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A Long Journey Home: After 50 Years, Back on the Reservation

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A Long Journey Home: After 50 Years, Back on the Reservation

Leonard Peltier had waited five decades to do something he had increasingly doubted he would ever be able to: say thank you, in person, to the fellow Native Americans and others who had spent those years fighting for his freedom.

Addressing a raucous crowd of 300 supporters on his home reservation on Wednesday, Mr. Peltier, now 80, pumped his right fist repeatedly and displayed remarkable stamina for a partly blind man who needs a walker. A day earlier, he had been released from a federal prison in Central Florida, where he had been serving two life sentences for the killing of two federal agents.

Now he was back with his people, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, in North Dakota. There he will be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a clemency order in one of his final acts before leaving office.

“I’m proud of the position I’ve taken — to fight for our rights to survival,” Mr. Peltier said during an eight-minute speech in which he expressed gratitude, but also defiance. “I’m so proud of the support you’re showing me, I’m having a hard time keeping myself from crying,” he said. “From the first hour I was arrested, Indian people came to my rescue, and they’ve been behind me ever since. It was worth it to me to be able to sacrifice for you.”

It was a moment that seemed highly unlikely as recently as July, when Mr. Peltier was denied parole yet again in connection with the deaths of two F.B.I. agents during a shootout on a reservation in South Dakota in 1975.

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To many law enforcement officials, Mr. Peltier is a remorseless killer whose appeals had been reviewed, and rejected, by more than 20 federal judges.

But to human rights groups such as Amnesty International, as well as to supporters who included the Dalai Lama, the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela and the musician Steven Van Zandt, Mr. Peltier had become a cause célèbre who had been wrongfully convicted as part of a history of Native American repression.

“Friends, relatives, strangers ached for Leonard, prayed for him, danced for him, fasted and suffered for him, cared for him, longed for him to walk the earth as a free man,” Louise Erdrich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who is also a member of the Turtle Mountain tribe, said in an email.

Ms. Erdrich attended Mr. Peltier’s trial in 1977, and has long contended that he had unfairly paid the price for the violent actions of other Native American activists.

“Leonard has been a living reproach to the idea of our greatness as a nation,” said Ms. Erdrich, who has saved her correspondence with Mr. Peltier and plans to visit him soon. “We confuse greatness with economic power or military might, but no. Greatness is justice, greatness is tolerance.”

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Mr. Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, an advocacy organization founded in 1968 that promoted civil rights, spoke out against police brutality and other abuses and sought to highlight the federal government’s history of violating treaties it had made with Native American tribes.

In the 1970s, militant members of the group clashed with federal authorities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. They forcibly seized control of the Sioux village of Wounded Knee and fended off the authorities for 71 days.

Two years after the Wounded Knee standoff, with the relationship between Native American activists and federal law enforcement agencies still frayed, two F.B.I. agents — Jack Coler and Ronald Williams — tried to arrest a robbery suspect on the Pine Ridge reservation.

A shootout ensued, leaving the two agents and one activist dead. Mr. Peltier has admitted to firing his gun from a distance but has insisted that he acted in self-defense and was not the one who killed the agents. Of the more than 30 people who were present during the shootout, Mr. Peltier was the only one convicted.

Exculpatory evidence that had helped to acquit two other AIM members accused in the killings was excluded from Mr. Peltier’s trial — an issue that has frequently been raised by his supporters as an example of injustice.

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But in a letter in June 2024 opposing Mr. Peltier’s parole application, Christopher A. Wray, then the F.B.I. director, noted that Mr. Peltier had repeatedly lost in court on several issues, such as his attempts to downplay ballistics evidence tying him to the killings.

The order freeing him to return to North Dakota met the vehement objections of many law enforcement officials.

“Peltier gets to go home — while neither Coler or Williams was afforded the same opportunity,” Michael J. Clark, president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the F.B.I., said in an email on Wednesday. “Peltier is a remorseless murderer and should have served out his life sentence in a federal prison.”

Mr. Peltier made it home to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation late Tuesday, as the sun was fading and temperatures were a dangerously cold minus 15 degrees — a 90-degree swing from the temperature at the most recent federal correctional facility where he had been held, in Coleman, Fla.

Dozens of residents greeted him with signs that read “50 Years of Resistance” as he was whisked to his new home in the town of Belcourt. The house was purchased by NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights group based in Rapid City, S.D., whose leaders greeted Mr. Peltier when he walked out of prison in Florida and accompanied him on a private plane ride back home, according to Nick Tilsen, the group’s founder and chief executive officer.

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At a homecoming lunch on Wednesday, as Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” played, banners and signs abounded. Some had clearly been used in previous protests — “Enough Is Enough: Free Leonard Peltier” — but there were also new ones, including a photo of Mr. Peltier with his Bureau of Prisons number, 89637-132, crossed out.

In his remarks, Mr. Peltier talked about how proud he was to call attention to Native issues, and described harsh conditions in prison, including being placed in sensory deprivation cells at some points.

Even in his new circumstances under house arrest, he said, he will have to deal with many restrictions. “But it’s a lot better than being in a cell,” he added.

He then held court for more than an hour, like a Hall of Famer at an autograph signing, as more than 100 people lined up to say hello, present gifts, pose for photos or get something signed.

Some supporters cautioned that he would encounter a different world — some things better, some things worse — than the one he last experienced 50 years ago.

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State Representative Jayme Davis, a Democrat from the area who is also a member of the Turtle Mountain tribe, noted that many people had lost their jobs, and that there was deep anxiety about the future.

“Our people are facing immense challenges, especially as our state government moves forward with policies that make survival even harder,” said Ms. Davis, whose father attended school in Belcourt with Mr. Peltier. “But in the darkness of this moment, his homecoming, I feel, will be a beacon of light. His return carries a profound weight, almost as if there’s a message in the timing.”

Mr. Tilsen said that Mr. Peltier had expressed a desire to work on the issue of teenage suicides, having done some volunteer work as a young man on the Pine Ridge reservation. But he also said that Mr. Peltier — who has declined interview requests for the time being — would need some space.

“I think that everybody focuses on him being this iconic international human rights activist and leader, which he is,” he said. “But he’s also been institutionalized for 49 years. So he has to build a new normal.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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