There comes a time when history begins to repeat itself. The Indigenous occupation around the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation is such a time. While there are many differences between the occupation of Wounded Knee in the early 1970s and the Sacred Stone encampment, there are many common threads. Both occupations involved the theft of… Read more »

View parts 1 and 2 on KSTP.com

A judge has thrown out felony charges against some of the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters arrested during a raid of the northern camp in October. After the event, 139 people were charged with one felony count of conspiracy to endanger by fire or explosion and two misdemeanor counts. The prosecutors filed a single complaint and… Read more »

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies have been protesting the 1,100-mile Dakota Access Pipeline for months. The pipeline could both threaten their water source and destroy sacred sites. “Whenever there’s a resource that needs to be exploited, our lands just kept getting taken,” says one member of the tribe in this… Read more »

United Nations experts have called for a halt in construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, arguing it could threaten the health and well-being of Native Americans. The U.N. experts also condemned local authorities’ violent crackdown on pipeline protesters, accusing them of using unjustified and excessive force in their “increasingly militarized response.” Maina Kiai, the U.N.… Read more »

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by the Des Moines Register Editorial Eleven months ago, a group of armed militants piled into a couple of pickup trucks and headed for Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Once there, they took control of the headquarters building, stationed armed guards around the perimeter and began issuing ominous threats of violence unless the federal… Read more »

by Lynda V. Mapes for the Seattle Times In a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the U.S. Army Corps announced Monday that it won’t grant an easement to allow completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline while it looks further into concerns raised by the tribe. The Corps announced it would set a timeline… Read more »

On Monday, November 14—the same day the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced it would not grant an easement to drill under the Missouri River pending further analysis—Energy Transfer Partners filed a lawsuit to push for completion of the pipeline without further interference from federal agencies and regulations. Energy Transfer Partners, the company that… Read more »

by Steffani Cochran I recently returned from spending time at Standing Rock as a legal observer. The experience was nothing like I anticipated and yet one of the most important experiences of my life. I woke each morning and went to sleep each night to prayers, songs, stories and drumming. But my day also began… Read more »