LOS ANGELES – Being locked up was supposed to be a punishment for Terry “Tank” Johnson. It also turned out to be an awakening.

In the early 2000s, the product of Tempe McClintock High and the University of Washington was basking in the spotlight of football success – playing seven NFL seasons with Chicago, Dallas and Cincinnati – but he was leading a double life. In 2007, while the Bears were getting ready to play in Super Bowl XLI, Johnson was navigating the criminal justice system.

As a young man looking to have fun, Johnson said, he put himself in “uncontrolled environments,” including his November 2005 arrest in a Chicago nightclub for unlawful possession of a handgun. He was convicted and given probation.

But there were subsequent brushes with the law, including illegal possession of weapons and drugs, culminating in a March 2007 court order remanding him to 120 days behind bars for violating the terms of his probation.

He languished at first, frustrated by his bad choices. He went to the Cowboys and then the Bengals, but his football career was essentially over. But because of what he witnessed during incarceration, Johnson turned that disappointment into motivation, and he now finds himself a key figure in a renewed debate about the role of private for-profit prisons.

The ancient people of western Utah’s Danger Cave lived well. They ate freshwater fish, ducks and other small game, according to detritus they left behind. They had a lush lakeside view with cattails, bulrushes and water-loving willows adorning the marshlands.

But over time, the good life became history. As heat and drought set in, the freshwater dried up, and the ancients were forced to survive by plucking tiny seeds from desert shrubs called pickleweed. Archaeologists know this from a thick layer of dusty chaff buried in the cave’s floor.

It might be ancient history, but science tells us that the past could also become the future. In fact, thanks to global warming, regional climate patterns linked to extended periods of heat and drought that upended prehistoric life across the Southwest thousands of years ago are setting up again now.

“The benefit of any kind of paleoclimate data is that it tells us what nature is capable of,” said Matthew Lachniet, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The climate risk across the Southwest is actually growing, based on Lachniet’s recent study of a different cave about 200 miles across the Great Basin, which covers most of Nevada and the western half of Utah.

His geochemical data from Leviathan Cave in Nevada shows that drought can last 4,000 years – findings that Lachniet’s team cross-checked against paleoclimate data from the Arctic and tropical Pacific. In short, the story in the cave data suggests a worst-case scenario that could – and probably should – guide planning throughout the Southwest, home to 56 million people.

WASHINGTON – After years of steadily slashing the number of refugees it will accept, the U.S. can expect to see an increase under the incoming Biden administration.

An eight-fold increase and then some.

President-elect Joe Biden has said that when he enters office next month, he plans to raise the number of refugees who can be admitted to the U.S. to 125,000 from the current cap of 15,000.

The current number was the most recent in an annual series of reductions by President Donald Trump, who inherited a refugee cap of 85,000 from President Barack Obama. Trump has since cut the number steadily, to 50,000 in 2017, then 45,000, then 30,000, then 18,000 for 2020 and, finally, 15,000 for next year.

Refugee groups in Arizona have compared the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. “closing its doors during the Holocaust.” The reduction comes despite what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees calls the largest international refugee crisis since the end of World War II, with almost 80 million people, or about 1% of the world’s population, forcibly displaced.

Other critics said the move harmed the country’s reputation as a world leader, for failing to lead by example.

But defenders of the new refugee ceiling – the lowest since the Refugee Act of 1980 – said it will protect American jobs during the recession and limit the abuse of the policy by those who are not in humanitarian need.

WASHINGTON – For four years, the Trump administration took steps to boost uranium mining for what it called national security reasons, a move environmentalists saw as an attempt to open the door to mining near the Grand Canyon.

President-elect Joe Biden may be ready to shut that door for good.

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but we can’t let Donald Trump open up the Grand Canyon for uranium mining,” Biden tweeted in August, after a Trump administration task force on nuclear fuel proposed relaxing restrictions on mining on federal lands.

