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Settlement talks set in Indian lawsuitBISMARCK, N.D. (AP)--A federal judge has approved settlement talks in a decade-old discrimination lawsuit filed by American Indians against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Both sides asked Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington for 60 days of settlement talks. Sullivan moved a status hearing that had been scheduled for Dec. 9 to Feb. 10. The lawsuit contends Indian farmers and ranchers lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the past three decades because of discrimination in lending by the USDA's Farm Service Agency. It was filed in 1999 by a couple who ranch on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddling the North Dakota-South Dakota state line. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said last month that the department was committed to resolving litigation. Attorneys for both sides had no immediate comment Dec. 8.
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