaging the habitat, experts say.
A vast majority of peyote people agree the plant must be protected and should be out of reach for medical researchers, Silicon Valley investors and other groups advocating peyote decriminalization. But there are diverse opinions within the Native American Church on how to accomplish that goal.
While at least one group spearheaded by Native American Church leaders has begun efforts to conserve and propagate peyote naturally in its habitat using philanthropic dollars, others in the church are more suspicious of investors' intentions, saying they fear exploitation and would rather get funding from the U.S. government to protect peyote.
Peyote embodies the Creator's spirit
Darrell Red Cloud, who is Oglala Lakota, remembers at age 4 using peyote and singing ceremonial songs at all-night peyote ceremonies with his family. Peyote has always been about forging a connection with the Creator, said Red Cloud. He's the vice president of the Native American Church of North America.
"Our people were not religious people, we were prayerful people."
Frank Dayish, former vice president of the Navajo Nation and chairperson of the Council of the Peyote Way of Life Coalition, compared peyote to the Eucharist in Catholicism.
"Peyote is my religion," he said. "Everything in my life has been based on prayers through that sacrament."
Adrian Primeaux, who is Yankton Sioux and Apache, says he grew up hearing the story of a malnourished and dehydrated Apache woman who fell behind her group during a forced relocation by the U.S. government in the 1830s.
"She was about to give up on life as she lay close to the Earth when she heard a plant speaking to her," Primeaux said. "The peyote was telling her: Eat me and you will be well."
She carried this plant back to Apache medicine men and elders who meditated and prayed with it, said Primeaux. He believes the Native American Church and what would become the Peyote Way of Life was unveiled during that spiritual quest.
Peyote is not just a medicinal herb — it is "a spiritual guide and a north star," said Primeaux, who comes from five generations of peyote people. The plant has been a guiding light amid their traumatic history.
"It gave us hope and helped us process our thoughts, emotions and life purpose," he said.
An initiative to conserve and protect peyote
In October 2017, the National Council of Native American Churches purchased 605 acres in Hebbronville, Texas, to establish a peyote preserve and a "spiritual homesite" that is now run by the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative or IPCI.
Steven Benally, a Navajo elder from Sweetwater, Arizona, and an IPCI board member, remembers his annual pilgrimages to the peyote gardens with his family. He recalls losing access to the gardens after the "peyotero" system took over, where government-licensed peyoteros harvested the button-like tops of the plant by the thousands and sold them to Native American Church members.
This meant that Native American people could not freely go onto privately owned ranches and prayerfully harvest peyote as they had done for generations. They lost their sacred connection with the land, Benally said.
It wasn't until he threw open the gate to their sprawling ranch, affectionately called "the 605," that Benally felt connected once again. He was so overcome by emotion that he placed a sign at the entrance with the words: "This is real."
"It felt like we were finally living what we just dreamed, prayed and talked about," he said.
One of Benally's favorite spots on the property is a hilltop bench — a tranquil corner where visitors have placed prayer notes, painted rocks and other offerings to a nearby cluster of naturally sprouted peyote. Benally sits on the bench inhaling the gentle breeze and taking in the stillness.
"Our belief is that these plants, these animals, these birds are just like us," he said. "They can hear, they can understand. They have their powers, they have their place, a purpose and a reason — just like us."
The peyote preserve is a conservation site where the plant is not harvested but propagated and replanted naturally in its habitat without chemicals, said Miriam Volat, executive director for the nonprofit that oversees it. Native Americans who can produce their tribal identification cards can camp at the preserve and prayerfully harvest from amiable surrounding ranches, she said.
The goal is to restore peyote and its habitat, making it abundant in the region within the next 50 years.
Peyote grown in their nursery is under the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's watchful eye, she said. Licensed to operate, the nonprofit tries to balance being welcoming with satisfying the agency's requirement to secure the plant behind locked gates and camera monitoring.
The debate over peyote conservation
Those trying to protect peyote disagree on whether it should be grown outside its natural habitat. While scientists and conservationists say it is essential for the protection of the species, many Native American Church members say doing so would dilute its sacred nature.
Keeper Trout, a research scientist and co-founder of Texas-based Cactus Conservation Institute, remembers how abundantly peyote grew in the region during the 1970s. It's all but disappeared.
"It was like walking on mattresses," he said.
Trout empathizes with those who object on religious grounds, but he believes people should be able to cultivate and harvest anywhere. With a little help, Trout is confident the resilient plant can survive.
But many Native American Church members say where the plant grows matters. The ceremonial protocols were bestowed by the Creator's grace and preserved through storytelling, said Hershel Clark, secretary for the Teesto chapter of the Azee Bee Nahagha of Diné Nation in Arizona.
"This is why we don't support greenhouses, growing it outside its natural habitat or synthesizing it to make pills," Clark said.
Red Cloud fears those changes would harm its sacredness.
"Then, it just becomes a drug that people depend on rather than a spiritual medicine," he said.
Funding peyote preservation and conservation efforts has been a challenge as well.
The Native American Church of North America is calling on the U.S government to uphold its obligation to protect and preserve peyote in its natural habitat in southern Texas, which includes financial incentives for landowners, said Red Cloud. His organization is asking for a $5 million federal grant to jumpstart such a program.
IPCI started with seed money from Riverstyx Foundation, which is run by Cody Swift, a psychotherapist and prominent supporter of psychedelic therapy research. The organization continues to seek philanthropic dollars to carry the conservation effort forward and is not opposed to receiving funding from the U.S. government, Volat said.
"But, we're not waiting for it," she said.
There is suspicion and skepticism about Swift and other investors' intentions in some corners of the Native American Church, Clark said. Swift has said in interviews that IPCI's goal is to preserve peyote in its natural habitat under the leadership and guidance of Native American peyote people, a stance Volat, his co-director at the foundation, also affirms.
Demand for peyote exceeds supply
There is no question that opening peyote up to a broader market will create a supply crisis and increase access to those who have the financial resources, said Kevin Feeney, senior social sciences lecturer at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, who has studied the commodification of peyote.
Indigenous people would struggle to access their sacred plant while seeing others use it in a way they deem profane, he said.
Peyote supply remains limited for the Native American Church. Today, in southern Texas, only three licensed peyoteros are legally allowed to harvest the plant for sale to church members. Zulema "Julie" Morales, based in Rio Grande City, is one of them. She inherited the business from her father, Mauro Morales, who died two years ago.
She has been out in the fields since she was 10. Now 60, she says the peyote habitat is dwindling not because of peyoteros who harvest legally and ethically, but because of illegal poaching. She remembers her father gathering enough peyote to fill a dozen large trays while she can barely fill one.
Even though she is Mexican American and a Catholic, Morales, who charges 55 cents a button, considers it a privilege to provide peyote for ceremonial purposes. Her father, who customers called "grandpa," hosted ceremonies for Native people every year and she has been a keen observer.
"As Mexican Americans, we value our traditions," she said. "This is their tradition and it's beautiful for us to be a part of that in our own way."
Teaching future generations
At IPCI, one of the main goals is to teach future generations the value of getting back to their ancestors' spiritual and healing ways, said Sandor Iron Rope, an Oglala Lakota spiritual leader and president of the Native American Church of South Dakota. At least 200 people gathered on IPCI's grounds over Thanksgiving week, learning about peyote through panels, discussions, ceremony and prayer.
"We've put our moccasins and our footprints in this place," Iron Rope said. "The hope is that these children, the next generation, will see the therapeutic value in getting rid of their phones and learning about what is right in front of them."
Iron Rope says this is how he is fulfilling his responsibility to future generations.
"You can pray all you want, but you're going to have to meet the Creator halfway somewhere," he said. "You're going to have to implement that prayer into action. And I see this as prayer in action."
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
New Mexico's Oil Income Investments Now Surpass Personal Income Tax Revenue
By MORGAN LEE Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Efforts by New Mexico to save and invest portions of a financial windfall from local oil production are paying off as state government income on investments surpasses personal income tax collections for the first time, according to a new forecast Monday.
General fund income from the state's two, multibillion-dollar permanent funds and interest on treasury accounts is expected to climb to $2.1 billion for the fiscal year between July 2024 and June 2025, surpassing $2 billion in revenue from personal income taxes.
The investment earnings are designed to ensure that critical programs — ranging from childcare subsidies to tuition-free college and trade school education — endure if oil income falters amid a possible transition to new sources of energy.
At the same time, legislators this year revised personal income tax brackets to lower taxes in the nation's No. 2 state for oil production behind Texas.
"We're not a poor state anymore," said Democratic state Sen. George Muñoz of Gallup. "We've got things that we can win on — free education, childcare ... low taxes for working families, for children. And that's all because we've done a lot of the work to set this up for the future."
The comments came at a legislative panel Monday where economists from four government agencies announced an income estimate for the coming year. The figures are the baseline for budget negotiations when the Democratic-led Legislature convenes in January.
State government income, which is closely linked to oil production in New Mexico, continues to grow, though at a slower pace, as legislators discuss new investments in social programs aimed at curbing crime and homelessness.
Economists estimate the state will bring in a record-setting $13.6 billion in general fund income for the fiscal year that runs from July 2025 to June 2026, a 2.6% increase over the current period.
This year's income bump leaves room for an additional $892 million in state spending in the coming fiscal year, a 7% increase, according to the Legislature's accountability and budgeting office. State income is forecast to exceed current bedrock annual spending obligations by $3.4 billion.
New Mexico legislators are pushing to open new savings accounts.
One proposal would set aside as much as $1 billion in a trust to underwrite spending on mental health and addiction treatment in response to public frustration with crime and homelessness. Legislators also are likely to revisit a stalled proposal to create a trust for Native American education that could expand Indigenous language instruction.
US Forest Managers Finalize Land Exchange with Native American Tribe in Arizona
U.S. forest managers have finalized a land exchange with the Yavapai-Apache Nation that has been decades in the making and will significantly expand the size of the tribe's reservation in Arizona's Verde Valley, tribal leaders announced Tuesday.
As part of the arrangement, six parcels of private land acquired over the years by the tribe will be traded to the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for the tribe gaining ownership of 5 square miles (12.95 square kilometers) of national forest land that is part of the tribe's ancestral homelands.
The tribe will host a signing ceremony next week to celebrate the exchange, which was first proposed in 1996.
"This is a critical step in our history and vital to the nation's cultural and economic recovery and future prosperity," Yavapai-Apache Chairwoman Tanya Lewis said in a post on the tribe's website.
Prescott National Forest Supervisor Sarah Clawson said in a statement that there had been many delays and changes to the proposal over the years, but the tribe and the Forest Service never lost sight of developing an agreement that would benefit both public and tribal lands.
The federal government has made strides over recent years to protect more lands held sacred by Native American tribes, to develop more arrangements for incorporating Indigenous knowledge into management of public lands and to streamline regulations for putting land into trust for tribes.
The Yavapai-Apache Nation is made up of two distinct groups of people — the Wipuhk'a'bah and the Dil'zhe'e. Their homelands spanned more than 16,000 square miles (41,440 square kilometers) of what is now central Arizona. After the discovery of gold in the 1860s near Prescott, the federal government carved out only a fraction to establish a reservation. The inhabitants eventually were forced from the land, and it wasn't until the early 1900s that they were able to resettle a tiny portion of the area.
In the Verde Valley, the Yavapai-Apache Nation's reservation lands are currently comprised of less than 3 square miles (7.77 square kilometers) near Camp Verde. The small land base hasn't been enough to develop economic opportunities or to meet housing needs, Lewis said, pointing to dozens of families who are on a waiting list for new homes.
Lewis said that in acknowledgment of the past removal of the Yavapai-Apache people from their homelands, the preamble to the tribal constitution recognizes that land acquisition is among the Yavapai-Apache Nation's responsibilities.
Aside from growing the reservation, the exchange will bolster efforts by federal land managers to protect the headwaters of the Verde River and ensure the historic Yavapai Ranch is not sold for development. The agreement also will improve recreational access to portions of four national forests in Arizona.
Civilization 7 Makers Work with Shawnee to Bring Sincere Representation of the Tribe to the Game
By GRAHAM LEE BREWER and MATT O'BRIEN
Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes grew up playing video games, including "probably hundreds of hours" colonizing a distant planet in the 1999 title Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
So when that same game studio, Firaxis, approached the tribal nation a quarter-century later with a proposal to make a playable character out of their famous leader Tecumseh in the upcoming game Civilization 7, Barnes felt a rush of excitement.
"I was like, 'This can't be true,'" Barnes said. "Do they want us to participate in the next version of Civilization?"
Beloved by tens of millions of gamers since its 1991 debut, Meier's Civilization series sparked a new genre of empire-building games that simulated the real world while also diverging into imaginary twists. It has captivated nerdy fans like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and a young Barnes with its intricate and addictive gameplay and rich historical context.
Choosing among leaders that can range from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi, players build a civilization from its first settlement to a sprawling network of cities, negotiate with or conquer neighbors, and develop trade, science, religion and the arts. Circana, which tracks U.S. game sales, says it's the bestselling strategy video game franchise of all time.
But things have changed since the early days of Civilization. Of course, video game technology has advanced, but so too has society's understanding of cultural appropriation and the importance of accurate historical framing.
Firaxis dropped plans to add a historical Pueblo leader in 2010 after tribal leaders objected. The game incorporated a Cree leader in 2018 but faced public criticism in Canada after its release.
Developers knew that to properly represent the Shawnee leader, they would need the input and blessing of the Shawnee people.
For Barnes, it was an opportunity to not only showcase the power and might of the Shawnee but also a way for tribal citizens to see themselves represented in popular culture in a new, imagined future for the tribe.
"For us, it's really about a cultural expression of cultural hegemony," Barnes said. "Why not us? Why not? Of course we should be in a video game title. Of course we should see ourselves reflected in every media. So we took advantage of the opportunity to make our star shine."
For designers at Firaxis, the partnership represented a chance to improve a game development system that has been criticized by Indigenous leaders for misrepresenting their cultures, and for the Shawnee, it was a way to promote their language and history in a new way.
In interviews with The Associated Press, series founder Meier and other studio executives acknowledged past missteps in the Civilization franchise's casual treatment of history, including how it incorporated Indigenous groups and colonization more broadly.
That led to careful thought and months of collaboration to "make sure it's an authentic, sincere recreation" of Shawnee culture, said game producer Andrew Frederiksen, speaking on a September visit to the tribe's headquarters. That meant asking the Shawnee questions about what a Shawnee university or library building of the future would look like and creating new Shawnee words to describe futuristic concepts.
Meier, who started developing computer games in the 1980s, said the Shawnee partnership is "kind of special" and was borne out of meetings with Barnes where the chief talked about the challenges of preserving the Shawnee language. As part of the partnership, Firaxis and its publishing label 2K Games — subsidiary of gaming giant Take-Two Interactive — are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars in language revitalization programs and facilities.
When Shawnee actor Dean Dillon auditioned for a part that involved speaking the Shawnee language, he didn't know he'd be voicing Tecumseh. The military and political leader from what is currently Ohio united a confederation of Native American tribes to resist U.S. westward expansion in the early 19th century.
"I just gave it my best shot," Dillon said. "And then a few weeks later, I heard back and they said, 'We'd like to offer you the role of Tecumseh.' And my head exploded and I ran around the house yelling, 'My gosh! My gosh!'"
"It was surreal, to say the least, to see Tecumseh's face but to hear my voice come out of that," Dillon said.
While the franchise has always had Indigenous leaders, starting with Montezuma of the Aztecs in the original 1991 game, Meier said game developers at the time were looking for familiar figures without much thought into the weight of history. Playable characters in that game included Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, whose totalitarian regimes were still in many people's memory.
"We never realized people would take it as seriously as they do," Meier said. "We always kind of felt, 'Here's a way that you can change history.' Maybe we can make Stalin a good guy. But that might have been stretching things a little too far."
"We learned a lot as time went on," he added. The seventh edition, due out in February, will for the first time do away with barbarians -- or at least no longer use that term for hostile characters that are not part of a playable civilization. Players can instead create diplomatic relations with them.
And as the game's audience expanded beyond the U.S. and Europe, with more than 70 million games sold worldwide, so too did players want their societies or heritage reflected. More recent editions include themed music and spoken languages from dozens of playable civilizations, from the Māori people of New Zealand to the Mapuche of South America.
"It is now a badge of honor for a nation to be included in Civilization," Meier said. "We've been lobbied by different countries, et cetera."
That's not to say everyone has been happy about their inclusion in a game centered around settling land and exploiting resources. Civilization is one of the pioneers of the genre known as 4X — for "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate."
After the franchise added a 19th-century Cree leader to its gameplay in 2018, a prominent Cree leader complained to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that it "perpetuates this myth that First Nations had similar values that the colonial culture has, and that is one of conquering other peoples and accessing their land. That is totally not in concert with our traditional ways and worldview."
One of the game's two resident historians, Andrew Johnson, said the studio wanted to make Tecumseh a playable leader, but after reaching out to some academics, "we were told repeatedly, 'No, this is a really bad idea, and nobody's going to sign off on this.'"
So Johnson suggested reaching out to Shawnee leaders directly to ask what they think, and how it could help them.
"I think so often you get people assuming that representation in Civ is a reward of some sort. It's not," said Johnson, who's also an anthropologist who studies Southeast Asia. "This is a company and we're selling a product and we're using an image and likeness to make a profit. And getting your 'civ' in Civilization doesn't really help you very much if you're struggling to preserve your culture."
The game studio and the tribal nation decided on a partnership that would help the Shawnee people preserve and expand some of that culture, particularly language. Chief Barnes said the tribe was in dire need of resources for language education, and creating dialogue for a Shawnee civilization of the future was another way to help revitalize their language.
"Firaxis was asking questions about language we never would have thought to ask," Barnes said in September at the opening of a new language education center in northeastern Oklahoma.
Barnes hasn't had a chance to play the new version of the game yet, but he is already imaging the future he can build virtually, as well as how doing so will inspire other Shawnee gamers. "What I do know is that with the efforts we're making here today, I expect Shawnee to be spoken in 2500."
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O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
Ohio Historical Society Settles with Golf Club to Take Back World Heritage Tribal Site
By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s historical society announced a deal Thursday that will allow it to take control of an ancient ceremonial and burial earthworks site located on the site of a golf course, ending years of litigation.
Ohio History Connection will pay Moundbuilders Country Club in Newark to buy out its lease and end the long-running legal dispute over the Octagon Earthworks, although the sum is confidential under a settlement agreement. The deal avoids a jury trial to determine the site's fair market value that had been repeatedly postponed over the years.
The Octagon Earthworks are among eight ancient areas in the Hopewell Earthworks system that were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site last year. The historical society, a nonprofit state history organization, takes control of them on Jan. 1 and plans to open them to visitors.
“Our guiding principles throughout this process have been to enable full public access to the Octagon Earthworks while ensuring Moundbuilders Country Club receives just compensation for the value of its lease on the property,” said Megan Wood, executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection. “And now we have accomplished those things.”
David Kratoville, president of the country club's board of trustees, said he has mixed feelings about coming to the end of the legal battle. He said negotiations over the past two months finally landed on a figure “that allows us to survive,” but the future of the club remains in limbo.
Moundbuilders is in negotiations to buy another property, the nearby public golf course Trout Club, but members gathered at an emotional meeting Monday where owners were unable to make promises for the future, he said.
“For me, the news will be where do we land after 114 years operating on this site,” he said.
Built between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago by people from the Hopewell Culture, the earthworks were host to ceremonies that drew people from across the continent, based on archeological discoveries of raw materials from as far west as the Rocky Mountains.
Native Americans constructed the earthworks, including eight long earthen walls, that correspond to lunar movements and align with points where the moon rises and sets over the 18.6-year lunar cycle. The History Connection calls them “part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory.”
The historical society owns the disputed earthworks site, but it had been leased to the country club for decades. History Connection had put the value of the site at about $2 million, while the country club was seeking a much higher amount.
In 1892, voters in surrounding Licking County enacted a tax increase to preserve what was left of the earthworks. The area was developed as a golf course in 1911, and the state first deeded the 134-acre property to Moundbuilders Country Club in 1933.
A county judge ruled in 2019 that the historical society could reclaim the lease via eminent domain. But the club challenged the attempt to take the property, saying the History Connection didn't make a good- faith offer to purchase the property as required by state law. The country club argued that it had provided proper upkeep of the mound and allowed public access over the years — albeit only a few days a year.
Charles Moses, president of the organization’s board of trustees, said the History Connection is excited for the location to be “fully open to the citizens of Ohio — and the world.”
The settlement will be shared with the judge later this month and the case closed.
Report Finds Colorado was Built on $1.7 Trillion of Land Expropriated from Tribal Nations
By GRAHAM LEE BREWER Associated Press
A report published this week by a Native American-led nonprofit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7 trillion worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the U.S. and the more than $546 million the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them.
The report, shared first with The Associated Press, identifies 10 tribal nations that have “aboriginal title, congressional title, and treaty title to lands within Colorado” and details the ways the land was legally and illegally taken. It determined that many of the transactions were in direct violation of treaty rights or in some cases lacked title for a legal transfer.
“Once we were removed, they just simply started divvying up the land, creating parcels and selling it to non-Natives and other interests and businesses,” said Dallin Maybee, an artist, legal scholar and enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe who took part in the Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission, which compiled the report.
“When you think about examples of land theft,” Maybee continued, “that is one of the most blatant instances that we could see.”
The commission was convened by People of the Sacred Land, a Colorado-based nonprofit that works to document the history of Indigenous displacement in the state. The commission and its report are modeled after similar truth and reconciliation commissions that sought to comprehensively account for genocide and the people still affected by those acts and governmental policies.
The report also recommends actions that can be taken by the state, the federal government and Congress, including honoring treaty rights by resolving illegal land transfers; compensating the tribal nations affected; restoring hunting and fishing rights; and levying a 0.1% fee on real estate deals in Colorado to “mitigate the lasting effects of forced displacement, genocide, and other historical injustices'”
“If acknowledgment is the first step, then what is the second step?” Maybee said. “That’s where some of the treaties come in. They guaranteed us health and welfare and education, and we just simply want them to live up to those promises.”
That could look something like what happened not long ago in Canada, where, following the conclusion of a truth and reconciliation commission in 2015, the government set aside $4.7 billion to support Indigenous communities affected by its Indian residential schools.
The U.S. currently has no similar commission, but a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a Chickasaw Nation citizen, and Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation, would establish a commission to research and document the long-term effects of the Indian boarding school system in the U.S. That measure passed the House Education and Workforce Committee on Thursday with bipartisan support.
“The United States carried out a federal policy of genocide and extermination against Native peoples, and their weapon against our youngest and most vulnerable was the policy of Indian Boarding Schools,” said Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe, who testified before Congress in support of a commission to investigate the ongoing effects of the boarding schools.
“The next step is reconciliation and healing for the generations who’ve dealt with the trauma that followed, which begins with establishing the Truth and Healing Commission to investigate further,” Barnes said.
The 771-page report also calls on Colorado State University to return 19,000 acres of land that was taken from several tribal nations through the Morrill Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, which used expropriated land to create land grant universities across the country.
In 2023 the university pledged to commit $500,000 of the earnings from its land grant holdings. But while the commission commended that decision, it said “there are questions about its adequacy, given the resources that have been generated by the endowment created by selling and/or leasing stolen land.”
A university spokesperson told AP that the school has not had a chance to review the report but noted that “that revenue from the endowment land income fund is used for the benefit of Native American faculty, staff and students.”
The commission also found that Native American students in Colorado have lower high school graduation rates and higher dropout rates than any other racial demographic. It determined that state schools teach about Native American issues only once in elementary school and then again in high school U.S. history classes, and it called on the Colorado Department of Education to increase the amount of its curriculum that focuses on the histories, languages and modern cultures of tribal nations that are indigenous to the state.
The education department said in a statement that it is “committed to elevating and honoring our Indigenous communities.
“We have worked alongside tribal representatives to create a culturally affirming fourth-grade curriculum focused on Ute history fourth-grade curriculum and have made this available to our school districts and educators,” the statement added.
However that educational program is not mandatory across Colorado, where curriculum decisions are made at the local level.
A 2019 study found that 87% of public schools in the U.S. fail to teach about Indigenous peoples in a post-1900 context and that most states make no mention of them in their K-12 curriculum.
“They should be an integral part of the curriculum, especially in areas where there’s a high percentage of Native Americans,” said Richard Little Bear, former president of Chief Dull Knife College in Montana and a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. “There’s gotta be a full scale effort.”
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The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Dallin Maybee’s last name, from Mayberry.
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Brewer is an Oklahoma City-based member of AP's Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on X at @grahambrewer
Tribes Say Their Future is at Stake as They Push for Congress to Consider Colorado River Settlement
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press
Within the heart of the Navajo Nation and in the shadow of the sandstone arch that is the namesake of the tribal capital, a simple greeting and big smiles were shared over and over again Friday as tribal officials gathered: “Yá‘át’ééh abíní!”
It was a good morning, indeed, for Navajo President Buu Nygren as he signed legislation in Window Rock, Arizona, outlining a proposed settlement to ensure three Native American tribes have water rights from the Colorado River and other sources — and drought-stricken Arizona has more security in its supply.
The signature came a day after the Navajo Nation Council voted unanimously in favor of the measure. The San Juan Southern Paiute and Hopi tribes also approved the settlement this week.
Now, the three tribes in northeastern Arizona will be working to get Congress’ approval for what could be the costliest water rights settlement in U.S. history.
“We’ve got a tall, tall task,” Nygren told the crowd. “But we’re going to get it done.”
The Navajos have one of the largest outstanding claims in the Colorado River basin, and officials say the needs across the territory exceed the proposed price tag of $5 billion.
Nearly a third of homes in the Navajo Nation — spanning 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — don’t have running water. Many homes on Hopi lands are similarly situated, and the San Juan Southern Paiute have been left for generations without a reservation — or water rights — to call their own.
Tribal leaders told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that the proposed settlement is about more than just a fundamental right to water. It marks a new path, they say, for cooperation among Native American tribes as they plan for the future amid the worsening effects of climate change.
While efforts to negotiate an agreement have been generations in the making, the leaders said the ongoing drought and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic were among the challenges that drove the latest round of talks.
Navajo Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley said Friday that the importance of having clean, reliable sources of drinking water became even more apparent during the pandemic. She talked about Navajo families who have to drive many miles to pick up water and haul it home and making do with just several gallons a day.
Other non-tribal parties to the settlement must still approve the measure, but tribal officials and their attorneys are hoping that discussions in Congress are well underway before the November election.
Congress has enacted nearly three dozen tribal water rights settlements across the U.S. over the last four decades. According to the U.S. Interior Department, federal negotiation teams are working on another 22 agreements involving dozens of tribes.
Long After Tragic Mysteries are Solved, Families of Native American Victims are Kept in the Dark
By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press
It was the winter of 2021 when Philbert Shorty’s family found his abandoned car stuck in the mud outside the small community of Tsaile near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. “We knew something happened from the get-go," said his uncle, Ben Shorty. “We couldn’t find any answers.”
Family members reported the 44-year-old man missing. And for the next two years, they searched — hiking through remote canyons on the Navajo Nation, placing advertisements on the radio and posting across social media in hopes of unearthing any clues.
The efforts produced nothing. They had no way of knowing he’d been killed more than a week before they reported him missing.
They remained unaware even as U.S. prosecutors finalized a plea deal last summer with Shiloh Aaron Oldrock, who was charged in connection with Shorty's death as a result of a separate investigation into the killing and beheading of Oldrock's uncle. The 30-year-old Fargo, North Dakota, man told authorities his uncle had threatened to kill him during an alcohol-fueled fight that came eight months after the pair conspired to cover up Shorty's death by dismembering and burning his body on Jan. 29, 2021.
In both cases, Oldrock told investigators, a night of heavy drinking and fighting ended in death at his uncle's home near Navajo, New Mexico.
The details of this tale are more gruesome than most. Yet to those living in Indian Country, the elements underlying the tragedy are all too familiar. Generations of unaddressed trauma combine with substance abuse to create a dangerous recipe that often ends in violence, and law enforcement resources and social support programs are too sparse to offer much help.
DEATHS AND DISAPPEARANCES ARE GETTING NOTICED. WILL IT HELP?
Shorty’s story is one of many across the United States and Canada, where high rates of missing persons and unsolved killings involving Indigenous people have captured the attention of policymakers at the highest levels.
In 2019, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a task force. Congress followed in 2020 by passing two key pieces of legislation aimed at addressing the crisis. U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who had championed legislation as a congresswoman, has been working under the Biden administration to solve some of the systemic problems and jurisdictional challenges that have left victims' families feeling invisible.
The Interior Department is nearly three weeks passed a deadline for responding to a set of recommendations from a special commission that spent months traveling the country, speaking with family members, advocates and police officials about how best to tackle the epidemic.
Commission members heard hours of heartbreaking testimony from family members who have fought to keep their cases in the spotlight, often memorializing those lost with prayer vigils, special blankets and buttons, traditional ribbon skirts and red handprints painted on sidewalks and buildings.
Like others, Shorty's family now knows the suffering will linger despite the increased emphasis on solving such crimes.
Shorty's family “had been left in the dark about what happened,” U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alexander Uballez acknowledged in a November sentencing memo that referred to Shorty by only his initials — PS. Wrote Uballez: “They are just beginning to grieve as they were only informed recently that PS was deceased, rather than missing.”
Uballez expressed hope that putting Oldrock behind bars would bring some closure, saying that Shorty's elderly aunt could stop looking down the driveway in hopes her nephew might one day return.
Uballez said Oldrock's convictions were part of the U.S. Justice Department's duty to bring answers to tribal communities. While no amount of investigation or prosecution will bring back a loved one, he said, law enforcement partners will meet each case "with urgency, transparency and coordination.”
PROMISES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT LEAD SOMEWHERE
That vow of transparency is what has Native American families frustrated. Many say authorities regularly fail to communicate about the status of pending cases. In Shorty's case, unanswered questions about whether there were any remains recovered have left his family guessing as to whether they can ever have a burial for him.
“The investigators never called me. They were supposed to but never did,” Ben Shorty said in a recent interview. “It was all done behind closed doors.”
The FBI’s most recent list of missing people from the Navajo Nation still included Philbert Shorty. That's despite investigators having had reason to believe he was dead as early as October 2021 with Oldrock's confession. A medical investigator’s report issued the following spring said that while it couldn't be confirmed conclusively, communications with law enforcement suggested that charred remains found at the home of Oldrock's uncle likely were those of Shorty.
Darlene Gomez, an Albuquerque attorney, has represented dozens of Native American families. The handling of Shorty's case doesn't surprise her.
“The FBI does this all the time," she said. “They don’t even talk to the family until there is an indictment. And very often they don’t say anything at all.”
While there is a need to keep confidential certain details as investigations move forward, federal authorities did not immediately respond to questions by The Associated Press about the process for sharing information with families and whether people were assigned to serve as liaisons to help families as cases move through the system.
The federal Not Invisible Act Commission devoted part of its 212-page report to related concerns and recommendations. The report references stories shared by families about difficulties in accessing police and autopsy reports: “Families are often kept waiting, not knowing if the person identified is their family member or not knowing the cause and circumstances of death nor how the body of their family member was handled."
It all rings true for Bernadine Beyale, the daughter of retired Navajo police officers who founded the non-profit 4 Corners K-9 Search and Rescue in Farmington, New Mexico, in 2022. Her group has conducted dozens of individual searches, and she has helped to build bridges between families and law enforcement to help families avoid feeling like their cases are falling through cracks.
“Even if (law enforcement) would just talk to the families, say, `We don’t have anything yet but we’re still working on it,' it would help," she said.
