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NEW YORK (AP) — Miguel Guimaraes Vasquez fought for years to protect his homeland in the Peruvian Amazon from deforestation related to the cocaine trade, even laboring under death threats from drug traffickers.

OTTAWA — The federal minister of Indigenous services says she and the other Indigenous members of cabinet support their party's plan to fast-track infrastructure development — despite significant pushback from First Nations leaders.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday signed a new law to expand the country’s affirmative action policies, increasing the quota for government jobs reserved for Blacks from 20% to 30% and adding Indigenous people a

PRINCE ALBERT — As Manitoba grapples with wildfires that have forced more than 17,000 people from their homes, the premier of Saskatchewan said Tuesday the situation is becoming just as dire in his province.

QUÉBEC — Representatives of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador urged a provincial legislature committee on Tuesday to abandon a forestry reform bill that would reserve large swaths of the province's forests for logging.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Timberwolves have plenty of reason to run back the same roster after reaching the Western Conference finals for the second straight time .

Winnipeg hotels were opening up Monday to evacuees who fled their homes due to raging wildfires, while to the west in Saskatchewan thousands more were ordered to flee.

OTTAWA — The former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is calling for an emergency meeting of chiefs to come up with demands for Canada's governments as they look to fast-track projects they see as in the "national interest.

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government is pushing through a controversial mining bill despite the protests of several hundred First Nations members who came from the far north to the front lawn of Queen's Park on Monday.

OTTAWA — The new Crown-Indigenous relations minister says there's a "critical" need to build up First Nations infrastructure — but that work won't qualify for the federal government's push to fast-track what it calls "nation-building" projects.