Category: Uncategorized

Diversity and pace of Senate-confirmed positions

Read more at the Brookings Institute

February 11, 2021

TUCSON, Ariz. – On Tuesday, Isaiah Joseph Rios, 22, of Sells, Arizona, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jennifer G. Zipps to concurrent terms of 121 months and 120 months in prison. Rios previously pleaded guilty on November 22, 2019 to one count of Abusive Sexual Contact and one count of Sexual Abuse involving minors. Following his release from federal prison, Rios will be placed on lifetime federal supervision and will be required to register as a sex offender.

In October of 2016, Rios, then 18 years of age, forcibly fondled a minor without her consent. In March of 2017, Rios forcibly fondled another minor and then engaged in a sexual act, all without her consent. The victims reported the assaults in August 2017. Rios is an enrolled member of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tohono O’odham Police Department conducted the investigation in this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Micah Schmit, District of Arizona, Tucson, handled the prosecution.

CASE NUMBER:            CR-18-2416-TUC-JGZ
RELEASE NUMBER:    2021-005_Rios

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao/az/

February 10, 2021

In early September, when a shortage of medical masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 swept the country, the Cherokee Nation decided it was time to make its own.

“We felt we needed to help try to fill that gap,” Cherokee Nation Chief of Staff Todd Enlow told Native News Online. “One of the things we looked at was face mask production.

Beginning in March, the Cherokee Nation will open two factories — one renovated, one newly built — that will enable it to produce between 100,000 to 200,000 masks a day. Using special machines purchased from overseas, the Cherokee Nation will manufacture N95, N99 and three-ply surgical masks. The company doesn’t yet have a name for the manufacturing entity, Enlow said. 

Cherokee Nation will be among few manufacturers in the country to make N99 masks, a medical-grade mask the tribe anticipates will be the adopted standard of the future, according to Enlow.