‘I TRY TO BE AS TRANSPARENT AS POSSIBLE’
Records obtained by the AP show that a witness gave a ride to Oldrock in October 2021. He had cuts on his face and blood on his hands and clothes. He told the driver he had just killed his uncle, identified as Erwin Beach. He said he believed Beach had killed his grandmother a year earlier and was going to kill him, too.
Oldrock told the FBI he stabbed Beach repeatedly after Beach swung an axe at him during a drunken fight. Oldrock said the chain of violent events that October day began much the same way as when Shorty was killed months earlier — with heavy drinking. Oldrock was sentenced in November to 35 years in prison for second-degree murder in the killing of Beach and involuntary manslaughter in Shorty's death.
Whether details are unveiled through court documents or they come from investigators in the field, Beyale acknowledges it can be difficult to decide how to share information with victims’ families.
“If we find a body or remains, I don’t give a lot of details," she said. “But I try to be as transparent as possible and tell them we don’t have a positive ID but we found remains in this area.”
Beyale tries to persuade families who want to conduct their own search to let her do it instead. “I always ask them if they are not only physically ready to do a search like that, but also mentally ready to find something," she said. "They always say, `Yeah, yeah.' But they are not. I've not found one family that was mentally ready.”
Shorty’s family still hopes to have a funeral. They're ready for closure but are — still — waiting on investigators.
“What are we supposed to bury? Just nothing? At least some ashes or something," Ben Shorty said. "We got nothing still.”
Oklahoma's Oldest Native American School, Bacone College, is Threatened by Debts and Disrepair
By GRAHAM LEE BREWER AP National Writer
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) — The hallways of Bacone College are cold and dark. In the main hall, there are no lectures to be heard, only the steady hum of the space heater keeping the administrative offices warm.
Students aren't attending classes here this semester, but work still needs to be done. In the college’s historic buildings, there are leaks to plug, mold to purge and priceless works of Native American art to save from ruin. Not to mention devising a plan to keep the college from shuttering for good. It’s a daunting task for the nine remaining employees.
But on this rainy December morning, the college's president is running a DoorDash order. “If we have the money, we can pay,” Interim President Nicky Michael said regarding salaries. Even she has to find a way to make ends meet.
Founded in 1880 as a Baptist missionary college focused on assimilation, Bacone College transformed into an Indigenous-led institution that provided an intertribal community, as well as a degree. With the permission of the Muscogee Nation Tribal Council, Bacone's founders used a treaty right to establish the college at the confluence of three rivers, where tribal nations had been meeting for generations.
Throughout the 20th century, the center of this was Bacone’s Native American art program, which produced some of the most important Indigenous artists of their time, including Woody Crumbo, Fred Beaver, Joan Hill and Ruthe Blalock Jones.
They and their contemporaries pushed the boundaries of what was considered “Native American art.” During a period of intense hostility against tribal sovereignty by the U.S., Bacone became defined by the exchange of ideas its Native faculty and students created and represented a new opportunity for Indigenous education and academic thought.
“Bacone was the only place in the world where that could happen for Native people,” said Robin Mayes, a Cherokee and Muscogee man who attended Bacone in the ’70s and taught silversmithing there in the ’90s. “It’s a tragedy to think that it’s going to be discontinued.”
For decades, the college has been plagued by poor financial choices and inconsistent leadership, triggering flashpoints between administration, students and staff over the mission and cultural direction of the college.
Some have accused recent administrations of embezzlement, fraud and intimidation, resulting in multiple lawsuits. Students expressed frustration with a lack of resources and cultural competency among some school leaders. The college also has had trouble maintaining its accreditation.
Last year, a lawsuit crippled Bacone's finances. Ultimately, Michael made the decision to suspend classes for the spring semester. She hopes the deferment is temporary, but if the college can't muster up millions of dollars, Oklahoma’s oldest continually operating college likely will close its doors.
“It has endured for over 140 years through terrible decisions,” said Gerald Cournoyer, an instructor who was hired in 2019 to restart the college’s art program.
“Providing oversight for Bacone has been a struggle because of the leadership or lack thereof,” said Cournoyer, who also is a renowned Lakota artist. Some presidents focused time and money on athletic programs, others on Bacone's Baptist missionary roots. “When you put absolutely no money, nothing, not $20, not $10, into your fundraising efforts, this is what you get.”
During the time Patti Jo King was the director of the Center for American Indians at Bacone from 2012 to 2018, leadership wanted to build a state-of-the-art museum to replace the 80-year-old building housing many priceless pieces of Native art.
“We didn’t even have the money to keep it open seven days a week,” said King, now a retired Cherokee professor, writer and academic.
Even when she first arrived on campus, King said Bacone's financial debts already had caught up to it. The student dorms didn’t have hot water, staff were severely underpaid and graduation rates among the college’s remaining students were low.
Still, she and other faculty endeavored to make it a place where Native students could find community, but Bacone’s old problems never went away. Like Cournoyer, after years of working toward rebuilding, she left in frustration.
Today, the old museum is empty. Its artifacts were moved to another location so they wouldn’t be exposed to extreme temperatures.
The remaining staff act as caretakers of the historic stone buildings that predate Oklahoma, themselves important pieces of the past. In the museum, Ataloa Lodge, the fireplace is made of stones sent to the college from Indigenous communities across the country: one from the birthplace of Sequoyah, one from the grave of Sitting Bull, another from the field where Custer died. Five hundred in all, each stone a memory.
Michael, the interim president, and others have been cleaning up buildings in hopes they might soon host graduation banquets and student gatherings. Other staff chase off looters. Rare paintings still hang across campus, including pieces by members of the Kiowa Six, who became internationally famous a century ago, and Johnnie Diacon, a Muscogee painter and alumnus whose work can be seen in the background of several episodes of the television show Reservation Dogs
A few years ago, experts from a museum in Tulsa warned that many of the paintings are contaminated with mold, which will spread to other nearby works of art. Leslie Hannah, a Cherokee educator who sits on the college’s board of trustees, said he’s concerned, but the cost of restoring them falls far down the list, behind broken gas lines, flooded basements and a mountain of debt.
Bacone’s current financial crisis stems partially from a lawsuit brought by Midgley-Huber Energy Concepts, a Utah-based heating and air company that sued the college over more than $1 million in unpaid construction and service fees. Twice last year, the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office put Bacone’s property up for sale to settle the debt. Both times the auction was called off, most recently in December.
MHEC owner Chris Oberle told KOSU last month that he intended to purchase the historic property. Attorneys for MHEC have not returned repeated requests for comment from the Associated Press.
Alumni have called the validity of any sale of the property into question, pointing to the treaty right that established the campus and its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Attorneys for the college declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
Michael said she doesn’t know what stalled the auction, but she is grateful for more time to try to save Bacone.
Across the country, there are only a few dozen tribal colleges, according to the American Indian College Fund, a nonprofit that supports Native American access to higher education. Tribal colleges must be sponsored by a federally recognized tribe and have a majority Native student enrollment. But unlike most of those colleges, Bacone was built on its identity as an intertribal school, a quality that former staff and alumni say made it special.
Now a private institution, Bacone no longer receives state or federal assistance. Its finances have long relied heavily on student tuition, and now it has no students. Michael said judging from the finances, it’s a miracle the college managed to keep its doors open this long.
“Now I’m looking back on this thinking this was set up for failure,” she said.
Biden Expands 2 National Monuments in California Significant to Tribal Nations
By ALEXA ST. JOHN Associated Press
President Joe Biden on Thursday expanded two national monuments in California following calls from tribal nations, Indigenous community leaders and others for the permanent protection of nearly 120,000 acres (48,562 hectares) of important cultural and environmental land.
The designations are part of the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative, launched in 2021 in line with Biden’s campaign promises, and builds on the Great American Outdoors Act. They're aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change, the White House said in a news release.
Against the backdrop of Biden’s reelection campaign, the White House emphasized the role of Vice President Kamala Harris in ensuring protections in her home state. The state of California also has conservation targets.
“These expansions will increase access to nature, boost our outdoor economy, and honor areas of significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples as we continue to safeguard our public lands for all Americans and for generations to come,” Harris said in a written statement.
Some Republicans and other critics of the president's initiative say it unnecessarily ties up resources that could be crucial for agriculture and other uses. In some cases, they allege he has exceeded his legal authority. Some of the president's past actions have included restoring monuments or conservation land that former Republican President Donald Trump had canceled.
In Pasadena, Southern California, Biden expanded the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, driven by calls from Indigenous peoples including the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and the Gabrieleno San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians. Both are the original stewards of the culturally rich and diverse lands, advocates noted in a separate news release.
The president also expanded Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Sacramento in Northern California, to include Molok Luyuk, or Condor Ridge. The newly renamed ridgeline has been significant to tribal nations such as the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for thousands of years. It is a central site for religious ceremonies and was once important to key trading routes, advocates said.
Expansion of both sites makes nature more accessible for Californians, while protecting a number of species, including black bears, mountain lions and tule elk, the White House release said.
Californians are calling on the Biden administration to make a total of five monument designations this year. The other three include the designation of a new Chuckwalla National Monument, new Kw’tsán National Monument and a call to protect and name Sáttítla, known as the Medicine Lake Highlands, as a national monument.
Expansion and designation efforts are made under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes the president to “provide general legal protection of cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on Federal lands,” according to the Department of the Interior.
Across the nation, coalitions of tribes and conservation groups have urged Biden to make a number of other designations over the past three years. With Thursday’s news, the administration has established or expanded seven national monuments, restored protections for three more and taken other measures, the White House said.
Biden signed a national monument designation outside Grand Canyon National Park called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni last August, a move which the top two Republicans in Arizona's Legislature are currently challenging.
In 2021, Biden restored two sprawling national monuments in Utah and a marine conservation area in New England where environmental protections had been cut by Trump. The move was also challenged in court.
Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, sacred to Native Americans in southern Nevada, was designated in 2023 along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas.
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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
A Famed NYC Museum is Closing Two Native American Halls. Harvard and Others Have Taken Similar Steps
By PHILIP MARCELO
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s American Museum of Natural History is closing two halls featuring Native American objects starting Saturday, acknowledging the exhibits are “severely outdated” and contain culturally sensitive items.
The mammoth complex across from Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is the latest U.S. institution to cover up or remove Native American exhibits to comply with recently revamped federal regulations dealing with the display of Indigenous human remains and cultural items.
The museum said in October that it would pull all human remains from public display, with the aim of eventually repatriating as much as it could to Native American tribes and other rightful owners.
Sean Decatur, the museum's president, said in a letter to staff Friday that the latest move reflects the “growing urgency” among museums to change their relationships with tribes and how they exhibit Indigenous cultures.
“The halls we are closing are vestiges of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives, and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples,” he wrote. “Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”
Earlier this month, Chicago’s Field Museum covered several displays containing Native American items. Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has said it would remove all Native American funerary items from its exhibits. The Cleveland Museum of Art is another institution that has taken similar steps.
Shannon O’Loughlin, head of the Association on American Indian Affairs, a national group that has long called for museums to comply with the federal requirements, welcomed such developments but said the true test is what ultimately becomes of the removed items.
“Covering displays or taking things down isn’t the goal,” she said. “It’s about repatriation — returning objects back to tribes. So this is just one part of a much bigger process.”
Todd Mesek, a Cleveland Museum of Art spokesperson, said the institution is consulting with Native American groups to secure their consent to display certain items as well as reviewing archival records to determine if there is already some agreement on record.
Jason Newton, a Harvard spokesperson, said the Peabody is committed to returning all ancestral remains and funerary items and has more than doubled the number of staffers working toward that end in recent months. The museum also announced this month that it would cover the expenses of tribal members traveling to campus as part of the repatriation process.
The revised regulations released in December by the U.S. Department of the Interior are related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. The changes include expanded requirements for consulting with and receiving tribes' consent to exhibit and conduct research on Indigenous artifacts, including human remains and funerary, sacred and cultural objects.
Native American groups have long complained that museums, colleges and other institutions dragged out the process of returning hundreds of thousands of culturally significant items.
“The only exception to repatriation is if a museum or institution can prove they received consent at the time the item was taken,” O’Loughlin said. “But most institutions can’t do that, of course, because these items and bodies were usually taken through violence, theft and looting.”
Decatur said in the letter that rather than simply covering up or removing items in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains Halls, the ones closing this weekend, the decision was made to shutter them entirely because they are “severely outdated.”
Meanwhile, some displays elsewhere in the museum, including ones showcasing Native Hawaiian items, will be covered, he added.
Decatur acknowledged one consequence of the closures will be the suspension of visits to them by school field trips. The Eastern Woodlands Hall, in particular, has been a mainstay for New York-area students learning about Native American life in the Northeast.
The museum remains committed to supporting the teaching of Indigenous cultures, Decatur said, and officials are reviewing the new federal regulations to understand their implications
O’Loughlin of the Association on American Indian Affairs said there isn’t as much gray area as museum officials might suggest.
“The new regulations make it crystal clear,” she said. “It doesn’t prohibit research. It doesn’t prohibit exhibiting native cultural heritage. It only requires prior and informed consent before doing so.”
Florida Rivals Ask Courts to Stop Online Sports Gambling Off Tribal Lands
By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The state of Florida and the Seminole Tribe of Florida will be raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from online sports betting this decade, thanks to a compact between the tribe and Gov. Ron DeSantis that gave the tribe exclusive rights to run sports wagers as well as casino gambling on its reservations.
But are these online wagers on the outcome of sporting events legally on tribal land, when really only the computer servers are located there, accepting bets made using mobile phones and computers from anywhere in Florida?
That's a question two of the tribe's gaming competitors are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will take up soon and answer with a definitive “no.”
A decision by the nation's highest court would be of “massive importance” for the future of online gaming across the U.S., since leaving in place an appellate ruling in the tribe's favor would set a precedent for other end-runs around state prohibitions against gaming off tribal lands, said the firms, West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corporation, which operate racetracks and poker rooms in Florida.
The companies sued Deb Haaland, secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees tribal gambling.
The U.S. Supreme Court accepts a tiny percentage of such petitions each year. The two pari-mutuel firms say the compact signed by the governor and the tribe in 2021 gives the tribe a sports gambling monopoly and creates a “backdoor” way out of the state's requirement, passed by voters in 2018 as an amendment to the Florida Constitution, that a citizens initiative is needed to expand casino gambling outside tribal land.
“Through this artifice, the Compact transparently attempts to get around the Florida Constitution,” the firms' attorneys said. “The whole point of the Compact is to provide a hook for dodging Florida’s constitutional requirement of a popular referendum to approve off-reservation sports betting.”
A lot of money is at stake. The tribe launched its online sports betting operation late last year, and Florida's share of 2024 revenues is already more than $120 million. State economic forecasters predict the revenue sharing from tribal gaming could total $4.4 billion through the end of this decade.
The pari-mutuel firms also sued DeSantis and leaders of the Florida Legislature, which authorized the compact, in a case pending before the Florida Supreme Court. The tribe argued the legislature has the authority to decide where online gambling is initiated and the amendment doesn't change that.
“The 2021 Compact is an historic agreement between the Tribe and State that settled years of disputes,” the Seminole Tribe said in a court filing.
The tribe now counts about 5,000 members, descended from the Native Americans who survived in the Florida Everglades, resisting federal efforts to remove them in the 19th century. The sovereign tribe operates seven casinos across Florida and owns the Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos business, with locations in 76 countries.
Attorneys for DeSantis and the legislative leaders argue sports betting is different from casino gambling and therefore isn't prohibited by the amendment. They also note that rivals can get in on the action — and get paid a revenue share — by allowing their customers to make online bets from their properties to the tribe’s servers.
“As an important source of revenue for both the Seminole Tribe and the State — and even the Tribe’s competitors — the 2021 compact serves the public interest and has been upheld in federal court," attorneys for DeSantis and the legislative leaders told the state justices.
The pari-mutuel firms' latest petition before the U.S. Supreme Court was filed Feb. 8, after an appellate panel reversed a federal district court decision in their favor. If the justices don't weigh in, Florida's example could inspire other states to allow tribes to expand online gaming, Daniel Wallach, a South Florida attorney and sports betting law expert said in a high court brief.
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Daniel Kozin contributed to this report from Hollywood, Florida.
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Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.
Casino Industry Spurs $329 Billion in US Economic Activity, Study by Gambling Group Shows
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) __ The casino gambling industry in the U.S. generates nearly $329 billion a year in economic activity, according to a new study by the industry`s national trade association.
The American Gaming Association released a study Monday showing the industry`s economic impact in 2022 was up 26% from 2017, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Commercial and tribal casinos support 1.8 million jobs, including 700,000 jobs at casinos themselves or related businesses, about the same as in 2017. Those jobs generated $104 billion in wages across the country, up 40% from 2017, according to the study.
The industry paid $52.7 billion last year in taxes to federal, state and local governments, up 29% since 2017, the report said.
The report was the first such study released by the association since 2018, which presented 2017 data.
Bill Miller, president and CEO of the association, said the numbers show the casino industry`s "resiliency and continued strength" since the pandemic first hit.
"Think back to where we were a few years ago with nearly 1,000 casinos, almost all of them closed," he said. "Today, we`re seeing record revenue in the industry."
Miller said the association will use numbers from the survey to press its case to lawmakers in favor of gambling industry goals, including a government crackdown on unlicensed gambling operations.
The U.S. casino industry is having its best year ever this year in terms of the amount of money won from gamblers. It is on a pace to exceed the $60 billion it won from gamblers last year.
"I think it speaks to the continuing popularity of casino gambling in the United States," said David Schwartz, a gambling historian at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "Despite some economic headwinds, casinos remain powerful drivers of economic activity."
Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at New Jersey`s Stockton University, which studies the Atlantic City gambling industry, said money won by casinos is just part of their overall contribution to the nation`s economy.
"Casinos are often the largest employers in a region, with major commitments in terms of wages and benefits," she said. "People employed by casinos use those wages and benefits to purchase additional goods and services, generating secondary economic impact."
Bokunewicz said casinos spend significant sums on operating costs, including purchases of goods and services like food, linen, hotel room amenities, laundry services, and building maintenance. They also hire local builders and vendors for construction and ongoing capital improvements.
The survey examined money won from gamblers or spent at non-gambling casino businesses like restaurants and stores, including traditional casino games, sports betting and online gambling. Also surveyed was capital investment, including the building and opening of new casinos or renovations to existing ones, and spending by manufacturers of gambling devices including slot machines.
It included supply chain spending by casinos, and spending by casino workers on non-gambling items. And it also included $13.5 billion in so-called catalytic spending by casino patrons outside casinos, on things like transportation to and from a casino resort, and money spent at restaurants that are not part of casinos.
Commercial casinos employed almost 332,000 workers last year, who earned $16.3 billion in wages and benefits, and tribal casinos employed almost 265,000 workers, who earned $8 billion in wages and benefits. There also were almost 89, 000 jobs at businesses serving casino patrons during trips or in casino construction and renovations, and more than 23,000 jobs at gambling equipment manufacturers.
Non-gambling revenue accounted for nearly 17% of casino revenue last year, including money from food and beverage sales, hotel rooms and other items.
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Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly known as Twitter, at www.twitter. com/WayneParryAC
More Wild Atlantic Salmon Found in U.S. Rivers Than Any Time in the Past Decade, Officials Say
By PATRICK WHITTLE
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) __ The last wild Atlantic salmon that return to U.S. rivers have had their most productive year in more than a decade, raising hopes they may be weathering myriad ecological threats.
Officials counted more than 1,500 of the salmon in the Penobscot River, which is home to the country`s largest run of Atlantic salmon, Maine state data show. That is the most since 2011 when researchers counted about 2,900 of them.
The salmon were once abundant in American rivers, but factors such as overfishing, loss of habitat and pollution reduced their populations to only a handful of rivers in Maine. The fish are protected by the Endangered Species Act, and sometimes only a few hundred of them return from the ocean to the rivers in a year.
The greater survival of the salmon could be evidence that conservation measures to protect them are paying off, said Sean Ledwin, director of the Maine Department of Marine Resources sea-run fish programs. The count of river herring is also up, and that could be aiding the salmon on their perilous journey from the sea to the river.
"The increasing runs of river herring help distract hungry predators such as seals and striped bass from the relatively rarer Atlantic salmon, which may help increase salmon survival of the predator gauntlet," Ledwin said.
Americans eat a lot of farmed Atlantic salmon from expansive aquaculture operations. Commercial fisheries for wild Atlantic salmon in the U.S. closed decades ago due to overfishing and pollution. They once ranged south to Long Island Sound, off of Connecticut and New York.
But counts of wild salmon have been trending up in recent years. The count of salmon at the Milford Dam in the Penobscot River has been over 1,000 in four of the last five years, Maine data show. That followed several years in a row when the count never exceeded 840.
The Penobscot River once supported runs of salmon in the tens of thousands, in the era before intense damming of rivers, said Dan McCaw, fisheries program manager for the Penobscot Nation. The Native American tribe has lived along the river for thousands of years.
"So it is a tick up compared to previous years, but in the grand scheme of things, it's still abysmal,`` McCaw said.
Conservation groups in New England have long focused on removing dams and restoring salmon. They`re emboldened by the salmon`s gains this year, said Neville Crabbe, spokesperson for the Atlantic Salmon Federation.
"It's going to take a commitment from everybody in the world to reduce emissions, and try to negate the most severe implications of climate change," Crabbe said.
Nevada Gov. Approves Funds to Replace Crumbling Tribal School at the Center of Community Outcry
By GABE STERN
Associated Press/Report for America
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A crumbling tribal school that was the subject of widespread community outcry is set to be replaced after Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo signed into law funding for a new facility on Tuesday.
Flanked by tribal leaders and dozens of students who traveled to the state Capitol from a reservation in a remote swath of northern Nevada, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed the legislation that funds both a new school and opens new mechanisms for tribal and rural school funding across the state.
"I'm so proud of the youth for making these long trips, meeting with legislators and making this a true learning experience," said Brian Mason, chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation.
The public Owyhee Combined School on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation hosts 330 students from pre-K through 12th grade along the Nevada-Idaho border. The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the reservation have about 2,000 members, nearly all of whom have attended the school built in 1953.
Hundreds of tribal members visited the Nevada Legislature in April, where they pleaded for new school funding.
They described a bat colony living in the ceiling, where drippings ebb into the home economics room. Stray bullet holes have remained in the front glass windows years after they appeared. The school is a stone's throw from a highway, where passersby sometimes use the school bathroom as if it's a rest stop.
Perhaps most hazardous is the school's location, which sits adjacent to toxic hydrocarbon plumes that lie under the town. Tribal doctors are preparing a study in relation to a noticeable string of cancer deaths.
"Our current facility, designed and built at a time of the policy of 'kill the Indian and save the man,' no longer serves us," said Vice Principal Lynn Manning- John at the bill signing. "For our future of our tribe, and for us as individuals, this new school promises hope."
The new school will take about three years to build, Lombardo said.
Sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, the bill allocates $64.5 million for a new Owyhee Combined School and also creates other funding mechanisms for other tribal and rural schools. Rural Elko County, which has jurisdiction over the Owyhee school, has just over a year to decide whether to pay an additional property tax for or divert part of its revenues for a school district capital fund.
The bill gives other rural counties' board of commissioners the option to raise property taxes to help fund capital projects for schools on tribal land. It also creates an account of $25 million for capital projects for schools and another $25 million specifically for schools on tribal land.
One school that could benefit from the bill is Schurz Elementary School, on the Walker River Reservation in rural Mineral County. Walker River Paiute Tribe Chairwoman Andrea Martinez originally advocated for the bill when it only included the funding for the Owyhee School, but became more involved when it was widened to include more rural and tribal schools.
"For our culture, we think about the next seven generations. And the people that put in the work to do this, that's where their mindset is," Martinez said. "It makes me happy to see that's where our mindset is now, instead of trying to just survive the systemic injustices we've been facing."
Teresa Melendez, a tribal lobbyist and organizer who worked on the bill, said some tribal leaders and principals are considering a feasibility study to create a new tribal school district for a more cohesive funding and curriculum plan across Nevada's four reservation-based schools. They would hope to have it done before the next legislative session in 2025.
"These schools have been neglected for decades," Melendez said. "But it's not just the facilities. We need solutions regarding the teacher shortage, the teacher housing issue, culturally insensitive and inaccurate curriculum. There's a host of Indian education issues that we need to tackle."
Rights Upheld, Lawsuit Revived Against Teacher Accused of Cutting Native American Student's Hair
By MORGAN LEE Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - An appeals court ruling has revived an anti-discrimination lawsuit accusing an Albuquerque teacher of cutting off one Native American girl's hair and asking another if she was dressed as a "bloody Indian" during class on Halloween.
Outrage over the girls' treatment propelled legislation in New Mexico and beyond that prohibits discrimination based upon hairstyle and religious head garments.
The American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit accused Albuquerque Public Schools and a teacher of discrimination and fostering a hostile learning environment. ACLU of New Mexico Deputy Director Leon Howard said the ruling affirms that public schools are subject to antidiscrimination protections in the New Mexico Human Rights Act.
The appellate ruling validates that all "students must feel safe at school and confident that their culture, history, and personal dignity are valued and respected by the public schools they attend," Howard said in a statement.
A lower court had determined that a public high school does not qualify as a "public accommodation" under the state's civil rights law. The appellate ruling returns the lawsuit to state district court for a hearing on its merits.
"If a public secondary school official in their official capacity were to refuse services to an individual based on the individual's race, religion, or sexual orientation, then the New Mexico Human Right Act would surely apply," Appeals Court Judge J. Miles Hanissee wrote.
Albuquerque Public Schools spokeswoman Monica Armenta said the district is considering options to appeal.
The lawsuit alleges that English teacher Mary Jane Eastin dressed up as a voodoo witch on Halloween in 2018 and initiated a game in which she would ask students questions and reward those who answered correctly with marshmallows while giving dog food to those who didn't.
At some point, Eastin asked a Native American student whether she liked her braids and then cut off about three inches with scissors, sprinkling the hair on her desk, the suit alleges.
The suit says Eastin also asked another student, plaintiff McKenzie Johnson, 16, if she was dressed as a "bloody Indian." Johnson's mother later told reporters her daughter was dressed for Halloween as Little Red Riding Hood, with a red paw mark on her face. Johnson, who is Navajo, said she no longer felt welcome at school.
The school district's superintendent publicly apologized and told parents Eastin would not return to Cibola High School.
Johnson called the ruling a breakthrough for Indigenous students and others.
"We are surrounded by Native communities," she said in a statement. "School staff at all levels need to understand our culture and our history so that what happened in my classroom never happens again."
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation in 2021 that prohibits discrimination, discipline or disparate treatment of students based on hair style, religious headdress or culture.
The U.S. House endorsed an unsuccessful bill last year largely in response to bias Black people can face over their hairstyles in society, school and the workplace.
In 2021, the father of a 7-year-old Michigan girl whose hair was cut by a teacher without her parents' permission filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school district, a librarian and a teacher's assistant. The lawsuit alleged racial discrimination and rights violations against the biracial girl.
Johnson is represented by Parnall & Adams Law and the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.
Oklahoma Legislature Overrides Governor's Veto of Tribal Regalia Bill
By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Oklahoma Legislature on Thursday overrode Gov. Kevin Stitt's veto of a bill that would allow students to wear Native American regalia during high school and college graduations.
The state House and Senate easily cleared the two-thirds threshold needed to uphold the measure, which takes effect July 1 and had strong support from many Oklahoma-based tribes and Native American citizens.
It would allow any student at a public school, including colleges, universities and technology centers, to wear tribal regalia such as traditional garments, jewelry or other adornments during official graduation ceremonies. Weapons such as a bow and arrow, tomahawk or war hammer are specifically prohibited.
Stitt, a Cherokee Nation citizen who has feuded with many Oklahoma-based Native American tribes throughout his two terms in office, vetoed the bill earlier this month, saying at the time that the decision should be up to individual districts.
"In other words, if schools want to allow their students to wear tribal regalia at graduation, good on them," Stitt wrote in his veto message. "But if schools prefer for their students to wear only traditional cap and gown, the Legislature shouldn't stand in their way."
Stitt also suggested the bill would allow other groups to "demand special favor to wear whatever they please at a formal ceremony."
Lawmakers also overrode vetoes of several other measures, including one adding experts on Native American health to a wellness council and another allowing for the existence of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the state's Public Broadcasting Service affiliate.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. thanked the Legislature on Thursday.
"I hope Governor Stitt hears the message that his blanket hostility to tribes is a dead end," Hoskin said in a statement. ''The majority of Oklahomans believe in respecting the rights of Native Americans and working together with the sovereign tribes who share this land."
Kamryn Yanchick, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, was denied the opportunity to wear a decorated cap with a beaded pattern when she graduated from her high school in 2018.
Being able to "unapologetically express yourself and take pride in your culture at a celebration without having to ask a non-Native person for permission to do so is really significant," said Yanchick, who is now a Native American policy advocate.
A Native American former student sued Broken Arrow Public Schools and two employees earlier this month after she was forced to remove an eagle feather from her graduation cap prior to her high school commencement ceremony.
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Follow Sean Murphy on Twitter: @apseanmurphy
Maine Tribes Make Sovereignty Call in First Address in Years
By Patrick Whittle
Associated Press
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Tribal leaders in Maine, who have long sparred with state leaders over the issue of sovereignty for Native American tribes, used their first address to the Maine Legislature in 21 years to call for greater autonomy.
The tribes hope to alter the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act of 1980, which treats reservations like municipalities that are subject to state law. Other federal recognized tribes are treated like sovereign nations, and Maine tribes' different status has led to conflicts with the state over issues such as natural resources and economic development.
It's time to modernize the agreement between state government and Maine tribes, because the current arrangement makes Maine Native Americans "outliers in Indian Country," said Clarissa Sabattis, chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseets.
''I look forward to forging a new path forward that is not only better for our tribe but also better for this great state that we all call home,'' Sabattis said.
Other speakers at Thursday's State of the Tribes address were: Edward Peter Paul, chief of the Aroostook Band of Mi'kmaqs; William Nicholas, chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk; Rena Newell, chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik; and Kirk Francis, chief of the Penobscot Nation.
The address drew a large crowd to the Maine State House, with lawmakers and tribal members filling the Maine House of Representatives chamber, and dozens more tribal activists and allies filling other rooms in the state house to watch the speech on television.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, did not attend the speech due to a scheduling conflict, said Ben Goodman, a spokesperson for the governor. Mills and the tribes have been at odds over the issue of greater tribal autonomy during the past year.
A proposal to grant tribal sovereignty was tabled by the Maine Legislature last year when Mills threatened to veto it. Lack of sovereignty puts Native Americans in Maine at a disadvantage compared to hundreds of tribes across the country, tribal leaders have long argued. Mills said last year that she feared the proposal would yield years of litigation, and that more communication between the tribes and state was needed.
On Thursday, the governor invited the tribal chiefs to meet with her "to continue the communication, collaboration, and compromise that formed the basis for progress in previous legislative sessions," Goodman said.
Thursday's speech was preceded by a rally and tribal drumming at Maine State House. It was the second address of its kind, as the first State of the Tribes was held in March 2002.
All five tribal speakers said the tribes need more autonomy from state government. They also touched on issues such as the need to improve tribal health care services, education and business growth.
Francis said Maine tribes are "stuck in 1980 policy" because of the lack of sovereignty.
"All we want is for state government to break decisively from the past and join the era of self-determination," Francis said.
The first State of the Tribes event included a resolution by the Maine Legislature that stated the indigenous tribes "have lived in what is now Maine for thousands of years" and "continue to play a vital role in the life of the state and are an integral part of the social, economic and legal fabric of the state."
