WASHINGTON — President Biden on Tuesday will designate two new national monuments in the Southwest, insulating from development a half million acres in Nevada that are revered by Native Americans and 6,600 acres in Texas that were once admired by the writer Jack Kerouac. In southern Nevada, Mr. Biden will protect a large portion of […]
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SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Along a stretch of County Road 124 in New York’s picturesque Finger Lakes region, men stand guard at a barbed wire blockade, tending a fire they keep burning around the clock and protecting a two-story home that is on the verge of collapse. The scene is the latest front in a […]
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The Navajo Nation was not among those five tribes. Instead, the federal government asserted a claim on their behalf to water rights from the Little Colorado River, a tributary of the main waterway, over the tribe’s objection at the time. The Supreme Court did not address those specific claims in its labyrinthine decision and largely […]
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For families with Alzheimer’s, the routine does not settle. They too care for relatives who can’t walk, talk, bathe, dress, or eat alone, but for them, the routine grows more complex, both physically and emotionally. The sense of high alert does not end. Confrontations increase. You grieve the person while they’re still alive. What’s most […]
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TOPPENISH, Wash. — Three days before Christmas, the only hospital in this remote city on the Yakama Indian Reservation abruptly closed its maternity unit without consulting the community, the doctors who delivered babies there or even its own board. At least 35 women were planning to give birth at Astria Toppenish Hospital in January alone, […]
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FARMINGTON, N.M. — To drive the high desert roads of northern New Mexico is to navigate mountain passes, red rock mesas and dry river washes, and to spot the hogans, hamlets and sheep herds of the vast and remote Navajo nation. Fiddling with the dial on the car radio during my time there usually generates […]
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Among wealthy industrialized nations, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate. According to the W.H.O., the rate almost doubled between 2000 and 2020, rising to 21 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, or one in 5,000, up from 12 deaths per 100,000 births in 2000, or 1 in 10,000. Stark racial inequities, […]
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LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wis. — The yellow barricades and chained-together concrete blocks went up late last month, cutting off dozens of houses from roads on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in northern Wisconsin, where soaring evergreens and the papery bark of birch trees punctuate the skyline. To tribal leaders, who for years tried and failed […]
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A Risky Wager Hard-fought deals for casinos gave many tribes a critical economic lifeline. When the doors opened to widespread sports betting, others wanted in on the gambling business. By David W. Chen, Mark Walker and Kenneth P. Vogel David W. Chen, Mark Walker and Kenneth P. Vogel visited tribal leaders, reviewed court cases and spoke […]
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PHOENIX — As fans of the Kansas City Chiefs flock to Arizona this week for the Super Bowl, they are bringing with them not just their jerseys and caps, but also the baggage of a controversial celebration: the tomahawk chop. The chop — in which fans extend their arms in a chopping motion while chanting […]
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There’s a basic understanding that Native people who straddle life inside and outside the reservation share: We can carry our culture with us where ever we go, but also have perspective outside of it. I never met Kimowan Metchewais, a multidisciplinary Cree artist, whose work explored the connection of Indigenous identity to home and language […]
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Yet another major case looms on the horizon this term. In Brackeen v. Haaland, the justices are hearing the most sweeping legal challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, also known as ICWA, since its passage in 1978. ICWA generally requires that Native American children be placed with members of their own tribe or with […]
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