Judge backs tribe in suit over reservation status

A judge has stopped the federal government from rescinding its reservation designation for a Native American tribe’s land in Massachusetts, ordering the Interior Department to review the matter and issue new findings.

U. S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington granted a summary judgment on behalf of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe on Friday, concluding the Interior Department’s actions were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law.”

Cedric Cromwell, the tribe’s chairman, said the judge “righted what would have been a terrible and historic injustice.”

The Cape Cod- based tribe, which traces its ancestry to the Native Americans that shared a fall harvest meal with the Pilgrims in 1621, gained federal recognition in 2007. It has more than 300 acres in the town of Mashpee and in Taunton near the Rhode Island state line and has broken ground on a $ 1 billion resort and casino.

WASHINGTON — After primaries and caucuses in 42 states and the District of Columbia, Joe Biden has won the last few delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president as states worked to tally a surge of mail ballots.

Indiana, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were among the seven states, plus the district, holding elections Tuesday. But a huge increase in vote- by- mail ballots, driven in large part by the coronavirus pandemic, meant election officials were still counting ballots Friday.

Democrats don’t hold winner- take- all contests in which the top vote- getter wins all the delegates. Instead, the delegates are split up proportionally among the candidates based on their share of the vote — both statewide and in individual congressional districts.