State leaders said in a statement that Thursday's event was "a part of ongoing legislative work to strengthen the relationship between Maine and its tribal neighbors."
New TN Aquarium Exhibit Showcases Appalachian Aquatic Life
By EMILY CRISMAN, Times Free Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - About two years ago Jeff Worley's ideas for a new Tennessee Aquarium exhibit existed only in his mind.
Worley, the Tennessee Aquarium's senior manager of exhibit services, turned those ideas into sketches that then became the basis of a 3D scale model of the exhibit, with rocks and plants he shaped from foam and plastic people and turtles made using a 3D printer.
Now a team of people are almost finished creating full-size replicas of Worley's models. Called Ridges to Rivers, the new gallery is focused on the aquatic life of Southern Appalachia and replaces the former Discovery Hall gallery in the River Journey building.
"We went from a bunch of small exhibits to fewer really big ones," Worley said in an interview at the aquarium.
One of two stream exhibits in the gallery represents the upper Tennessee River drainage system, with water coming from an elevated level spilling over imitation rocks and tree limbs across the length of the exhibit like fast-moving water running down a stream.
"There are 600 gallons a minute that are being flushed through this system, so it's really rushing," Communications Manager Thom Benson said in an interview at the aquarium.
Construction of the upper Tennessee River stream tank started with stacking cinder blocks in the empty tank. Then reinforcing metal bars and wire was bent around the blocks, and concrete was spread over the wire and sculpted to resemble rocks and boulders, he said.
Using an airbrush technique, muralist David Rock painted the background of the exhibit to look like Appalachia.
Two workers were painting the rocks last week, and the acrylic will be polished this week before the water and animals are added.
The new exhibit allows the aquarium to showcase all the colorful stream fish that would become food for the trout contained in the aquarium's other large stream exhibits, Worley said.
Species of fish in that tank will include chubs, darters and sunfish. Turtles also will bask on logs in the stream within the exhibit, as their 3D printed counterparts do in Worley's model.
Another stream tank will feature the different species found in the Conasauga River drainage system that runs through Cherokee National Forest in Southeast Tennessee and into Georgia.
Aquarium visitors now will have more room to touch the leathery skin of the lake sturgeon, as their tank has been expanded to about three times the size of the sturgeon touch tank found in the former Discovery Hall gallery.
A climbable bronze sculpture of a sturgeon is another feature of the gallery that's set to arrive this week.
A multisensory aspect of the gallery is the storm feature that occurs about four times each hour. Visitors will hear thunder and lightning, the lights in the tank will dim as if the clouds are moving in, a fan will kick on to simulate the wind blowing, and it will "rain" inside the tank for around a minute, Worley said.
Then the sun comes out, the thunder and lightning go away and the weather remains sunny for about 15 minutes before the cycle repeats.
Staff art created with plastic trash for the aquarium's Washed Ashore exhibit was moved to the new gallery to remind visitors how much plastic trash we produce and how it affects our environment, Worley said.
The gallery's pop-up tank will allow visitors to climb into a cylindrical tube in the center of a tank featuring interactive graphics that simulate the experience of being underwater in a local stream.
"You pass streams and rivers every day, but you don't realize just how much life is in there," Worley said.
Gaining knowledge about the creatures living in the rivers and streams they pass by every day helps children form an appreciation for those animals and their habitats, Benson said.
"When they see stuff like this, they start thinking about, 'What can I do to make sure that that little stream that's home to these cool animals can be kept healthier by my individual actions?' he said.
HUD Proposes Expanded Support For Tribal Housing Counseling Services
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Housing Counseling is announcing today that it published a proposed rule in the Federal Register outlining housing counselor certification requirements for housing counseling conducted in connection with the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) and the Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) programs. The proposed rule seeks to expand Tribal participation in HUD-approved housing counseling by removing unique impediments to counselor certification. When final, HUD expects that the rule will help expand the number of certified housing counselors serving Tribal communities.
“This proposed rule is important to strengthening the participation of Tribes and Tribal organizations in HUD’s housing counseling program,” said Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. “Having counselors who understand the unique needs of those residing in Tribal communities will help increase access to homeownership for Tribes whose members have long been underserved by the mortgage market.”
When Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, it required that all housing counseling conducted under HUD programs be carried out by HUD-certified housing counselors. In furtherance of HUD’s government-to-government relationship with Tribal Nations, HUD delayed the applicability of this certification requirement to HUD’s Native American Housing Programs so that it could conduct consultation with Tribal leaders. This consultation was to ensure that the unique needs and conditions of Tribal Nations were considered in HUD’s execution of its certification responsibilities under the Dodd-Frank statute.
The proposed rule was developed following multiple Tribal consultation and listening sessions where Tribes provided input and feedback on HUD’s existing housing counselor certification requirements and the ways in which they should be tailored to meet Tribal needs.
“It is thanks to the outstanding partnership with HUD’s Office of Native American Programs and the strong engagement by Tribal representatives during the consultation sessions that we have arrived at a set of proposals to more fully integrate the unique needs of Tribal entities into our housing counseling certification and approval processes,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Counseling David Berenbaum.
Based upon feedback received from Tribal entities, HUD is proposing to:
- Adjust certain components of HUD’s current housing counselor certification exam specifically for Tribes, including adjustments for distinctions in fair housing laws pertaining to Tribes and the unique status of trust land;
- Recommend additional training for counselors who become certified to provide housing counseling for the IHBG and ICDBG programs;
- Modify study materials for housing counselor certification examinations to account for tailored content specific to Tribes; and
- Require that housing counseling that is funded with or provided in connection with IHBG or ICDBG funds is performed by individuals who are HUD certified.
HUD is encouraging public comments on the proposed rule through March 27, 2023, via the submission methods outlined in the Federal Register. HUD intends to conduct additional Tribal consultation before issuing a final rule in the future.
HHS Launches New Maternal Health Resources for Native Communities
Washington, D.C.— On Thursday, December 1, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra attended the White House Tribal Nations Summit where he discussed the Department’s commitment to address mental and maternal health in American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities. As part of HHS’ commitment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of Minority Health (OMH) launched a new Hear Her campaign segment that works to improve AIAN maternal health outcomes by raising awareness of life-threatening warning signs during and after pregnancy and improving communication between health care providers and their patients. The Hear Her campaign centers on the stories of women who have experienced pregnancy-related complications.
“American Indian and Alaska Native women are two times more likely than White women to die of complications related to pregnancy,” said Rear Admiral Felicia Collins, M.D., HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health and OMH Director. “Through the CDC and OMH partnership, we have expanded the existing Hear Her campaign to create culturally appropriate resources that amplify the experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native women, while giving them tools to advocate for their health and well-being during and after pregnancy. The campaign also emphasizes the importance and role of health care providers in providing respectful care.”
“We are immensely grateful to the women who have shared their powerful stories through the Hear Her campaign, and to the families and communities that have supported them,” said Wanda Barfield, M.D., Director of CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health. “By generously and bravely sharing what they went through, these women are helping to improve outcomes for mothers and future generations.”
In the United States, more than 700 women die each year as a result of complications due to pregnancy. The CDC estimates that more than 80% of these pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Disparities exist for pregnancy-related deaths and are noticeably high for Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women. For American Indian and Alaska Native people, ongoing and historical trauma due to colonization, genocide, forced migration, and cultural erasure contribute to health inequities, including pregnancy-related deaths and other maternal health conditions. Consequently, American Indian and Alaska Native people are more likely to have underlying chronic health conditions, and they face systemic barriers to care including higher rates of poverty and needing to travel long distances to receive quality health care services.
Given the maternal health disparities that AIAN people and communities experience, it is a priority for CDC and OMH to reach tribal communities with resources. In January 2021, CDC and OMH distributed a “Dear Tribal Leader Letter” to inform tribal leaders across the nation of our intention to develop resources to serve American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Later, CDC held in-depth interviews and focus groups with American Indian and Alaska Native pregnant and postpartum people, support people, and health care providers, to better understand their needs and how the Hear Her campaign might serve them. In January 2022, the National Indian Health Board hosted a discussion session to share an update on the formative work and offer an opportunity for public input on plans for developing resources. In October 2022, CDC held a pre-release partner briefing with the Area Indian Health Board Directors and other public health practitioners. That briefing offered another opportunity for community input before the resources were finalized and completed.
CDC and OMH have worked to include the voices and perspectives of American Indian and Alaska Native people throughout the development of the campaign and will continue to do so over time. As the campaign moves forward into implementation, the focus will be on building capacity for tribes and tribal serving organizations to implement the campaign and improve maternal outcomes.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works 24/7 protecting America’s health, safety and security. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are curable or preventable, chronic or acute, or from human activity or deliberate attack, CDC responds to America’s most pressing health threats. CDC is headquartered in Atlanta and has experts located throughout the United States and the world.
The Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities. Through its demonstration projects, OMH supports the identification of effective approaches for improving health outcomes and promotes the dissemination and sustainability of these approaches.
CVS, Walgreens Finalize $10B in Settlements over Opioids
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press
CVS and Walgreens have agreed to pay state and local governments a combined total of more than $10 billion to settle lawsuits over the toll of opioids and now want to know by Dec. 31 whether states are accepting the deals.
States announced final details Monday of settlements that the two largest pharmacy chains in the U.S. offered last month.
The deals are among the largest in a wave of proposed and finalized settlements over opioids in recent years totaling more than $50 billion. Another big pharmacy operator, Walmart, also agreed to a settlement last month for $3.1 billion.
Although lawyers involved in the cases are in line for a cut of the payments, most of the money is to be used to fight an overdose epidemic that has only deepened in recent years.
Opioids have been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. in the past two decades, with the most casualties in recent years. The drugs responsible for the bulk of the deaths have shifted from prescription painkillers to illicitly produced fentanyl, which is often being mixed into other street drugs.
In the 2010s, state and local governments filed thousands of lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the crisis. Key drugmakers and distribution companies have already agreed to settlements.
Now, pharmacies, which were subject to claims that they should have realized they were filling too many opioid prescriptions, are following suit.
Under the separate deals, states have until the end of the year to agree to drop claims over opioids against Walgreens and CVS to receive the maximum payouts.
If there aren't enough states participating, the companies can back out.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Monday that California could get up to $510 million in the Walgreens settlement. He said the state is still assessing the terms of the CVS deal.
“To all those struggling with substance abuse disorders, to all those desperately in need of treatment and recovery options _ help is on the way,” Bonta said.
Other states, including Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania, have indicated they're accepting the terms of both settlements.
If there is sufficient sign-on from states, local governments can also sign on to get shares.
The amount awarded to governments is based on their populations and the severity of the opioid crisis there. States will get bigger amounts if more of their local governments agree.
The Walgreens payments could total up to $5.52 billion over 15 years. The CVS payments could reach $4.9 billion over 10 years. Additionally, the companies have announced tentative payments to Native American tribes totaling more than $250 million.
Like other opioid settlements, the agreements call for governments that receive money to use it to fight the drug crisis.
Under the deals, about $1.2 billion would be set aside for lawyers' fees and legal expenses.
The companies also have agreed to monitor, report and share data about suspicious activity related to opioid prescriptions.
“CVS and Walgreens flooded our cities and towns with bottles upon bottles of pills with callous disregard for the suffering their actions caused,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement Monday. “Our settlement mandates significant changes to their business practices, including court-ordered monitoring to ensure the checks and balances that should have been in place all along will now be aggressively enforced.”
Hawaii Volcano Eruption Has Some on Alert, Draws Onlookers
By CALEB JONES and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Associated Press
HILO, Hawaii (AP) _ The first eruption in 38 years of the world's largest active volcano is attracting onlookers to a national park for ``spectacular'' views of the event, and it's also dredging up bad memories among some Hawaii residents who have been through harrowing volcanic experiences in the past.
It was just four years ago that Nicole Skilling fled her home near a community where more than 700 residences were destroyed by lava. She relocated to the South Kona area, only to find herself packing her car with food and supplies this week after Mauna Loa erupted late Sunday.
Officials were initially concerned that lava flowing down the side of the volcano would head toward South Kona, but scientists later assured the public that the eruption migrated to a rift zone on Mauna Loa's northeast flank and wasn't threatening any communities.
Still, the uncertainty is somewhat unnerving.
“It just happened last night, so I really haven't had a lot of time to worry about it yet, basically,” Skilling said Monday. ``And thankfully, right now, it's at the northeast rift zone. But if it breaks on the west side, that's when we're talking about coming into a large populated area. ... That's why I do have a little bit of PTSD.''
Even though there were no evacuation orders, some people decided to leave their homes, prompting officials to open shelters in the Kona and Kau areas. Very few if any stayed in them overnight, Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth said, and they would be closing Tuesday.
Despite that, some in the area were preparing for unpredictable changes.
Kamakani Rivera-Kekololio, who lives in the south Kona community of Hookena, was keeping supplies like food and blankets in his car.
``We're being makaukau for anything,'' Rivera-Kekololio said, using the Hawaiian word for ``ready.''
Ken Hon, scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said Tuesday that the lava was flowing “not super-fast” at less than 1 mph, though the exact speed wasn't yet clear. It was moving downhill about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from Saddle Road, which connects the east and west sides of the island. The flow was likely to slow down about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) from the road when it hits flatter ground.
It was not clear when or if the lava will reach the road. It could hit flatter ground later Tuesday or Wednesday, according to Hon.
``We're not even sure it will reach the highway, but that is certainly the next step in progress if it continues on these trends,'' he said, adding that it's also possible a fissure could open up and drain away some of the supply feeding the flow.
The smell of volcanic gases and sulfur was thick in the air Tuesday along Saddle Road, where people were watching a wide stream of lava creep closer. Clouds cleared to reveal a large plume of gas and ash rising from an open summit vent above the flow.
Gov. David Ige issued an emergency proclamation.
``We're thankful the lava flow is not affecting residential areas at this time, allowing schools and businesses to remain open,'' he said in a statement. ``I'm issuing this Emergency Proclamation now to allow responders to respond quickly or limit access, if necessary, as the eruption continues.''
Hon said lava crossed the Mauna Loa Observatory access road Monday night and cut off power to the facility. It could move toward the county seat of Hilo, he added, but that could take a week or longer.
Meanwhile, scientists are trying to measure the gas emitted from the eruption.
``It's just very early in this eruption right now,'' Hon said.
The eruption is drawing visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which is open 24 hours a day. ``The viewing has been spectacular`` especially before sunrise and at night, park spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane said.
Visitors there are currently able to witness two eruptive events: the glow from Kilauea's lava lake and lava from a Mauna Loa fissure.
``This is a rare time where we have two eruptions happening simultaneously,'' Ferracane said.
People in the northern Hilo neighborhood closest to the Mauna Loa eruption were cautious, but not overly scared Tuesday.
Lindsay Cloyd, 33, said it makes her a bit nervous, but she feels safe and is also in awe of the forces of nature happening in her backyard.
Originally from Utah and living in Hawaii for only a few years, she has never been part of an eruption.
“I feel so humbled and small,” she said, adding that ``it's a profound, incredible experience to get to be here while that's happening.''
Down the street, Thomas Schneider, 38, an optical engineer at the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea, just finished building his new home in the neighborhood.
The threat of lava never came up when he was buying the property, but he'd lived in Hilo for over a decade and knew the risks.
``If you were to look around my property you would see lava rock formations sticking out,'' he said. ``We live on an active volcano, so everywhere is kind of a lava zone.''
Mauna Loa's last eruption came close to his neighborhood but stopped short.
He said he's not afraid.
``I've been waiting since I moved here to see Mauna Loa go off, it's supposed to be spectacular,'' he said. ``It's kind of exciting that it's finally erupting.''
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Kelleher reported from Honolulu. Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed.
Project to Make Indigenous Histories Available Digitally
By JONAH BELECKIS
Wisconsin Public Radio
They can, of course, convey concise and relevant historical information. But they are limited to one point in time, said Kasey Keeler, an assistant professor of civil society and community studies and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
That's why Keeler is leading a project, ``Mapping Dejope: Indigenous Histories and Presence in Madison,'' which will make Indigenous history of the area digitally accessible.
``It's a living entity so that it can continuously be updated as needed, providing more information as it comes in,'' Keeler said. ``Then people have their phone right at their fingertips. So, if they see something that sparks interest, they can also dig in more.''
The initiative received a seed project grant from the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment this year, according to the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology. The maximum amount awarded from these grants is $4,000, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
Other funds are also coming from the School of Human Ecology's Indigenous EcoWell Initiative.
The exact format of the project is not yet fully clear, Keeler said. As of now, they are planning for a digital app and web-accessible version.
Keeler said the project will collect stories from Ho-Chunk Nation members _ and crucially, the funding will help pay them for it.
``Something that is often lost is that folks often expect Native community members to participate in different events without compensating them for their knowledge and for their time,'' she said. ''(Paying them) is so important in doing this kind of work.''
In 2016, Camp Randall Stadium put up a sign at one of its entrance identifying the areas as ``Ho-Chunk Nation Plaza.'' The sign, Keeler said, is big, red and very hard to miss.
It acts as a symbol of the relationship between the Ho-Chunk Nation and the university. She said it's a good reminder for tens of thousands of fans who attend football games about whose land they're all on.
But it didn't come for free. The Ho-Chunk Nation paid about $2 million for the naming rights, she said.
For Keeler, it's important the project gets into the thorny matters of Native history, especially as it pertains to land dispossession and forced removal considering the university sits atop Ho-Chunk land.
``A lot of the goal of this digital project is to push back on colonialism and to really question what we've been taught and what we think we know about this area that we call Madison today,'' she said.
She also said she would like to see more conversation at UW-Madison about moving beyond acknowledging past wrongs into righting those wrongs, such as having tuition waivers for Native students.
Keeler has been at the university for four years. She has taught larger, introductory classes in which she sees a need for students to connect with the landscape around them in Madison. Her own areas of interest include place-making, identity and the names of places.
Part of the story of the land UW-Madison occupies goes back to 1866, when it became a land-grant institution.
Keeler said land-grant institutions have been celebrated for making education more accessible. But accessible for whom?
``It's a really complicated history that myself and some other colleagues at the University of Wisconsin are really trying to dig into and provide resources to folks to learn more about this history,'' she said.
Keeler said the project was ``just barely getting off the ground.'' She is hoping to have a version of the digital map go live in the fall.
Yellowstone Mountain That Honored Massacre Leader Renamed
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) _ A government panel has renamed a Yellowstone National Park mountain that had been named for a U.S. Army officer who helped lead a massacre of Native Americans.
Mount Doane will now be called First Peoples Mountain after the unanimous vote by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, the National Park Service announced Thursday.
The 10,551-foot (3,200-meter) peak in southeastern Yellowstone in Wyoming had been named for Lt. Gustavus Doane, who in 1870 helped lead an attack on a band of Piegan Blackfeet in northern Montana.
Doane bragged for the rest of his life about what become known as the Marias Massacre. The attack in response to the alleged slaying of a white fur trader killed at least 173 American Indians, including many women, elders and children suffering from smallpox, Yellowstone officials said in a statement.
Besides being a leader of the massacre, Doane was a key member of a Yellowstone expedition the same year. Yellowstone became the world's first national park in 1872.
Yellowstone officials consulted with 27 tribes on the name change, according to the statement.
``This name change is long overdue. We all agreed on `First Peoples' Mountain' as an appropriate name to honor the victims of such inhumane acts of genocide, and to also remind people of the 10,000-year-plus connection tribal peoples have to this sacred place now called Yellowstone,'' Piikani Nation Chief Stan Grier said in a statement Wednesday.
The Piikani Nation's traditional territory covers much of Montana, including the site of the Marias Massacre, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
US Awards $73 Million Contract for Navajo-Gallup Water Project
GALLUP, N.M. (AP) _ The federal government has awarded a $73 million contract to construct pumping plants as part of an ongoing project to bring drinking water to parts of the Navajo Nation and to residents in northwestern New Mexico.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced Friday that an Arizona company earned the contract to build two pumping plants on the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. The plants will be situated near the Navajo community of Sanostee in San Juan County.
They will be part of a network of pipelines and pumping stations that will deliver treated water from the San Juan River.
Biden administration officials touted the contract as a ``significant milestone`` that is a result of the $1 trillion infrastructure deal passed by Congress last year.
The Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project will use about 280 miles (450 kilometers) of pipeline, pumping stations, storage tanks and two treatment plants to deliver water to chapters on the Navajo Nation and the city of Gallup. It's expected to be completed by the Bureau of Reclamation in 2027.
The project is a major component of the nation's water rights settlement agreement on the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico, where officials said over a third of households still haul drinking water to their homes.
Construction was authorized in a federal measure passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Barack Obama in 2009.
Distrust Remains After Navy Report on Tainted Hawaii Water
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER and CALEB JONES
Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) _ Lauren Wright continues to be leery of the water coming out of the taps in her family's U.S. Navy home in Hawaii, saying she doesn't trust that it's safe.
Wright, her sailor husband and their three children ages 8 to 17 were among the thousands of people who were sickened late last year after fuel from military storage tanks leaked into Pearl Harbor's tap water.
The family has returned to their military housing after spending months in Honolulu hotels, but they continue taking safety measures including taking short, five-minute showers. They don't drink their tap water or cook with it.
A Navy investigation released Thursday blamed the fuel leak and the water crisis that followed on shoddy management and human error. Some Hawaii residents, including Native Hawaiians, officials and military families said the report doesn't help restore trust in the Navy.
``I was at least hoping for some sort of remorse for the families and everybody involved in this,`` Wright said.
She said the ordeal has changed her view on the military from a decade ago when her husband first joined.
``I was the proud Navy spouse, you know, stickers and T-shirts,'' she said. ``I feel like the Navy has failed at what they promised every service member. They failed at a lot of things. And I'm not so proud.''
It's difficult to trust the Navy partly because Hawaii residents and officials for years have questioned the safety of the giant fuel storage tanks that have sat above an important aquifer since World War II, said Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former trustee of the Commission on Water Resource Management.
``Releasing a report saying that they were lying to us is not a step towards building trust,'' he said. ``De-fueling and getting the tanks out permanently, setting aside funds to remediate the water systems all across Oahu and replant our forests _ when I see steps like that happening _ that's a tangible step toward rebuilding trust.''
Some Native Hawaiians said the report only deepened a distrust in the military that dates to at least 1893, when a group of American businessmen, with support from U.S. Marines, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom. More recently, Native Hawaiians fought to stop target practice bombing on the island of Kahoolawe and at Makua Valley in west Oahu.
``There's no proof I should have faith in them,'' said Kalehua Krug, with Ka'ohewai, a cultural organization advocating for a clean aquifer for Oahu. ``They've done nothing but lie for generations.''
Navy officials have said previously they have a lot of work ahead to gain the trust of communities across the island, and in particular Native Hawaiians.
The investigation report released Thursday listed a cascading series of mistakes from May 6, 2021, when operator error caused a pipe to rupture and 21,000 gallons (80,000 liters) of fuel to spill when it was being transferred between tanks. Most of the fuel spilled into a fire suppression line and sat there for six months, causing the line to sag. A cart rammed into this sagging line on Nov. 20, releasing 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) of fuel.
The report said officials defaulted to assuming the best about what was happening when the spills occurred, instead of assuming the worst, and this contributed to their overlooking the severity of situation.
The spill contaminated the Navy's water system. Fuel didn't get into the Honolulu municipal water supply. But concerns the oil might migrate through the aquifer and get into the city's wells prompted the Honolulu Board of Water Supply in December to shut down a key well serving some 400,000 people. The agency has been asking residents to conserve water because of this and unusually dry weather.
The tanks continue to pose a threat to Oahu's drinking water while they hold fuel, said Ernest Lau, manager and chief engineer of the water utility.
The report saying it will take more than two years to drain the facility is concerning, Lau said Friday.
``The fact that they built this massive facility in three years, so can't they find a way to do all the necessary work in less than two and a half years ... I think it can be done,`` he said, urging the Navy to look at shortening the timeline.
Kristina Baehr, an attorney who represents more than 100 military and civilian families who lodged claims against the Navy, said it was especially troubling to read in the report how pervasive the errors were.
``This is a national security issue,'' she said, noting many of her clients were still experiencing the effects of the tainted water. ``And our families and military communities cannot be mission-ready if the government has made them sick.''
Commerce Dept. Invests $5 Million Through Rescue Plan’s Good Jobs Challenge
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced the Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is awarding a $5 million American Rescue Plan Good Jobs Challenge grant to Lakota Funds, Kyle, South Dakota to create Building Jobs, Building Homes, a construction trades training program for residents of the nine Tribal reservations of South Dakota.
This program will develop a construction trades training program and implement a certified appraiser program, addressing a significant barrier to housing construction on Tribal lands. The program will also support a variety of wraparound services.
“President Biden is committed to ensuring that Tribal communities are provided with the resources they need to diversify and grow their economies,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “This EDA investment will create a workforce training program for the construction industry on Tribal lands, helping to address a shortage of housing inventory while providing quality, demand-driven training for Tribal members.”
“The Good Jobs Challenge is bringing together diverse partners and local leaders to advance workforce training programs across the country,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Alejandra Y. Castillo. “Led by Lakota Funds, this program will bring together Tribal and non-Tribal institutions to create an effective, inclusive workforce training program to support Indigenous people in South Dakota.”
This grant is funded through the American Rescue Plan Good Jobs Challenge. The program awarded grants to 32 worker-centered, industry-led workforce training partnerships across the country. The $500 million program is expanding opportunities for more Americans to access and secure good-paying jobs by investing in innovative approaches to advance worker-centered, industry-led workforce training partnerships.
The 32 awardee projects were selected from a competitive pool of 509 applicants. By partnering with stakeholders such as labor unions, community colleges and industry, these projects will solve for local talent needs, increase the supply of trained workers and help workers secure jobs in 15 key industries that are essential to U.S. supply chains, global competitiveness, and regional development. Through a holistic, integrated partnership approach, these projects will provide tangible opportunities and security for American workers, focusing on serving and supporting a broad range of underserved communities and connecting workers with the training, skills, and support services needed to successfully secure a good job.
The Good Jobs Challenge is part of a suite of American Rescue Plan programs developed by EDA to equitably distribute its $3 billion allocation to assist communities nationwide in their efforts to build a better America by accelerating economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and building local economies that will be more resilient to future economic shocks.
About the U.S. Economic Development Administration (www.eda.gov)
The mission of the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) is to lead the federal economic development agenda by promoting competitiveness and preparing the nation's regions for growth and success in the worldwide economy. An agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce, EDA invests in communities and supports regional collaboration in order to create jobs for U.S. workers, promote American innovation, and accelerate long-term sustainable economic growth.
Students Explore Santa Fe History Through National Cemetery
By JESSICA POLLARD
Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) _ Paul Valdez Depolley gathered a group of high school students at the farthest edge of the Santa Fe National Cemetery to talk statehood, death and the Civil War.
``If the Civil War hadn't come to New Mexico, we would have most likely stayed as a territory,'' said Valdez Depolley, a cultural liaison for the state-chartered New Mexico School for the Arts. ``We could have been Mexicans instead of New Mexicans, which is very interesting.''
He spent much of a recent Tuesday morning explaining Civil War-era rituals of death and burial to students and discussing the historical context of the land the cemetery is built on _ which he noted was home to Indigenous people long before it was dotted with tens of thousands of military gravestones.
The field trip was part of a larger effort in the Santa Fe area to connect students of all ages with stories waiting to be told at the national cemetery, where nearly 68,000 veterans and their spouses are buried _ from the Civil War era onward.
In 2021, Santa Fe Community College contracted with the National Cemetery Administration's New Mexico Veterans Legacy Project to encourage students to research veterans, living and deceased, and record their stories.
The project has culminated in a host of lesson plans available for use by middle school and high school teachers, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
``I never before this thought of using a cemetery as a history,'' said New Mexico School for the Arts history and English teacher Cameron Sperry, who is helping to develop instructional materials centered on the Veterans Legacy Project.
Soon, she said, the instructional materials will be expanded to lower grade levels.
Sperry said she hopes visiting the national cemetery will lead students to ask more questions about the Civil War and the Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.
A scavenger hunt she assembled took students to the graves of various soldiers, asked them to identify information on gravestones and led them to areas of the cemetery commemorating Buffalo Soldiers, women in the military and Navajo Code Talkers.
``These are primary sources,'' Sperry said. ``We can go out and learn about things that have happened by looking at a gravestone.''
``It makes it real; these are real people,'' she added. ``It's hard to get that through more-traditional learning.''
Sophomore Evangeline Miranda, 16, who had visited the cemetery previously, was pleased with the experience.
``I think it's really cool that we went here today,'' she said. ``It was more information than I expected.''
Much of the content of the scavenger hunt was ``what you wouldn't learn in a textbook,'' something she enjoyed, Evangeline said.
``I think most of what I learned about is an overall concept of what a lot of these people did,'' said sophomore Caitlyn Bizzell, 15. ``Like Navajo Code Talkers or the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service).''
Bringing the stories of war and the people who served in them to students is key for Ken Dettelbach, a Vietnam veteran who helped coordinate the partnership between Santa Fe Community College and the Veterans Legacy Project.
For the last month, Dettelbach has been spending time in history classrooms at New Mexico School for the Arts to teach students more about war and to share his personal experiences.
He answers a range of student questions: Why did you go to war? Did you kill anyone?
He brings photos and letters to share with students.
``They get to see, really, what it means to come back,'' he said. ``And that I give back because I came back.''
Dettelbach said his time in the classroom also has allowed students to further explore the complexities of conflicts the U.S. has been involved in _ with more depth than is usually possible in history classes. In May, he plans to visit classrooms at Santa Fe High School.
The lesson in the cemetery began with taps, a bugle call used in U.S. military funerals, performed by the local Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 996.
Young members of Santa Fe High's Reserve Officers' Training Corps demonstrated a flag-folding ceremony.
It was a meaningful day for Avelino Calabaza of Santo Domingo Pueblo, the Southwest regional commander for National American Indian Veterans and a member of VVA Chapter 996.
Calabaza was an architecture student in 1969, when he was drafted into the Vietnam War. He was 20 _ not far in age from the high school sophomores and juniors wandering among the gravestones Tuesday.
Decades later, he received a diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder related to his time in the military. The experience led him to become an advocate for veterans, including dozens of World War II veterans from the Santo Domingo Pueblo.
War, he said, remains a constant in every part of history.
Calabaza said interactive learning about veterans is important for local students so they can understand ``the hell they went through,'' and how veterans support one another.
``It's very important to actually start respecting a veteran who went through the war and help them if they need support,'' he said.
Native American Student Told to Remove Feather at Graduation
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. (AP) _ A Native American student was forced to remove an eagle feather prior to her high school graduation ceremony in northeastern Oklahoma.
Broken Arrow student Lena' Black, who is Otoe-Missouria and Osage, told the Tulsa World the feather was attached to her mortarboard and that she had been told previously that the feather would be allowed because of its cultural significance.
Black said she passed several checkpoints before being approached by a school counselor and a security guard, who tried to forcibly remove the feather.
``I had to take off my cap,'' Black said. ``They kept trying to take it off of me.``
The district's website states that mortarboards are to be without decorations and the confrontation was due to a miscommunication about the required protocols for approval of adding culturally significant items, according to School Indian Education Coordinator Rich Pawpa said.
Other Indigenous students wore regalia during the ceremony, Pawpa said.
Black's mother, Marci Black, said they were not told of any protocols and have received an apology from the district.
``I want this to never happen to another Native student ... they ruined something she has worked her whole life to achieve,'' Marci Black said.
