The State Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking for the public’s help in finding who killed at least three bald eagles in Snohomish County.
Officials said four eagles were found floating in a small lake near Granite Falls last week. Investigators confirmed that three of them had been shot with a small-caliber rifle. It’s unclear how the fourth bald eagle died. The species is protected under both state and federal law. A nearly $4,000 reward is being offered for information about the person responsible for killing the eagles.
The department sent KIRO 7 Eyewitness News pictures of the slaughtered birds. Warning; graphic images.
The event began today with and opening prayer and is scheduled to run until 3:30 p.m. Breakfast was served with the intention to inform about healthy options for people either with diabetes or wanting to ward off diabetes. Tribal member Hank Gobin gave a informative speech about diabetic care.
Lunch will be served from noon to 1:30pm. Clinic staff will be offering comprehensive Diabetic Services for all Tulalip Tribal members and authorized patients of the Karen I Fryberg Tulalip Health Clinic.
Hank Gobin speaks at Diabetes Day.Breakfast for Diabetes Day, fresh fruit, otameal, greek yogurt, eggs and tea.Diabetes Day at Tulalip Health Clinic today
Source: Arlington Times
January 15, 2013 · 1:36 PM
Snohomish County is one of three counties in which the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency has lowered the air quality burn ban to Stage 1 until further notice.
“Air pollution levels throughout the region have dropped, likely due to clouds and warmer temperatures,” said Dr. Phil Swartzendruber, forecaster for the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. “The drop in pollution could also be due to the help of our communities following the burn ban. Calm, cold and clear weather conditions are likely to continue over the next few days, so ongoing cooperation with the burn ban will help keep our air healthy.”
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency will continue to closely monitor the air quality and weather situation.
During a Stage 1 burn ban:
• No burning is allowed in fireplaces or uncertified wood stoves. Residents should rely instead on their homes’ other, cleaner sources of heat, such as their furnaces or electric baseboard heaters, for a few days until air quality improves, the public health risk diminishes and the ban is cancelled.
• No outdoor fires are allowed. This includes recreational fires such as bonfires, campfires, and the use of fire pits and chimineas.
• Burn ban violations are subject to a $1,000 penalty.
• It is okay to use natural gas, propane, pellet and EPA-certified wood stoves or inserts during a Stage 1 burn ban.
The Washington State Department of Health recommends that people who are sensitive to air pollution limit their time spent outdoors, especially when exercising. Air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, cause difficulty breathing, and make lung and heart problems worse. Air pollution is especially harmful to people with lung and heart problems, people with diabetes, children and adults older than 65 years.
The Tulalip and Stillaguamish tribes are likewise among the six Native American reservations on which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 will continue a burn ban on all outdoor burning until further notice, due to stagnant air conditions that are forecast to prevail over the next few days.
This burn ban applies to all outdoor and agricultural burning, including camping and recreational fires within reservation boundaries. Ceremonial and traditional fires are exempt from the outdoor burn ban.
The EPA also requests that reservation residents reduce all sources of air pollution, including excess driving and idling of vehicles, and the use of wood stoves and fireplaces, unless it is their only source of heat.
Air pollution can have significant health impacts. Cooperation from the community will help people who are at risk during this period. Those most at risk are children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with difficulty breathing, and with heart and lung problems. Those at risk should avoid outdoor exercise and minimize their exposure to outdoor pollution as much as possible.
Please call 1-800-424-4EPA and ask for the Federal Air Rules for Reservations Hotline, or visit the FARR website for the current burn status at www.epa.gov/region10/farr/burnbans.html.
Do you know a senior who will be home alone this Valentine’s Day? You are invited to nominate him or her to receive a free Valentine’s dinner at home with gifts and companionship. This contest is the brainchild of Emeritus Senior Living, the nation’s largest assisted living and memory care provider. One local senior from every city where an Emeritus community is located (See below for list of cities within WA) will be chosen as the recipient from among those nominated by the public.
“At the time of year, it’s important to extend caring and friendship to the senior generation,” said Jayne Sallerson, Executive Vice President at Emeritus. “For those who have lost spouses, Valentine’s Day can be a sad occasion that contributes to feelings of loneliness. Family and friends may live far away, and perhaps physical challenges limit their ability to get out into the greater community. We hope to brighten the day for one of these seniors through festivities and friendship.”
