The Tribal Council of the Navajo Nation just authorized the top lawyer for the Nation’s legislative branch the power to issue opinions, contract with outside attorneys, and enforce election codes. The Council voted 67-6 in favor of a bill this week that grants powers to the legislative counsel that had been reserved for the attorney [...]

A Canadian newspaper, The Dominion, reports on growing evidence that diabetes, especially among Indigenous people, may be linked to environmental pollutants, according to U.S. and Canadian research. One-out-of-four indigenous adults living on reserves in Canada have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. According to the paper, more than a dozen published studies show a diabetes [...]

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe in Idaho has proposed legislation to give tribal police the authority to arrest or cite non-tribal citizens and send them to state court. Backers say the State and Indian Tribal Cooperative Law Enforcement Act would close a loophole that allows suspects to avoid justice on reservations. If approved tribal officers would [...]

The Montana Historical Society is scheduling the Smithsonian Institution’s “Native Words, Native Warriors” exhibit to tour the state’s Indian reservations. The Smithsonian created the exhibit to tell the story of Indian Marines and soldiers who used their native languages as codes to fight U.S. enemies. Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees member George Horse Capture [...]

The President of the National Congress of American Indians, Chickasaw Nation Lt. Gov. Jefferson Keel, delivered the State of Indian Nations address at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Though he mentioned some of the persistent problems that continue to plague Indian country — chronic unemployment and high rates of diseases – he did [...]

The New York Times reports that the Tohono O’odham Tribe in southern Arizona finds itself as the only large Indian reservation on the U.S./Mexico border and is caught in the middle of the drug war. The reservation is emerging as a major transit point for drugs and people. The Tribe has 28,000 citizens and they [...]

Kevin Gover, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, delivered the Third Annual William C. Canby Jr. lecture, “Will the White Man’s Indian Ever Die?” at the College of Law at ASU on Jan. 28. He states that Indians have always been more defined by others than by themselves since their first [...]

In April 2010, a renewable energy conference will introduce new technologies of renewable energy into Native American communities and homes. “Renewables on Tribal Homelands: A Rosebud Sioux Tribe Renewable Energy Conference” will be held April 28-30, 2010, at the Rosebud Casino & Hotel on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It will highlight ways [...]

The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has approved a request by the Northern Arapaho Tribe to file a friend of the court brief in support of Andrew Yellowbear Jr.’s appeal. The tribe will argue that the state of Wyoming should never have prosecuted Yellowbear in the death of his baby daughter because the attack [...]

The Native Village of Kivalina in Alaska sued Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP and more than two dozen other defendants due to its claim that greenhouse gases from oil, power and coal companies are to blame for the climate change endangering the tiny community through erosion due to rising ocean waves. The city of Kivalina [...]