Reznet

A lawyer for environmentalists and tribal activists told a federal judge Monday that the government's approval of a big gold mine was flawed and would prohibit the Western Shoshone from practicing religious rites on a mountain in northern Nevada.

There are battles ahead for this Native American tribe with the state a signature away from collecting tax from tribal cigarette sales and a mega casino project mothballed because of economic and legal challenges.

Congress is expected to adjourn in December without sending a wide-ranging Indian health bill to President Bush, leaving Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan and American Indian leaders to look to a new president for support.

The United States Mint has released the designs for the new 2009 Native American $1 coin.

Voters in mostly Inuit Greenland overwhelmingly approved a plan to seek more autonomy from Denmark and to take advantage of oil reserves that may lie off the glacial island, official results showed this week.

Sonar maps show that the Celilo Falls, submerged in 1957 located about 10 miles upstream from The Dalles, are intact beneath the Columbia River's surface. The falls have been important to Native American people for thousands of years.

Dozens of Leonard Peltier's supporters gathered on Friday front of the federal courthouse in Fargo, where he was convicted more than 30 years ago in the execution-style killings of two federal agents.

An Arizona appeals court panel ruled Friday that the Havasupai Indian tribe can proceed with a lawsuit that claims university researchers misused blood samples taken from tribal members.

A Hopi leadership tangle has led to a suspended appellate court, raised allegations of fraud and disrespect for traditional leaders and concerns over whether the northern Arizona tribe can settle the matter without the intervention of the federal government.

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States.

A set of 1-month-old girls believed to be the first known American Indian conjoined twins are doing well and will be separated, doctors say. Their mother is Cheyenne River Sioux.

Four American Indian tribes have gone to federal court at Pierre in an effort to stop construction of the Keystone oil pipeline through eastern South Dakota and North Dakota.

A group of American Indians and environmental supporters has asked a federal court to block a big gold mining project they say will desecrate sacred Western Shoshone religious sites in northern Nevada.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama's top pick for Homeland Security secretary, heads a fundraising committee that collected thousands of dollars from special interests and gave money to Democratic House campaigns nationwide for the fall elections.

A state agency in Virginia ruled Monday that Crow tribal member Ted Hogan violated that state's securities laws in seeking investments for minerals development on the Crow Reservation that never occurred.

A woman convicted of murdering her University of Arizona dorm mate by stabbing her 23 times has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

In the midst of a crumbling national economy and a local unemployment rate teetering toward 80 percent, residents of the Blackfeet reservation in Montana are preparing for a new blu-ray disc manufacturing plant that will be established in Starr School, Mont.,

An Acoma Pueblo student at the University of Kansas was one of 10 hopefuls who made it this month to the semifinals of a YouTube video competition for aspiring journalists. Her video did not win, but she is happy for the attention it brought to a wetlands in Kansas.

A University of Pennsylvania student who organized an exhibit about Lenape Indians living quietly in the state is among this year's winners of Rhodes Scholarships.

This weekend, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde celebrated a silver anniversary: 25 years since the Nov. 22, 1983, signing of a restoration bill that began the rebuilding of a tribe that lost its identity in 1954.