Bringing Valentine’s Day festivities to a local senior is part of the philosophy of Emeritus’ assurance that seniors are living “safely somewhere.”
“What that means is we believe it is crucial for seniors to live in environments that enhance their well-being, whether they reside with us or somewhere else. That is why we would like to offer this special occasion on Valentine’s Day,” explains Sallerson.
The biological father: Dusten Brown claimed the right to his daughter under the Indian child Welfare Act, which claims to preserve parental rights and tribal sanctity.
When Matt and Melanie Capobianco watched the birth of their adoptive daughter in 2009, they had no idea their love for this little girl would put them at the center of a decades-old national debate with racial, cultural and political overtones.
But that’s exactly where the James Island couple have found themselves after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed this month to take up their long-running custody battle with 3-year-old Veronica’s biological father, Dusten Brown, a Cherokee Indian.
The decision, which surprised many legal scholars, marks the first time in more than two decades that the high court has taken up a case involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 federal law aimed at preserving American Indian families, tribes and their heritage.
Among other things, the act gives American Indian parents preference in custody disputes involving Native American children.
South Carolina courts cited the act in forcing the Capobiancos in late 2011 to turn over Veronica to Brown, who was a stranger to the child.
He returned home to Oklahoma with Veronica, and the Capobiancos haven’t seen her since.
Oral arguments are expected as soon as April, and the case is being closely watched by a variety of groups with a stake in its outcome — tribal groups, adoption agencies and attorneys, Indian law and constitutional-rights experts. It has the potential to affect the way thousands of adoptions are handled each year and alter the playing field for Native American groups from coast-to-coast.
Predicting the way the high court will rule is always a dicey proposition. But the speed with which the court grabbed the case leads many observers to suspect that the justices intend to make a bold statement on this contentious subject. After all, the high court hears only about 1 percent of the roughly 10,000 cases submitted for its consideration each year.
But the justices’ aim remains a mystery.
“I’m a little bit perplexed by this,” said Lorie M. Graham, a professor and Indian law scholar at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. “You would really have to look long and hard to find ambiguity in this legislation. There is not a lot of room for interpretation here.”
Marcia Zug, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and an expert in American Indian law, agreed. But that doesn’t mean the court isn’t looking toward change, she said.
“The Supreme Court doesn’t take up cases just to affirm them,” she said.
Zug said she believes South Carolina courts ruled correctly, and she can find no legal basis for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. She fears the high court is looking to dismantle the Indian Child Welfare Act, which she said many consider to be the most important piece of American Indian legislation ever passed.
“It strikes me that the Supreme Court is looking for a way to overthrow (the act), and I really don’t see how they can do that,” she said.
Tribal groups have similar fears, and they worry that the court is preparing to roll back protections put into place to keep outsiders from legally stealing children from their tribes through coercive adoptions and deceit.
The law aims to preserve parental rights and tribal sanctity, placing a child first with blood relatives and, in their absence, with a tribe member.
“We are very concerned,” said Terry Cross, executive director of the Oregon-based National Indian Child Welfare Association. “We don’t want to go back to those times when those deceptive practices were the norm and people felt like they could take our children away in this manner.”
Others say the law is complicated, confusing and applied differently from state to state and from tribe to tribe. They argue that a Supreme Court review is much needed and would likely result in clearer guidelines for all to follow, potentially avoiding the heartache and drama surrounding Veronica’s case.
“What we are looking for is some clarity, not necessarily a dismantling of the act,” said Washington state attorney Mark Demaray, immediate past president of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, which has submitted briefs in the Veronica case. “We need to know what the rules of the game are.”
Divisive decisions
Before Veronica was born in September 2009 in Oklahoma, her biological parents canceled their engagement and went separate ways. Brown, an Army soldier, acknowledged paternity in text messages to the mother, but did not give her financial support.
The Capobiancos, who had been through seven failed attempts at in vitro fertilization, met Veronica’s mother through an adoption agency, developed a close relationship with her and adopted the baby at birth. The mother is not an American Indian.
