Officials ‘braced for the worst,’ but report little voter intimidation
Cronkite News | Nov. 3, 2020
WASHINGTON – Elections officials feared cases of voter intimidation would mar Election Day, but said Tuesday they had seen few problems over the course of the day and that the issues they did encounter were quickly resolved.
FCC grants no-cost broadband spectrum licenses to 11 Arizona tribes
Cronkite News | Oct. 29, 2020
WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission has granted broadband spectrum licenses to 11 Arizona tribes in what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called “a major step forward in our efforts to close the digital divide on Tribal lands.”
Judge denies early Pascua Yaqui voting site, ending years-long feud
Cronkite News | Oct. 23, 2020
WASHINGTON – The Pascua Yaqui Tribe will not get the early voting location it has been asking for since 2018, after a federal judge flatly denied the request he said would overburden an elections office “already stretched to its breaking point.”
Court: Mailed Navajo ballots should not get extra time to be counted
Cronkite News | Oct. 15, 2020
WASHINGTON – Native Americans may face barriers to voting in general, but that is not enough to require that ballots mailed from the Navajo Nation get 10 extra days to be counted, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
State, tribal leaders condemn use of force against border protesters
Cronkite News | Oct. 14, 2020
WASHINGTON – Tohono O’odham and congressional officials are condemning the “utterly shameful” use of tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a small group of people during a peaceful border wall protest Monday near Ajo.
Arizona faces back-to-back court hearings with weeks to Election Day
Cronkite News | Oct. 13, 2020
WASHINGTON – The road to the ballot box in Arizona apparently runs through the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard two cases in just the past two days concerning ballots and voter registration in the state.
Goodbye, Columbus?: Arizona celebrates first Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Cronkite News | Oct. 12, 2020
WASHINGTON – Native Americans in Arizona finally celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an official state holiday Monday – but it was a win with an asterisk.
Court blocks order giving voters more time to fix unsigned mail ballots
Cronkite News | Oct. 6, 2020
WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court Tuesday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that would have given Arizona voters five days past Election Day to fix early ballots that were accidentally filed without a signature.
Supreme Court to review Arizona voting laws overturned as discriminatory
Cronkite News | Oct. 2, 2020
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear Arizona’s defense of two election laws, on ballot-collecting and out-of-precinct voting, that were struck down by a lower court earlier this year as racially discriminatory.
Hopi leader: Congress must act to save ‘life changing’ diabetes program
Cronkite News | Sept. 30, 2020
WASHINGTON – A “life-changing” diabetes program for Native Americans will expire Dec. 11 if Congress doesn’t take action, advocates said.
Action on missing, murdered women legislation caps years of advocacy
Cronkite News | Sept. 25, 2020
WASHINGTON – Native American advocates and victim’s families have worked for years to draw attention to Indian Country’s epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
From showdown to stalemate, Pascua Yaqui voting site feud continues
Cronkite News | Sept. 18, 2020
WASHINGTON – What was a showdown between the Pascua Yaqui tribe, the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the county’s recorder has now turned into a stalemate.
System could help tribal members past – one – voter registration hurdle
Cronkite News | Sept. 14, 2020
WASHINGTON – Advocates said a new policy that lets Arizona residents without traditional street addresses register to vote online is not perfect – but it’s a vast improvement over the old process.
Critics: Feds reopened tribal schools without asking or advising tribes
Cronkite News | Sept. 10, 2020
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and tribal leaders berated the Bureau of Indian Education on Thursday for a school reopening plan that prioritizes in-person learning, despite tribes’ opposition to the plan in the face of COVID-19 health concerns.
Tribe renews voting site push, sets up showdown with Pima recorder
Cronkite News | Sept. 3, 2020
WASHINGTON – At least two Pima County supervisors will “press forward” to get an early voting site reinstated on the Pascua-Yaqui reservation, setting up a showdown with the county recorder who rejected the request again this week.
Rio Salado restoration efforts get boost with federal ‘partnership’ designation
Cronkite News | Sept. 1, 2020
WASHINGTON – Federal officials on Tuesday named a 58-mile stretch of the Lower Salt and Gila rivers an Urban Waters Federal Partnership location, a designation that could bring millions in funding to efforts to revitalize the stressed Valley waterway.
Appeals exhausted, Navajo double-killer executed despite tribe’s objections
Cronkite News | Aug. 26, 2020
WASHINGTON – Lezmond Mitchell on Wednesday became the first Native American in modern history to be executed by the federal government over the objections of a tribal government for a crime committed between Native Americans on tribal land.
Navajo on death row faces execution Wednesday, barring last-minute action
Cronkite News | Aug. 25, 2020
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court late Tuesday rejected a last-minute appeal from Lezmond Mitchell, a Navajo on federal death row who is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening for the brutal 2001 murders of a Navajo woman and her granddaughter.
School-to-prison pipeline has deep roots in tangled history of tribal schools
Cronkite News | Aug. 12, 2020
PHOENIX – In the early 1930s, Robert Carr, a member of the Creek Nation, was expelled for “incorrigible behavior” from Chilocco Indian Agricultural School near the Kansas-Oklahoma border.
Native youth navigate complex, contradictory jurisdictions
Cronkite News | Sept. 1, 2020
Generations of historical trauma and increased exposure to violence make young Native Americans more vulnerable to the complicated, often contradictory clutches of the juvenile justice system, legal experts say. Once in the justice system, Native children become lost in a jurisdictional web, a dysfunctional state system and a federal system that has no proper place for them.
Torn between humanitarian ideals and U.S. pressure, Panama screens migrants from around the world
Cronkite News | July 2, 2020
LA PEÑITA, Panama — Tsheve Joseph Mundeke watched his 9-year-old daughter, Carla Elizabeth, collapse into the dirt at the edge of the road, exhausted. They were only a few miles from their next stop, the village of La Peñita, but after a weeklong trek through Panama’s Darién Gap – considered the most dangerous jungle in the world – they had to take a break.
Cardinals lead NFL in minority coaching hires while Cowboys, Jaguars lag
Global Sport Matters | Mar. 6, 2020
The Rooney Rule was supposed to help even the playing field for prospective NFL coaches of color. After an initial surge in minority hires, the 2019 and 2020 seasons have disappointed with teams hiring only one head coach of color each season.
Drilling for Minerals in a Sky Island
South32 is one of at least two mining operations probing for minerals beneath the Patagonia mountains, the first companies to operate in the area since the 1950s. Some of the town’s 900 residents say the return of mining is boosting Patagonia’s local businesses. Others say preserving the town’s natural resources would be better for the town’s future.
Tree and Shade subcommittee recommends City install an administrator and official committee
Downtown Devil | Sept. 13, 2020
The Urban Island/Tree and Shade Subcommittee recommended establishing a full-time tree administrator and an official tree and shade committee on Thursday as residents showed support for the tree and shade movement in Phoenix.