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Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Young's are in California, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.
• Shares of Media General rose $1.61 to $8.91 in midday trading Thursday. The stock has traded in the 52-week range of $3.39 to $10.17.
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• KRISTI EATON,Associated Press
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The future of the Indian Child Welfare Act depends on the federal government's ability to work with state governments and ensuring that tribal courts have enough resources, the chief general counsel for the Department of Interior said Thursday.
• Department of Interior Solicitor Hilary Tompkins spoke at a panel discussion in Washington D.C. examining the federal law created to ensure that Native American children removed from homes be placed with relatives or put in foster care with other Native American families, except in unusual circumstances. The discussion, moderated by former U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, was streamed online.
• Tompkins said state court judges need outreach and training on the law. "Here it's unique. It's a federal law that applies to their proceedings," she said.
• She also said there needs to be a guarantee that when a child gets into the foster care and adoption system, a proper assessment is done to determine whether the child is Native American.
• Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 because of the once high number of Indian children being removed from their homes by public and private agencies.
• Tompkins, who was born on the Navajo Nation and is an enrolled tribal member, said she was born before ICWA was passed into law.
• "During that time in the late 60s, there was a practice and policy of having Indian children placed off-reservation in non-Indian homes," she said. "I was basically sent off reservation as a baby."
• Her non-Indian parents instilled an appreciation for her Native heritage and tried hard to teach her about her background, Tompkins said, but she felt disconnected living in New Jersey among predominantly white people. She was 15 before she met another Native American person, she said.
• "You feel very, very alone," she added.

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