A Seventh Circuit panel ruled Monday that federal law offers no recourse for a Wisconsin tribe challenging a permit which would allow runoff from a Michigan sulfide mine into a river on the border between Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, leaving the tribe to fight administratively in Michigan.
Read moreThe 30th Hawaii Legislature convened Wednesday with urgent calls by lawmakers to stem the exodus of Native Hawaiians from the islands and to protect the 214,000 of them – nearly half of their population – who live in poverty.
Read moreA federal judge declined on Friday to order the government to allow the Chinook Indian Nation to reapply for federal recognition, but he did toss out the Department of Interior’s decision to ban such second tries and told the department to re-evaluate the rule.
Read more
A federal judge ruled Thursday in favor of an Indian tribe based in northern Wisconsin, for now settling the tribe’s beef with a county over whose zoning ordinances have ultimate authority over reservation lands.
Read more
Bronze-cast carvings depicting the heroes of Chinook Indian mythology will soon greet visitors entering Seattle’s Burke Museum, their exploits having been passed through oral history for millennia. But the federal government claims the tellers of those stories – people who ran the major trade hub where the mouth of the Columbia River spills into the Pacific Ocean and who received Lewis & Clark at the end of their journey – do not qualify for federal recognition as a legitimate Indian nation.
Read moreTaking up a challenge by a Seminole Indian convicted of rape in Oklahoma, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the state wrongly assumed criminal jurisdiction over Indian country.
Read moreThe Fifth Circuit dismissed as frivolous a lawyer’s claims brought on behalf of the “Atakapa Indian de Creole Nation” that Louisiana and the federal government have “monopolized ‘intergalactic foreign trade.’” A lower court dismissed the claims based on sovereign immunity but the circuit court ruled it “need not go that far” to resolve the appeal.
Read moreThe Navajo Nation sued Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in federal court, claiming he cut funding for the nation’s Judicial Branch from $17 million each calendar year from 2014 to 2018 to less than $1.5 million this year.
Read moreU.S. Attorney General William Barr announced a Department of Justice program Friday that will help investigate cases of missing and murdered indigenous people in America.
Read moreNew York’s highest court ruled Tuesday that it lacks jurisdiction to resolve the Cayuga Nation’s long-running internal tribal leadership dispute.
Read moreThe largest representative annual gathering in the United States of any native peoples, the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, began Thursday with the theme of its 53rd year “Good Government, Alaska Driven.”
Read more
The ancestral remains of Native American tribes that once called the cliffs of Mesa Verde National Park home will be repatriated as part of an agreement between Finland and the United States.
Read more
In a decision hailed by some as a victory for tribal rights and ecological preservation, the Ninth Circuit on Thursday upheld voiding 40-year lease extensions for geothermal energy production on 26 plots of California land deemed sacred by Native Americans.
Read moreThe formerly landless United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee in Oklahoma may finally have a plot to call home, after a 10th Circuit panel lifted an injunction Thursday to allow the Bureau of Indian Affairs to divvy up a piece of Cherokee Nation land.
Read moreIndividual members of a Southern California tribe – not the tribe itself – can sue San Bernardino County over traffic tickets handed on the reservation, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled Monday.
Read more
Sen. Elizabeth Warren was greeted with a standing ovation Monday as she addressed controversy over her past ancestry claims at a presidential forum about issues facing Native Americans, and was lauded for her advocacy by several tribal leaders who shared the stage with her.
Read moreAhead of a forum Monday focused on issues facing Native American communities, 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren promised structural reform to government programs to address the many issues facing Native Americans.
Read more