State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister issued a letter in January to state schools asking them to review policies on Indigenous students wearing tribal regalia, feathers and other culturally significant items.
The letter included a 2019 letter from then-Attorney General Mike Hunter that an Indigenous student's right to wear eagle feathers on their mortarboard is protected under the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act.
Hawaii Reaches $328 Million Deal with Homelands Waitlist Plaintiffs
By AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) _ Hawaii Gov. David Ige said Tuesday that the state has agreed to pay $328 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by 2,700 Native Hawaiians who languished on a waitlist to receive homestead leases and suffered other harms from the mismanagement of the Hawaiian homes program.
Ige said the Legislature must approve the funds for the settlement and then a Circuit Court judge must sign off on its terms for it to be final.
The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 was meant to provide economic self-sufficiency to Hawaiians by supplying them land. Those with at least 50% Hawaiian blood quantum can apply for a 99-year lease for $1 a year.
But Hawaii has been slow to award leases. An estimated 28,000 people are on the waitlist.
The lawsuit stems from a 1991 law allowing Native Hawaiians to file claims against the state for losses incurred while waiting for a homestead lease from 1959 to 1988. The Legislature created a panel to address claims but the existence of the panel wasn't extended past 1999. So the plaintiffs sued.
The Hawaii Supreme Court in 2020 voted to allow the class-action lawsuit to continue and for damages to be awarded. About 1,000 plaintiffs have died in the two decades since the lawsuit was filed.
Leona Kalima, one of the plaintiffs, said the settlement has the potential ``to change thousands of lives for the better.''
``We're looking forward to it being resolved, finally,'' she said in a statement issued by her attorney.
Carl Varady, an attorney for the plaintiffs, thanked the state officials who worked on the agreement.
``Our appreciation is tempered by the knowledge that nearly a third of the class members will not be with us to witness or celebrate the conclusion,`` Varady said in a statement. ``That conclusion will take some time, to make sure the class members are treated fairly, but we are looking ahead to the final stage when our clients will be compensated for their lost opportunity to obtain a homestead.''
Navajo Energy Company Invests in Carbon Capture Effort
FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) _ Navajo Transitional Energy Company has invested in another energy company that is aiming to develop a large-scale platform for carbon capture services.
The deal puts NTEC on Enchant Energy Corp.'s board of directors, the Farmington Daily Times reported.
Enchant Energy is working with the city of Farmington to take over the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station when it is officially abandoned by Public Service Co. of New Mexico later this year. PNM, the state's largest electric utility, has cited concerns over Enchant's financing and ability to make carbon capture technology work there.
``With this investment, NTEC gains a board seat and will utilize their expertise to help the company yield strong investor returns and embrace environmental goals,'' NTEC CEO Vern Lund said in a news release.
State regulators last week said PNM was within its rights to run one unit at the plant through September in an effort to meet peak summer demands and avoid blackouts.
That will change Enchant's schedule to take over the plant but also gives the company three more months to work out deals with the plant's many owners.
Enchant CEO Cindy Crane said she does not oppose PNM's extended operations and also welcomes NTEC as an investor.
``Our shared goals include giving back to our community, while using cutting-edge technology to decarbonize electric power, enabling sustainable development, and demonstrating that CCS can help avoid emissions from existing power plants through retrofits,`` she said. ``NTEC's expertise will be invaluable.''
Enchant first announced in 2019 that it planned to convert the San Juan plant by installing equipment that would capture carbon emissions. That carbon dioxide would then be sent via pipeline to storage sites in New Mexico and Texas where it could be used to help with oil production.
With the investment, Lund said NTEC is furthering its commitment to diversifying its portfolio by acquiring shares in an enterprise focused on addressing the challenge of meeting climate goals through capturing and sequestering carbon emissions from existing power plants and industrial facilities in the western U.S.
The investment was not well received by the Navajo environmental group Dine C.A.R.E, which argued that such carbon capture projects have not been successful in the U.S.
``This does not sound like a financially sound or profit generating investment for a tribal corporation,'' said Robyn Jackson, the group's climate and energy outreach coordinator
NTEC describes itself as a limited liability company organized under the laws of the Navajo Nation. It owns mines in New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.
When the company was formed in 2013, it was by legislation approved by the Navajo Nation Council and then-President Ben Shelly. That legislation mandated the Navajo Nation's direct involvement in the oversight and management of NTEC through five member representatives.
Currently serving as member representatives are tribal delegates Paul Begay, Nathaniel Brown, Eugenia Charles-Newton, Pernell Halona and Rick Nez.
Brown and Charles-Newton both said they did not know about NTEC's investment in Enchant.
Begay, Halona and Nez could not immediately be reached for comment. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez also did not reply to a request for comment.
French Diplomat Forges Ties with Native American Tribes
HOUMA, La. (AP) _ A French diplomat is working to build ties with French-speaking people in Louisiana in part through strengthening education programs.
Consul General Nathalie Beras, who is based in New Orleans, recently travelled to southern Louisiana to learn more about Native American tribes in that area and that meetings with other groups are planned as well as possible weekend French classes, Houma Today reported.
``Several hundred years ago, French people arrived here, and Louisiana was sold to Americans in 1803. So it was a long time ago, and we still share the culture and the language. Language is much more than only words, this is an identity,'' Beras told the newspaper.
Beras and her team went to Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe-aux-Chenes and met with French-speaking members of Native American tribes during her outing that took place about two weeks ago. The newspaper said other meetings and visits are also being planned.
Representatives of Tele-Louisiane, a media company that works to preserve the French language and culture in Louisiana, was also along for the trip including the company's CEO, Will McGrew. The company is working with the Pointe-au-Chien tribe to start weekend French classes for local children in the future. McGrew told the newspaper that the company is also ready to assist local school boards if they want to start French-language programs in their areas.
The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana helps promote the French language in schools by partially paying for teachers' salaries.
Beras and her group also toured the waterways around Isle de Jean Charles, a small sliver of land in southern Louisiana that has seen it's land slowly eaten away by coastal erosion.
New Mexican Weaver Joins University Wool Heritage Project
By JESSICA POLLARD
Santa Fe New Mexican
CHIMAYO, N.M. (AP) _ A New Mexico State University initiative aims to help secure the future of a pair of centuries-old practices in the state: herding sheep and weaving their wool into designs, both spectacular and utilitarian.
The Wool Heritage Project's inaugural effort involves producing a 13-pound wool rug, designed by New Mexico State fashion student Savannah Willingham and brought to life by one of northern New Mexico's generational weavers: Richard Trujillo, of Trujillo's Weaving Shop in Chimayo.
The goal of the initiative is to bring attention to two industries, weaving and sheep farming, which advocates say have dwindled in recent years.
The shop where Trujillo completed the rug is packed with handmade wooden two-harness looms, including one built by Trujillo's grandfather more than 100 years ago. Others were bought from families who no longer take part in the weaving tradition.
``A lot of visitors we get have never seen anything like this,'' he said of the setup. ``They're just amazed at the process.''
Trujillo is a seventh-generation Spanish weaver in the village along the High Road to Taos, where in previous centuries families like his would raise sheep and spin their wool into yarn, trading woven textiles for other goods to make a living.
His late father, John Trujillo, opened the shop in the 1950s.
Trujillo himself started learning to weave around the same time most children head to preschool, and while some younger family members are showing interest in the art, ``it's getting harder and harder to find people who are willing to take it up,'' he said during an interview with The Santa Fe New Mexican, taking a break from weaving a colorful table runner on commission.
There are a few weaving shops in Chimayo, where the tradition is still prominent compared with neighboring villages, including Ortega's Weaving Shop and Centinela Traditional Arts.
``We're all pretty much cousins,'' Trujillo said of the people running neighboring shops.
The wool used to make the colorful vests and cloths available at Trujillo's Weaving Shop is harvested and produced from all over, he said. The final products are shipped worldwide, Trujillo said, adding there's notably high demand for woven vests from a shop in Tokyo.
Trujillo is an alumnus of New Mexico State's geography program, and the rug he brought to life features the crimson and white shades of the university's logo.
The wool comes from a flock of roughly 100 New Mexico-bred debouillet and rambouillet sheep of the West Sheep Unit on New Mexico State University's campus, where students raise them as part of the animal sciences program.
Trujillo said the wool was especially soft and fine.
``Fine wool sheep have a long history here in New Mexico because they're able to withstand the harsh desert environment,'' said university animal sciences professor Jennifer Hernandez Gifford, who has helped lead the Wool Heritage Project.
``We really on campus haven't, until this project, really done much with linking back into the fiber arts,'' she added.
Usually, Hernandez Gifford noted, the sheep are shorn annually as part of their upkeep.
But this year, she saved the wool and sent it to a mill in Buffalo, Wyoming, where it was processed into yarn in order to launch this project in cooperation with the university's fashion merchandising and design program.
Using the remaining yarn, the university has made available 80 blanket replicas of the original rug, which is on display at New Mexico State.
The blankets, at 4 pounds each, cost $500. Hernandez Gifford was worried the price might be a deterrent, but 30 have already sold.
Hernandez Gifford predicts that when the sheep are shorn again, another product will be made available for purchase, with proceeds going toward the cost of processing more items.
Hernandez Gifford said that while New Mexico ranks 16th among states for sheep production, the wool mills and the sheep farms that were once more widely prominent have faded in part since the end of a federal wool subsidy during the 20th century.
``The number of sheep in the state has really dwindled,'' she said. ``So that's really is why we have to (mill) out of state. There's no availability anywhere closer . and they do such a great job.''
Sheep didn't start calling New Mexico home until Spanish colonizers brought the particularly resilient Iberian Churra breed with them to the Southwest in the 1500s. Those are likely the sheep Trujillo's family first used for wool for their textiles.
Before that, different groups of Pueblo people practiced weaving baskets and other goods from animal hair, plant fibers and eventually cotton.
The Navajo people living in what is now Arizona and New Mexico acquired sheep from the Spanish, and the resulting livestock called Navajo Churro have since become an integral part of life for their meat and wool.
In the Navajo weaving tradition, fabrics are developed on a frame loom, rather than the standing looms Trujillo's family uses. But Trujillo said both traditions render geometric designs.
Through the 1930 century, the U.S. government called for stock reductions of the sheep on Navajo land, citing concerns about erosion caused by grazing, which has contributed to the Navajo Churro landing on the endangered species list, according to weaving company Tierra Wools co-founder Molly Manzanares.
She favors the sheep for their low-grease wool and natural color variations, which save resources on cleaning and dyeing.
``They're not as domesticated as, say, rambouillet or another kind of sheep,'' she said. ``They're very self-sufficient.''
Manzanares' company holds a flock of hundreds of Navajo Churro near Chama.
Part of the decline in sheep farming, Manzanares said, comes because raising sheep was traditionally a communal effort. Neighboring sheep farmers would work together to protect flocks from predators, mainly coyotes.
``They're hard,'' she said. ``We've been raising Navajo Churro for all these years and trying to bring them back, and finally we're getting in the groove. The drought . has made a big impact.''
Still, the art of weaving in New Mexico plays a larger part in national fashion conversations, said fashion merchandising assistant professor Kelly Coffeen.
``A lot of weavers in the northern part of the state, you don't hear a lot about what they do,'' Coffeen said. ``Some of them work for some of the big designers in New York.''
She added: ``That whole industry is looking for authenticity and looking for ways to be unique. . We have to be aware of that and embrace that for what it is in our state.''
North Dakota Outlines Plan to Restore Native Grasslands
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ The North Dakota Game and Fish Department on Monday unveiled a plan to bring landowners, conservation groups, scientists, and others together to restore native grasslands.
The agency said North Dakota has lost more than 70% of its native prairie, which is essential for wildlife, pollinators, ranching operations and communities. About 60% of the nearly 5 million wetland acres in the state have been converted or lost.
``When we talk about native prairie in the state, we need to acknowledge who the owners and managers of our native prairie are,'' said Greg Link, the department's conservation and communications division chief. ``In most cases, we're talking about ranchers and producers who run livestock on that prairie. We need those folks because they're important in keeping that prairie healthy.''
The so-called Meadowlark Initiative is named after the official state bird known for its unique song. The western meadowlark populations in North Dakota are continuing to decline, wildlife officials said.
The program allows producers to plant marginal cropland back to diverse native perennial grasslands for grazing. Funding is available to establish the grass and to install grazing infrastructure, such as fencing and water. Producers also are eligible to receive rental payments for the first three years as the land transitions from cropland to grazing land.
``This is about keeping working lands working, getting it done on the private playing field, and we know in that arena, we have to come together, we've got to collaborate,'' Link said.
Group Sues Colorado Over Law Banning Native American Mascots
DENVER (AP) _ A North Dakota-based organization representing Native Americans sued Colorado this week for a measure banning American Indian school mascots which was passed last year amid a nationwide push for racial justice following George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis.
The lawsuit by the nonprofit Native American Guardian's Association was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, naming Gov. Jared Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser and Kathryn Redhorse, the executive director of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. The firm is representing a John Doe, Jane Doe and three other Colorado residents who cite Native American heritage in the lawsuit.
The organization's lawsuit argues that the Colorado law is unconstitutional and ``unlawfully enacts state-sanctioned race discrimination`` against the Native American residents the association is representing.
The Colorado measure, signed into law in June, fines public schools, colleges and universities $25,000 monthly for their use of American Indian-themed mascots after June 1, 2022. The law does not apply to schools on tribal lands and also allows exceptions for schools that had existing agreements with tribes.
The suit argues that the complete erasure of Native American imagery is not beneficial and that the use of positive and respectful Native American symbols and mascots in schools honors the group, helps neutralize offensive stereotypes and teaches the public about Native American history. The lawsuit also states that the use of positive Native American symbolism is a form of ``reappropriation'' or a way to ``reclaim names and images that were once directed at them as insults in order to turn them outward as badges of pride.``
According to the lawsuit, John and Jane Doe, who are of Cherokee and Chippewa descent, attend Yuma High School in northeast Colorado which is home of the ``Yuma Indians.'' The two want their school to continue honoring their cultures and heritage because as the suit alleges, they ``would suffer a hostile environment`` if the Native mascots were banned.
The Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs has identified more than 20 schools across the state for violating the law by using terms such as Savages, Indians and Warriors in their mascot's name.
Spokespeople for Polis and Weiser said they would not comment because the lawsuit is ongoing.
An email sent Thursday to the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs for comment on the lawsuit was not immediately returned.
U.S. Park Service, Tourism Group Partner to Highlight Tribes
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ The National Park Service has partnered with a tourism association to ensure the contributions, cultures and traditions of Native Americans are incorporated into exhibits and programming at sites across the country.
The park service says it highlights the history of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians throughout the year. The five-year agreement with the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association will expand opportunities, officials said.
Sherry Rupert, the chief executive of the tourism association based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said previous partnerships at individual park sites have boosted awareness of nearby tribes.
She pointed to the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, which stretches 1,200 miles from Nogales, Arizona to northern California. A guidebook has tribal attractions on or near the trail, and a map translates locations into Native languages.
A similar project is in the works at Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail that runs 4,900 miles through 16 U.S. states, from Pennsylvania to Oregon, Rupert said.
``Native American tribes have ancestral connections to public lands that pre-date the formation of the National Park Service by millennia,'' Rupert said in a news release Wednesday. ``These wholly unique perspectives can serve as the foundation for one-of-a-kind cultural content for National Park Service sites.''
In Arizona, 11 tribes associated with the Grand Canyon partnered with the park service to create an inter-tribal cultural heritage site at a historic watchtower at the national park.
The park service said visitors increasingly want more authentic experiences and opportunities to engage with tribal communities and to support Native-owned businesses. The tourism association will host virtual and in-person forums for the park service to hear from tribes.
Park service Deputy Director Shawn Benge said the tourism association's past work demonstrates its understanding of the historic connections tribes have to park sites.
The agency oversees more than 131,000 square miles (339,288 square kilometers) of parks, monuments, battlefields and other landmarks. It employs about 20,000 people in permanent, temporary and seasonal jobs, according to its website.
President Joe Biden has nominated Charles F. ``Chuck'' Sams III to head the park service. If confirmed by the Senate, Sams would be the first Native American to hold the position. He is Cayuse and Walla Walla and a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Southern Miss Displays Flags for Native American Nations
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) _ The University of Southern Mississippi is now displaying flags to recognize students enrolled there from six Native American nations.
The flags were dedicated during a ceremony in the student union building. They are for the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the United Houma Nation, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the White Earth Nation of the Ojibwe Tribe.
``At most institutions, the campus union is considered a non-academic `heart' of campus, or the campus `living room,' if you will,'' Denny Bubrig, vice president of student affairs, said in a university news release. ``One of our goals is recognizing the backgrounds, experiences and lives of our students, and in doing this, we want to make sure our community sees the union services, resources, and capabilities as accessible to all.''
Three years ago, the university placed flags in the union to recognize international students.
``Earlier this summer, as we were considering other ways to recognize our students and what they bring to the table, we realized we could do a similar project calling attention to the Native American students in our campus community,'' Bubrig said.
Tammy Greer is a psychology professor, adviser to the Golden Eagles Intertribal Society and co-director for the Center for American Indian Research and Studies. She said she and Native American students at USM are grateful for the effort to recognize their nations.
``I appreciate Dr. Bubrig's work to have our flags displayed in the union and celebrate our Native students,'' Greer said. ``It takes extra effort to look around and notice what is missing, which groups have been left out, and then step up to make sure they are included. And, as we just celebrated Indigenous Peoples' Day, this event is right on time.``
Tribes Lose Bid to Block Digging at Lithium Mine in Nevada
By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press
RENO, Nev. (AP) _ federal judge has denied tribal leaders' bid to temporarily block digging for an archaeological study required before construction can begin for a Nevada lithium mine on what they say is sacred land where their ancestors were massacred more than century ago.
U.S. District Judge Miranda Du refused three tribes' request for a preliminary injunction blocking the trenching planned to collect samples near the Oregon state line at the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the United States.
The tribes say their ancestors were massacred in the late 1800s at the proposed Thacker Pass site. Lithium is a key component in electric vehicle batteries. Demand for the mineral is expected to triple over the next five years.
Du emphasized in the ruling late Friday in Reno she has pledged to hear and rule on the merits of the case before Lithium Nevada Corp. hopes to begin construction early next year on the mine the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved in January.
She rejected a similar request in July for a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists who claim the digging would destroy critical habitat for greater sage grouse, an imperiled ground-dwelling bird.
Du said Friday she was ``not unpersuaded by the tribes' broader equitable and historical arguments.'' But she said there was no evidence the bureau acted unreasonably, no evidence the mine was planned on an actual massacre site and that the agency has contingency plans if ``human remains are unexpectedly discovered.''
``In sum, while the court finds the tribes' arguments regarding the spiritual distress that the (digging) will cause persuasive, the court must nonetheless reluctantly conclude that they have not shown sufficiently specific irreparable harm that aligns with the relief they could ultimately obtain in this case,'' Du wrote in denying the temporary injunction.
The company said the government's review of the plans has included ``substantial consultation'' with local tribes that never raised similar concerns, while it spent $10 million on the permitting process for the mine.
The Bureau of Land Management began consultation three tribes in the affected area in October 2018 _ the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and Winnemucca Indian Colony.
Three additional tribes _ the Burns Paiute Tribe in Oregon, Reno Sparks Indian Colony and affiliated Atsa Koodakuh Wyh Nuwu/People of Red Mountain _ filed the lawsuit in July accusing the BLM of violating historic preservation laws by failing to consult with them about an Historic Properties Treatment Plan guiding the initial archaeological dig required before mine construction can begin.
Du said the People of Red Mountain are not a federally recognized tribe so it has no legal standing.
A specific federal permit for the archaeological dig is still pending. But the Historic Properties Treatment Plan (HPTP) approved by the bureau allows a Lithium Nevada contractor to dig two to 25 holes by hand at each of 21 historic sites and seven mechanical trenches at some 40 meters (131 feet) long on .04 acres (.02 hectare) of an area no larger than one-quarter acre (.1 hectare), the judge said.
She acknowledged the tribes consider the entire Thacker Pass area sacred. But she said the National Historic Properties Act ``does not give the tribes the right to prevent all digging in the entire project area. It merely provides for consultation.''
``There is no question BLM could have done more here,'' Du wrote.
``However, all that the applicable regulations require is that BLM make ... a reasonable and good faith effort,'' she said. ``BLM is not required to consult every Native American tribe on every project it approves.``
Du said government field notes from 1868 the tribes presented as evidence of the massacre ``only describe the scattered remains of `Indians' generally.``
``At least as catalogued in the HPTP, none of these sites are burial or massacre sites; they are primarily locations where the tribes' ancestors gathered obsidian to make arrowheads,'' Du said.
Tribe Wins Major Step Toward Resuming Whaling Off Washington
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) _ An administrative law judge has recommended that a Native American tribe in Washington state once again be allowed to hunt gray whales _ a major step in its decades-long effort to resume the ancient practice.
``This is a testament to what we've been saying all these years: that we're doing everything we can to show we're moving forward responsibly,'' Patrick DePoe, vice chairman of the Makah Tribe on the remote northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, said Friday. ``We're not doing this for commercial reasons. We're doing it for spiritual and cultural reasons.''
DePoe was in high school in the late 1990s when the Makah were last allowed to hunt whales _ occasions that drew angry protests from animal rights activists, who sometimes threw smoke bombs at the whalers and sprayed fire extinguishers into their faces.
Since then, the tribe's attempts have been tied up in legal challenges and scientific review. A federal appeals court ruled in 2002 that the Makah needed a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the tribe applied for one in 2005 but still hasn't received one.
On Thursday, nearly two years after he presided over a hearing on NOAA Fisheries' proposal to approve the waiver, administrative law judge George Jordan issued his 156-page recommendation to the U.S. Department of Commerce. He found that the tribal hunts would have no effect on the healthy overall population of the whales, despite an unexplained die-off that has caused hundreds of the whales to wash up on the Pacific Coast since 2019, and which is believed to have lowered their numbers from about 27,000 to 21,000-25,000.
The recommendation, along with a public comment period and further environmental analysis, will inform the department's final decision, though no timeline for that has been set.
As proposed, the waiver would allow the tribe to land up to 20 Eastern North Pacific gray whales over 10 years, with hunts timed to minimize the already low chances of the hunters accidentally harpooning an endangered Western North Pacific gray whale.
While Jordan found the waiver's issuance appropriate, he also recommended additional restrictions that could drastically cut the number of whales the tribe kills _ perhaps as low as five whales over the decade-long waiver period. DePoe said the tribe is reviewing that recommendation but called it a potential source of frustration and further discussion.
The tribe hopes to use the whales for food and to make handicrafts, artwork and tools they can sell.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Animal Welfare Institute oppose the hunts, which many animal rights activists consider barbaric and unnecessary. They argued that NOAA's environmental review has been inadequate, that the Marine Mammal Protection Act may have voided the tribe's treaty right, and that the tribe cannot claim a subsistence or cultural need to hunt after so many decades.
Sea Shepherd said in an email Friday it was reviewing the decision and had no immediate comment.
DJ Schubert, a wildlife biologist for the Animal Welfare Institute, said in an emailed statement the organization was disappointed with the recommendation.
``All gray whales ... face critical anthropogenic threats from climate change, ocean noise, oil and gas development, pollution, coastal development, contaminants, bycatch, and ship strikes,'' Schubert said. ``In light of these acute threats, a hunt of these animals is biologically insupportable and inconsistent with the protective provisions of the MMPA.''
There are fewer than 300 Western North Pacific gray whales remaining, Schubert said, and the recommended additional restrictions would not completely eliminate any risk to them.
Evidence presented to the government showed that the Makah, who now number about 1,500 members, have hunted whales for more than 2,700 years. The tribe's 1855 treaty with the U.S. reserved the ``right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual and accustomed grounds.''
The Makah continued whaling until the 1920s, when commercial whaling had devastated gray whale populations. The whale population rebounded in the eastern Pacific Ocean by 1994, and they were removed from the endangered species list.
The Makah trained for months in the ancient ways of whaling and received the blessing of federal officials and the International Whaling Commission. They took to the water in 1998 but didn't succeed until the next year, when they harpooned a gray whale from a hand-carved cedar canoe. A tribal member in a motorized support boat killed it with a high-powered rifle to minimize its suffering.
DePoe was on a canoe that greeted the returning whalers as they towed in the whale, and his high school shop class worked to clean the bones and reassemble the skeleton, which hangs in a tribal museum.
``The connection between us and the whales is strong,'' he said. ``Tribes across the Northwest have always considered ourselves stewards of the land, stewards of the animals. We're not trying to do anything that is going to add to the depletion of these resources.''
Mankato Professor Named Minnesota's 1st Native Poet Laureate
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) _ A Dakota scholar, author and artist has been named Minnesota's poet laureate, the first time the honor has been bestowed upon a Native American, the governor's office announced Thursday.
Minnesota State University, Mankato English professor Gwen Nell Westerman is a citizen of her father's people, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate in the Dakotas. Her mother's people are from the Flint District of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.
Westerman has written about Dakota history and language. She has won two Minnesota Book Awards for her work about Dakota people called ``Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota.'' Her poetry collection, ``Follow the Blackbirds,'' was written in English and Dakota. Her poems and essays have been published in journals and anthologies across the country.
Westerman is also a fiber artist. She has works in the permanent collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, the Great Plains Art Museum, the University Art Galleries at the University of South Dakota and the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota.
Westerman's appointment is chance to ``reflect on our shared history'' and ''imagine the future together,`` said Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe.
``Native people are still here. We have always been here - before Minnesota was Minnesota. And we will continue to be here, long into Minnesota's future,'' Flanagan said.
University of Illinois Adds Native American Issues Adviser
URBANA, Ill. (AP) _ A new administrator at the University of Illinois flagship campus will advise school leadership on Native American issues.
Jacki Thompson Rand was appointed the Urbana-Champaign campus' associate vice chancellor for Native affairs last week. Chancellor Robert Jones pledged that the school will ``go beyond the rhetoric of celebrating Native American history and culture to actually doing it.''
Rand, a professor of history, is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma, The News-Gazette reported. She previously taught at the University of Iowa.
Jones, who's now in his sixth year as chancellor, has pushed the Urbana-Champaign campus to change its relationship with Native American imagery and nations.
Prior projects include campus and community discussions of the retired Chief Illiniwek mascot, creation of the Commission on Native Imagery and ongoing work to build connections with Native American nations.
2,000-Year-Old Bones Found at Indiana Construction Site
COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) _ Unearthed bones recently discovered at a construction site in south central Indiana are believed to be thousands of years old, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Construction workers found the human remains in May while digging at the site of a new Bartholomew County judicial building in Columbus, The Republic reported. Archaeologists from the University of Indianapolis analyzed the bones, determining them to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.
The bones belong to an adult male, a preteen and an infant, according to the DNR. The bones are thought to be the bones of Native American people of the Adena culture, which existed in the Ohio River Valley as far back as 1000 B.C.
The human bones were found roughly six feet deep and mixed with animal bones. A different settlement was also found around two feet from the surface, consisting of glass, nails and other artifacts dating to the late 1800s or early 1900s.
After archaeologists conclude their analysis, the remains will be turned over to Native American tribes for reburial, the DNR said.
The county building is still set to open in April 2022, but a monitor will be onsite to oversee further construction to ensure any additional human remains discovered are handled properly.
600 to 800-Year-Old Indian Mound Discovered in Baton Rouge
By ELLYN COUVILLION, The Advocate
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Houses are going up in a new subdivision in the Tiger Bend Road area in Baton Rouge, but the area has been a community before.
An Indian mound recently discovered and identified on the property, which will be preserved and safeguarded, was likely built to honor a leader of Native Americans who called the place home 600 to 800 years ago.
The mound, located on the perimeter of a 75-acre subdivision called The Sanctuary at Tiger Bend, rises a few feet up in a gentle slope from the surrounding ground, in the midst of peaceful woodlands, with a stately tree growing at its top.
``We found baked earth and some dark lumber that could have been a hearth, and we started finding artifacts _ pottery and stone artifacts, tools,'' said Malcolm K. Shuman, the Baton Rouge archeologist whose firm, SURA Inc. Shuman's crew researched the site as a contractor for the developer, in a process that began in 2017.
``It may have been a house or it could have been a temple,'' said Shuman. ``For a small settlement like this, though, I think it was built around an important person's home.''
Shuman, 79, an LSU graduate who holds a masters degree in anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a doctorate in the same field from Tulane University, said, ``I'm probably the oldest active archeologist in Louisiana, but it's still always exciting.''
Such a research process has been required for certain developments in the U.S. since Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966.
The federal law requires that any development needing a federal permit _ in the case of The Sanctuary, from the U.S. Corps of Engineers _ or receiving federal dollars ``must take into account the effect on cultural resources,'' said Louisiana's state archeologist, Charles ``Chip'' McGimsey.
Such resources are varied and can include archeological sites, cemeteries and historic buildings, he said.
Agencies involved in the efforts to identify and recognize the Indian mound at Tiger Bend include McGimsey's office and the state Historic Preservation Office, as well as the Mississippi Choctaw Tribal Historic Preservation program and the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
The developer of the Sanctuary subdivision has placed a historical marker sign in front of the Indian mound that names the site as the Tiger Bend Archaeological Site. The sign says, ``This is a sacred place for American Indians. Please respect and protect for the future.''
The Sanctuary, developed by Corbin Ladner Custom Homes and Developments of Prairieville, says a green area will be preserved around the Indian mound that will be for viewing only and off limits to any type of traffic from residents and non-residents.
``Mounds were purposely built, some in a single episode; some at one time and then added to later,'' Shuman said. ``The radiocarbon tests date this mound to 1300 A.D.''
The Indian mound at Tiger Bend joins similar mounds in Baton Rouge, said state archeologist McGimsey _ two on the site of the Country Club of Louisiana and the two better known Indian mounds on the LSU campus.
Decades ago, there were two located north of the state Capitol building on property that was later developed by ExxonMobil in a plant expansion, said McGimpsey.
Less than 1% of Louisiana, which has some of the oldest Indian mounds in North America _ some dating back 7,000 years _ has been systematically analyzed for cultural resources, he said.
Still, McGimsey said, ``We have identified over 800 Indian mounds here; I know there are many more.''
``Tiger Bend is a perfect example,'' he said. ``If Malcom Shuman had not surveyed it, we wouldn't have found it.''
More Than 200 Bodies Found at Indigenous School in Canada
KAMLOOPS, British Colombia (AP) _ The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, have been found buried on the site of what was once Canada's largest Indigenous residential school _ one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.
Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said in a news release that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
More bodies may be found because there are more areas to search on the school grounds, Casimir said Friday.
In an earlier release, she called the discovery an ``unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.''
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their native languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.
The Canadian government apologized in Parliament in 2008 and admitted that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant. Many students recall being beaten for speaking their native languages; they also lost touch with their parents and customs.
Indigenous leaders have cited that legacy of abuse and isolation as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction on reservations.
A report more than five years ago by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission said at least 3,200 children had died amid abuse and neglect, and it said it had reports of at least 51 deaths at the Kamloops school alone between 1915 and 1963.
``This really resurfaces the issue of residential schools and the wounds from this legacy of genocide towards Indigenous people,'' Terry Teegee, Assembly of First Nations regional chief for British Colombia, said Friday.
British Columbia Premier John Horgan said he was ``horrified and heartbroken'' to learn of the discovery, calling it a tragedy of ``unimaginable proportions'' that highlights the violence and consequences of the residential school system.
The Kamloops school operated between 1890 and 1969, when the federal government took over operations from the Catholic Church and operated it as a day school until it closed in 1978.
