Navajo Nation

There’s been an increase in hydropower projects across the U.S., including on different tribal reservations. But some advocates say tribes like the Navajo Nation aren’t being consulted enough about their development.

In 2020, Nikyle Begay started Rainbow Fiber Co-Op, a wool co-op intended to protect ancestral flocks on Navajo Nation and to help other Navajo shepherds get fair prices for their wool.

Raising sheep is a way of life for many people in the Navajo Nation, but historic drought, grazing restrictions and development threaten that livelihood. There are some younger people, though, speaking out and finding ways to pass on the tradition.

Navajo tradition teaches that the sun is rebirthing during an eclipse. That means no eating, no drinking, no sleeping or any physical activity for the duration of it. Some tribes are using this weekend's annular eclipse to ensure members, especially younger generations, know these traditions.

The complaint filed Wednesday in state court names Navajo businessman Dineh Benally and Los Angeles-based entrepreneur Irving Lin as defendants, among others. It states the workers were lured to New Mexico under false pretenses and forced to work 14 hours a day trimming marijuana at a motel.

The wet winter has filled Lake Powell enough to restart boat tours to the giant red rock arch. But welcoming more tourists to the remote monument in southern Utah brings both benefits and challenges.

Some Republican members of Congress are criticizing the Biden administration's recent move to withdraw hundreds of square miles of federal land in New Mexico from oil and gas development.

The court found that the federal government isn't responsible for securing that water for the 170,000 tribal members who live there.

States that draw water from the river — Arizona, Nevada and Colorado — and water districts in California had urged the court to decide for them, and that's what the justices did in a 5-4 ruling.

Native American nations say the Supreme Court has reaffirmed their power to withstand threats from states.

“They had the ability to take away our children, again, from our people. And they did the right thing,” said Darren Parry, former chairman of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation.

The court left in place the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted to address concerns that Native children were being separated from their families and, too frequently, placed in non-Native homes.