Witness list for hearing of Senate Indian Affairs Committee (January 31, 2012)

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee is holding a hearing this Thursday on three bills. The bills are: S.1739, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Judgment Fund Distribution Act; S.356, a bill to amend the Grand Ronde Reservation Act; and S.908,, a bill...

Editorial: Clean air, energy and tribal water rights colliding (January 31, 2012)

"That's why the Chandler Chamber of Commerce had CAP board President Pamela Pickard speak at an economic forum last week. Pickard told the crowd of businesspeople that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to impose further emission controls at the...

Wanted posters issued for three Native Mob gang members (January 31, 2012)

The U.S. Marshals Service in Minnesota is seeking the public's help in locating three members of the Native Mob who were indicted as part of a major takedown of the gang. Wakinyan Wakan McArthur, 33, of Bemidji, Minnesota; Christopher...

Lou Diamond Phillips cast as Indian best friend in TV series (January 31, 2012)

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, who has claimed Cherokee ancestry, has been cast as the Indian best friend in the TV series based on the Sheriff Walt Longmire book series. Phillips will play Henry Standing Bear, the best friend of...

Brenda Golden: SPIRIT and NAACP discuss shared priorities (January 31, 2012)

"The Oklahoma State Conference National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) joins the Society to Preserve Indigenous Rights and Indigenous Treaties (S.P.I.R.I.T.) in fighting for civil rights in Oklahoma. On Saturday, January 28th, S.P.I.R.I.T. held a 2012 Planning...

Bear River woman faces manslaughter in death of baby son (January 31, 2012)

A member of the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria in California has been offered a plea deal for the death of her six-week-old son. Prosecutors want Maggie Jean Wortman, 27, to plead guilty to manslaughter. Her son...

Julianne Jennings: Cherokee Freedmen struggle continues (January 31, 2012)

"It has been one year since the descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen won their long dispute against a constitutional amendment that terminated them as citizens from the Dawes Rolls—only later to be overturned. The amendment promoted the misery and exploitation...

Native Sun News: Tribal health group wins immunity decision (January 31, 2012)

The following story was written and reported byJesse Abernathy, Native Sun News Editor. All content © Native Sun News. Ron His Horse Is Thunder Donald Warne RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA –– An off-reservation multi-tribal entity created primarily to improve the...

Commodity 'spam' linked to rise in diabetes among Indians (January 31, 2012)

Consuming commodity "spam" increases diabetes among American Indians, according to a study being published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. As part of the Strong Heart Family Study, researchers asked about 2.000 Indian participants whether they ate government-provided processed...

Shoshone-Bannock players asked to take breathalyzer test (January 31, 2012)

Two Indian students from a high school on the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho were asked to take a breathalyzer test at a basketball game earlier this month. After receiving a complaint from an unknown person, Clark County Sheriff Bart...

NPR: Native Americans as slaves, slave owners in Michigan (January 31, 2012)

"Tiya Miles is the chair of the Afro-American and African Studies Department at the University of Michigan. We met with her before when she won a 2011 McArthur Fellowship, widely known as a Genius Grant, and she joins us from...

Chelsea Vowel: The do's and don'ts of Native appropriation (January 31, 2012)

"Cultural appropriation is a seriously hot-button topic. It ranges from the aggressively entitled stance of, “I can do whatever I want!” to the perpetually angry approach of “everything is cultural appropriation!”. Of course, the former is a much larger portion...

Levi Rickert: NMAI's 'Horse Nation' exhibit a must see in DC (January 31, 2012)

"Upon the opening of the "A Song for the Horse Nation" exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington last October 29, I did a book review for the Native News Network of the accompanying book...

Officials worried about increased sightings of isolated tribe (January 31, 2012)

Officials in Peru are concerned about an increase in sightings of an isolated tribe. A year ago this month, Survival International released the first known photos of the Mashco-Piro Tribe, whose members live in the Manu National Park. Since then,...

Gyasi Ross: Counting all the real Indian people on Facebook (January 31, 2012)

"Facebook has replaced pow-wow parking lots, Haskell, AISES/NCAI/other major Indian conferences and Santa Fe Indian Market as the leading place for Indian singles to snag up their prospective mates. If we are to believe a website called “Search Engine Watch,”...