Casimir said it's believed the deaths are undocumented, although a local museum archivist is working with the Royal British Columbia Museum to see if any records of the deaths can be found.
``Given the size of the school, with up to 500 students registered and attending at any one time, we understand that this confirmed loss affects First Nations communities across British Columbia and beyond,'' Casimir said in the initial release issued late Thursday.
The leadership of the Tk'emlups community ``acknowledges their responsibility to caretake for these lost children,'' Casimir said.
Access to the latest technology allows for a true accounting of the missing children and will hopefully bring some peace and closure to those lives lost, she said in the release.
Casimir said band officials are informing community members and surrounding communities that had children who attended the school.
The First Nations Health Authority called the discovery of the children's remains ``extremely painful'' and said in a website posting that it ``will have a significant impact on the Tk'emlups community and in the communities served by this residential school.''
The authority's CEO, Richard Jock, said the discovery ``illustrates the damaging and lasting impacts that the residential school system continues to have on First Nations people, their families and communities,.''
Nicole Schabus, a law professor at Thompson Rivers University, said each of her first-year law students at the Kamloops university spends at least one day at the former residential school speaking with survivors about conditions they had endured.
She said she did not hear survivors talk about an unmarked grave area, ``but they all talk about the kids who didn't make it.''
UTTC Pow-Wow to Return to Bismarck Late This Summer
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ The United Tribes Technical College International Powwow and associated events will return late this summer after a year's hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the Tribal Leaders Summit that's traditionally held at the Bismarck Event Center before the outdoor powwow has been called off a second year.
The Bismarck Tribune reports this year's powwow will be the weekend of Sept. 10-12, starting with the grand entry Friday night and continuing through Sunday
Associated events will include Powwow Youth Day that Friday, a golf tournament Friday, a three-day softball tournament and a three-day youth basketball tournament beginning Friday, and the Powwow Thunderbird Run on Saturday.
The powwow put on by the five American Indian tribes in North Dakota typically brings about 10,000 people to Bismarck and boosts the area economy by more than $4 million, according to the college. It attracts dancers from dozens of tribes across the U.S. and Canada and awards more than $100,000 in prize money. It's considered one of the top powwows in the nation. United Tribes uses proceeds to fund student scholarships.
University of Arizona to Help Digitize Native American Oral Histories
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) _ The University of Arizona will join six other schools to help digitize the oral histories of Native Americans collected during the 1960s and 1970s.
The Arizona Daily Star reported that the project aims to make the histories more accessible to Native communities, tribal colleges and the public.
The universities will use a $1.35 million grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to translate and index the recordings. The foundation says the recordings and materials span 150 Indigenous cultures and include more than 6,500 recordings of people reflecting on their traditions and experiences living on reservations and attending Native American schools.
The University of Arizona's Arizona State Museum is the storehouse for more than 800 recordings made between 1938 and 1987 focusing primarily on peoples living in the Southwest U.S. and northern Mexico.
Montana House Kills Bill on Native American Voting Rights
HELENA, Mont. (AP) _ The Montana House has killed legislation aimed at making it easier for Native Americans living on reservations to vote.
The bill would have required counties to maintain an alternate election office on reservations and negotiate days and operating hours with tribes. It would put into law the provisions of a 2014 settlement in a voting rights lawsuit that required three counties to open satellite voting offices on reservations twice a week in the month before Election Day.
It would also have put into law guidance issued by the Secretary of State's Office directing other counties with tribal voters to comply with the settlement.
After a week of work, the bill was passed unanimously by the House State Administration Committee. It was endorsd in the House 53-47 on second reading Monday before failing 48-51 on third reading Wednesday evening.
Committee members and Native American voting advocates said the hope the failed effort could be a starting point to improve voting access on reservations, where people can live far from polls and have limited access to vehicles or mail services.
``I think it's a really serious issue that could be looked at over the interim to make it better,'' Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, a Browning Democrat who helped lead the bipartisan working group that developed the compromise legislation, told the Montana State News Bureau. ``We just need to pick up the pieces and keep building on that legislation, and maybe build a better one next session.''
The bill's sponsor, Democratic Rep. Sharon Stewart Peregoy of Crow Agency, said the original bill was scaled back to reduce potential costs to the counties involved.
Andy Werk Jr. , president of the Fort Belknap Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, called into one of the final work sessions to oppose the bill, saying it offered his tribe less than what they were guaranteed under the 2014 court settlement.
Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, a Democrat from Box Elder, switched to a ``no'' vote on Wednesday, saying tribal leadership in his district opposed the amendments.
Republican Rep. Wendy McKamey of Ulm, chair of the committee that crafted the compromise bill, was frustrated with Wednesday's vote.
``I don't know how they could possibly vote against this, I don't,`` she said. ``''Because it requires accountability and it requires cooperation.''
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, EPA Sue Phosphate Mine Company
By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ The Environmental Protection Agency and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have each sued a phosphate mining company owned by Monsanto over toxic waste that experts believe has poisoned plants, water and animals in eastern Idaho.
The government entities filed the lawsuits against P4 Production LLC over waste at the Ballard Mine site near Soda Springs earlier this week, along with a proposed clean-up agreement that could settle the case.
Under the proposed agreement, P4 Production LLC wouldn't admit fault, but would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the EPA, the Tribes and other agencies to cover the costs of responding to toxic waste releases from the mining site. P4 Production would also have to make an additional $89 million available to the EPA as a guarantee that the cleanup work will be completed.
The proposed agreement states the cleanup work would include putting a cover on more than 500 acres of the site where waste was left behind, installing barriers to intercept and treat contaminated groundwater and building wetland treatment cells to clean up any contaminated seepage or springs.
William Myers III, the Boise attorney representing P4 Production, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Southeastern Idaho contains large phosphate deposits and there are several mines in the area that have operated by different companies over the last 100 years.
Investigations into the possibility that waste from the phosphate mines in the region could be hurting humans began in 1996, after several horses pastured in the area developed selenium poisoning and had to be put down. Environmental regulators began examining each of the mining sites to determine the impact of any waste.
Ultimately, the investigation found that the mines left dangerous contamination behind, including toxic substances such as selenium, arsenic, uranium, radium and radon. During the last century those wastes have run into the region's water sources, concentrated inside some of the plants in the area and exposed insects and amphibians through the waterways and sediment.
Some of the toxic waste can cause cancer or other illnesses in humans, and investigators found that Native Americans in the area were at risk of being exposed to the toxins at rates far higher than the maximum acceptable levels set by the federal government.
Seasonal ranchers were also deemed at increased risk because they may eat beef from cattle that grazed on plants and drank the water in the region. The investigation concluded that the area was safe for recreational campers and hikers, however, because they likely wouldn't be exposed to dangerous amounts of the toxins.
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes has worked with the EPA to monitor and respond to toxic releases from the Ballard Mine when they occur. The Tribes contend in one of the lawsuits that they haven't been fully reimbursed by P4 Production for that work, and they want a judge to order that they be compensated for past and future work at the site.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Asked to Block Statewide Mask Order
By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ A new legal challenge to Gov. Tony Evers' latest mask mandate is before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, filed less than a week after the Legislature struck down a previous order and the governor quickly issued a new one.
Prominent Republican donor Jere Fabick asked the court late Tuesday to issue a temporary injunction to block the mask order Evers issued on Feb. 4, just after the GOP-controlled Legislature voted to repeal an earlier order. Fabick's lawsuit challenging Evers' authority to issue multiple emergency orders remains before the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in November but has yet to issue a ruling.
Republicans and Fabick contend that the Democratic governor exceeded his authority by issuing multiple public health emergencies due to the coronavirus pandemic. Evers tied the mask mandates to each emergency order.
Fabick and the GOP-controlled Legislature argue that Evers must get legislative approval to extend a health emergency beyond 60 days if it's for the same event. Evers contends the changing nature of the pandemic warranted him issuing new health orders.
Fabick's attorneys argued in the filing Tuesday that the Supreme Court needed to take ``immediate action'' to stop the latest order from Evers. Republicans in the Legislature have said they are awaiting a court rule before taking any action to strike down the latest mask order, which runs until March 20.
Nearly 60 organizations opposed repeal of the mask mandate, including groups representing hospitals, doctors, nurses, EMTs, school administrators, businesses, children, unions, Milwaukee schools, American Indian tribes, pharmacists, firefighters, local health departments, senior citizens, churches and dentists.
Fabick is a board member and policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank, and also the president of a multistate Caterpillar equipment and engine dealer. He has given more than $350,000 to Republican or conservative candidates in Wisconsin between 1994 and the middle of 2020, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Wisconsin's COVID-19 cases have been trending downward since mid-November. The seven-day average of new cases on Wednesday was its lowest in five months and the state ranks 11th nationally in the percentage of its total population that has received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Wednesday, there were nearly 552,000 positives cases to date and 6,129 deaths. Wisconsin ranked 40th in new cases per capita over the past two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins University.
On Wednesday, Evers announced that the state's first free community vaccination clinic would be at Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville. The clinic will open for vaccinations on Tuesday. It is projected to be able to vaccinate up to 250 people per day, with a goal of ramping that up to 1,000 per day, depending on availability of the vaccine.
The UW Health System reported Wednesday that thanks to wearing masks and other coronavirus precautions, cases of influenza are ``practically nonexistent.'' As of Wednesday, there had been one positive flu test at UW Health. That compares with 1,183 at this point last year and 149 in 2019, the health system said.
Netflix to expand production hub in New Mexico
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Netflix plans to establish one of the largest production hubs in North America with an expansion of its existing studio complex in New Mexico and a commitment to an additional $1 billion in production spending, government and corporate leaders announced Monday.
Ten new stages, post-production services, offices, mills, backlots and other infrastructure would be added to Netflix's growing campus on the southern edge of Albuquerque. Aside from construction jobs, the project is expected to result in 1,000 production jobs over the next decade.
Netflix first marked its presence in New Mexico in 2018, when it announced it was buying Albuquerque Studios and pledged $1 billion in spending over a decade. At the time, government officials saw the move as a transformative victory for a state that has struggled to lessen its reliance on federal funding and oil and gas development.
``I am glad Netflix has chosen to double-down on its commitment to our state, and our partnership will continue to grow for the benefit of New Mexicans across the board,'' Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos pointed to the proximity to Los Angeles, the crew base and local talent as reasons for the continued investment.
``It allows us to be more nimble in executing our production plans while cementing the status of the region as one of the leading production centers in North America,'' he said.
A total of $24 million in state and local economic development funding will be funneled toward the expansion, and industrial revenue bonds will be issued by the city of Albuquerque to help reduce some taxes for Netflix.
The footprint of the production hub will grow with a private land purchase and a lease involving state trust land.
The Albuquerque Development Commission signed off on the proposal Monday. The City Council still must give its approval.
Over the last 20 years, the film and television industry has become an economic force in New Mexico, with direct spending topping $525 million in the last fiscal year.
``This is all outside money coming into the state, which would not be here otherwise,'' state Economic Development Secretary Alicia J. Keyes told the commission during a meeting.
She said the partnership with Netflix should send a signal that New Mexico is the place to be for film and television production. Businesses have cropped up around the state to support the industry, she said, and data from the state film office suggests 40% of production budgets go to small, local vendors.
``So it really is trickling through our economy,'' she said.
As part of the proposed investment, Netflix has committed to providing training programs in partnership with the New Mexico Film Office, local universities and industry organizations. Netflix also has committed to supporting Native American, Latino, Black and other underrepresented content creators and filmmakers.
Since coming to New Mexico in 2018, Netflix said it has spent more than $200 million, used more than 2,000 production vendors and hired more than 1,600 cast and crew members.
Netflix is in production in New Mexico on the original films ``The Harder They Fall`` and ``Intrusion`` and is expected to soon begin filming ``Stranger Things 4`` in Albuquerque.
Pennsylvania Town to Remove 'Squaw' From Streets, Trails
FOX CHAPEL, Pa. (AP) _ A western Pennsylvania town council has voted to remove "squaw'' from street and trail names after objections to the word as a derogatory term for Native American women.
The Fox Chapel Council took the action Monday, months after several citizens objected to its use.
The council will develop new names for Old Squaw Trail, Squaw Run Road and Squaw Run Road East by March.
WTAE-TV reported council member Betsy Monroe said the word was a problem.
"The overwhelming evidence that we got from the largest and most respected Native American organizations in the nation demonstrated that there is a fact that this is a slur,'' Monroe said.
Navajo Energy Company to Acquire Shares in Coal Power Plant
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ The Navajo Nation would expand its investment in coal-fired electricity generation as part of a plan announced Monday to acquire more shares in one of the Southwest's last remaining coal power plants.
The Navajo Transitional Energy Co. has negotiated an agreement in which Public Service Co. of New Mexico would divest from the Four Corners Power Plant in 2024 with the tribal company taking over PNM's 13% share. The agreement would call for the utility to pay to $75 million to the tribal company for breaking current coal contract obligations at Four Corners.
If approved by state regulators, the transaction would preserve jobs at the plant and the adjacent tribally owned mine for at least a few more years as the tribe and the Four Corners region _ spanning parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado _ adjusts to a changing energy economy and mandates for more renewable energy.
Many of the workers at the mine and the power plant are Navajo.
The deal also would allow the New Mexico utility a faster exit from coal. PNM already has regulatory approval to exit the neighboring coal-fired San Juan Generating Station in 2022. The workforce there also includes many tribal members.
PNM said in a statement issued early Monday that it plans to file with New Mexico regulators early next year its proposal for abandonment and securitization of the unrecovered investment in the Four Corners plant.
PNM has predicted its customers could collectively save about $100 million on their bills with the utility's exit from Four Corners seven years earlier than planned. However, customers would still pick up the costs of pending liabilities after 2031, plus the cost of replacing Four Corners electricity with other resources.
``This is a major step in our vision to create a clean and bright energy future and achieve our industry-leading goal of emissions-free energy by 2040,'' Pat Vincent-Collawn, PNM Resources' chairman, president and CEO, said in the statement.
NTEC officials said the primary goal is to facilitate an orderly and successful exit by PNM, thereby preventing near-term job and revenue losses for the Navajo Nation.
Ensuring the plant remains open until 2031 is ``completely aligned with NTEC's charter and responsibility to preserve jobs and revenue for the Navajo people,'' the company said in a statement. ``The contemplated deal does not increase the planned operating life of the facility and does not increase liability to any of the owners, including NTEC.''
NTEC also said it has kept the Navajo leadership updated on negotiations for the past year.
In an Oct. 16 email, NTEC CEO Clark Moseley indicated that PNM would remain liable for its share of future plant decommissioning and that an audit would be performed to ensure the utility can fund its portion of final mine reclamation expenses.
PNM officials confirmed during a news conference that the utility will retain liability for coal reclamation and plant decommissioning, which could total about $45 million.
NTEC is owned by the tribal government but run independently by a non-Native executive team in Colorado. It has invested heavily in coal in recent years _ acquiring the Navajo Mine in 2017, its current 7% stake in Four Corners in 2018 and three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana last year.
Arizona Public Service Co. is the owner and operator of the Four Corners plant, with a 63% stake. The Salt River Project owns 10% and Tucson Electric Power has 7%. PNM's stake represents 200 megawatts that make up less than 10% of the utility's generation portfolio.
Under New Mexico's Energy Transition Act, PNM must replace its coal and natural gas plants with renewables over the next two decades.
The law also allows the utility to recover investments in abandoned fossil fuel plants through bonds that would be paid off by customers. The bonds could include about $16 million in economic development assistance for the Four Corners area to offset job and tax revenue losses.
``This is a big step for PNM and for New Mexico,'' said Tom Fallgren, vice president of generation. ``Our step out of coal though is not a step out of communities that we have been serving and have been a part of for so long. We will continue to identify innovative ways to support economic development in those areas impacted by this transition.''
An early exit also would meet conditions included in PNM Resources' recently announced plan to merge with Avangrid, a U.S. subsidiary of global energy giant Iberdrola.
Environmentalists have concerns about the Four Corners proposal, saying it would deepen the Navajo Nation's reliance on fossil fuels.
Alabama Archives Faces its Legacy as Confederate 'Attic'
By JAY REEVES
Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) _ Hundreds of memorials glorifying the Confederacy had been erected by the time Marie Bankhead Owen built what may have been the grandest: The Alabama Department of Archives and History, which cataloged a version of the past that was favored by many Southern whites and all but excluded Black people.
Owen used taxpayer money to turn the department into an overstuffed Confederate attic promoting the idea that the South's role in the Civil War was noble rather than a fight to maintain slavery.
Now, amid a national reckoning over racial injustice, the agency is confronting that legacy in the state where the civil rights movement was born. In June, leaders formally acknowledged the department's past role in perpetuating racism and so-called lost cause ideals.
``If history is to serve the present, it must offer an honest assessment of the past,'' Director Steve Murray and trustees said in a ``statement of recommitment.''
Confederate relics have come under renewed scrutiny since the police killing of George Floyd in May sparked outrage about the history of racism in the U.S. The wave of protests that followed toppled some monuments and cities removed others as schools decided to part ways with their Confederate names.
Murray said the department wanted to offer more educational resources after Floyd's killing in Minneapolis and issued the statement after realizing it had to acknowledge ``that our agency was responsible in many ways for some of the intellectual underpinnings of the development of systemic racism in Alabama.''
``The response has been overwhelmingly positive,'' said Murray. Aside from acknowledging its racist past, the agency recommitted itself to recruiting additional minority staff and telling a more complete history is the state in the future.
Self-taught genealogist True Lewis, who is Black and was born in Pennsylvania, was apprehensive when she first visited the agency about two decades ago to search plantation records for information about her ancestors, who were enslaved in southeast Alabama. Workers were helpful, she said, but the only other people in the building who looked like her were on the janitorial staff.
``You always had that feeling of, `You aren't supposed to be in this space,''' Lewis said.
The agency's recommitment was meaningful to her because it acknowledged sins of the past.
``It was like they heard my whisper when they said that,'' she said.
Founded in 1901, the year Alabama adopted a white supremacist constitution that's still in effect, Archives and History opened with Owen's husband, Thomas Owen, as its first director. Located in the state Capitol, where Southern delegates formed the Confederacy in 1861, the department focused on gathering Confederate records and artifacts.
With the country's first publicly funded, independent archive, Alabama soon became a national model for collecting public records, according to retired Auburn University historian Robert J. Jakeman, who wrote about Marie Owen. Other states of the old Confederacy followed suit.
``What Owen did definitely started a chain reaction across the Southern states,'' said Daniel Cone, who teaches at Auburn and wrote about Tom Owen.
Marie Owen took over the department in 1920 after her husband's death. The agency already had amassed far more items than it could safely store or catalog, and the problem got worse under ``Miss Marie.''
In a more spacious, white-columned building dedicated in 1940, Owen led the agency even more in the direction of becoming a storehouse of cultural items and Confederate relics that excluded the history of the Black people enslaved on Southern plantations, following her pattern of extolling the Confederacy and disregarding minorities.
The Ivy League-educated historian John Hope Franklin, an African American, wrote of meeting Owen during his first research visit to Montgomery in the mid-1940s in his autobiography ``Mirror to America,'' published in 2005. Owen used a racial slur in asking whether he'd seen a Black man from Harvard who was supposed to be in the building.
``Before I could recover myself sufficiently for a reply, a voice reached us from the outer room. It was the secretary, who could hear everything, since the door was open. `That's him, Mrs. Owen, that's him,''' Franklin wrote.
The agency, which includes a museum, began changing after Owen retired in 1955. But generations of schoolchildren remember it in large part for its Civil War displays, which included old weapons, flags and uniforms.
Edwin Bridges took over as director in 1982 and began shifting the department's focus away from the ``lost cause.`` Today, its museum displays tell more a complete history that includes Native Americans, the horrors of slavery, the Civil War and the modern civil rights movement, which began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and '56.
Some have questioned whether the department would jettison its Confederate holdings, considered among the most extensive in the nation, but Murray said that won't happen.
``We see the process as being one of broadening the scope of our effort and our work, telling a full story of Alabama's history,'' he said.
A bust of Marie Owen is located prominently in the Archives and History building, and Bridges said she and her husband deserve credit for what they built, even with its flaws.
``They were driven to focus on Southern history, Confederate history, because that is what white leadership, the white voters of Alabama, cared about from the 1920s through the 1970s,'' Bridges said.
Historians are watching to see whether the department further breaks with the legacy of Owen and pro-Confederate narratives or falls back toward the long-accepted path in a mostly white, Republican-controlled state.
Frazine K. Taylor, a former employee of the department and the first Black president of the Alabama Historical Association, said making the statement ``took courage,'' but Archives and History still needs a more diverse staff and additional collections to tell the ``complete story'' of Alabama.
``In the next year, we'll look back and see if some of that has been accomplished or it was just something that was said at the time, at the heat of the moment,'' Taylor said.
Northern Arizona Military Site Eyed for Economic Development
BELLEMONT, Ariz. (AP) _ A low-profile military base first established during World War II is being eyed as a potential site for future economic development projects in northern Arizona.
Pending legislation in Congress would allow the U.S. Army to transfer about 4.7 square miles (12 square kilometers) of land at Camp Navajo to the state Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, the Arizona Daily Sun reported.
The sprawling installation at Bellemont about 11 miles (16 kilometers) west of Flagstaff is currently used and run by the Arizona National Guard, which is part of the state Department of Emergency and Military Affairs.
The transfer is a provision in the annual defense authorization bills approved by the House and Senate. Those bills essentially must be melded on final version to be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.
A bipartisan trio of Arizona lawmakers _ Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Democratic Reps. Tom O'Halleran and Ruben Gallego _ worked to include the Camp Navajo transfer in each chamber's bill.
Transfer supporters say management of the land by the state would make it easier for businesses to locate in and around Camp Navajo.
The legislative process has taken nearly five years after originally starting with the help of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.
``This is like a miracle to have this happen,'' said Julie Pastrick, president of the Northern Arizona Military Affairs Council and CEO of the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce.
The land transfer would encourage private investment in the area ``and that will definitely shape the future and that landscape,`` Pastrick said. ``We have fought for economic diversifications for so long.''
Arizona already has a large defense industry, but most of its jobs are centered in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.
Camp Navajo's location along a both a major rail line and Interstate 40 makes it an attractive location for many businesses.
Camp Navajo itself could be an asset because many of its nearly 800 concrete igloo bunkers built to store munitions and other sensitive material could be useful to defense industries.
Travis Schulte, legislative liaison with the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, said the transfer also could contribute to forest restoration.
Last year, Northern Arizona University tested the viability of a wood chipping operation at Camp Navajo and showed that it could be profitable. The college took materials from local forest thinning efforts and shipped and sold them to a company in South Korea.
Schulte said authorization of the land transfer would be followed by surveying , finalization of exactly which acres would be included and a detailed study of environmental factors and economic development opportunities.
According to the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, Camp Navajo was established in 1942 as the Navajo Ordinance Depot to support U.S. forces fighting Japan in the Pacific during World War II. Its name changed to the Navajo Army Depot in 1965, Navajo Depot Activity in 1982 and Camp Navajo in 1993.
The installation has been under the Arizona National Guard's operational control since 1992. The Guard and other military service branches use the site for training.
Maine Groups Get Help Assisting Marginalized During Pandemic
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) _ A Maine organization is distributing more than $200,000 in grants to benefit marginalized communities during the coronavirus pandemic.
Maine Initiatives said the funding boosts bring the total amount it has provided to more than $500,000. The group has given the grants to more than 50 organizations.
Maine Initiatives said one of the grants is going to Cambodian Community Association of Maine, which is delivering food to immigrant families affected by a coronavirus outbreak at a food processing facility in the state. Another is designed to aid the Wabanaki Women's Coalition in its effort to support Native American women who are victims of domestic abuse.
Maine Initiatives said the organizations it is supporting ``understand what a moment of crisis requires and they are adapting and organizing to respond.''
Company's Bid to Build Dams on Tribal Land a Step Closer
TUBA CITY, Ariz. (AP) _ Federal regulators have accepted a Phoenix-based company's application for a preliminary permit to look further into building hydro-powered dams on tribal land.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission confirmed the acceptance in a letter Tuesday to Pumped Hydro Storage LLC, opening the door for public comment on the controversial proposal on the Navajo Nation.
The move by the commission gives the company three years to study the site in Big Canyon west of Tuba City but doesn't authorize land disturbance.
The company developed the idea after getting pushback for initially floating projects on the Little Colorado River. Manager Steve Irwin said he received overwhelming criticism that building dams on the river would disrupt the habitat of the endangered humpback chub. The company secured preliminary permits to study those sites but will scrap the proposals if the Big Canyon project goes forward.
The Big Canyon proposal includes four dams to generate electricity using groundwater. The canyon is a tributary to the Little Colorado River.
Environmental groups, including the Grand Canyon Trust, believe the project will threaten the water and habitat along the river.
The proposal to move water between upper and lower reservoirs to generate power when the demand is high would need the blessing of the Navajo Nation. Tribal President Jonathan Nez has previously said he would not support development without the approval of nearby Navajo communities.
Activists Work to Increase Montana Reservation Census Count
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) _ Native American activists are working to increase the number of Montana reservation residents counted in the 2020 national census.
Outreach workers hired by Montana Native Vote are promoting participation in the upcoming federal count, The Billings Gazette reports.
U.S. Census Bureau officials hope to increase the number of applications to work on Montana's seven reservations from 775 already received to 1,500.
Outreach efforts include distributing census pledge cards, which are postcards filled out by residents to be mailed to them as reminders shortly before the census begins April 1.
During the past decade, the state received about $2,000 per year in federal money for every resident counted in the 2010 census, The Montana Complete Count Committee said.
Census projections show Montana could gain a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives if its residents are fully counted.
Representation for Native people is at risk of being diluted if they are undercounted, Montana Native Vote Program Manager Ta'jin Perez said.
``It gives away their political voice, their power to advocate what's important for their communities and their families,'' Perez said.
Rangers' Videos Share Yellowstone's Wonders During Crisis
By MICHAEL WRIGHT
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) _ In the middle of the 17th minute of the Facebook Live video, Mark Miller reached for his guitar.
The park ranger, fully clad in green and gray, had been laying out the history of Yellowstone National Park, which he was standing in. He had talked about the Native American tribes that called the park home, the Lewis and Clark expedition and John Colter, the first European to explore what would become the world's first national park.
Miller had talked about how some didn't believe Colter's stories of the future Yellowstone and how the mountain man was ridiculed. And Miller had asked the audience _ stuck at home all over the world _ to contemplate why people explore new places.
Now it was time for a song.
``Once there was a mountain man with strange stories to tell ...,'' Miller sang, beginning a tune he wrote called the ``Mountain Man Tribute Song.''
It's meant to honor the likes of Colter and Jim Bridger and the tribes who called the area home first, crediting them with recognizing the value of Yellowstone.
Two-and-a-half joyful minutes later, he put the guitar down and picked up his history lecture somewhere in the 1860s.
The video, posted to Yellowstone's Facebook page in early April, was the second in a series the park's education rangers have been producing while the park is closed to visitors. Twice a week, rangers have used the videos to explain complex science and history to people, giving them a window into the park.
``It's a way to share the wonders of Yellowstone in this time we're all in,'' Miller said.
The series grew out of the ashes of canceled educational programs. Bob Fuhrmann, supervisor of Yellowstone's youth programs, said 30 school groups were scheduled for programs in the park this spring and would have encountered rangers like Miller. But with the closure, the programs were all canceled.
So Fuhrmann and the staff who were going to work on those programs had to adapt. They shifted their focus to enhancing the park's ``distance learning'' offerings, including live virtual visits with classes on different online platforms and recording some of their programs.
Facebook Live became one of the tools they were using for that. Fuhrmann said it gets their work in front of more eyes _ not just teachers and students.
``It's a great way to engage with a larger audience in an easy way,'' Fuhrmann said.
The first Facebook Live video featured two rangers standing in the snow outside the Albright Visitor Center, talking about the ways animals adapt to winter. Since then, rangers have given presentations on birds, geysers, bison, the microbes inside the park's thermal features and more.
A lot of people tune in. The video of Miller talking and singing through the park's history has been viewed more than 120,000 times, and the comments come from all over the world.
``Watching from Mississippi,'' one commenter wrote.
``Thank you for bringing Yellowstone to Germany!'' wrote another.
Some weren't strangers.
``Your Mom and Dad watched you from Minnesota, Ranger Mark!''
Miller has been a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone since 2017. He lived a couple different lives before that. The native Minnesotan first worked in the wood products industry for about a dozen years, then in ministry and Christian music for about a dozen years. He worked on staff at a few large churches and produced records and wrote songs under the label Vineyard Music.
He and his wife hit ``empty nesthood'' in their 40s and decided to move west. He picked up seasonal ranger jobs at a few different parks before landing in Yellowstone three years ago. He's been here ever since.
He's been stationed at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone the past few summers. He'd been hired as a seasonal education ranger for the spring educational programs, which is how he finds himself in front of the camera for some of the Facebook Live videos.
His songwriting talent has been handy. He had written part of the ``Mountain Man Tribute Song'' to sing at evening programs at the canyon and developed it further this spring. He has another called ``Hey Bear'' _ more than a few Facebook commenters requested that song during his live video.
``It's part of my creativity, and like all of us education rangers, we're in a period where we're needing to get more and more creative in providing educational opportunities for people all around the planet,'' Miller said.
The sight of a park ranger holding a guitar surely convinces more people to stop scrolling. At the end of the video, after he'd traced Yellowstone's history to its designation as a park in 1872, Miller was asked what his favorite song is.
He picked the guitar back up and launched into one just about everybody would know.
``Give me a home,'' Miller sang, ``where the buffalo roam...''
US Grants Navajo Nation Authority to Use Unassigned Airwaves
PHOENIX (AP) _ The federal government is giving the Navajo Nation temporary authority to use unassigned airwaves to provide wireless broadband service over the tribe's sprawling reservation that includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
The Federal Communications Commission said its wireless telecommunications bureau granted the requested authority for 60 days to help the tribe's emergency response to the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the commission, the authority should help the tribe ``during this challenging time`` as reservation residents work from home and increasingly rely on telemedicine and remote learning.
Many residents in remote areas without broadband service sit in vehicles parked near local government centers, fast-food restaurants and grocery stores to connect to Wi-Fi.
President Nixon and the Sacred Lake: Bill Preserves History
By MORGAN LEE
Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) _ It was 1970, the U.S. president was Richard Nixon and members of a small Native American community in northern New Mexico traveled to Washington to press their case for reclaiming a sacred alpine lake from federal control.
The story of the return of Blue Lake and 75 square miles (195 square kilometers) of surrounding national forest land to the people of Taos Pueblo _ finalized with Nixon's signature in December 1970 _ is being retold 50 years later, as tribal leaders and state legislators look for ways to preserve documentation and memories of the landmark victory for indigenous rights.
A legislative proposal would devote $350,000 from the state general fund to help preserve photographs, transcripts and news articles and develop exhibits and educational lessons about the campaign to reclaim Blue Lake, a site prized as an integral part of Indian pueblo culture and ceremonial traditions. The lake is perched in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) above sea level at the headwaters of the Upper Rio Grande.
Bill sponsor Sen. Bobby Gonzales, a Democrat from the adjacent town of Taos, described the decades-long effort to reclaim the Blue Lake site _ culminating in the halls of Congress _ as a battle of persuasion and public relations. The area first fell under direct U.S. management as forest land in 1906.
In testimony to a state Senate panel, Taos tribal council member Gilbert Suazo said the return of Blue Lake was a turning point in his people's history. He said it's a milestone in the 20th century Indian rights movement toward greater autonomy in governance and education.
