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Jurors have found a New Jersey park ranger not guilty of reckless manslaughter
for the deadly shooting of a member of the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation, CBS 2
HD has learned.
The shooting happened after rangers arrested Emil Mann on
charges of illegal weapons possession and stopped several others for riding
all-terrain vehicles in 2006.
The Cherokee Nation's attorney general says it's likely the Tahlequah-based
tribe will appeal a decision about its historical status made by the new head of
the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
In a letter, BIA head Larry
EchoHawk said the tribe was not the historical Cherokee tribe, which he said no
longer exists as a distinct political entity.
A Native American boy is fighting a Texas school district for the right to keep his
long hair. A small rural school district in Fort Bend County Texas wants to
force Adriel Arocha to cut his hair in compliance with the terms of the school
district's dress code.
The U.S. Justice
Department is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by
descendants of Native American leader Geronimo, whose
remains were purported to be stolen by members of a secret society at Yale
University.
A solemn crowd gathered at the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians' reservation
Monday afternoon as the tribe marked Native American Veterans Day in the state.
This was the inaugural event for the band, after Gov. John Baldacci signed a
bill in April to establish June 21 of each year as Native American Veterans Day
in Maine.
Seated in the Oneida Nation Elementary School
gym Monday, Marge Greene was one of about 40 people who watched a video on
tribal hunting and fishing rights in Wisconsin.
Images of angry 1980s-era protesters flashed across the
screen. They shouted and carried signs disparaging Native Americans and their
newly affirmed rights.
Custer rides again, although he's atop a plastic motorcycle and in a McDonald's
Happy Meal box.
And that doesn't sit well with some in the Native
American community.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876
along the Little Big Horn River by Native Americans he aimed to destroy.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he stands behind the investigation that
resulted in the indictments of 24 people accused of illegally trafficking in
ancient artifacts from the Four Corners area.
Responding to a question from The Associated Press at the Western Governors'
Association meeting Monday, Salazar said he didn't have any regrets about the
case involving residents of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.
President Barack Obama will have an American Indian adviser in the White House
to counsel him on tribal issues, a new post he promised while campaigning on
Indian reservations last year.
Obama on Monday appointed Kimberly Teehee as a senior policy adviser for
Native American affairs, saying she will provide "a direct interface at the
highest level" of his administration and will ensure a voice for American
Indians as policy decisions are made.
Nissan North America, Inc. announced it is renewing its commitment to American
Indian education in 2009-10 by donating $85,000 to the American Indian College
Fund through its Corporate Scholars Program. The grant will fund ten tribal
college scholarships and five mainstream scholarships for American Indian
scholars. Nissan North America, Inc. also provided $20,000 for the Fund's 20th
anniversary gala fundraising event to be held in Denver at the Seawall Ballroom,
Denver Center for the Performing Arts October 28 to bring in further scholarship
donations.
Two Olympic Peninsula tribes say federal, state and county officials have failed
to protect tribal shellfish beds in Marrowstone Island's Mystery Bay in
violation of treaty rights.
The Jamestown S'Klallam tribe of Blyn and the Port Gamble S'Klallam tribe
told government agencies in a recent letter they are concerned about the
increasing number of boats moored in Mystery Bay. Both tribes have commercial
shellfish harvesting beds in the bay.
State Justice Department leaders announce a new effort to battle drugs and gangs
on Indian reservations just before a Lac Du Flambeau woman died of an apparent
overdose.
The new program puts tribal officers undercover to infiltrate drug rings to
learn information that can be shared throughout the state.
Tribal President Carl Edwards says, "Well when you're dealing with other
Native Americans, having a fellow native on staff that is trained and has the
background for it is essential. It's more positive it's going to get better
results."
A new law that takes effect next year will help crack down on tribal retailers
selling cigarettes with the wrong state tax stamps and also should serve as an
incentive to get tribes to sign tobacco compacts with Oklahoma, a state Tax
Commission official said Monday.
Provisions of Senate Bill 608, signed
last week by Gov. Brad Henry, change state law to comply with current tribal
tobacco compacts, Oklahoma Tax Commission Administrator Tony Mastin
said.
A federal judge has approved a lawsuit settlement that restores federal
recognition to American Indians whose ancestors settled in the Sacramento region
thousands of years ago.
U.S. District Judge
Jeremy Fogel released copies of the agreement on Monday. Fifty years ago, the
federal government took away its recognition of the Wilton Rancheria and divided
the rancheria's nearly 39 acres among 13 families.
Bill and Demos Glass, a father and son team
from Locust Grove, OK, who are members of the Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma, received the commission.
