News Archive: August 31, 2007 Archives

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August 31, 2007
Boarding school film set at Haskell University
"The Only Good Indian" is in production at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas. The movie takes place in the early 1900s. It focuses on Indian youth who were taken from their families and sent to Haskell. Native actors, including...

Opinion: Cherokee Nation wrong on Freedmen
"The moral case against the Cherokees is straightforward. As a duly constituted nation in the nineteenth century, they legally embraced and promoted African slavery, a position they maintained after Removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s. The vast majority of...

Column: Sen. Craig no friend to tribes, environment
'The federally funded Fish Passage Center quietly, credibly performed its vital task of counting declining salmon runs in the Columbia-Snake River system, until it stood as a potential obstacle to agencies and politicians running the river. The Bonneville Power Administration,...

BIA plans meetings on modernization initiative
The Bureau of Indian Affairs will hold a series of meetings in September to discuss a "modernization initiative." Assistant secretary Carl Artman wants to hear from tribes about ways the BIA can improve. “Times have changed and will continue to...

Court upholds sentence in Menominee beating
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the sentence of a man who was convicted of severely beating a woman on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin. Bronson Webster pleaded guilty to an assault that caused serious bodily injury....

Whiteclay activists protest beer distributor
Activists who oppose the sale of liquor in Whiteclay, Nebraska, held a protest at one of the companies that distributes beer to the border town. Native activists and Nebraskans for Peace say the High Plains Budweiser distributorship in Scottsbluff, Nebraska,...

Cayuga Nation plans first housing development
The Cayuga Nation plans to use a $438,321 Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to re-establish a homeland in New York. The HUD grant is the tribe's first. Clint Halftown, the tribe's representative, said the money will be used...

Residential school students warned of scams
Now that a billion-dollar settlement has been accepted, former students of Native residential schools are being urged to keep a lookout for scams. Most former students won't be receiving payments for several months. But scams have already surfaced, the Royal...

Walk in border town promotes racial tolerance
The Southwest Intertribal Voice is holding a walk in Cortez, Colorado, on Saturday to protest racial intolerance. The event follows a race-related beating in the town last November. The group hopes to raise awareness about racism in border towns. Cortez...

Navajo man shot in head by officer faces trial
A Navajo man who was shot in the head by an off-duty police officer in Spokane, Washington, is headed to trial on car theft charges. Shonto Pete is accused of stealing officer Jay Olsen's pickup truck during the early...

Walker River mother sues BIA for teen's death
The mother of a 17-year-old teen who was shot to death by a police officer on the Walker River Paiute Reservation in Nevada is suing the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Norman "Manny" Boney Jr., 17, was killed at his family's...

Puyallup Tribe says police chief was disciplined
The Puyallup Tribe of Washington disciplined its police chief for having an affair with the wife of a subordinate, a spokesperson said. The tribe suspended Joe Duenas in order to investigate the allegations. A report said Duenas had sexual contact...

Whooping cough outbreak hits Mississippi Choctaws
A whooping cough outbreak continues to affect the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The tribe has reported at least 76 cases of whooping cough. Although it didn't originate on the reservation, it spread quickly through the close-knit community. The Centers...

Massachusetts tribe files first land-into-trust bids
A Massachusetts tribe whose leader was ousted this week amid scandal is moving forward with plans for a $1 billion casino. The newly recognized Mashpee Wampanaog Tribe filed its first land-into-trust applications yesterday. Chairman Shawn Hendricks, who was sworn in...

Abramoff associate seeks leniency for cooperating
Neil Volz, a former associate of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is seeking leniency as he is about to be sentenced for his role in the scandal. Volz says he should be given home detention because he cooperated with federal prosecutors....

Gonzales under investigation for lying to Congress
Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is investigating whether outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress. In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Fine said he was looking at Gonzales' testimony on national security and the...

Briggs: Gonzales kept NCAI waiting as he resigned
"In a scant two and a half years as the attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales presided over far-reaching attempts to undermine U.S. trust responsibility to Indian nations. He advocated for a cheap settlement of the Cobell case,...

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