``It was not like a radical kind of thing. It was actually a tribal cause, a tribal matter, and that's the way we worked it,`` said the former Taos Pueblo governor, who testified before a congressional committee in the summer of 1970.
A breakthrough came after a meeting with U.S. Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr., a newly elected New Mexico Republican who would go on to serve as Interior secretary under President George H.W. Bush.
``I'll look into it, I'll let you know''' was the initial answer, said Suazo, a man in his mid-20s at the time. ``And then he actually wrote a letter back. ... He said, `I will do what my heart tells me to do and I will support this.'``
Taos claims to ancestral lands were competing for attention with movements to reclaim land grants dating back to the Spanish-colonial era and Mexican rule.
``He was a Hispanic congressman, and there were Hispanics that were against the return. For him to step out like that was very significant,'' Suazo said.
Newly proposed state legislation would provide funding for commemorative celebrations, a short documentary film and educational materials that eventually may reside at a heritage center at Taos Pueblo.
Tribes Break Ground on Hatchery That Aims to Restore Salmon
MILTON-FREEWATER, Ore. (AP) — The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has broken ground on a long-awaited hatchery in the Walla Wall River basin.
During a ground-breaking event at the South Fork Walla Walla Chinook salmon spawning facility outside Milton-Freewater,
Tribal Board of Trustees Vice Chair Jeremy Wolf said at the ceremony last week that the spring Chinook hatchery, a more than $20 million project funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, is anticipated to open in the spring of 2021.
It could bring more than 2,000 adult salmon back to the Walla Walla Basin by 2025, he said. According to the BPA, it could eventually return 5,000 adult salmon to the basin each year.
“This is going to benefit the entire system of Walla Walla, and the whole state,” Wolf said.
It’s a project that has been a part of an overall comprehensive program related to the health of fish and water in the Walla Walla Basin for more than 30 years now. The site already has a spawning facility for salmon and steelhead released into the Umatilla Basin, and the addition of an onsite hatchery will allow the tribes to localize the egg-rearing process.
Prisoners Raising Money for Native American Crime Victims
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) _ Prisoners at the South Dakota State Penitentiary are trying to raise money and awareness about Native American women who are crime victims.
The non-profit organization. `Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women' says Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic.
The inmates made 200 pairs of earrings and made $5,000 which they donated to Urban Indian and Health of Sioux Falls and Rapid City.
Connie Hopkins, vice-president of prisoner support, tells KELO-TV the money will be used in a variety of ways to bring awareness to what some say is an epidemic when it comes to Native American women.
``It's going to help them get more media out there or pay for fliers or to help people travel to go look for these women,'' Hopkins said.
The U.S. Department of Justice found that American Indian women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average.
Senators Want to Restore Native Plants to US National Parks
BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP) _ A pair of U.S. senators believes restoring native plants in national parks around the country could help beautify and improve some of America's most beloved public places.
The effort is led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. They've called the bill the Native Plant Species Pilot Program Act and said it would encourage the National Park Service to increase use of native plant materials on land the service stewards.
The use of native plants would benefit wildlife, human health and the environment, Collins and Cantwell said. Collins said the proposal would be especially beneficial for Acadia National Park in Maine.
``Acadia's native plant communities includes many species such as the blueberry barrens near the mountain summits, the towering white pines in older forests, and the cranberry bogs along Northeast Creek that contribute to Maine's iconic landscape,`` Collins said.
Greta Thunberg's North Dakota Photo is at National Library
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ A photo of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg at a Native American reservation in North Dakota has been archived at the Library of Congress in Washington.
Shane Balkowitsch, who took the photo, preserved the image on a glass plate and titled it ``Standing For Us All.'' Balkowitsch told the Bismarck Tribune that it's his ``most important work to date.''
The photo shows 16-year-old Thunberg looking into the distance during a visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It was preserved using a method known as ``wet plate collodion,'' which involves wetting glass with various chemicals before inserting the plate into a camera and developing the photo.
``I wanted to give nature its due respect on the plate,'' Balkowitsch noted.
The photographer said the image ``wasn't supposed to happen,'' but it's the one that Thunberg chose to share with the world. Thunberg posted it on Twitter when she left North America on Nov. 13.
Balkowitsch had heard Thunberg would be at the reservation and made plans to meet her there, since she wasn't able to come to his studio. He recalled being told he only had 15 minutes.
Library of Congress visitors can request to view the plate. Balkowitsch said the plate will outlast any other printed photograph of Thunberg because it's made using silver, which does not fade over time.
``This plate will be here long after her and I are gone,`` he said.
Another image, a close-up Thunberg's face, will be featured at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
Father, Son Plead Guilty in Black Market Eagle Trafficking
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) _ A father and his adult son have pleaded guilty in South Dakota to federal charges in a widespread case that offered a glimpse into the illegal trafficking of eagles and other protected birds.
Troy Fairbanks and his son, Majestic Fairbanks, were among 30 people and pawn shops indicted in 2017 as part of a two-year investigation into the black-market trade of eagle carcasses, eagle parts and feathers.
Prosecutors say they found more than 100 eagle carcasses or eagle parts in the Fairbanks' Rapid City home, according to the Rapid City Journal.
Eagle heads or wings can fetch hundreds of dollars, though sellers sometimes exchange the eagle parts for other animal parts, such as bear claws, buffalo horn caps or animal hides. The eagle parts are often used in Native American-style handicrafts.
Undercover investigators say they purchased protected bird parts from suspects in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa.
Troy Fairbanks pleaded guilty in federal court in Rapid City to wildlife trafficking conspiracy, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. Majestic Fairbanks pleaded guilty to violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which is punishable by up to one year in prison. Last month, Majestic's brother, Troy Young Fairbanks, pleaded guilty to violating that act.
Art Exhibits at Albuquerque Airport Draw Attention
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Albuquerque's airport is getting international attention for its current display of art.
The Sunport's Lowriders and Hot Rods Car Culture exhibit has landed a spot on the latest list of top airport exhibits in the world by the quarterly publication ArtDesk.
The current exhibit features an array of photos and a 1964 Chevy Impala.
The airport also has a permanent collection of more than 100 pieces that include Native American, Hispanic and Southwestern works overseen by Max Baptiste, who has taken on the airport's newly added role of art curator.
Baptiste tells Albuquerque television station KRQE he's not surprised about the recent recognition since New Mexico is what he describes as ``an amazing arts community.''
He says the aim is to create a sense of pride and that airports are a great spot for doing that.
Native American Football Enjoys a Rebirth in South Dakota
By STEPHEN GROVES
Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) _ When the Kul Wicasa Oyate of Lower Brule High School meet the Crow Creek Chieftains in the first All Nations Football Conference championship in South Dakota, only one team will fulfill its dream of claiming a league title.
But for many players in this new Native American league, where students defy both athletic and socio-economic statistics and dream of playing in a championship game at ``the Dome'' at the University of South Dakota, simply getting onto the field has provided a personal victory.
Tribal schools in South Dakota formed their own 9-man league this year, a move that coaches and players say has rejuvenated the sport in Native American communities statewide. Some coaches saw their existing teams grow by two-thirds; two schools are fielding their first teams ever.
Supporters say the teams are giving students a reason to stay in school and out of trouble, and communities are coming together to rally around the teams. Reservations in South Dakota suffer from high rates of crime and drug use, and many schools struggle to keep students from dropping out.
``There's a lot of negative stuff that goes on on the rez,'' said Scott Obago, Lower Brule's 17-year-old quarterback. ``Staying at practice, staying with friends keeps you away from all that stuff.''
Football has historically been played widely by Native Americans, dating to the days of greats like Jim Thorpe. But in recent years, many smaller schools found themselves overmatched by schools with larger rosters and bigger players.
Leonard ``Yamni'' Jack, the athletic director at Lower Brule, said reservation schools often don't have the money to build weight rooms, fields, and equipment needed to compete with better-funded public schools. Participation in football also sometimes suffered on reservation schools, where basketball is king and some potential players didn't want to risk injury.
Last year, the Lower Brule staff came up with a plan to form their own league, open to schools with at least 50% Native American students and to both Native American and non-Native American athletes. Twelve schools joined, including two that had never had a football team.
Organizers say the first season was a success. Two schools from Nebraska are planning to join next year.
``Football has been reinvigorated in the tribal communities,'' Lance Witte, Lower Brule's superintendent, said.
With fewer injuries than in previous years when they were part of statewide competition, coaches have seen a surge in interest. Lower Brule coach Zeke Prado said some of the students who tried out had never played football, and he relished the chance to teach them new skills and encourage them to keep their grades up, so they would be eligible to play.
The team's success this year has also been a source of pride and involvement from the community. The rivalry between tribal schools can be intense because many of the athletes have relatives and friends who go to schools that may be separated by just a few miles. Jack, the athletic director, said the pep rally before the championship game drew the most parents he's ever witnessed.
It's not just the winning teams that call the new league a success.
Takini High School in Howes formed a team for the first time this season and didn't win a game. But coach Donald Schroeder said he's expecting more students to come out next year _ including a few girls.
``We could have something here really special,'' Schroeder said.
Native American Population Grows in Clark County
LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Nevada's Clark County has one of the fastest growing Native American populations in the country but local leaders say they're struggling to receive the recognition they deserve.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that between July 2017 and 2018 the number of Native American people living in the county that includes Las Vegas grew at a faster rate than any other large county in the nation. In fact, among counties with populations of 20,000 or more, Clark County had the fastest annual growth rate of Native American people in three of the past five years.
Experts told the Las Vegas Review-Journal more Native Americans are moving to Clark County because of its strong economy, employment opportunities and proximity to reservations in Arizona, Utah and Southern California.
Rulon Pete, the executive director of the Las Vegas Indian Center, has seen an uptick in demand for his nonprofit's employment programs for Native Americans. Unemployment rates on tribal lands are higher than the U.S. average, and Pete said many of the 150 to 200 people he assists each year have moved to seek employment in construction, health care and hospitality.
``Vegas presents itself as a place you can be able to have a good paying job and where people can sustain a decent lifestyle,'' said Pete, who is a member of the Cedar Band of Paiutes in Utah. ``They stay around and find out there are better opportunities here, and they spread the news back home.''
Today about 50,000 people who self-identify as Native American live in Clark County, according to census statistics. Close to half are multiracial and most live in urban areas. Census officials report less than 1,000 live on reservations for the county's two federally recognized tribes, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe and the Moapa Band of Paiutes.
Despite the population growth, Native Americans still represent only about 2% of the county's population.
Pete and others say they feel like they are still fighting to be recognized by the community at large.
That was the feeling in September, when the Clark County Commission punted voting on a resolution to designate the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples' Day. Commissioners disagreed whether to hold the new celebration on the same day as Columbus Day, a reasoning some Native Americans see as a continuation of their historic marginalization.
Similar measures have been adopted by state and local governments across the nation, some of which have opted to stop celebrating Italian explorer Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas.
``The (Columbus Day) celebration was the discovery of America, but there were millions of people who were here,'' said Las Vegas resident Mercedes Krause, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation of South Dakota who serves on Nevada's Commission on Minority Affairs. ``I think it's a step toward recognition. We are here. We're part of our community.''
County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said he plans to improve the proposal and try again next year.
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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
New Chairman Brings Tribal Perspective to Business Group
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Mike Canfield is the first tribal member to serve as board chairman for a business advocacy group that covers New Mexico's largest metropolitan area.
Canfield is a member of Laguna Pueblo and will lead the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.
As CEO of Indian Pueblos Marketing, Canfield previously led an ambitious effort to reshape the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center with $70 million in new development. He also headed the Laguna Industries manufacturing operation.
He tells the Albuquerque Journal that as the chamber's board chairman, he wants to give a voice to a perspective that hasn't always been well represented in Albuquerque's business community.
``We have a lot of (tribal) community members here, in business and otherwise, and it's nice to have that perspective,'' he said.
Canfield took over in July. Since then the chamber has moved into a new downtown office, revamped its logo and website and thrown support behind a bond measure that would, among other issues, establish a homeless shelter that supporters say would help address persistent crime and homelessness issues.
Canfield said it's important as tribal members to be involved where they can.
In 2017, the state's 19 pueblos brought more than $608 million into New Mexico, according to a study conducted by the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business and Economic Research.
Canfield's focus has been on helping businesses as well as working with chamber staff on city-wide issues.
Terri Cole, president and CEO, said the Albuquerque chamber looks at its mission a bit more broadly, focusing on systemic issues that affect the city's business community.
Cole said the chamber has identified ``bold issue groups,'' or BIGs, facing the city: public safety, downtown transformation and education reform. She said the chamber has partnered with a wide variety of groups to make headway on each of those issues.
``We focus on making the community a better place,'' Cole said. ``So being community-minded is a priority.''
Canfield said he also wants to work on addressing Albuquerque's persistent negative image. While he acknowledged that Albuquerque still has significant problems, he said he'd like to work on positive messaging, broadcasting some of the elements that make Albuquerque unique, rather than harping on negative aspects of the city.
``We're not Denver, we're not Phoenix, we're not Dallas, and I don't think we ever want to be,'' Canfield said.
Finland Agrees to Return Native American Remains to Tribes
CORTEZ, Colo. (AP) _ Finland has agreed to return to Native American tribes ancestral remains and artifacts taken more than a century ago from what is now Mesa Verde National Park in the Southwest United States.
The White House announced the agreement during a news conference in Washington on Wednesday. The agreement involves the remains of about 20 people and 28 funerary objects.
The remains and items were excavated by a Swedish researcher in 1891 and later became part of the collection at the National Museum of Finland.
U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt says President Donald Trump and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto acknowledged the sanctity of the items to the two dozen tribes that are culturally connected to the Mesa Verde region.
That list includes tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Texas.
Michigan State Students Push for Multicultural Meeting Space
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) _ Michigan State University students are advocating for a new multicultural facility on campus to house minority organizations and provide meeting spaces and resources for students from marginalized communities.
University data indicates MSU welcomed its most diverse class to date in fall 2018. And yet minority organizations are spread across campus in small basement offices, according to the Council of Racial and Ethnic Students, which represents black, Latino, Native American and Asian student groups.
``Some of the spaces we have been provided with, like the Mosaic, can only fit about 72 to 76 (people),'' said Sarah McConville, an MSU junior and chief diversity and inclusion officer for the Residence Halls Association. Culturas de las Razas Unidas _ which aims to promote Latino/Chicano awareness at MSU _ has hosted more than 100 attendees at its meetings, she said.
``They don't understand why our spaces aren't enough,'' McConville said.
McConville, an organizer for Students for a Multicultural Building, told the Lansing State Journal that she started a petition last spring to win support for an inclusive facility to serve as a collaborative space where members from all communities can meet, grow and learn.
Dr. Terrence Frazier, vice president of MSU student affairs and services and interim director of Office of Cultural and Academic Transitions, said he supports the idea of a multi-ethnic center.
``A lot of the organizations are centered in the Mosaic in the union or OCAT and across campus,'' said Frazier. ``Having a building would be an additional resource to come together and learn about one another and have a more informal way of networking.''
The drive for such a center on campus dates back to the 1960s, according to the Office of Cultural and Academic Transitions website.
Miracle Chatman, another student working for the establishment of a multicultural center, said she hopes the efforts of Students for a Multicultural Building achieve their long-held goal.
``There have been students in the past who have advocated for the building, but it died out,'' Chatman said.
The organization is examining how other schools, such as University of Michigan, opened their multicultural spaces. The group is preparing an official proposal to present to MSU's administration, Chatman said.
Information from: Lansing State Journal, http://www.lansingstatejournal.com
Researchers Search For Bigfoot In Kisatchie National Forest
By MELINDA MARTINEZ
Alexandria Town Talk
ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) _ In the middle of Kisatchie National Forest, a Bigfoot researcher who calls himself ``Tex-La'', lets out four howls in an area that he and another researcher, Claude, say has visible signs of Bigfoot activity.
Several seconds go by with only the sounds of insects heard all around.
Then, it happens. In the distance, four howls answer back.
Tex-La and Claude discuss the howls and from which direction they came. Tex-La then calls out again with another four howls. After several more seconds, those howls are also answered back.
It is up to those that hear the howls to decide for themselves if they believe the howls came from Bigfoot, a forest animal or a human.
``It is what it is. If you choose to believe that's great. If you choose not to believe, that's great, too,'' said Tex-La.
He recorded the howls and will study them later. He says everything has its own distinct sound _ even Bigfoot.
Claude and Tex-La have left audio devices camouflaged in the trees. Sometimes cameras are left to record nighttime activity. Those recordings, which are hours long, are studied and analyzed.
To avoid harassment and ridicule from those who don't believe in Bigfoot, Tex-La and Claude from Baton Rouge don't want to disclose their full names or the locations in Kisatachie National Forest where they are researching.
``A lot of people don't want to come forward because they don't want to be intimidated,'' said Tex-La about other Bigfoot researchers.
Most don't like to discuss their interest in Bigfoot for fear of repercussions in their jobs or social standings in the community. They also want to avoid those who want to prank them. And Tex-La has had his share of pranks played on him over the years.
``It's something you have to approach with an open mind,'' said Tex-La about researching Bigfoot.
Kisatchie National Forest spans 600,000 acres across Central Louisiana. Tex-La and Claude are investigating an area between Georgetown and Jena where there have been reports of Bigfoot sightings.
Claude does research during the day when he can see tracks, but there are times when he might do a night trek.
``Finding a spot is the luck of the draw,'' said Claude. ``This area here is in the middle of highly visible eyewitness activity.''
Claude said he got fairly good results at the first place he researched. He was able to get photos of a Bigfoot tracks in that area.
``Nothing remarkable, nothing to write home about. But they were _ to my way of thinking _ good tracks.''
But Claude doesn't claim to be an expert.
``Anybody that claims to be an expert is full of it,'' he said. All evidence is based on circumstances.''
Claude became interested in researching Bigfoot while he was at Jedediah Smith State Park in Northern California. While sleeping in his vehicle, he could smell one that was trying to look in through a dark window.
It was the stench that permeated the vehicle that woke him.
``It smelled like 50 gallons of stale urine and an old pile of wet dogs,'' said Claude. ``This is about the most rank odor you can imagine.''
He awoke from a sound sleep wondering what could smell that bad.
As he sat up, he said aloud, ``What is that odor?''
``And suddenly, it disappeared,'' he said. He realized that odor outside his vehicle belonged to Bigfoot.
``That really piqued my curiosity,'' said Claude of the encounter. ``So when I got back here _ realized I didn't have enough money to go roaming back to California again _ I looked up `Bigfoot in Louisiana' and this area is one that's shown predominately over the years, Bigfoot sightings and things like that.''
On this trip, Claude and Tex-La hike to an area where they have found signs of what could be Bigfoot activity.
Some signs of Bigfoot that they look for include twisted tree limbs wound around other tree limbs and marker formations make from branches and sticks.
``There are a lot of interesting tree formations that don't normally occur in nature,'' said Claude.
One such formation involves a ``tree teepee'' he came across. It involves four trees with three bent towards the fourth.
``Limbs are twisted and wrapped around each other,'' said Claude pointing to the section where the trees come together.
Sometimes the way the branches are twisted together could indicate that it is a marker or barrier.
Claude said it could also be a way to get other animals to move to a certain area.
``Bigfoot can make its own game trail,'' said Claude. ``It's interpretative.''
``One thing you have to look out for is the way they are pulled down and pinned so they don't stand up,'' said Claude.
Bigfoot roam, said Claude, and migrate to where game are. Claude and Tex-La said there is also a water source close to the area.
Another sign Claude observed were sticks forming an ``X'' lying on a branch. Another sign includes three parallel sticks lying perpendicular to another stick.
``It's one of the first things I noticed,'' said Claude. ``It is typical of a symbol that Bigfoot uses.
``It's the small things you really have to look for. They are too conform to be natural for the most part.''
Other signs Claude and Tex-La notice include the packed-down pine straw and leaves in the area. This could be from Bigfoot walking in the area, explained Claude.
There is no crunching sound made here as there is in other parts of the forest where the pine straw and leaves aren't packed down, Claude pointed out.
In another area, Tex-La found a tree that looks as if it had been pulled down on purpose. The tree's bark bears an abrasion that Tex-La said could have been made by a hand that was holding the tree while pulling it down.
``You have to be analytical and skeptical of everything you see,'' said Claude.
He does his homework to figure out if trees can naturally do some of the things he's seen or if the weather were a factor.
``You have to be educated yourself,'' said Claude.
He has also left gifts such as a jar of peanut butter hanging eight-feet from a rope in a tree next to a trail, which Claude says is used by Bigfoot.
The peanut butter jar has been hanging in a tree for a while.
``It's a little disappointing that a squirrel or something didn't get it,'' he said.
Asked why he left peanut butter for Bigfoot, Claude replied, ``All animals like peanut butter.''
On previous excursions, he's left apples that were nibbled on by other forest animals.
Tex-La and Claude say there are different species of Bigfoot around North America.
The one in Louisiana is said to be about 6 to 7 feet tall with dark shaggy hair like a sheep dog.
Tex-La said there are primates on other continents, so why couldn't there be one like Bigfoot living in North America?
Even Native American tribes have their own lore and names for Bigfoot or Sasquatch.
But he said people don't want to believe there is a 6-foot gorilla roaming the woods where they camp, hunt or hike.
People reason that if Bigfoot were real, there would be deer or other animal carcasses lying around the woods because Bigfoot would have to eat.
But Tex-La counters with: ``How many dead deer carcasses have you seen walking through the woods?
``There's been scat found with parasites only known to be in primates,'' he said.
Also, a Bigfoot group he belongs to has had DNA samples collected from hair that indicate it is primate in origin.
Sometimes people who walk along a trail may hear something that sounds as if they are being followed, said Tex-La. He explains that this could be Bigfoot shadowing or escorting the hiker.
``To make sure you leave,'' added Tex-La.
But Bigfoot isn't the only reason researchers head into the forest.
``A lot of times it's nice to get out and enjoy what God gave us,'' said Tex-La. ``It makes us get out and explore.''
About 90% of a Bigfoot researcher's time is spent walking in the woods looking for evidence, he said.
After 20 years of research, Tex-La said he still don't know everything. He goes by what he reads or what he views on YouTube.
He says the evidence is there to support that Bigfoot does exist but the world wants more proof.
``It's going to take a body for the world to accept it,'' said Tex-La. Even scientists will want a body.
``But they'll still be skeptical,'' he added.
``It may never be solved in our lifetimes,'' said Tex-La about the Bigfoot mystery.
It is up to the individuals to make up their own minds about about whether to believe in the existence of Bigfoot.
Information from: Alexandria Daily Town Talk, http://www.thetowntalk.com
Scorsese Visits Osage Nation Ahead Of Filming
PAWHUSKA, Okla. (AP) _ Director Martin Scorsese has visited Oklahoma and met with the principal chief of the Osage Nation to discuss filming his upcoming adaptation of ``Killers of the Flower Moon.''
The Tulsa World reported that Scorsese and others involved in the film met with Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and other Osage representatives for about two hours to discuss how the movie will accurately portray the tribe's culture, history and language.
The movie is an adaptation David Grann's nonfiction book ``Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.'' It documents the 1920s slayings of wealthy Osage tribal members after the discovery of oil on their land.
Standing Bear said Scorsese told him Robert DeNiro will play cattleman William Hale. Leonardo DiCaprio is also set to star.
Protest Decries Plan to Detain Migrant Kids at Oklahoma Base
LAWTON, Okla. (AP) _ More than 100 demonstrators are protesting in withering heat outside of an Oklahoma Army base against the Trump administration's plans to detain migrant children there.
Japanese Americans and Native Americans are among those taking part in SaturDAY's march to Fort Sill and rally in front of one of its entrances. Demonstrators are chanting ``Close the camps'' and carrying signs with messages including ``Human Rights Matter'' and ``Liberty and Justice For All.''
The protest comes after a similar rally on June 22 .
Fort Sill was used to house hundreds of Japanese and Japanese Americans by the federal government during World War II. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement recently announced plans to temporarily detain up to 1,400 migrant children at the base near Lawton, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.
Fort Sill was also used to house migrant children in 2014 during the Obama administration.
Moon Landing, Women's Suffrage Exhibits Open in Bismarck
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ New exhibits on the moon landing and women's suffrage are opening at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum in Bismarck.
The Bismarck Tribune reports that bbjects commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing will be on display until the end of July. The exhibit includes fragments of moon rocks and small state flags that were flown to the moon.
The women's suffrage exhibit will be open until summer 2020. Women first gained the right to vote in 1920 when the 19th Amendment was enacted. American Indian women were granted voting rights with citizenship in 1924.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
Red Rock Canyon Crowding Has Land Managers Studying Changes
LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Federal land managers are considering several ways to address overcrowding at a scenic natural area just a 30-minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, entrance fee station upgrades and a cutoff road to return motorists to the visitor center without driving an entire 13-mile one-way loop are among options being studied.
Officials say they're also working to boost cellphone coverage and provide public Wi-Fi service at the visitor center and entrance station.
Visitor numbers have exploded in recent years. More than 3 million people visited Red Rock Canyon in 2018. Before 2013, it never logged 2 million in a year.
The area features hiking trails and rock-climbing routes, towering red and white sandstone cliffs, sheltered canyons with waterfalls, Native American petroglyphs and geologic features.
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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
Political Opposition Grows To Nuclear Waste Storage Plan
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ Plans by a New Jersey-based company to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors in the New Mexico desert is running into more political trouble, as some of the state's top elected officials are raising red flags.
Congresswoman Deb Haaland became the latest member of the delegation to weigh in Friday, sending a letter to the U.S. Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The first-term Democratic lawmaker suggested existing railways weren't built to withstand the weight of the special casks that would be used to transport the high-level waste from sites around the country to southeastern New Mexico.
Haaland said there are no plans for new construction or renovations as part of the project proposed by Holtec International and that cities and states shouldn't bear the cost of the infrastructure improvements needed to ensure safe transportation.
``I believe such a facility poses too great a risk to the health and safety of New Mexicans, our economy and our environment,'' Haaland wrote.
Holtec is seeking a 40-year license from federal regulators to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad.
Holtec executives say the project is needed because the federal government has yet to find a permanent solution for dealing with the tons of spent fuel building up at nuclear power plants.
Members of a U.S. House subcommittee visited Southern California earlier this month for a hearing that centered on the need for a permanent disposal option and the 3.5 million pounds (1.59 million kilograms) of nuclear waste stranded at a defunct nuclear power plant in that state.
The topic of storing nuclear waste will be on the agenda again when the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee meets next week.
The development of a proposed long-term storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain was halted during the Obama administration, although the Trump administration has moved to restart the licensing process despite stiff resistance in Nevada.
Haaland in her letter echoed the concerns of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan. Without a permanent repository, they say the waste could end up stuck in the state indefinitely.
``There must be an open and transparent process that allows for input on what's best for our entire state,'' Heinrich said.
Congressman Lujan said broad support from the state, local communities and any affected Native American communities should be a requirement of any interim storage site.
Holtec spokeswoman Joy Russell said Friday the company appreciates the views of the elected officials and will continue to work with local leaders to ensure it meets all regulatory requirements.
In her letter, Haaland pointed to past studies done by the Energy Department when it was considering Yucca Mountain. She said modeling predicted rail accidents at a rate of 1 in 10,000 shipments.
She also said the agency has found that a severe accident involving one cask of radioactive waste has the potential to contaminate dozens of square miles and result in hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs.
State and industry officials also have concerns about potential effects on oil and gas development, as Holtec's proposed site is located within the Permian Basin _ one of the world's most prolific energy production regions.
Exchange: Shoshone Artist's Work Inspires Tribal Activism
By JENNIFER KANE
Reno Gazette Journal
RENO, Nev. (AP) _ There's an American Indian man in oversized reflective sunglasses sitting in the center of a painting. Over his shoulder, there's a mess of dated electronics stacked under a cluttered television set. On the other side, a figure is immersed in a spiritual ritual below an eagle and a sky of billowing clouds.
The painting is a self-portrait of Jack Malotte, a Shoshone and Washoe artist who grew up on the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony reservation and has since made a career of creating prints, posters and paintings that have inspired both environmental and social activism nationwide.
``It's what my living room looked like then,'' the Reno native said of the piece entitled, ``It's Hard to be Traditional When You're all Plugged In.'' ``I was going to sweat lodges, but then too I had all these tangled cords in my home. I drew myself in between these two worlds.''
Much of Malotte's work, now on display at the Nevada Museum of Art, is often about juxtaposition, whether it's tradition versus modernism, or nature and technology.
``While his work celebrates the beauty of the Great Basin landscape, it also tackles important issues related to land use, natural resource extraction, militarization, and legacies of colonialism,'' Nevada Museum of Art David Walker said of Malotte.
Walker called Malotte one of the most significant working artists in Nevada today.
Malotte's depiction of himself in the 1983 ``Plugged In'' self-portrait is stone-faced, but the artist himself is large and jovial. He has thick silver hair and a warm smile. It's hard to tell he harbors any bitterness at all, until you look at his work, which is often dark, biting commentary on how modern technology and military policy have had an impact on Native American culture and livelihoods.
The Nevada Museum of Art this week is opening ``Jack Malotte: Sagebrush Heathen,'' an exhibition that will include many of his earliest works, some of his more recent works and even a mural painted by Malotte this past week on the museum's south wall. The exhibition runs through Oct. 20.
``I'm always trying to figure out how to mix it up,'' said Malotte.
Malotte has been creating art since he was a child. He grew up always doodling, he said, and always admiring his uncle, a draftsman for the local power company in the 1960s.
Inspired, Malotte took drafting classes in high school and went on to study art at what is now the California College of the Arts in Oakland. he spent summers as a wildland firefighter, taking in rare glimpses of untouched Western landscape that later informed his technicolor skies and mountains.
``When you're out there all the time, that's all you think about,'' Malotte said, explaining that nature was always top of mind during his youth.
It wasn't until the late 1970s and early 1980s that his art, and his love for the great outdoors, met a greater purpose. Malotte at the time began to ally himself with variety of grassroots organizations, many of them intent on bringing environmental justice to Native American tribes: Western Shoshone Sacred Lands Association, Seventh Generation Fund and various nuclear testing resistance groups.
From campaigning to preserve Pyramid Lake to protesting toxic waste dumping in the Mojave Desert, Malotte put powerful images to the issues that continue to be hotly debated today. Many of his landscapes feature the horizons of the Great Basin.
``Jack's work brings powerful visual representations to the vision and voices of the Indigenous rights movement. We proudly wear his work on t-shirts, and adorn our posters, publications and letterhead with his graphics,'' said Debra Harry, a gender, race and identity program professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. ``His work transmits our call to protect our land and treaty rights, stop militarization, and promote self-determination.''
Malotte's style was distinct. The colors were molten, taken straight from a Nevada sunset. His media was mixed -- watercolors, ink, acrylic, whatever gets the job done. He used paint splatter, bold text, but also traditional Native American patterns and symbols, such as the eagle, moon and whirlwinds, or what he calls ``that spirit that follows me.''
In many paintings, Malotte depicts environmental travesties: sewage spilling into rivers, birds of prey soaring alongside military jets, and lava-red mushroom clouds exploding in a high desert.
In other works, he depicts stark realities of daily life on the reservation. In one piece, a billboard with a Native American man drinking ``Pow Wow Beer'' hovers above the scene of a car crash in the desert, a tossed beer can spilling onto the roadway.
Malotte wasn't exactly primed to be the visual voice for all Native Americans. Malotte's grandmother used to discourage him from playing with children who were of different tribes, particularly children who were Paiute, even though the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony was made up of three tribes: Shoshone, Washoe and Paiute.