The American Indian Cultural
Center and Museum (AICCM) officially launches its Art in Public Places
(AIPP) program with the commissioning of its inaugural public art
project. Bill and Demos Glass, a father and son team from Locust
Grove, OK, who are members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, received
the $54,000 commission, which is comprised of designated Art in Public
Places funding and an additional donation provided by the Chickasaw
Nation. The AICCM's first public ar
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is weighing its legal options after a shipment of
the tribe's cigarettes was confiscated Wednesday by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol
and the Oklahoma Tax Commission.
The truck was stopped by the OHP about
9:30 a.m. on U.S. 75 at 221st Street as it traveled from the tribe's
headquarters in Okmulgee to smokeshops in the Tulsa area. Tax Commission agents
were on hand to confiscate the cigarettes, Creek Nation Attorney General Roger
Wiley said.
Inmates in Washington state's prisons can attend Catholic
Mass, take Protestant communion or celebrate Muslim Eid, but American Indians
often struggle to find ways to practice their beliefs. For religions based in
nature, bars and razor wire can be insurmountable hurdles.
A group of
young adults through the Boy Scout's Venturing program set out early this month
to change that. With direction from an American Indian chaplain for the state
prisons, the group hiked up a logging road near Gold Bar to collect slender
alder saplings, said Ray Sayah, leader of the Venturing crew. The saplings will
be used to build sweat lodges
North Dakota's Board of Higher Education has agreed to drop the
University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and Indian head logo, a
move intended to resolve a decades-long campus dispute about whether the name
demeans American Indians.
The name and logo, which is a profile of an American Indian man with
feathers and streaks of paint on his face, could still be saved if North
Dakota's Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes agree by Oct. 1 to give the
university permission to use them for at least 30 years.
A U.S. Senate Committee has given the nod to making Larry EchoHawk the next head
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
EchoHawk, a former Idaho Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, was
nominated to be the next Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs by President
Barack Obama last month.
Law enforcement can get stretched pretty thin in rural America. Insufficient
funding and too much territory to patrol are the main reasons it is so hard to
maintain adequate coverage. In Indian Country, when you add the challenge of
checkerboard jurisdiction and additional funding challenges, it makes the idea
of sufficient law enforcement just that – an idea.
Indian Country is,
generally speaking, as rural as it gets. Therefore, we have all the problems
that any other rural community has when it comes to law and order but more so.
The recently-announced negotiated deal between the Oneida Indian Nation and
Oneida County cannot be instituted without the state’s approval.
Under
the agreement, the state must make a list of concessions to the Nation,
including allowing the tribe to receive a liquor license and dropping all
pending lawsuits against the decision by the Department of Interior to take land
into trust for the OIN.
American Indian tribes in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah stand to receive nearly
half of a $500 million allocation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced last month that the Bureau of
Indian Affairs will fund $500 million in new school and housing construction, road and bridge
improvements and work force development projects for tribes across the nation.
The funding also will provide federally guaranteed loans for American
Indian-owned businesses.
A band of Sioux whose ancestors were driven from the majestic Black Hills more
than 130 years ago is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation,
upsetting other tribal members who say taking money for the sacred land would be
legitimizing the theft.
A lawsuit filed last week asks a federal judge to release as much as $900
million in compensation and interest that eight Sioux tribes refused decades
ago. The tribes insisted instead on return of the rugged land in southwestern
South Dakota they lost in military battles that included Custer's Last
Stand.
A woman who worked to preserve the Klallam (KLAW'-um) language and culture of
the Lower Elwha tribe has died in Washington state.
Bea Charles was 89.
Charles died Monday in her sleep at home on the reservation about 70 miles
northwest of Seattle. Her death was confirmed today by Tribal Chairwoman Frances
Charles.
A spokesman for the Montana Corrections Department says they’re investigating
allegations that Native American inmates were mistreated and discriminated
against at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby.
The private prison operates under a contract with the
state.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that
Crossroads violated the rights of Native American inmates.
The head of the Public Broadcasting Service is rebutting criticism from local
American Indian tribes that the nonprofit network did not consult tribal
historic preservation officers for its TV series "We Shall Remain."
The series, which tells U.S. history from the American
Indian perspective, debuted on April 13 and is scheduled to run Mondays for five
episodes, said Patrick Ramirez, a spokesman for WGBH Boston.
Three signs that were part of the "Beyond the Chief" exhibit on the University
of Illinois campus were vandalized between Monday evening and Tuesday
afternoon.
UI Professor Robert Warrior said the damaged signs, located on the 1200 block
of West Nevada Street, Urbana, portrayed the Potawatomi, Meskwaki and Sac Native
American tribes.
Saving the history of Oklahoma's contemporary Native American
experience is the goal of a new statewide initiative launched by the Oklahoma
Educational Television Authority (OETA).
