Past News Items

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (OJS) will hold the first in a series of six training sessions to improve the trial advocacy skills of tribal court prosecutors, defenders and judges. The July 24-26, 2012 training session will be held in Duluth, Minn., and will focus on domestic violence.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has published a study of Indian tribal courts done by the National American Indian Court Judges Association.

The 200-page book, Indian Courts and the Future, provides basic information about reservation judicial systems, considers the role of the courts under the current policy of Indian self-determination and discusses future needs.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced he has ordered a thorough reexamination of the Department 1s favorable report on S. 332, a bill to validate existing land titles and liberalize future land sales on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.

He directed Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst to proceed immediately with the review. Assistant Secretary Ernst supervises the Indian Bureau and three other bureaus in the Department.

A new federal framework to assist American Indian and Alaska Native communities in achieving their goals in the prevention, intervention, and treatment of alcohol and substance abuse was announced today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ken Salazar, and Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today the appointment of Irene Sparks Rowan as his Special Assistant for Alaskan Affairs.

Rowan, an-enrolled Alaska Native, is President of Kish Tu, Inc., an Alaska-based research and consulting firm. She is also the former elected Chairperson and President of Klukwan, Inc., her Alaska Native village corporation.

Promotion of Don Y. Jensen to superintendent of the Indian Bureau's Northern Cheyenne Agency, Lame Deer, Montana, effective September 8, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Mr. Jensen has been for the past year land operations officer at the Bureau's Standing Rock Agency, Fort Yates, N. Dak. Previously he served for one year at Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Montana, and eight years at the Crow Agency in Montana as a soil conservationist and land-use planner. He was born at Castle Dale, Utah, in 1920 and is a graduate of Utah State College.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the Departments of Interior and Justice applauded the final approval by U.S. Senior District Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the settlement of Cobell v. Salazar, a long-running and contentious individual American Indian trust class-action lawsuit. The court’s approval of the $3.4 billion settlement paves the way for payments to be made to as many as a half-million individual American Indians who had Individual Indian Money accounts or an interest in trust or restricted land managed by the Department of the Interior. The suit has been pending for 15 years.

A plan for the distribution of more than $1.5 million awarded to the Yakima Indian Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The award is additional compensation for land ceded by the Yakima Nation in 1859.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective May 13, 1976, the funds will be distributed on a per capita basis to the enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation.

Regulations governing a new vocational training program for Indians between 18 and 35 years of age and residing on reservations ware announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The new program is being initiated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with an appropriation of $1.5 million, contained in the Department’s fiscal 1958 appropriations measure signed by the President on July 1. Authorization for the program was provided by the 84th Congress in Public Law 959.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today joined First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House kitchen garden for the planting of the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—a traditional indigenous agricultural method of planting. This activity comes a week after the launch of Let’s Move! in Indian Country (LMIC) and continues to push the message of leading active and healthy lifestyles in Indian Country.