But Malotte knew better. He played down by the river with those kids, and they all grew up talking a little bit of all three languages, not knowing which words were Shoshone and which were Washoe or Paiute.
``My generation, we didn't see ourselves as one or the other,'' said Malotte. ``We saw ourselves as one tribe.''
When Malotte looks at his own work, he can't remember a lot of it. He's produced so much of it, he'd guess thousands of pieces. And he's still creating, as evidenced by the ink under his nails and the paint on his T-shirt.
He not sure what to hope for the future of the environment, but he's happy in his home of two decades now, Duckwater, a community west of Ely. It's 290 miles (466 kilometers) from Reno.
It's wide open, but not without proximity to sites that cause him heartache. He's only a short drive to a number of open-pit gold mines and military installations. A weapons ammunition storage facility and the nation's largest nuclear test site are several hours away. He can see military jets flying over from his home.
``I hope we can keep it together,'' he said.
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Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com
Montana's Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force Named
HELENA, Mont. (AP) _ Attorney General Tim Fox has appointed 11 members to the Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force.
Montana lawmakers created the task force to identify jurisdictional and communication barriers among law enforcement agencies that prevent adequate investigation of missing Native Americans and ways to improve collaboration.
The task force also will oversee a grant program to fund efforts by tribes to identify, report and find missing Native Americans.
The task force members include representatives of all eight Montana tribes along with Deputy Attorney General Melissa Schlichting, the Montana Missing Persons Clearinghouse Manager Jennifer Viets and a Montana Highway Patrol trooper.
The task force is scheduled to hold its first meeting on June 11 in Helena. The next day, the Montana Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office are holding a missing persons training in Helena.
Interior Secretary, Tribes Meet Amid Drilling Fight
CHACO CANYON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, N.M. (AP) _ U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt met with leaders of the Navajo Nation and Pueblo tribes at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park on Tuesday, saying the remote, ancient site that's been central to a yearslong dispute over oil and gas development had "blown him away.''
The meeting at the site near the northwestern corner of New Mexico came at the urging of U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich. He has sponsored legislation with other members of New Mexico's all-Democratic congressional delegation to establish a formal buffer zone around the park held sacred by tribes.
Oil industry representatives say robust protections already are in place within the park and beyond, while Berhardt underscored during his tour that the Interior's Bureau of Land Management has a "complex mission'' of managing a range of land uses.
Berhardt's meeting with Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Acoma Pueblo Governor Brian Vallo and others marked his first visit to the park. The Farmington Daily Times reported that he said he expected it would have some influence on the decision-making process as the BLM and Bureau of Indian Affairs work on revamping the resource management plan for the San Juan basin, which includes Chaco Canyon. A draft is expected in a few months.
"This was a major, major effort by humanity and we need to be thoughtful about that,'' Bernhardt said of the cultural site.
A thousand years ago, Chaco had been an economic and ceremonial hub for the ancestors of Pueblo people, whose present-day villages are situated throughout much of New Mexico.
A world-heritage site, the park's stone walls, staircases and other architectural remnants stand against a backdrop of cliffs and rocky outcroppings. Smaller archaeological sites and individual Navajo Nation family allotments can be found beyond the park's boundaries.
Accessible only by rough dirt roads, Chaco takes effort to reach, and supporters say they want to protect the sense of remoteness that comes with making the journey.
The bill that supporters say will protect the Chaco area's archaeological and sensitive landscapes would halt new oil and natural gas lease sales on federal holdings within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) buffer zone around the park.
The Bureau of Land Management in recent years has deferred leasing parcels within that zone, but those who support the protections say legislation is needed to formalize that practice and put it into law.
In January, the Interior's Bureau of Land Management had quietly confirmed on its website that it would push forward with the sale of nine parcels within the informal buffer zone before eventually reversing the decision.
After Long Journey, Bear Spared by Governor Returns Home
By HOLLY RAMER
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ A bear whose life was spared two years ago by New Hampshire's governor has returned to her home turf near Dartmouth College after traveling thousands of miles since her relocation last June.
The state's Fish and Game Department had decided to euthanize the female black bear and three of her young offspring in 2017 after repeated problems with them feeding from trash and bird feeders culminated with two bears entering a home in Hanover. But after a public outcry, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu ordered the animals relocated instead.
The three yearlings were moved that year, and one of them was killed by a hunter in Quebec, Canada, within a few weeks. The mother bear, dubbed "Mink'' by locals, left town to mate and wasn't captured until last year, after she returned with four new cubs last spring. She was tagged, fitted with a tracking collar and moved about 120 miles (193 kilometers) north to a sparsely populated location near the Canadian border.
But last week, Mink made it back to Hanover after traveling a looping route through New Hampshire and Vermont. Andrew Timmins, the bear project leader with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said Monday that he's been in regular contact with the governor's office and a local bear rehabilitator - and all agree there's no need to take further action at this time.
"This bear has shown us where she wants to be, so let's see if we can do a better job coexisting with her by being more vigilant with food attractants,'' Timmins said.
Officials favoring euthanasia had argued the animals were no longer afraid of humans and likely would find new neighborhoods to frequent if moved, or would eventually find their way back to Hanover.
"We certainly had seen that in other bears in the past. It actually took her longer than we've experienced in the past,'' Timmins said, referring to Mink's journey home.
According to her tracking collar data, Mink spent the winter in a den in Pomfret, Vermont. She was back on the move by April, crossing the Connecticut River to get back to New Hampshire less than two weeks ago. Authorities have gotten few calls about the bear in the last year, and none reporting any trouble, Timmins said. As Mink currently has no cubs, it's possible she may spend more time away from downtown Hanover in search of a mate.
"My sense is she'll wander off and find another bear to hang out with,'' said Sununu, who stands by his decision to intervene.
"We always knew there was a chance that she was going to come back. Fish and Game has been tracking her, and we just hope the people in those towns understand their responsibility in not feeding the bear or unintentionally attracting the bear,'' he said. "In talking to Fish and Game, it's understood that they're going to treat that situation as they would with any bear, making sure that health and human safety is first.''
Sununu isn't the first governor to get involved in wildlife issues.
In 2011, then-Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer signed an executive order to temporarily block the impending slaughter of hundreds of Yellowstone National Park bison. The Democrat worried transporting the animals could spread disease to Montana livestock. Two years ago, current Gov. Steve Bullock cited Schweitzer's order when he, too, blocked the slaughter of hundreds of Yellowstone bison during a dispute with the state Department of Livestock over plans to ship 40 bison in a quarantine program to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.
In Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources in 2011 planned to euthanize an orphaned fawn from a chronic wasting disease area before Republican Gov. Scott Walker intervened. Two years later, he told the agency to find less controversial ways of handling captive deer following a public outcry when agents seized and euthanized a deer from a Kenosha animal shelter.
More recently, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy campaigned on ending the state's bear hunt in 2017. Since taking office, the Democrat has only curtailed hunting on state-owned land, which accounts for about 40% of the area where black bears are hunted. Murphy said he lacks the unilateral authority to end the hunt and would have to work through the regulatory process.
And just last week in Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown slapped down the state wildlife department director's stance backing a proposal to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list. Brown, a Democrat, told federal officials she wanted to "clarify and correct'' Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Curtis Melcher and declare the state and its agencies oppose the proposal.
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Associated Press writers Matt Volz in Helena, Montana; Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin; Michael Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed to this report.
Catawba Indian Nation Revives Festival
ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) _ The Catawba Indian Nation is bringing back the Yap Ye Iswa, or Day of the Catawba, festival after a 12-year hiatus.
The free festival is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Catawba Cultural Center.
The festival dates back to 1990 as a way to connect the tribal and non-tribal communities with the Catawba Indian Nation.
Festival-goers will get a taste of the tribe's culture through performances by drummers and dancers to authentic Catawba songs. There also will be traditional art by Catawba artisans, pottery and beadwork demonstrations and traditional Native American food.
The Herald reports the Catawba Indian Nation is the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina. Its reservation sits on about 700 acres (1.09 square miles) east of Rock Hill.
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Information from: The Herald, http://www.heraldonline.com
New Mexico Students Help Redesign Jemez Historic Site
LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) _ A group of New Mexico college students is helping redesign the Jemez Historic Site visitor center using multimedia tools.
New Mexico Highlands University announced this week that 15 of its media arts students are creating floor-to-ceiling video projections of historic images and oral histories at the Native American site. The students also are adding interactive touch-screen computer tablets that focus on artifacts and an event called ``Light Among the Ruins.''
Supervisory archaeologist Ethan Ortega says the students used oral histories and texts written by Jemez tribal members to create the new components.
The Jemez Historic Site includes the stone remains of a 500-year-old village and the San Jose church, which dates to 1622.
It is located at Jemez Springs, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Albuquerque.
Bill Making Casino Nights for Charities Lawful Gets Final OK
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ A bill heading to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's desk makes clear charities aren't breaking the law by holding occasional casino ``game nights'' as fundraisers as long as they follow new restrictions.
The House agreed 95-17 on Monday to changes the Senate made on legislation making legal what some nonprofits already have been doing.
Bill supporters say enforcement of the current ban on these events has been uneven, and it would be better to allow nonprofits and some employers and trade associations to hold them, with alcoholic drinks permitted and prizes awarded by raffle. The bill still only applies east of Interstate 26 to comply with Cherokee casino agreements.
Cooper vetoed a casino night measure in 2017, worried it could attract video poker. Lawmakers say those concerns have been addressed.
Artificial Reef to Protect Historic Native American Mounds
MONTEGUT, La. (AP) _ An artificial reef has been created near the Louisiana coast to protect several historic Native American mounds from erosion and rising sea levels.
NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune reports the Montegut reef was built this month by the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and volunteers. About 200 tons of oyster shells were collected from New Orleans-area restaurants and repurposed to build the partially submerged reef.
This is the second such reef built in Louisiana by the coalition, which started its oyster shell recycling program in 2014. In 2016, the coalition used about 4,000 tons of recycled shells to build a half-mile-long reef in St. Bernard Parish.
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Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com
Pace of Bering Sea Changes Startle Scientists
By DAN JOLING
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Yupik Eskimo village of Kotlik on Alaska’s northwest coast relies on a cold, hard blanket of sea ice to protect homes from vicious winter Bering Sea storms.
Frigid north winds blow down from the Arctic Ocean, freeze saltwater and push sea ice south. The ice normally prevents waves from forming and locks onto beaches, walling off villages. But not this year.
In February, southwest winds brought warm air and turned thin sea ice into “snow cone ice” that melted or blew off. When a storm pounded Norton Sound, water on Feb. 12 surged up the Yukon River and into Kotlik, flooding low-lying homes. Lifelong resident Philomena Keyes, 37, awoke to knee-deep water outside her house.
“This is the first I experienced in my life, a flood that happened in the winter, in February,” Keyes said in a phone interview.
Winter storm surge flooding is the latest indication that something’s off-kilter around the Bering Strait, the gateway from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. Rapid, profound changes tied to high atmospheric temperatures, a direct result of climate change, may be reordering the region’s physical makeup. Ocean researchers are asking themselves if they’re witnessing the transformation of an ecosystem.
The Bering Sea last winter saw record-low sea ice. Climate models predicted less ice, but not this soon, said Seth Danielson, a physical oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“The projections were saying we would’ve hit situations similar to what we saw last year, but not for another 40 or 50 years,” Danielson said.
Walruses and seals use sea ice to rest and give birth. Villagers use sea ice to hunt them. Sea ice is the primary habitat of polar bears. Algae that clings to the bottom of sea ice blooms in spring, dies and sinks, sending an infusion of food to clams, snails and sea worms on the ocean floor — the prey of gray whales, walruses and bearded seals.
Sea ice also affects commercially valuable fish. Sea ice historically has created a Bering Sea “cold pool,” an east-west barrier of extremely cold, salty water at the bottom of the wide, shallow continental shelf. The wall of cold water historically has concentrated Pacific cod and walleye pollock in the southeastern Bering Sea.
“It tends to extend from the Russian side to the northwest,” said Lyle Britt, a fisheries biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It kind of comes down almost like a little hockey stick shape … through the center of the southeast Bering Sea.”
However, when Britt and other NOAA researchers last year conducted annual fish and ocean condition surveys, they got a big surprise: For the first time in 37 years, they found no cold pool.
Researchers found high concentrations of Pacific cod and walleye pollock in the northern Bering Sea. But the species that was supposed to be there, Arctic cod, was hardly found.
More than half the fish landed in U.S. waters come from the North Pacific, and most are caught in the Bering Sea. Chad See, executive director of the Freezer Longline Coalition, a trade association of vessels that target Pacific cod using baited lines, said members caught their quota last year but had to travel farther north.
“Does that mean that the stock is declining, is suffering because of the warming temperatures? Or is it that they’ve moved north and it’s still a vibrant fishery?” See said.
It’s too soon to conclude that atmosphere and ocean changes are due simply to climate change, said NOAA physical oceanographer Phyllis Stabeno, who has studied the Bering Sea for more than 30 years. The southern Bering Sea since 2000 has undergone multi-year stanzas of low and extensive ice, she said.
When sea ice in November began forming as usual, she expected a bounce-back this winter. Instead, warm winds in February mostly cleared the northern Bering Sea of sea ice through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea.
“We’re in winter,” she said. “This is all supposed to be frozen.”
Formation of the cold pool is again in doubt. It could return in the future, but temperatures are trending upward with the rate of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.
Scientists say figuring out the ocean physics is far less of a challenge than projecting the biological ramifications.
“We sort of opened up this whole Pandora’s box of not really knowing how the ecosystem as a whole is going to adjust to that,” Danielson said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service early last summer detected trouble. Resident called with reports of emaciated and dead seabirds.
Common murres, which can use up fat reserves and starve after three days without eating, fly hundreds miles to find fish schools or krill but were washing up dead on shore. Forktail storm petrels, fulmars, shearwaters, kittiwakes, auklets and puffins also died.
No one can say why. Seabird experts wonder whether the presence of more pollock and Pacific cod, which have voracious appetites and are far more efficient hunters of forage fish than seabirds, was a factor.
Dean Stockwell, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a specialty in phytoplankton, said the ocean changes have the potential to affect plant life at the bottom of the food web but it’s too soon to know.
Of immediate concern is whether warmer water will allow harmful algae containing toxins to stay viable long enough for shellfish to eat them and pass toxins to marine mammals and people. Toxins are being carried to the Arctic, Stockwell said.
“The question with global warming types of things is, ‘Can it get a foothold? Can they do damage?’” he said.
Seabird experts wonder if toxins played a role in recent seabird deaths by affecting their ability to forage.
No one has connected the dots, said Britt, the NOAA fisheries biologist.
“At the moment, nobody’s sitting with in-hand a comprehensive research study that covers the birds and the mammals and the fish and the zooplankton all in one synthesized report,” he said, adding that it will take researchers more time to figure out what’s going on.
Meantime, Kotlik resident Keyes is researching climate change effects in her coastal village of 650 as project coordinator for a team working under a Bureau of Indian Affairs program.
The absence of sea ice since mid-February meant taking land routes to visit nearby villages, she said. And seal hunters this spring found bearded seals to harvest but not near the village.
Like the cod fishermen, “They had to go farther north,” Keyes said.
Walz Administration Renews Challenge to Line 3 Oil Pipeline
By STEVE KARNOWSKI
Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) _ Gov. Tim Walz said Monday that his administration has renewed its challenge to a regulatory panel's approval of Enbridge Energy's plan to replace its aging Line 3 crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota, saying he wants to let the legal process play out.
Walz told reporters the Commerce Department refiled its appeal last week with the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which had dismissed earlier appeals in the case on procedural grounds. The independent Public Utilities Commission last month gave its final reaffirmation of its earlier approvals of the project, clearing the way for the department and the environmental and tribal groups to refile appeals that began under previous Gov Mark Dayton's administration.
``We think that that appeal should simply be heard, and that's fair,'' he said.
The Democratic governor said the state's appeal doesn't delay the timeline for the permitting process for or construction on the replacement pipeline because the state isn't seeking an injunction. Regulators have told Enbridge that they expect to certify all remaining state permits by November. The company hopes to put the new pipeline into service in the second half of 2020.
Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge wants to replace Line 3, which was built in the 1960s, because it's increasingly prone to cracking and corrosion. Native American and environmental groups argue that the project risks oil spills in pristine areas of the Mississippi River headwaters region, and that the Canadian tar sands oil that the line would carry accelerates climate change.
Enbridge said in a statement that it believes the courts will affirm the commission's decisions, ``which were made in accordance with the law based on full and complete evidence developed and presented over years of open and transparent regulatory and environmental review processes.''
Walz was critical of lawmakers who've tried unsuccessfully to prohibit the state from spending taxpayer money on the appeal, calling their efforts ``a gross violation of the separation of powers.''
The legal issue at the heart of the Commerce Department's appeal is whether Enbridge provided legally adequate long-range demand forecasts to establish the need for the project. The Public Utilities and Enbridge say the company did. Walz said the statutory language is ambiguous, and that there would no basis for the state's appeal if lawmakers clarified the statute.
House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt said Republicans are ``incredibly disappointed'' by the decision to pursue a further appeal against a new pipeline that would be the ``safest, most environmentally friendly way'' to transport the oil and would create jobs and increase property tax revenues for communities along the route.
``What the governor is trying to do is play both sides,'' Daudt said. ``I think he's trying to say that, `Well this is ultimately going to happen, but I can at least tell the people that were against it I was with them.' And to me that's a failure of leadership.''
Congressional Panel to Tour Chaco Canyon, Hold Hearing
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) _ Members of Congress are gathering in Santa Fe this month to hold a hearing on the impact of oil and gas development on sites that tribes consider sacred.
The House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing takes place April 15 at the state Capitol.
Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva is the chairman of the subcommittee, and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland is the vice chairwoman.
They'll be joined by other Democratic leaders in the days leading up to the hearing to tour Chaco Culture National Historical Park near the Navajo Nation, and to meet with tribes and environmental advocates.
Native American leaders repeatedly have called on federal officials to ban oil and gas exploration around Chaco Canyon. The site features massive stone structures and other remnants of an ancient civilization.
State's Gambling Future Uncertain, Despite Federal Action
By SUSAN HAIGH
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ The gambling debate in Connecticut is far from over, even though the federal government finally approved a planned satellite tribal casino in East Windsor.
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont still has the challenging task of trying to negotiate a wide-ranging gambling agreement that doesn't violate the revenue-sharing agreement between the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes and the state of Connecticut.
Lamont says he would ``love to work something out with the tribes'' that would include sports betting and other forms of gambling.
Lamont has met privately with both tribes and MGM Resorts, the casino company that says it wants to build a casino in Bridgeport and also offer sports betting. Lamont says he has also met with other sports betting companies.
Lamont says he hopes to avoid litigation, but MGM has promised to challenge the East Windsor casino.
ND Lawmakers Approve Eagle Feathers, Plumes at Graduations
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ The North Dakota Legislature has approved a bill that would allow American Indian students to wear eagle feathers or plumes at school graduations.
The Senate passed the House bill 45-0 on Monday.
Fargo Democratic Rep. Ruth Buffalo, the bill sponsor, says American Indians view the eagle feather and plumes as a symbol of honor and pride.
The North Dakota School Boards Association supports the legislation.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service operates the National Eagle Repository to provide Native Americans with eagle carcasses, parts and feathers.
Lawmakers Mull Eagle Feathers, Plumes at Graduations
By JAMES MacPHERSON
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ American Indian students in North Dakota would be allowed to wear eagle feathers or plumes at school graduations under a measure considered by the Legislature.
Fargo Democratic Rep. Ruth Buffalo, the bill sponsor and member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, told the Senate Education Committee on Monday that some schools in the state forbid the practice of wearing eagle feather and plumes, which are Native American symbols of strength, honor and pride.
They are presented by families or elders to recognize major accomplishments, Buffalo said.
``Students should not have to worry about whether they will be allowed to celebrate their heritage,'' said Buffalo, the first female Native American Democrat elected to the state Legislature.
``Embracing our indigenous culture and identity are essential to our survival,'' she said.
The House passed the bipartisan tribal regalia bill 90-2 last month. The Senate committee did not take immediate action on Monday.
State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler and the North Dakota School Boards Association and State Superintendent support the legislation, ad
South Dakota passed similar legislation last year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service operates the National Eagle Repository to provide Native Americans with eagle carcasses, parts and feathers.
Carol Two Eagles, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, told lawmakers that schools that forbid the practice are violating students' First Amendment Rights.
North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission Director Scott Davis, who also is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, called the legislation ``long overdue'' and it recognizes a ``long, long, long-standing custom for us.''
Davis said in an interview he gets complaints each spring from Native American parents who have been told their children can't wear eagle feathers or plumes at high school graduation.
Sheridan McNeil, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, said her son, Drayton Kary, will wear an eagle feather given to him by his late father at his high school graduation in Bismarck this spring.
``It sends a positive message and shows our youth and the people of North Dakota who we are,'' said McNeil, who's Dakota name translated means ``Respects the People Woman.''
Vienna to Take State Grant Money to Build Amphitheater
VIENNA, Ill. (AP) _ The southern Illinois city of Vienna will use $360,000 in state grant money to build an amphitheater as well as shower facilities at Tunnel Hill park.
The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan reports that construction is expected to begin this summer on a project that will include a wooden amphitheater for events such as concerts and possibly interpretive history lessons related to the forced relocation of Native Americans called the Trail of Tears that reached its midway point in Vienna.
The bathroom and shower facilities will be built for the Tunnel Hill 100 race in August.
The project is one of 89 across Illinois sharing in $28.9 million from the state that will allow communities to acquire open space and develop and improve recreational facilities.
Montana Tribes Could Access Coal Fund Loans under Proposal
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) _ Montana lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow Native American tribal governments to take out loans from the state Coal Tax Fund for infrastructure projects.
Non-tribal local governments already have access to the fund, which loaned $20.6 million last year.
The Missoulian reports the bill by Democratic Rep. Shane Morigeau of Missoula would make the state's seven federally recognized tribes and the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe eligible, too.
The Montana House Appropriations Committee heard the bill on Monday.
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes council member Carole Lankford says tribal governments have few chances to impose taxes or issue tax-exempt bonds. She says the loan program would allow tribes to accomplish more.
Morigeau says the addition of the tribes would not affect other governments' ability to access the funds.
Judge Won't End Decades-Old Everglades Cleanup Oversight
By CURT ANDERSON
AP Legal Affairs Writer
MIAMI (AP) _ A federal judge on Monday refused to end a decades-old court order that oversees water quality and environmental restoration in the sensitive Florida Everglades.
Miami U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno rejected a motion by the South Florida Water Management District to end a decree signed in 1992. Among other things, the order sets thresholds for the amount of phosphorous in the Everglades, an ingredient in fertilizer from the vast sugar-growing regions to the north that promotes unhealthy plant growth in the sprawling marsh.
Moreno said among his reasons for denying the water district's motion is that its governing board is being largely replaced by new Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made the environment a top priority. The judge also said it would require a full evidentiary hearing on complicated scientific and environmental issues to end the decree.
``This is the right thing to do at this time,'' Moreno said at a hearing. ``There's really no harm, is there?''
The order allows the water district to file the motion again in the future. The decree is not involved with other water problems that plagued Florida coasts last year, including red tide outbreaks and algae blooms.
The water district and sugar growers say the decree is outdated, thwarts projects that would benefit the Everglades and has been superseded by subsequent state and federal laws that guarantee restoration would continue. The projects include vast reservoirs that cleanse water flowing south from sugar farms before it flows into the Everglades.
``Twenty-seven years is enough. It's enough because it's unnecessary,'' said water board attorney Brian Accardo.
The U.S. government, environmental groups and the Miccosukee Indian tribe disagree, saying the decree is key to pursuing potential violations and ensuring the cleanup projects get built. They say it should remain in place until the Everglades has achieved an environmental balance close to its historical makeup. The Miccosukee reservation is in the Everglades.
``The decree is essential to protect the Everglades,'' said Anna Upton, attorney for the Florida Audubon Society. ``We're not there yet. We've come a long way.''
The decree arose out of a 1988 lawsuit filed by the U.S. against the water district claiming high phosphorous discharges were threatening the long-term future of the Everglades. The state and water district contended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was equally responsible by moving polluted water into the area.
In 1992, the consent decree was signed involving the federal and state entities, setting goals for reducing phosphorous as well as the levels of water at the right times needed to keep the ecosystem healthy.
A key point in the settlement talks came with then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, showed up at a court hearing in 1991 and said: ``We want to surrender. I want to find out who I can give my sword to.''
Florida Department of Environmental Protection attorney Charles DeMonaco said about $2 billion has been spent to date on Everglades projects, with another $1 billion in the pipeline over the next four years. He said the state would also like to see the consent decree end, but only when there is an agreement on how success would be measured.
``We don't want to fight anyone. We want to end it,'' DeMonaco said.
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Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt
Massachusetts Tribe Opposes Tribal Land Bill in Congress
AQUINNAH, Mass. (AP) _ A Native American tribe on Martha's Vineyard says it is opposed to federal legislation aimed at securing land for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head in Aquinnah said in a Jan. 22 letter that a bill introduced by Democratic U.S. Rep. William Keating would have an adverse impact on the tribe's ability to acquire additional ancestral land.
The Cape Cod Times reports that Keating in a statement said his legislation is tailored specifically to make sure the Mashpee tribe is protected from having its land removed from a trust.
The bill would end ongoing litigation challenging the Mashpee tribe's reservation. Aquinnah Tribal Chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais says her tribe should be included in the legislation.
Keating's office says it will work with the Aquinnah tribe to address concerns.
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Information from: Cape Cod (Mass.) Times, http://www.capecodtimes.com
Oklahoma Tribal, Congressional Leaders Praise Bill's Passage
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma tribal leaders and members of Congress are applauding the final passage of bill that will end a blood-quantum requirement they have long considered discriminatory.
The Stigler Act Amendments of 2018 were given final approval in the U.S. House last week, and the bill is now awaiting President Donald Trump's signature. The legislation applies to citizens of five Oklahoma tribes: the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations. It ends a requirement for holders of tribal allotment land from those tribes to have a certain percentage of tribal blood.
The Oklahoman reports the bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a Moore Republican and Chickasaw Nation citizen. The rest of Oklahoma's GOP delegation co-sponsored the measure.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker also praised the bill's passage.
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Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com
Japan's Whaling Decision Could Affect Alaska Native Whalers
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) _ Japan's decision to leave the International Whaling Commission could have consequences on subsistence whaling by Alaska Natives.
Alaska's Energy Desk reports Japan announced last month that it's leaving the commission to resume commercial whaling for the first time in 30 years.
John Hopson Jr., chairman of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, says Japan has been a ``strong ally'' in helping Alaska Native whalers obtain their hunting quota for the animals.
The international commission sets the quota for subsistence whaling. The commission approved a rule change last year that made the renewal of aboriginal subsistence whaling automatic.
Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission lawyer Jessica Lefevre says Japan's absence on the commission could shift the balance of power, possibly leading to the automatic renewal rule being challenged.
New Mexico Politics, Immigration Make Headlines in 2018
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ New Mexico Democrats solidified their power over state government during the midterm elections as a long-held GOP congressional seat in a key border district was flipped by a political newcomer and voters sent one of the nation's first Native American congresswomen to Washington.
Politics dominated New Mexico headlines in 2018 along with an economic turn-around fueled by oil and gas and efforts by the Trump administration to address illegal immigration and bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
With Republican Gov. Susana Martinez marking the end of her two-term tenure, attention was on the race for her successor as two of New Mexico's congressional representatives faced off for the top office. Michelle Lujan-Grisham defeated Republican Rep. Steve Pearce as part of a Democratic sweep that included legislative seats and judicial races.
Las Cruces attorney Xochitl Torres Small won New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District to join fellow Democrats Debra Haaland and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan in forming the first all-minority, three-member U.S. House delegation in New Mexico's history. Haaland, a former New Mexico Democratic Party chairwoman, is a Laguna Pueblo member. Lujan is member of one of New Mexico's storied political Hispanic families.
Democrats also expanded their majority in the state House of Representatives, building upon a decades-long history in which the party has dominated New Mexico's political scene.
Here are other top stories of the year:
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BORDER WALL AND IMMIGRATION
A $73 million contract was awarded to a Montana company in February to design and build replacement fencing along a 20-mile section of the international border in southern New Mexico, prompting a lawsuit by environmentalists.
The work continued as New Mexico deployed fewer than 200 troops to the border at President Donald Trump's request to fight what he called a crisis of migrant crossings and crime.
Immigrant advocates voiced opposition to the increased security and raised concerns about the treatment of migrants. In one case, a transgender woman from Honduras died while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sparking claims that she was not provided adequate medical care. In December, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died after she and her father _ along with a group of 163 migrants _ were detained after crossing the border in a remote area in southern New Mexico.
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ECONOMIC TURN-AROUND
New Mexico marked another year of record oil production, resulting in an economic boost and a significant budget surplus. That means state lawmakers and the next governor will have more options as they set spending priorities for the next fiscal year.
Prompted by previous investments from some of the largest energy companies in the U.S., oil production in New Mexico was on track to surpass 200 million barrels for the year. Federal geologists also released an assessment showing portions of the Permian Basin have the potential to double the nation's onshore oil and gas resources and keep the boom going if prices remain favorable.
With the addition of more than 18,000 jobs over the year, New Mexico saw the largest percentage drop of any state in its unemployment rate from November 2017 to November 2018.
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EDUCATION SETTLEMENT
It was billed as a landmark ruling that could reshape New Mexico's education system and how it gets funded. A state district judge in July ruled that New Mexico was violating the rights of at-risk students by failing to provide adequate funding for public schools.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2014 by advocacy groups and school districts that accused the state of failing to meeting constitutional obligations to provide a sufficient education for all students.
The case highlighted the plight of English-language learners, Native American youth and students from low-income families.
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UNM SPORTS CUTS
The University of New Mexico came under great scrutiny as regents voted twice to eliminate the popular men's soccer team along with other sports as a means to get spending under control within the troubled athletics department. The decision sparked public outcry.
The fiscal concerns came as the university also grappled with fallout from an ongoing investigation into questionable spending and violations of the state's transparency laws .
A report released by the state attorney general's office pointed to emails in which former Athletics Director Paul Krebs appeared to direct employees to destroy emails and documents related to a 2015 Scotland golf trip fundraiser where the university used around $25,000 in public money to cover private donors' expenses.
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CLERGY SEX ABUSE
New Mexico's largest Roman Catholic diocese dropped a bombshell in November, announcing it would seek bankruptcy protection after spending more than $50 million over the years to settle hundreds of lawsuits alleging child sex abuse by clergy members.
Archbishop John Wester, leader of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, said he had been contemplating the action for years but that the archdiocese had reached a tipping point and he wanted to ensure there would be resources to provide compensation for victims. He described the filing as an equitable thing to do as church reserves dwindle.
National watchdog groups and attorneys for victims have said the move suggests otherwise. They pointed to money spent by the archdiocese on lawyers in recent months and the tens of millions of dollars in real estate that was transferred to parishes in recent years, effectively reducing the amount of assets held by the archdiocese.
More lawsuits claiming clergy abuse were filed in 2018. Church officials expect there will be more.
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VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN
The high rates of violence that have victimized numerous Native American for decades received heightened attention in 2018 as concern grew about the cases of missing and murdered indigenous women _ including in New Mexico.
Federal officials, lawmakers and advocates called for more robust investigations into missing persons cases and the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs ended the year with a hearing that focused on the deaths and disappearances of Native American women.
