Virginia Brown, a 69-year-old elder, recalls her traumatic experience: 'I was forced into a boarding school when I was six years old. They cut off all our long hair and washed our mouths out with soap if they caught us speaking Navajo.'
The tribes argue the lawsuit threatens a key source of future revenue and self-governance. Their filing says the case concerns a constitutional attack on a Maine statute that establishes regulatory parameters pursuant to which the four Wabanaki Nations may seek to obtain licenses to offer internet gambling.
"Once the Declaration of Independence is issued by Congress, then it kind of changes the calculus. Then, both sides are putting pressure on Native people to join one side or the other."
"Today, our Board took decisive action to protect what generations before us fought to build. These so-called prediction markets are an attempt to bypass tribal authority and recast gambling as a financial product. We will not allow that. We will stand united to defend tribal sovereignty and the integrity of Indian gaming."
"As the network continues to attract internet service providers, thousands of residents along the Eastern Sierra Nevada and millions more across the state will gain access to more options for reliable and affordable high-speed internet service."
When California became a state in 1850, officials signed 18 treaties setting aside millions of acres for tribal reservations. Congress killed the deals in secret after pressure from state leaders. Many tribes had already moved, trusting the promises. Now California wants to make good.
San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental group focused on protecting the Bay, filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court last week against the California State Lands Commission, alleging that the commission's decision to allow mining will destroy fragile habitat, harm fish and other wildlife, and potentially worsen coastal erosion.
Built in 1910, the Sunol Water Temple is a Beaux Arts-style pergola inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy, serving as a memorial to the confluence of the Bay Area's major watersheds. Underneath the temple's Corinthian columns, three subterranean pipelines from Arroyo de la Laguna, Alameda Creek and Pleasanton supplied half of San Francisco's water supply during the early 20th century.
She has her own house now, the whole American Dream, and it's just crazy from where she came from. Cooking has always been her passion, and it's just super nice to see where she's at now. When her parents went to work, she would always cook for everybody at home in Mexico.
Western water law is based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which gives the first entity to make "beneficial use" of water the right to keep on using that amount, even if that means that upstream "junior" users' spigots will get shut off. By the early 1900s, a rapidly growing California was enthusiastically diverting the Colorado River, with huge irrigation districts gobbling up the senior water rights.
The Maidu tribe of Butte County-Berry Creek, Mechoopda, Mooretown, Enterprise and Konkow Valley, come together to conduct CAL-TREX prescribed burn training to relearn how to put helpful fire back on their native lands that have been devastated by recent catastrophic wildfires. Organizers say the training camp is designed to help restore fire-scarred lands and people. While other Northern California tribes have been reintroducing cultural fire for decades,
Before burning the meadow, Herrera urged everyone to think about those who would gather materials in the coming months. "It's going to be a place where our people can gather food, fibers and medicines," she said. "We want to make sure all of that stuff stays really clean." Basket weavers often hold materials in their mouths, and it's long been a challenge to find plants free of fuel or herbicides. Here, the tribe can tend its garden as it chooses.
Developers seeking to build dams, mines, data centers or pipelines must navigate a permitting process to do so. One requirement in the process is obtaining certification from a tribe or state confirming that the project meets federal water quality standards. Currently, tribes and states conduct holistic reviews of projects, known as " activity as a whole ", evaluating all potential impacts on water quality, including spill risks, threats to cultural resources, and impacts on wildlife. This approach was established under the Biden administration in 2023.
"These regulations are an important step in combating unscrupulous and illegal gaming in California," CNIGA Chairman James Siva said in a statement sent to ReadWrite. "The regulations further clarify that games and practices employed by commercial card rooms are indeed prohibited under California law. Running a business contrary to that law is an illicit business, period. We hope that Department of Justice will now enforce these regulations so California can ensure a well-regulated gaming industry that is safe for consumers."
Waterways across Contra Costa County are increasingly threatened by invasive plant species that engulf canals and drains, decreasing biodiversity and reducing safe habitats for wildlife. In an effort to address and restore the environment, the Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District is working to reverse that trend. The district hosted its recent 12th annual Giving Natives a Chance event at the Clayton Valley Drain near Concord's Hillcrest Community Park, inviting volunteers from across the county to plant native species around waterways and drains.
It was off-limits to the public for a century until recently, when a nonprofit land trust called the Wildlands Conservancy liberated the coastline following 10 years of planning. Accessing the preserve is allowed after reaching the farthest end of Bodega Harbour, a scenic coastal community of 700 homes linked within an 18-hole golf course. But once word about the hike began to spread last month, locals began saying their neighborhood was upended overnight by hundreds of cars.
The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health of rivers that feed California's largest estuary is generating heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento, as state officials try to gain support for a plan that has been years in the making. "I am passionate that this is the pathway to recover fish," said state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. "This is the paradigm we need: collaborative, adaptive management versus conflict and litigation."
