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OSAGE NATION — On a crisp November morning, Teresa Bates Rutherford gazed at the construction site of her future home — her mind on her tax struggle with the state of Oklahoma.
The trust land she is building on has passed down through generations of her family on the Osage Reservation, located in northeastern Oklahoma. The state and county have limited jurisdiction on her land — a protection that should extend to taxes, but too often doesn’t.
Rutherford knows the tax laws better than most. She sits on the Osage Nation’s Tax Commission Board. Every month, she and two other Osage women pore over tax records for the tribe. Many of those records deal with the state, she says, which always wants more tax revenue.
For instance, Oklahoma makes vendors charge Rutherford state sales taxes on the materials for her home until she can provide them with proof that she qualifies for a tax exemption. There are no instructions available to apply for the exemption, she said, and she doesn’t know yet if the state will approve her request. She suspects most Osage citizens aren’t even aware they don’t have to pay these taxes.
“There’s always problems with taxation and the state,” said Rutherford, who has long dreamed of building this home for herself and her daughters. “The state just cannot accept us as a sovereign nation.” READ MORE — Maya Srikrishnan, Shannon Shaw Duty and Joaqlin Estus, Center for Public Integrity and ICT
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The Navajo Nation Police Department has received numerous missing persons reports that they have traced to addiction treatment centers in Arizona.
Now they are warning tribal communities about recruiters.
It all started one Monday morning when Navajo Nation Police Sgt. Roland Dash looked at the arrest log which was unusually small after the weekend.
“We only had one, and I asked the sergeant on duty what was going on,” said Dash.
Sgt. Dash started asking around and heard about a white van coming into Tuba City, Arizona.
“And they were asking everyone if they were hungry, if they wanted a place to stay, and that they were coming out of a rehab center out of Arizona,” he said. READ MORE — KSUT
Greyson Parisien’s time on earth was short. But the boy with dark-rimmed eyeglasses who was enchanted by the music in “Frozen,” the sound of ripping paper and his dad playing the guitar is having an outsized impact on his tribal community in the far reaches of North Dakota.
His journey to correct a heart defect led the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians to add an organ donation box to tribal IDs, which it unveiled during a November ceremony.
The rate of organ donations among Native Americans is much lower than other ethnic groups. For some tribes, cultural beliefs are a factor. In rural communities, time, distance and spotty internet access can hinder the process.
“You don’t think about donation and how many people are not donors,” said Greyson’s grandmother, Joan Azure. “I was thinking, ‘There has to be more donors.’ When you’re going through this personally, you don’t want someone to die but you also want your child to live.” READ MORE — Associated Press
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PHOENIX — An environmental group petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help reintroduce the jaguar to the Southwest, where it roamed for hundreds of thousands of years before being whittled down to just one of the big cats known to survive in the region.
The male jaguar, named Sombra — shadow in Spanish — has been seen in southern Arizona several times since first captured on a wildlife camera in the Dos Cabezas Mountains in 2016, including a 2017 video by the Center for Biological Diversity. There are a handful of jaguars known to be living across the border in the Mexican state of Sonora.
The center wants the federal agency to help expand critical habitat for jaguars in remote areas and launch an experimental population in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest along the border with Arizona.
“Over 50 years since the jaguar was placed on the endangered species list, we should not be facing the realistic prospect that this sole jaguar in Arizona will be the last,” Michael J. Robinson, senior conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote to Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. READ MORE — Associated Press
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- University of Montana names new tribal outreach specialist: ‘It’s important for tribal people across Montana to see a tribal person in this area of education’
- 500-year-old log is carved into Tulalip welcome: The wooden figure represents matriarchs who “can see the potential you have that you don’t know yet,” explained artist Ty Juvinel
- Telehealth offers boost to children with developmental needs: New research shows online help for children, parents and caregivers enhances services once limited to personal visits
- Fishing Washington’s urban wilderness: Muckleshoot fishermen pursue chum salmon along the heavily industrialized Duwamish River
- James Cameron’s old comments prompt Native American boycott of new ‘Avatar’ sequel
- California launching Feather Alert system for missing Indigenous people in 2023: How will it work?
- Meet the new chairperson for the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians
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