Democrat Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said factors compounding the crisis include poor coordination among the multiple law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating crimes on Indian reservations. He and other senators also shared concerns over a lack of government data to measure the scope of a problem.
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NEW MEXICO COMPOUND
The search for a Georgia boy led authorities in August to raid a ramshackle compound on the high desert plains of Taos County. They found 11 hungry children living in filth, a dirt tunnel, arms and ammunition, and five adults related to a well-known imam from New York.
The body of 3-year-old Abdul-ghani Wahhaj was found days later during a second search. Authorities said the boy, marked for an exorcism, had been denied medical treatment that he needed for seizures and other ailments.
The adults were initially detained by authorities on suspicion of child neglect. They remain in federal custody on firearms and conspiracy charges. A federal grand jury indictment alleges a man in the group helped train children for potential attacks on schools, law enforcement agencies and other institutions.
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PLUTONIUM FUTURE
The federal agency that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile recommended in May that the production of the plutonium cores that trigger nuclear warheads be split between South Carolina and New Mexico. Officials said the plan would boost the resiliency and flexibility of weapons manufacturing by not relying on a single site.
Production of the cores had been based at Los Alamos National Laboratory _ the northern New Mexico site where the atomic bomb was developed decades ago _ since the 1990s. However, none have been turned out in years because of a series of safety lapses and concerns about a lack of accountability.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, both New Mexico Democrats, had pushed to keep the work at Los Alamos, given the hundreds of jobs and billions of dollars in federal funding at stake.
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DEADLY CRASHES
Two passenger bus crashes resulted in a dozen people being killed and nearly 50 injured in accidents on New Mexico's highways.
The first crash came in July along Interstate 25 just north of Albuquerque. Authorities say a bus driver tried to avoid hitting a car that had just slammed into the back of a pickup truck, but instead rolled on its side and was sideswiped by a semi-truck. Three women were killed, and 24 people injured.
The second crash happened in August east of Gallup. Nine passengers were killed, including an infant born prematurely as a result of the collision. Police said a semitrailer going in the opposite direction lost the tread on its left front tire, veered across a median and smashed into the bus. Twenty-five people were injured.
In April, Jennifer Riordan, a well-known figure in New Mexico community relations and communications died after fellow Southwest Airlines passengers said she was partially sucked out the window of a flight bound from New York to Dallas. The jet's engine had blown in midair and shrapnel hit the plane. She left behind a husband and two children.
In January in northern New Mexico, a key Zimbabwe opposition leader died in a fiery helicopter crash along with his wife and three others. Roy Bennett had won a devoted following among Zimbabweans for passionately advocating political change.
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DROUGHT
New Mexico farmers and water managers wrapped up the year hoping that El Nino would develop and save them from what could otherwise be another dry winter.
The Rio Grande marked some record-low flows in 2018, prompting federal officials to partner with the largest water utility authority in the state and others to keep the river from drying up at least through the Albuquerque stretch.
Elephant Butte, the state's largest reservoir, dipped to just 3 percent of capacity at the end of September. While there was a slight uptick since then, that marked the lowest level since the early 1970s.
Federal drought maps shows the situation has improved in a small portion of northern New Mexico and along the Rio Grande corridor, but the Four Corners region and the southern Colorado mountains that feed the river are still stuck with extreme to exceptional drought.
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Associated Press writer Mary Hudetz contributed to this report.
After-School Program Helps Native American Students Succeed
By BLAIR EMERSON
The Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ Graduation rates for Native American students in North Dakota have lagged behind those of white students by about 20 to 30 percentage points for the past decade.
Eight years ago, a local nonprofit sought to change that by starting a program for Native American students, aimed at boosting their academic performances, while also providing them a safe place to go after school.
Youthworks' New Direction program has shown great success with Native American students in Bismarck-Mandan.
``We're really looking to positively impact these young people, and it started because of the graduation rates,'' said Mark Heinert, program manager at Youthworks. ``But our reality is this: We're giving young people the opportunity to have a place they feel comfortable in, where they belong.''
The New Direction program serves 40 to 50 students each year. Students come from Bismarck High School, South Central High School, Century High School, Legacy High School and Mandan High School.
For four days a week after school, the students get rides to and from Youthworks, assistance with their homework, help with accessing services in the community and a daily meal, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
There are program mentors, typically Native American college students, who assist students with schoolwork. The program is a component of the Youth Cultural Achievement Program, which was developed in 2008 to reduce the number of Native American youth entering the juvenile justice system.
Students are referred to the program by a parent-family liaison at their school, a school counselor or social worker, a parent or a Youthworks staff member. Students in the program often have had adverse experiences in their lives, such as dealing with family issues, are in residential or foster care or have jumped from one school to the next, often resulting in an unstable education.
The program, funded by Missouri Slope Areawide United Way, has shown positive outcomes. Last year, 78 percent of youth in the program who attended after-school sessions 16 or more times passed their core classes. Seventy-eight percent of students showed academic improvement.
Though the outcomes have been good, the program is more than just providing academic support, said Pauletta Red Willow, coordinator of the Youth Cultural Achievement Program. These students need ``constant reinforcement,'' she said.
``Especially dealing with the statistics in Bismarck-Mandan for Native youth, like the high rates of juvenile calls for the police, there's a lot of substance use in our communities,'' as well as trauma and loss, Red Willow said.
``It's about giving them that sense that, you can do this, and building up their esteem,'' Heinert said.
For Julie Middletent, a sophomore at Legacy, the program has helped her make new friends, in addition to improving her grades. She switched from Bismarck High to Legacy the first semester of her freshman year, because her mother wanted her to attend the same school as her brother.
She saw her grades improve last year, increasing to As and Bs. She now has more time to get her homework done during the after-school program, and the mentors are helpful.
``I always look forward to coming here, because I get to see everyone from different schools,'' the 15-year-old said. ``I know everyone here. We're all friends, almost like family.''
Middletent said she plans to go to college and get a degree in business and become an accountant to help the tribe in which she's enrolled, the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
Quapaw Tribe Acquires More Land in Kansas
QUAPAW, Okla. (AP) _ The Quapaw Tribe has acquired additional property in southeastern Kansas after gaining approval from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The tribe obtained about 210 acres (85 hectares) of Cherokee County grassland near the Oklahoma border, the Joplin Globe reported. The land is now part of the federal Quapaw Tribal Trust, giving the tribe governing authority.
The tribe faced opposition from the Cherokee County Commission and the Kansas attorney general's office over concerns the land would be used for gambling. The tribe owns Downstream Casino Resort in nearby Quapaw, Oklahoma.
The Quapaw Tribe had received a legal opinion from the National Indian Gaming Commission in 2014, determining the Kansas property could be used for gambling operations.
But John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw Tribal Business Committee, said the tribe will use the land for agriculture and has no plans to expand its casino. The Quapaw Tribe already owns land in Cherokee County from a deal in 2006, which is used for grazing animals.
``We don't have any plans to expand upon our gaming operation, so we're just excited to have that land,'' Berrey said. ``We'll continue to graze our purebred bison herd and cattle on it. We'll keep it nice, clean and environmentally in shape for our future generations to enjoy.''
The state attorney general's office couldn't be reached for comment by the newspaper.
Berrey said the property acquisition ``brings more of our Oklahoma reservation, or what was at one time our reservation, back into our ownership and under our jurisdiction under federal statutes.''
The tribe owns about 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) in Oklahoma and Kansas, Berrey said.
University Program Training Native American Educators
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ The University of Mary is getting more federal funding to continue an effort to boost the number of Native American teachers and administrators on and off reservations across North Dakota.
The Bismarck school got a $1.1 million grant from the federal Education Department two years ago to start the Native American Educational Leadership Program. It's doing so through a consortium that involves the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and its community college in Belcourt.
Fifteen students have graduated with bachelor's degrees in education from the community college, and 12 more will do so in the spring, The Bismarck Tribune reported.
``When you think about that, 27 teachers ... to go into our Native communities, that's huge,'' said Carmelita Lamb, associate dean of the University of Mary's Liffrig School of Education and Behavioral Sciences.
``That has always been something that I felt was important _ to get people of that community to commit to the children of that community,'' she said. ``Those are going to be the ones that stay.''
The university has received a second grant totaling $1.4 million to sustain the program through 2023. The school will enroll another 20 to 24 students in the program in January.
Samantha Gourd, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who currently lives on the Spirit Lake Reservation and teaches second grade in Devils Lake, will finish her master's in elementary education through the program in the spring.
``I think that whenever you're Native American teaching another Native American, you kind of understand those dynamics more,'' she said.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
Fort Berthold Reservation Landowners to Sue Oil Company
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ A group of landowners from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is accusing a crude oil company of trespassing in a lawsuit that seeks compensation for a pipeline that crosses their land.
Former Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation chairman Tex Hall recently announced a federal lawsuit against Andeavor, formerly known as Tesoro, the Bismarck Tribune reported. Andeavor recently merged with Marathon Petroleum.
A pipeline that transports crude oil to the Marathon Petroleum Mandan Refinery crosses 64 acres (26 hectares) within the reservation, Hall said. The tribe owns about 26 acres (10.5 hectares) of the land, while the rest is owned by landowners or allottees, he said.
The company's easement agreement with the allottees expired in 2013 and talks to re-negotiate fell apart, according to Hall.
The lawsuit alleges the company is trespassing by operating the pipeline without authorization from landowners or the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
``All of these landowners have finally decided enough is enough,'' Hall said, adding that about 450 landowners are affected.
Destin Singleton, a spokeswoman for Marathon Petroleum Corp., declined to comment on the pending litigation.
The complaint seeks a jury trial to determine compensation for trespassing and other damages. The lawsuit also requests $128 million to be put into a constructive trust for the plaintiffs and allottees.
The group filing the complaint also wants a cease-and-desist order for the operation and the immediate removal of the pipeline.
``There's a huge amount of money with this size of pipeline going through,'' Hall said. ``They have the revenue and they're not negotiating in good faith. They left us no choice.''
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
Chicago's Field Museum Plans Revamp of Native American Hall
CHICAGO (AP) _ Chicago's Field Museum plans to revamp its Native American exhibits with the help of American Indians over the next three years.
Museum president Richard Lariviere tells the Chicago Tribune that its Native North American Hall faces a much needed renovation of displays dating mostly back to the 1950s. He says the project will allow the museum to better tell the history of Native Americans.
Pokagon (poh-KAY'-gun) Band of Potawatomi Indians cultural director Marcus Winchester says the displays are essentially old beadwork or baskets that don't tell the stories of Native Americans. The Pokagon Band is based in southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana.
Museum officials also want to employ Native American workers to help interpret the exhibits and make presentations.
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Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com
Thousands of Native Voters in North Dakota Getting Free IDs
Phyllis Young, Lakota People's Law Project. (Photo Credit: Lakota People's Law Project)
By BLAKE NICHOLSON
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ Efforts by American Indian tribes in North Dakota to provide free identification with street addresses to thousands of members in advance of Tuesday's election are cutting into the number of Native Americans who could potentially be turned away at the polls for lack of a proper ID under recently tightened state rules.
The free programs launched with the help of groups including the Lakota People's Law Project and the Four Directions nonprofit so far have provided more than 2,000 voters on four reservations with the proper credentials. The effort to ensure a strong Native American vote comes amid uproar over what some believe is an attempt to suppress their votes.
``We're at our best in crisis,'' said Phyllis Young, an organizer on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for the Lakota People's Law Project, adding that the issue ``is only making us more aware of our rights, more energized, and more likely to vote this November.''
Stricter voter ID rules are taking effect after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this month allowed the state to continue requiring street addresses, as opposed to other addresses such as post office boxes. Street addresses have never been important in the Native American culture, and many tribal members aren't aware of their address, don't have a provable one because they're homeless or stay with friends or relatives, or can't afford to get an updated ID with a street address assigned through the statewide 911 system.
A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Spirit Lake Sioux also alleges that the 911 system on reservations is ``characterized by disarray, errors, confusion, and missing or conflicting addresses.'' It seeks to have the residential address requirement ruled unconstitutional as it applies to Native American voters, and asks for an emergency order while the lawsuit proceeds barring the state from enforcing the requirement on Native Americans on or near reservations or who are at risk of disenfranchisement.
The nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice notes the lawsuit seeks a more limited injunction, something an appeals court indicated in an earlier lawsuit might be a more successful tactic.
State officials say not requiring street addresses could lead to people voting in the wrong district and to fraud.
The Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit filed by Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa members in 2016 sent tribes scrambling to make sure tribal members' voices will be heard , especially in the high profile U.S. Senate race between Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer and Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp.
Changes to North Dakota's voter ID laws came just months after Heitkamp's win by fewer than 3,000 votes with the help of Native Americans in 2012, though Republicans say that had nothing to do with updates aimed at guarding against voter fraud. American Indians make up about 5 percent of North Dakota's population.
The Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Standing Rock Sioux, Spirit Lake Sioux and Three Affiliated Tribes all have launched programs to provide free IDs with street address to tribal members in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
As of Tuesday, the programs had provided 1,050 IDs on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, more than 380 on the Spirit Lake Sioux Reservation and 440 on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Three Affiliated Tribes had provided only 140, but the program had just been launched the day before.
The total of more than 2,000 IDs is approaching half of the roughly 5,000 Native Americans that U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland has said don't possess a qualifying voter ID under state rules. He based the figure on research by UCLA and University of New Mexico professors who have been expert witnesses in several voter ID cases across the country.
Tribes believe the number is much higher, perhaps even double the judge's estimate, though they base it in part on anecdotal evidence. They plan to continue issuing free IDs through Election Day, including stationing people at the polls to help those without qualifying ID on at least two of the four reservations.
The effort is largely being financed through donations. The Native American Rights Fund has given the four tribes a total of $50,000, and a GoFundMe site set up by the Standing Rock Sioux had raised more than $200,000 from more than 4,300 donors as of mid-day Wednesday.
Alexis Davis, 19, chairwoman of the Turtle Mountain Youth Council, has an ID with a residential street address but said many of her friends do not. The voter ID issue has made them more resolved to be a part of the election process, she said.
``It's like, oh you want to make this harder for me? Oh, you want to take away my rights?'' she said. ``It's like, no, now I'm going to fight that, and I'm going to be more resilient, and I'm going to make sure that I'm going to go vote.''
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This story has been corrected to show that the number of IDs is more than 2,000, rather than more than 2,400
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Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake
Michigan, Tribal Partners Digitally Preserving Petroglyphs
CASS CITY, Mich. (AP) _ Michigan's state archaeologist says more than 100 ancient rock etchings at Sanilac Petroglyphs State Park are being digitally preserved through a partnership with tribal groups.
MLive.com reports that the Michigan Department of Transportation is using special technologies to scan the Native American petroglyphs and build digital models of them that will help document the site and track its preservation.
The project comes a year after vandals damaged some of the petroglyphs at the 240-acre park that's about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Detroit in Cass City.
State archaeologist Dean Anderson says some of the stone etchings could date back as much as 1,400 years. He says the bows and arrows depicted in some of the etchings were first used as technology across the Great Lakes region about that time.
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Information from: The Grand Rapids Press:MLive.com, http://www.mlive.com
Maine Tribes Get Assistance to Improve Public Safety
PLEASANT POINT, Maine (AP) — Three American Indian tribal groups in Maine will benefit from more than $100 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Justice designed to improve public safety in native communities around the country.
The grants are also intended to assist victims of crime, stop violence against women and support youth programs in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
The Aroostook Band of Micmacs and Penobscot Nation are both slated to receive about $900,000 for programs that address violence against women. The Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Tribe is scheduled to receive about $750,000 for justice and drug and alcohol abuse programs.
The grants are being awarded to 133 American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages are other tribal groups.
Officials Warn Arizona Dam Could Fail and Flood Village
PHOENIX (AP) _ An earthen dam in Arizona's southern desert could fail and flood a small village because the lake behind it is swollen with runoff from the remnants of Tropical Storm Rosa, officials said Wednesday.
Ali Chuk, a Native American community with 162 people on the Tohono O'odham (TOH'-oh-no OH'-tum) Nation reservation, was being evacuated Tuesday night, the tribe's public safety department said in a statement.
No further details were available Wednesday on the evacuations. Tribal officials planned to inspect the dam and lake by helicopter.
Water levels were within a foot (0.3 meters) of topping Menagers Dam, which could give way and flood Ali Chuk, the National Weather Service said.
The area near the Mexico border got between 3 and 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of rain on Tuesday. Flooding from runoff made roads impassable.
There were no reports Wednesday of additional rain.
The tribal safety department said 30 people had been evacuated from another village on the reservation because of flooding.
Elsewhere in the state, forecasters warned of more possible flooding in Phoenix and other areas.
The weather service said up to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain had fallen in parts of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and that flash flooding was expected.
A separate flash flood warning was issued for Yavapai County north of Phoenix due to high water in a creek in Cornville and for a small part of the Tohono O'odham (TOH'-oh-no OH'-tum) Nation's reservation in Pima County in southern Arizona.
The weather service said a record 2.35 inches (5.97 centimeters) of rain had fallen at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport as of Tuesday night.
That made it the rainiest October day since records have been kept, topping the 2.32 (5.89) inches recorded on Oct. 14, 1988.
It also marked the eighth-rainiest day in Phoenix history for any date.
The storm was also expected to dump rain on Utah and Colorado.
Haskell to Celebrate Native American Vets of World War I
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) _ Haskell University's Cultural Center and Museum is planning to celebrate Native Americans who served in World War I.
The center's director, Jancita Warrington, said 415 Haskell students, faculty and alumni enlisted in the war, even though they could not claim citizenship until six years after the war ended.
The celebration, ``Keeping Legends Alive,'' will be held Sept. 21 and 22, hosted by the center and the city of Lawrence.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports the event will include a celebration of veterans, a powwow and several other activities. It also will remember the 1926 dedication of Haskell Memorial Stadium, which was one of the biggest events in the city's history.
At the time, Haskell Institute was a boarding school for Native American children. It became accredited in 1927.
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Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com
Last Reminder! L.E.A.D. Institute Conference Begins 9/26
Agenda Finalized!
Last Reminder: L.E.A.D. Conference is Sept. 26-27, 2018
First Nations Development Institute will hold its 22nd Annual First Nations L.E.A.D. Institute Conference at Morongo Casino & Resort in Cabazon, California, September 26-27, 2018. (Invitation-only pre-sessions will be held on September 25.) Register now to reserve your space. This is the last notice we're sending.
For 38 years, First Nations has worked with Native nations and organizations to strengthen American Indian economies to support healthy Native communities. As an extension of this mission, the L.E.A.D. Conference is designed to help emerging and existing leaders in Indian Country network, grow professionally, share ideas and learn new skills related to asset-building.
Training Tracks Offered
- Track 1: Language & Cultural Revitalization
- Track 2: Strengthening Tribal & Community Institutions
- Track 3: Protecting Natural Resources
Attendees have the option of attending sessions in just one track, or they may customize their experience by selecting from any of the sessions that interest them.
Who Should Attend
- Native American nonprofit professionals
- Native Americans interested in launching or expanding nonprofit and/or philanthropic organizations
- Tribal leaders or those who work in tribal organizations
- Anyone interested in Native American nonprofits and philanthropy
- Anyone interested in Native American food sovereignty
- Tribal economic development professionals
Please go here for more information: http://www.cvent.com/d/fgq84t
Alaska Looks for Panelists to Discuss New Roads in Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ Alaska Gov. Bill Walker's administration is looking for Alaska residents to serve on an advisory committee that will discuss the Alaska shape the future of the Tongass National Forest.
KTOO-FM reports the U.S. Forest Service announced last month that it would be considering building new roads in the wilder parts of the Alaska forest.
The committee will discuss which areas in the Tongass, the largest national forest in the United States, could have new roads. Alaska's congressional delegation has said having enough access to timber and mining opportunities is a priority.
The governor's office says it's seeking applications for a ``diverse'' panel of up to 13 people, including Alaska Native regional corporations and tribes, local governments and environmental groups as well as interests from tourism, mining, energy, timber and fishing.
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Information from: KTOO-FM, http://www.ktoo.org
Boston Celtics Star Irving Honored by Mother's Sioux Tribe
By BLAKE NICHOLSON
Associated Press
FORT YATES, N.D. (AP) _ Boston Celtics star Kyrie Irving has officially become a member of the Standing Rock Sioux.
Irving and his older sister, Asia Irving, took part Thursday in a traditional Native American ceremony recognizing their tribal heritage and support for the tribe's long battle against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. They were honored with Lakota names during a ritual in a packed auditorium that tribal spokeswoman Danielle Finn said ``is a very special rite of passage for a Lakota person.''
Tribal Chairman Mike Faith said: ``We're welcoming home two of our own.''
The Irvings' late mother, Elizabeth Ann Larson, was a member of the tribe and lived on the reservation until her adoption at a young age.
Kyrie Irving, who won an NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, was born in Australia and he grew up in New Jersey.
This post will remain active until September 13, 2018
1770s Cartoon Commemorating Boston Tea Party to be Auctioned
BOSTON (AP) _ A political cartoon published shortly after the Boston Tea Party is hitting the auction block.
Heritage Auctions says the rare print celebrating the Dec. 16, 1773, act of rebellion is expected to fetch $24,000 in the Aug. 25 auction. The print is called ``Liberty Triumphant or the Downfall of Oppression.''
The copper-engraved cartoon shows British politicians and merchants standing with the devil on one side and American colonists, some disguised as Native Americans, on the other side.
Heritage Auctions says the print was published between late December 1773 and April 1774. The Dallas-based auction house says it knows of only six other copies.
The print is attributed to Philadelphia and New York engraver Henry Dawkins, who later was arrested and accused of counterfeiting currency.
Reward Rises to $20K for Info Leading to Stolen Artifacts
MOUNDVILLE, Ala. (AP) _ The reward for information leading to the recovery of more 260 artifacts stolen from Moundville Archaeological Park decades ago has been increased from $15,000 to $20,000.
Dr. Jim Knight, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Alabama, said several private citizens who hope to see the artifacts returned are offering the reward.
Al.com reports Knight said 264 pottery vessels and other artifacts were stolen from the Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Repository in 1980. An appraisal revealed the artifacts _ jars, bottles, bowls, ornaments and jewelry _ are worth around $1 million. Since the theft, none has shown up for sale or trade, leading Knight to believe the collection may still be intact.
``With the availability of the internet, it is now possible to distribute these photographs much more widely than was previously feasible. Also, Native American pottery vessels are now routinely sold in internet auctions,'' Knight told The Tuscaloosa News . ``These can be monitored by a public aware of this 40-year-old crime and the great need to reunite these rare artifacts with the citizens of Alabama and the South.
``The reward, together with advancements in technology that allow for the rapid dissemination of information by news outlets and social media, offer new hope in an effort to recover the artifacts.''
At the time, the stolen items represented about 70 percent of the museum's exhibit-quality artifacts and 20 percent of the entire Moundville vessel collection that was curated by the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Experts believe the thieves were knowledgeable about the artifacts because they targeted the highest-quality pieces.
Excavated in the 1930s, the artifacts are high-quality engraved or painted ceremonial pots and bowls, some which held food offerings that were buried with the dead. Others were ordinary cooking pots, bottles and shell jewelry. Many of the vessel engravings depict supernatural creatures, such as the flying serpent, which would guard a person's passage into the afterlife. The designs were highly distinctive of Moundville, which is considered a world heritage site. The Mississippian Indians settled in what is now the Moundville area at the beginning of the 11th century. The area reached its peak activity and population around the year 1300 when it had about 1,000 residents. About 10,000 resided in the entire Black Warrior Valley floodplain at the time.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act makes it illegal to sell human remains or cultural artifacts of Native Americans unless a person legally owns the item. Collectors pay millions for antiquities such as the Moundville vessels, Knight said in a 2003 interview with The Tuscaloosa News.
The Alabama Museum of Natural History has established a tipline at 205-348-2800 that will allow those with information about the thefts to leave confidential messages or information.
For more information, including photographs of the artifacts, visit https://oar.museums.ua.edu/stolen-artifacts-index.
Discovery of Native American Remains Increase in Nantucket
NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) _ The discovery of Native American remains has been increasing in one town on Cape Cod.
A flux of development means many previously undisturbed parts of Nantucket are being dug up, revealing hints of the town's first inhabitants.
The most recent occurred this spring, reports the Cape Cod Times, when a contractor uncovered a skull while digging a hole for a new foundation. The skull was determined to be one of the island's Native occupiers. An exact number of town discoveries and locations have not been made available by the state.
Nantucket police say that in recent years, they've gotten calls up to six times a year about remains. Purposely disturbing a Native burial site, or failing to report one found is a violation of the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.
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Information from: Cape Cod (Mass.) Times, http://www.capecodtimes.com
Pamunkey Tribe Considering $700 Million Casino in Virginia
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is considering whether to build a $700 million resort and casino in Virginia.
Media outlets report that the tribe is looking at potential sites for the project but has no definitive plans.
The Department of Interior granted federal recognition to the Pamunkey in 2015, allowing the possibility of casinos through a separate approval process. Virginia currently has no casinos.
The Pamunkey's bid for federal recognition was opposed by MGM Resorts, which runs a new casino just outside the nation's capital in Maryland.
The tribe was considered the most powerful in the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom, which greeted the English settlers at Jamestown, and claims Pocahontas among its lineage.
Native corporation to work for the Navy at Guantanamo Bay
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) _ An Alaska Native corporation will soon provide support services for the U.S. Navy in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. won the $18 million contract earlier this month, CoastAlaska News reported .
The corporation will manage maintenance services, port operations and waterfront administration for the base. The corporation announced a similar, $44 million contract about a week earlier for the U.S. Marine Corps air station in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. officials said it employs about 600 people. Most of the jobs are in other parts of the country. But the corporation's hiring policy includes a preference for tribal members.
Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. is owned by the Juneau-based Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The council lists more than 30,000 tribal members in Southeast, the rest of Alaska and around the nation and the world. Its business operations are separate from those of Native corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Corporation CEO Richard Rinehart said the corporation continues to seek more work.
``I look at it as it's like long-lining,'' Rinehart said. ``We have all these lines out with lots of hooks. And we're out there fishing and by having more lines in the water, we're hopeful to bring more home.''
University groups keeping indigenous languages alive
By KATHERINE LONG
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE (AP) _ When Alyssa Johnston and members of her tribe speak to one another in Quinault, they are often moved to tears by the knowledge that, at the turn of the century, the language was all but dead.
The last person who spoke fluent Quinault passed away in 1996. By using recordings of those who spoke the language in the 1960s, a handful of people in the Olympic Peninsula tribe are slowly and painstakingly piecing it back together _ and teaching it to a new generation.
Last year, Johnston was the first person in recent memory to earn a world-language credit at the University of Washington by showing she had achieved ``intermediate low-level proficiency'' in that language.
``It's everything to me,'' Johnston said of the importance of reviving her tribe's native tongue. ``Language is culture,'' she said, and the tribe ``right now is literally making history'' by bringing it back.
That history is also being written on the UW's Seattle campus.
Every two weeks, two separate groups gather around a table in one building or another to practice one of two indigenous languages: Southern Lushootseed, the common tongue of the Native American tribes that lived in this region, and Hawaiian, the native language of the indigenous people of Hawaii.
Chris Teuton, chair of American Indian Studies at the UW, hopes students eventually will be able to learn both those languages in for-credit courses, joining the 55 other languages already taught by the university.
In the meantime, the informal classes are a labor of love for the volunteers who teach them. Nancy Jo Bob, a member of the Lummi Nation, and Tami Kay Hohn, of the Puyallup Tribe, both drive up from Auburn every month to offer several hours of language instruction, using a system they devised that helps students think and speak in complete sentences from the outset.
Lushootseed was revived by Upper Skagit author, teacher and linguist Vi Hilbert, who died in 2008 at the age of 90. Hilbert taught Lushootseed for credit at the UW until her retirement in 1988, and it has been taught intermittently at the university since then, along with Navajo and Yakama.
Lushootseed's sentence structure is different from English, and includes sounds that don't exist in English.
``It's like my tongue is tap-dancing,'' one speaker marveled during a recent language table session.
Sentences start with a verb, rather than a subject, and the form the verb takes, gives information about the manner and time of action, said UW English Professor Colette Moore, who is taking part in the language table.
``By the time a speaker gets to the subject in a Lushootseed sentence,'' she said, ``he or she has already given a lot of other information.''
The language's history in the Puget Sound area dates back thousands of years. English, in contrast, has been spoken around here for fewer than 250.
``Sometimes it can be a perspective shift for students to see English as an immigrant language,'' Moore added, ``but, of course, it is.''
FORCED ENGLISH
America's past is threaded with a long, ugly history of white settlers separating Native Americans from their languages and cultures. In the 1900s, many Native American children were sent to boarding schools, where they were forced to speak only English.
Johnston, of the Quinault tribe, says her grandfather spoke the language, and her mother asked him to teach it to her. But he refused _ the older generation feared their children wouldn't be successful if they spoke a Native American language, she said.
``By revitalizing languages, that's part of the healing process,'' said Teuton, who is Cherokee and began learning that language at the University of North Carolina, where he taught before he came to the UW. ``We are trying to recover from that colonial history.''
Native American knowledge, he said, ``is really grounded in our language _ the grounding of stories, our storytelling traditions, our words for the natural world, words that describe our social relations.''
Language is also a vital cultural connection for many Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, said Manuhuia Barcham, a UW lecturer who helped organize the Hawaiian language table. Barcham hopes to also start one for Samoan and Chamorro, which is spoken in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Both Pacific Islander and Native American populations have low levels of enrollment in higher education, and part of the goal of teaching languages is to make the UW ``a more open and friendly space for our youth and our community,'' he said.
Among the state's other higher-education institutions, Lushootseed has been taught at Pacific Lutheran University and at the UW Tacoma, as part of a summer institute. Wenatchee Valley College in Omak teaches Salish; the Northwest Indian College in Bellingham teaches Native American languages.
CREDIT REQUIREMENT
Johnston learned Quinault from Cosette Terry-itewaste, a linguist who is her tribe's most fluent speaker, and who was able to administer the test that allowed Johnston to get UW credit for knowing that language.
The UW requires entering students to have completed two years of a foreign language in high school, and to take a third quarter while in college _ or to demonstrate that they have acquired ``intermediate low-level proficiency'' in a language other than English.
The university had to create a new way to test proficiency in languages that are not commonly taught.
``This provides an academic incentive and establishes it as an equal language, a world language,'' said Russell Hugo, a linguist in the UW's language learning center. ``Hopefully more students can do this, so we can build stronger ties of support and recognition'' for local indigenous languages.
Because she lives on the Olympic Peninsula and works full time with two young children at home, Johnston earned her undergraduate degree from the UW mostly online. She's certified as a language apprentice, and she will be helping the Quinault tribe launch family language classes in January.
While some tribal members grew up knowing the Quinault words for colors and other nouns, these language classes aim to teach them how to have simple conversations.
``It's amazing how it's been almost lost,'' Johnston said. ``I can feel it getting back to normal, and that's a really sacred thing.''
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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
Restoration of protections for Yellowstone grizzlies urged
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) _ Conservationists and a Montana Indian tribe have asked a judge to restore protections for Yellowstone-area grizzly bears in light of a recent ruling in a case involving Great Lakes wolves.
The request by three conservation groups and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe was lodged on Monday in U.S. District Court in Missoula.
Federal officials in December announced a review of their July 31 decision to lift protections for an estimated 700 bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. The review was prompted by the Great Lakes wolf ruling, which indicated in part that more consideration needed to be given to a species' loss of historical territory.
Attorneys for the conservation groups and tribe say the grizzly review is being improperly used as an after-the-fact justification for lifting protections.
