Last week, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians hosted a welcome home celebration for Leonard Peltier, 80, who spent 49 years in maximum security federal prison for the convictions of a two FBI agents were fatally shot in the summer of 1975. His release is a result of a commutation signed by former President Joseph Biden in his last hour of his presidency on January 20, 2025, where Peltier will serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement. Peltier, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa citizen and an American Indian Movement activist, was arrested in Canada, in February 1976, and extradited to the U.S. from a shooting incident on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that left FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams dead on June 26, 1975. On June 1, 1977, Peltier was convicted for two counts of first-degree murder of the FBI agents and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

The Trump administration’s effort to eliminate government spending resulted in layoffs across several federal agencies that serve Indian Country. However, the Indian Health Service was exempt from the executive order aimed at eliminating federal employees within their probationary period by order of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.

Leaders of the Native American Church of North America convened for the third consecutive year to advocate for peyote habitat conservation with leaders in Washington. Leaders and supporters met with Congressional leaders and staff to share progress of advocating for the conservation of peyote, a plant where only enrolled members of federally recognized tribes are permitted to possess and ingest for traditional ceremonial purposes.

The Chief Seattle Club, CSC, has long since tended to and nurtured the seeds for growth, sowing opportunities, and holding space for healing. I

In light of the severe health conditions and medical needs of longtime Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier, NDN Collective and Native Organizers Alliance are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to free Peltier through compassionate release. 

Indigenous authors featured in new anthology, ‘The Haunted States of America’.