Protestors raise their fists in solidarity with a group from the Saginaw Chippewa Reservation in Mount Pleasant, Michigan as they enter an encampment. North Dakota’s governor activated 100 National Guard troops on Thursday ahead of an expected ruling by a federal judge on a Native American tribe’s request to halt construction of a crude oil pipeline that has drawn fierce opposition and protests. The $3.7 billion, 1,100-mile (1,770 km) Dakota Access pipeline would carry oil from just north of land owned by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to Illinois, where it would hook up to an existing pipeline and route crude directly to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast. The line would be the first to allow movement of crude oil from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The project has sparked violent […]