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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Climate Treaty Contains Good News for Native Americans

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Monday, December 21, 2015   

SANTA FE, N.M. - Representatives of Native American tribes from Arizona, New Mexico and other U.S. regions were in Paris this month as part of an international delegation of indigenous peoples at the United Nations conference on climate change.

The treaty has yet to be ratified, but the tribes say their involvement is a sign of progress for their push to be recognized under international law.

Andrea Carmen of Tucson is director of the International Indian Treaty Council. She says language acknowledging their rights in the climate-change battle is a big, but incremental, step.

"We're looking at the United States, if this treaty could actually get through the Senate," says Carmen. "Or what is going to be the approach of the current and next administration in the U.S. for implementation?"

All 195 countries at the conference approved the treaty, which seeks to implement cuts in carbon emissions across the globe by 2020.

Carmen says indigenous peoples have been working for more than two decades for full recognition as climate-change policies are formulated. She says Native Americans are being profoundly affected by the results of the warming climate as are their counterparts around the world.

"With indigenous peoples, we used to also be able to move," Carmen says. "Now, we're kept in a place, but the plants and animals are moving. So, people are saying some of the animals and plants they've always depended on are becoming very scarce."

Carmen adds, although the coalition didn't get everything it sought in the final treaty, just the document's mention of the "rights of indigenous peoples" is a significant step toward the goal.



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