Brown filed for paternity and custody after learning of the adoption four months later, and, as an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, argued his case under the Indian Child Welfare Act.
A Charleston County family court judge sided with Brown, and the Capobiancos were forced to surrender the girl to him on New Year’s Eve 2011. The couple then appealed that decision, but failed to win over the state Supreme Court, which upheld the family court ruling by a 3-2 vote in July.
The justices said they ruled with “a heavy heart,” but they were bound by law to give Brown an edge. Though Brown did not support the girl’s mother during pregnancy, his rights as a parent should not be stripped, the court confirmed.
The rulings have fueled strong feelings on both sides.
The Capobiancos’ supporters argue that the courts overlooked Veronica’s best interests, split a loving family and ignored the wishes of Veronica’s birth mother just because Brown is an Indian.
Johnston Moore, a founding member of the Coalition for the Protection of Indian Children & Families, had this to say in an opinion piece published in The Oklahoman, “It was the unfair exploitation of the law’s loopholes that gave rights to a biological father who would have had no rights under state law, resulting in an innocent little girl’s world being turned upside down in an instant.”
Brown’s supporters say the law was fairly applied, helping to reunite Veronica — dubbed “Little Star” by the Cherokee — with her loving father and preserve their culture. They are hoping the high court will do nothing to change that.
“Cherokee Nation believes that ICWA is one of the most important federal laws for the continued existence of tribes,” said Chrissi Nimmo Ross, assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation. “The Cherokee Nation is hopeful that the Supreme Court has accepted this case to confirm the lower court decisions and reaffirm the importance of ICWA at the federal level.”
Wide interest
The case and its emotional underpinnings have attracted widespread national attention as it moves through the courts.
The Capobiancos have appeared on the Dr. Phil show, and their story has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications. They also reportedly have fielded offers from Oprah Winfrey’s network, CNN and People magazine to chronicle their legal journey.
For now, however, the couple is keeping a low profile and declining interviews on the advice of their attorneys before the Supreme Court hearing.
Family spokeswoman Jessica Munday would say only that “they are hopeful, and it lies in the hands of the court now.”
The couple has some heavy legal hitters on their side, including Washington, D.C., attorney Lisa Blatt. Blatt has won 29 of the 30 cases she has argued before the Supreme Court. Washingtonian Magazine named Blatt a “superstar” lawyer and one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Washington.”
Paul Clement, U.S. solicitor general from 2005-08, is working on behalf of the guardian ad litem in the case and has filed a brief in support of returning Veronica to the Capobiancos.
On the other side, Washington, D.C., lawyer Charles Rothfeld is representing Brown and the Cherokee Nation. Rothfeld has worked on more than 200 cases that have gone before the high court, and the National Law Journal last year named him “one of the leading members of the Supreme Court bar.”
Charleston lawyer Shannon Jones, Brown’s local counsel, said Rothfeld also has law students from Yale University working on the case. He is founder and co-director of the Yale Law School’s Supreme Court Clinic, among the largest appellate advocacy programs in the nation.
A tough call
Zug, the USC law professor, said the case should have never reached this point. Had Veronica’s Indian heritage been properly considered from the start, the adoption likely never would have gotten to the point it did, she said.
“There shouldn’t have been this emotional heartbreak,” Zug said.
Yet here we are.
The Capobiancos have said they have been emotionally devastated by the loss of the daughter that became the center of their world.
Brown’s lawyer has said he too has been victimized, vilified for asserting his parental rights and rattled by the venom directed at him.
The Indian Child Welfare Act has been reviewed only once at the highest level. In 1989, Justice William Brennan’s ruling sided with Mississippi’s Choctaw tribe, which challenged an adoption of twins.
In a recent television interview with Charlie Rose, Justice Antonin Scalia, who joined with the majority in 1989, described the case as among the toughest of his career.
Now, Scalia will get another opportunity to weigh in on the law with a court that has a different makeup and, perhaps, a different perspective, said William B. Allen, emeritus professor of political science philosophy at Michigan State University and former chairman of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under President Ronald Reagan.
Allen, who has been critical of the Indian Child Welfare Act, said the case carries the potential for the court to weigh the constitutional implications of the law and manner in which it is applied. But he is not surprised that the justices have sidestepped the issue for so long.