In a statement posted at the same time, Biden called the Grand Canyon an “irreplaceable jewel” and blasted the Trump administration’s mining plan, saying he would focus instead on developing clean energy. While Biden did not lay out a specific mining plan, his statement was still enough for Kevin Dahl.

“I’m thrilled that the new administration has taken that stand even before inauguration. It’s a well-considered policy,” said Dahl, the Arizona senior project manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Mining supporters disagree, saying that “well-considered policy” is actually short-sighted and ill-informed.

“Mining on this land can be done responsibly and would bring hundreds of good-paying jobs to my district,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott. “As I have said on many occasions, this withdrawal is not about protecting the Grand Canyon, but crippling the domestic uranium mining industry.”

The withdrawal Gosar referred to was then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision in 2012 to impose a 20-year moratorium on new mines on just over 1 million federal acres around Grand Canyon National Park. The moratorium was aimed at protecting the Grand Canyon watershed from “adverse effects of … mineral exploration and development.”

Dahl said the moratorium has allowed scientists to study the risks and impacts mining could have on the environment, and has led to interesting discoveries about the watershed.

WASHINGTON – The federal government may not have a stellar track record when it comes to keeping promises with Native Americans, but tribal leaders in Arizona said they think President-elect Joe Biden could be the exception.

Their hopes were reinforced last week when Biden nominated a Native woman, Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., to be secretary of Interior. If approved, she would be the first Native American Cabinet secretary.

Reaction from Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr., who welcomed “the historic nomination of Congresswoman Haaland,” was typical of tribal responses.

“She will bring a unique and long overdue perspective to the department, as well as a fierce determination to protect our environment and the rights of indigenous people,” Norris said in a statement Friday. “The Nation urges the Senate to quickly hold hearings and approve her nomination so she can get to work right away.”

Native leaders are optimistic because of Biden’s “track record with Indian Country,” from the integral part he played in the Obama administration, to his work with his wife, Jill, to help open the first cancer clinic on the Navajo Nation, to his campaign pledge to “strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship” with tribes.

“I was a tribal leader during the … Obama-Biden administration and we had the key to the White House, we had a seat at the table,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. “Based on that, I see that same approach being done this time.”

Whatever a Biden administration delivers, leaders said it “will be very, very different than what we’ve expected of the current administration.”

Navajo environmental advocate Carol Davis echoed Nez, saying that she’s optimistic about a Biden administration but that it will be starting in a hole left by the Trump administration.

“I do have confidence in the Biden administration, I just don’t think it will be easy when he’ll have the added challenges of repairing the damages left by this administration,” said Davis, noting that Biden may also have to deal with a Senate still in Republican hands.

“It will take 500 days to accomplish what previous incoming presidents accomplished in 100 days,” said Davis, executive director of Diné C.A.R.E. (Citizens Against Ruining our Environment).

Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said that while tribal leaders try to work with every administration, he looks forward to partnering with an administration where tribal consultation is “not a check-the-box exercise.”

He and other leaders and advocates cited a number of Biden-Harris policy priorities for tribal nations they said were in step with their own priorities. But their number one reason for hope was the first priority on Biden’s platform: “strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship.”

“In a nutshell … that’s what I’m excited about,” Lewis said. “What I look forward to is a true partner in the federal government relationship – that government-to-government relationship – from the White House all the way to Indian Country.”

The support for a Biden administration is not surprising, considering that Native Americans have long been a reliable Democratic voting bloc.

“Voters on the Tohono O’odham Nation and other Arizona tribes made their voices heard loud and clear in the 2020 presidential election,” Norris said in a statement. “We look forward to a cooperative and respectful relationship with the Biden administration.”

Nez said he’s “seen a glimpse of how they keep their promises.” Lewis echoed the sentiment.

“What I expect from a Biden-Harris administration is to take those formats that were developed during the Obama administration … and build on them and improve upon them and strengthen them,” Lewis said.

