The Latest: Journalist covering pipeline protest charged

The Latest on the dispute over the Dakota Access pipeline, a thousand-mile pipeline under construction to carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois (all times local):

9:05 a.m.

A broadcast journalist reporting on a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline has been charged with criminal trespassing in North Dakota, a misdemeanor that an international watchdog says should be dropped.

Court records show Amy Goodman, the host of independent news program "Democracy Now," was charged Thursday and a warrant for her arrest was issued in Morton County.

Carlos Lauria is senior program coordinator for the Americas with the Committee to Protect Journalists. Lauria says the warrant is "a transparent attempt to intimidate reporters from covering protests of significant public interest."

The Bismarck Tribune reports that court documents show the New York-based Goodman was charged based on video footage of a protest on private property during Labor Day weekend.

Goodman reported on a clash between private security guards and protesters.

___

8:50 a.m.

The company developing the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline says it is committed to the project, despite strong opposition and a federal order to halt construction near an American Indian reservation in North Dakota.

Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren said in a memo to employees Tuesday that the four-state project is nearly 60 percent complete and that "concerns about the pipeline's impact on the local water supply are unfounded."

The 1,172-mile project would carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota is suing federal regulators for approving the oil pipeline, arguing it will harm water supplies and disturb sacred burial and cultural sites.