“I appreciate and understand the court’s reluctance to open this area because federal Indian law is an ugly morass and a big black hole in our law,” he said. “The court has probably wisely decided to stay away from it before now.”
The Indian Education Parent Committee meeting will be held tomorrow evening in the 1st Floor Training Room of the Tulalip Administration Buildin, beginning with a light dinner at 5:00 p.m.
A brief tentative agenda is as follows, there will be a full agenda at the meeting:
I. Announcements: Liaison/Advocate School Reports
II. Superintendent Search Process – Chris Nation, Wendy Fryberg and Wayne Robertson
Embassy of Tribal Nations
1516 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 466-7767
Published on Jan 10, 2013
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has released the following statement in support of the First Nations of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) efforts to hold the Canadian government accountable to its commitment to consultation.
On Friday January 11, 2013, AFN will host a meeting of a delegation coordinated by AFN and Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of his Cabinet. The meeting comes after AFN and First Nations have called for improved nation-to-nation consultations following legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament in December 2012, Bill C-45; Jobs and Growth Act, 2012. AFN and First Nations expressed opposition prior to and following the passage of Bill C-45, which fails to respect the Treaties and rights of First Nations.
“NCAI supports AFN and the rights of Canada’s First Nations to nation-to-nation consultation and calls on the Canadian Government to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, of which Canada and the United States have both adopted. As stated in the Declaration, and has been proven time and time again, consultations between indigenous peoples including tribal nations and the governments of North America, are essential to crafting a vision for a shared future,” said Jefferson Keel, President of NCAI, the United States’ oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization.
“We stand united as the tribal nations of North America, as a family of first peoples and first governments of this land, and we stand united to protect our rights. There may be a border separating Canada and the United States, however as first Nations of North America we are not separate, and we will not be divided. And nor should we be divided in our nation-to-nation relationships,” continued Keel.
“Tribal nations of the United States have recently engaged in extensive and improved nation-to-nation consultations as a result of the Obama Administration’s commitment to upholding the U.S. President’s Executive Order on Consultation. These consultations have resulted in strong tribal nations, and a stronger America. We look forward to hearing from AFN the results of tomorrow’s discussions with Prime Minister Steven Harper and the Canadian Government. We stand ready to support AFN and the First Nations of Canada as they take important action to protect the rights, lands, and resources of First Nations and people,” Keel concluded.
On Sunday it was an unfortunate end to the season for the Seahawks as they went up against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Divisional playoff game. Seahawks had a an almost painful to watch first half and an exciting second half but just when we thought they had it, the Falcons came in during the last seconds (literally seconds) to win by a field goal, ending the game 30 – 28.
In light of the mass shootings having taken place many states are taking action. States are either reviewing gun control policies or choosing more proactive ways to protect themselves. While Oregon, the location of the Clackamas Town Center shooting, is divided on whether or not they are pro-gun and Washington has recently offered a Gun buyback program part of a gun safety initiative in order to reduce gun violence, Alaska is definitely pro-gun.
As stated in the Anchorage Daily News, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich stated that he had no current interest in a ban on sales of assault weapons in this country. Begich said decision-makers can’t “jump to the clamor of emotion” and create legislation that they think will be the “magic solution” to gun violence. He says there’s a broader issue of violence and a need for improved mental health services that need to be looked at.
The Alaska State Legislature will consider House Bill 55 sponsored by Republican Rep. Bob Lynn,
“An Act allowing school districts and private schools to adopt a policy authorizing one or more permanent employees to possess one or more firearms on school grounds under certain conditions.”
Alaska is not the only state mulling around the idea of arming their teachers, other states such as Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama are also taking to the idea of arming teachers and school personnel.
Seattle’s first buyback will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26 in downtown Seattle in the parking lot underneath Interstate 5 between Cherry and James Streets. The Seattle Police Department will monitor the buyback.
January 11, 2013 Northwest Indian College’s extension site at Tulalip hosted a Teach In/potluck at noon for students and staff to talk about what Idle No More is, how it came to be and what it means for all of the indeigenous cultures around the globe.
Idle No more, NWIC students and staff at Tulalip College Center