Along with Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women Act – which includes provisions for tribes to prosecute non-Native domestic violence offenders – Lewis pointed to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ experience enforcing the Indian Child Welfare Act as attorney general in California, which has a large Native American population.

Biden has already pledged to reinstate the White House Tribal Nations Conference – a convening of tribal and federal leaders started by President Barack Obama that has not been held since President Donald Trump took office.

Davis welcomed that step, but said it will take more than one meeting a year to understand tribal needs.

“I think they really do need to build a relationship, but not just with the tribal leaders,” she said, adding that tribal consent should extend to the community level and include non-governmental organizations.

“We want BLM (the Bureau of Land Management) to come out into the communities and hold a public hearing,” she said, a type of outreach that “was very lacking in the last four years.”

That’s why she was so encouraged by the nomination of Haaland, who she thinks will be an “ideal” Interior secretary.

“Protecting our natural resources and public lands are responsibilities that are ingrained into Indigenous peoples. I believe Rep. Haaland has an inherent understanding of the duties and responsibilities the position requires, and because of this, she will excel,” Davis said.

While they like what they have seen so far, tribal leaders said there is much more they hope to see from a Biden administration, with health care at the top of the list.

Lewis said immediate COVID-19 relief is “mission critical” for the U.S., but particularly for tribal areas that have been hit hard by the pandemic. But he said tribal efforts have been thwarted by a lack of federal leadership on the issue.

COVID-19 is not the only health care problem in Indian Country, and officials welcomed Biden’s acknowledgment that “the Indian Health Service (IHS) has been underfunded for decades” and “consistently faces the uncertainty of the federal budget process.” He has pledged to increase and stabilize IHS funding.

As with COVID-19, Nez said infrastructure is both a tribal and a national issue.

“For us on Navajo, the focus is on infrastructure. Water, electricity, broadband and, of course, better roads, repairing bridges,” he said. “And I think that’s the commonality throughout this country and I think that’s where we can start. We can start there to unite this country and move forward.”

Davis, who said the extraction of natural resources has made “the Navajo Nation … a sacrifice zone,” agreed with Nez that infrastructure should be a priority. While she thought the Biden-Harris platform could have been more detailed, she liked that it provided for small business development incentives, technical assistance for tribes, communication infrastructure development and a “just and equitable transition” toward clean energy.

But “the first thing we would like to see is reversal of the executive orders … that gutted parts of the Environmental Protection Act,” Davis said. She noted that this is something Biden could do without congressional approval.

Norris points to Trump administration orders that allowed the Department of Homeland Security to “unilaterally waive environmental and cultural protection laws when building border barriers,” specifically the border wall slicing right through Tohono O’odham lands.

“We must also have an immediate end to construction of President Trump’s failed border wall, which has desecrated our sacred sites,” Norris’ statement said. “We will work with the Biden administration and Congress on action to ensure this can never happen again.”

Tribal leaders said they hope Biden taps “the best and brightest, the most qualified Native Americans” for high-level jobs for his administration. That would be a start in building their trust in the federal government, which is notoriously low: 96% of Native Americans distrust the federal government, according to a recent survey.

Nez called the Haaland nomination a step in the right direction, thanking the “Biden-Harris team for making a statement and keeping their word to place Native Americans in high-level Cabinet positions.” But that doesn’t mean a Democratic administration should take Native Americans for granted, he said.

“We just got to remind those that got elected that we did assist them in this way (voting) and Native Americans in the past have contributed great things to this country,” Nez said.

Lewis said Biden’s election has reenergized his community, but the excitement comes with high expectations.

“It will take time,” Lewis said of Biden’s ability to follow through on his promises.

Nez said just having Biden and Harris in the White House is a start.

“I think this country needs inspirational leaders that will heal this country and move forward and to unite all peoples,” he said. “We’re looking forward to that.”

Even Davis – with her more cautious outlook – said of the Biden-Harris administration, “I have faith that they will try.”