"We Shall Remain
Oklahoma" encourages Oklahomans to share stories of their American Indian
experiences by submitting stories, photos and videos online at tulsaworld.com/oetawsr. Most of those
stories will be archived at the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum in
Oklahoma City and featured on the project Web site.
Phoenix
Indian
Medical
Center
officials say they have no plans to close, change services or lay off workers as
its union has feared.
Last year the medical
facility
at 16th Street and Indian
School
Road had approximately 300,000 visitors. The center provides care to thousands
of eligible members of 40 federally recognized tribes in Arizona, Utah and
Nevada.
One of two men charged with the 1975 killing of a fellow American Indian
Movement member has asked a judge to release him from jail until their trial,
which is set to start May 12 in Rapid City.
John Graham and Richard Marshall pleaded not guilty to charges they committed
or aided and abetted the murder of Annie Mae Aquash near Wanblee.
Ward Churchill has been invited to speak to students at Fort Lewis College this
weekend.
But Fort Lewis' president says he won't go because of academic integrity
allegations against the former University of Colorado-Boulder professor.
The proposed American Indian Heritage Day is one step closer to becoming an
official state holiday.
Senate Bill 196 would establish the last Friday in September as a day of
observance of American Indian culture.
A federal appeals court has reversed a lower ruling that threw out a lawsuit
from a Texas convicted sex offender in a religious dispute.
Shawn Odneal says Texas prison officials won't let him carry a medicine pouch
or grow a patch of hair on the back of his head in line with Native American
beliefs.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans sent the case of Odneal,
who's a member of the Choctaw nation, back to a district court.
The Fort Lewis College Foundation has received a $1 million donation to fund a
new Native American Center at the student union building.
The large donation comes from the John and Sophie Ottens Foundation. The
Ottens, a deceased Sedona, Ariz., couple, established their foundation to
support American Indian education and health.
The Navajo Nation is lobbying for one of its businessmen to run coveted river
trips through the Grand Canyon.
With only one American Indian tribe currently doing so, the director of the
Navajo Nation's Division of Economic Development says its time to open the door
to others.
Allan Begay said the Navajo Nation would like for the venture to begin soon,
but Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said that's unlikely.
The National Park Service tightly controls the number of people who can set out
on the river and a management plan isn't up for review.
Strategies for Improving Native American Success at UNM, a faculty led
discussion on diversity, is set for Tuesday, March 31 from 12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m.
in Lobo rooms A&B on the third floor of the Student Union Building.
A question the panelists will address is: What resources exist on campus to
help me better respond to the needs of Native American students?
A University of Arizona educator has been nominated to be the director of the
Indian Health Service by President Obama, the White House Press Office announced
Monday.
Dr. Yvette Roubideaux is an assistant professor in the department of family and
community medicine in the College of Medicine.
The Indian Health Service is a federal health program that is a part of the
Department of Health and Human Services and oversees health care services for
the native nations.
Shocked by the weekend shooting deaths of four Oakland
police officers, The Morongo Band of Mission Indians on Tuesday offered their
condolences to the families.
The tribe expressed outrage at the senseless killings.
The Morongo Band also donated $10,000 to the trust funds that have been
established in the names of the families of each of the fallen officers.
A court battle for tribal land rights, called “the most momentous issue in
modern Indian history” by one of its champions, was halted by the Federal
Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday.
The court determined that self-described “lineal descendents” of the “Loyal
Mdewakanton” Dakota are not owed money for land promised to their ancestors in
the late 1800s. The lawsuit, Wolfchild vs. U.S., originally was filed in 2003 by
the Minnesota Mdewakanton Dakota Oyate (MMDO), included land on the Shakopee
Mdewakanton Sioux reservation. The suit is named for Lower Sioux tribal chairman
Sheldon Peters
One of two men charged with the 1975 slaying of a fellow American Indian
Movement activist wants prosecutors to outline the specifics of their case
against him in a separate document. But the U.S. attorney argued Richard
Marshall has all the information he needs to defend himself on charges he
provided the gun that co-defendant John Graham used to kill Annie Mae
Aquash.
The prosecutor said he shouldn't have to file a bill of
particulars, but Marshall's lawyer said the indictment is too vague to prepare a
defense or prevent any surprises at trial.
The lead plaintiff in a 12-year-old Indian trust case against the U.S.
government says she is already frustrated with the Obama administration's
approach to ending the legal battle.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in an interview with The Associated Press
this week that he would like to end the lawsuit, and suggested that the outcome
of an upcoming federal appeal could lead to a settlement between the two
parties. Lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell calls Salazar's comments "an insult to
Indian people" and if he was serious, the government would settle now.