The Obama administration stepped into a dispute on Friday over a planned oil pipeline in North Dakota that has angered Native Americans, appealing for calm while blocking construction on federal land and asking the company behind the project to suspend work nearby.
The Standing Rock Sioux, whose tribal lands are a half-mile south of the proposed route, say the pipeline would desecrate sacred burial and prayer sites, and could leak oil into the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers, on which the tribe relies for water.
A coalition of oil, business and labor entities from the states the pipeline would cross said the halt could threaten the jobs of thousands of workers.
Last weekend, the protests turned violent as demonstrators breached a wire fence and were confronted by security officers and guard dogs…
