Top Bureau of Indian Affairs official Larry Echo Hawk stepping down to take LDS Church

Top Bureau of Indian Affairs official Larry Echo Hawk stepping down to take LDS Church

 

The top official for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is resigning to accept a full-time leadership position with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ending three years with the department that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says “opened a new chapter” in U.S. relationships with American Indian tribes. Larry Echo Hawk, the assistant secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, is being appointed to the Quorum of the Seventy, the Mormon Church’s third-highest governing body. The announcement from the church came Saturday during its semi-annual general conference in Salt Lake City.

 

New practice focuses on human rights, intellectual property

 

District-based Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, the 110-attorney Washington intellectual property law firm, has started a first-of-its-kind practice that combines the tenets of human rights and intellectual property law. Spearheaded by founding director and veteran attorney Jorge Goldstein, who specializes in health sciences, the pro bono practice aims to use patent and copyright laws to help indigenous groups in developing countries protect and leverage their right to native or regional intellectual property — such as medicinal plants, artwork and designs — that often get co-opted, patented and sold by multinational corporations, including pharmaceutical companies. “If you are an indigenous tribe and you’ve got a cultural right like textile know-how, you’ve got a right to enjoy the fruits of your creation,” Goldstein said. “You are not subject to someone coming in, walking away with it and obtaining a patent.”

 

Unearthing Catalina history using skeleton clues

 

Recently discovered archives of a pseudo-scientist — some say a huckster — who made a living digging up Indian bones could change the understanding of early life on the island. In the weeks since, the contents of the boxes have grown in importance. Researchers and scholars of California history —especially at UCLA's Fowler Museum, where some 200 of Glidden's skeletons are housed — say the discovery will probably change the understanding of early life here and could eventually ease the anger of Native Americans outraged by the grave-robbing of the last century.

 

Navajo Nation sees rise in tourism visits, spending

 

Spending by visitors to the nation’s largest American Indian reservation has increased by nearly one-third over the past several years, and Navajo Nation officials are pointing to word of mouth for the uptick in interest in the sprawling reservation. Spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the Navajo Nation covers more than 27,000 square miles. It borders the Grand Canyon and sits on the southern edge of the sandstone cliffs, spires and red desert expanses that make up Monument Valley. The Navajo Nation also surrounds the archaeological sites at Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico and is home to Canyon de Chelly, where artifacts and cliff dwellings dating from the 4th to 14th centuries line the canyon walls.

Groups work to identify aging trees bent by American Indians to mark trails, water crossings

The pecan tree, more than 300 years old, stands out from the others in a forested area of Dallas, a 25-foot segment of its trunk slightly bowed and running almost parallel to the ground before jutting high up into the sky. It, like numerous others across the country known as Indian marker trees or trail trees, was bent in its youth by American Indians to indicate such things as a trail or a low-water creek crossing.

 

Conn. tribe wins lawsuit over slot machine taxes

 

The American Indian tribe that owns Foxwoods Resort Casino has won a federal lawsuit against the town of Ledyard over property taxes levied on leased slot machines. U.S. District Court Judge Warren Eginton ruled this week in favor of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in the 6-year-old lawsuit. He ruled the town's interest in taxing the leased equipment fails to justify the economic burden on the tribe and cited the tribe's self-determination and self-government.

Sioux Nation Reservation Is Least Healthy Place in U.S.

 

Sioux County, North Dakota (USUSND), is the least healthy place in the U.S. for the second consecutive year, while Los Alamos County, New Mexico (USUSNM), is the healthiest, according to a study. Sioux County, headquarters of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, which covers about 1 million acres in North and South Dakota, has the highest rate of premature deaths in the nation, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found. The county loses almost 24 years of potential life per 100 residents, compared to less than 3 years lost per 100 in Los Alamos, home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Oakland charter school accused of fraud may close

A controversial Oakland charter school with a history of rigid rules, harsh discipline and the second highest test scores in the state faces closure after an investigation found evidence of fraud and multiple violations of state laws. Oakland school district staff has recommended the Board of Education deny the renewal application of American Indian Charter School II based on preliminary findings of a state audit. If denied, the public school would close after this academic year.