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Anchor: Antonia Gonzales

Democrat Mary Peltola (Yup’ik) learned Wednesday that she’s won Alaska’s special election for U.S. House and will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.

“Yeah, I will have that distinction but I think what’s most important is that I’m an Alaskan and sent to represent all Alaskans. And yes, being Alaska Native is part of my ethnicity, but I’m much more than my ethnicity.”

The Bethel resident is a former state House representative from rural western Alaska. She is the former director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

Her region is heavily dependent on salmon, but is suffering another year of abysmal returns.

With 51.5% of the vote in the state’s first ranked choice election, she defeated former Gov. Sarah Palin who was three percentage points behind.

The term she’s won ends in January.

Peltola will have to beat Palin again in November for the next House term.

University of North Dakota President Andrew Armacost has apologized to Native communities and expressed regret that the university has the remains of ancestors and sacred objects.

In March, faculty and staff approached him with information that they found hundreds of containers of sacred items during the course of their work on campus.

They also found human remains believed to be partial skeletal remains from dozens of individuals.

After the discovery, the university reached out to tribal nation.

The university has now been collaborating with more than a dozen tribes for more than four months to make sure repatriation efforts are handled properly.

During a press conference Wednesday, Armacost took responsibility for the university’s mistakes and committed to tribes that they’ll work diligently until all ancestors and sacred items are returned home.

He says they also want to make sure Native Americans on campus have support.

“The awareness of this work will allow us to have open conversations with the students, faculty and staff at UND about the importance of repatriation and our commitment to see it through. Yesterday, we held two open sessions for our American Indian campus members. The first was with faculty and staff the second was with students. Please know this is a traumatic time for them.”

Counseling services are available on campus.

Laine Lyons, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, is a member of the repatriation committee.

“We are so grateful for the help, guidance and trust we have been given by so many. At the start of this process we felt anger, hurt, sadness, however we can now feel a sense of relief and hope because our ancestors will be returned to their rightful place and that’s home.”

The university plans to hire cultural resource consultants to help with the process and is working with government agencies to make sure they follow federal law. The repatriation work could take years.

A champion archer is competing in Italy for the U.S. and the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Chickasaw citizen Shiloh Butts is competing in the Rinehart World Archery 3D Championships.

Shooting in the bi-annual event has been a goal he’s pursued for the last four years.

He’ll be one of 24 Americans representing the United States. The event kicks off September 4.

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A bill to create a system to notify the public when an Indigenous person goes missing was approved Tuesday by California state lawmakers.

The “Feather Alert” (AB 1314) bill was introduced by Native State Rep. James Ramos (D-CA).

The bill is intended to help get the word out as fast as possible when an individual is missing or endangered.

Creating an alert system was a recommendation from tribal leaders. The bill creates the Endangered Missing Advisory (EMA) when a Native American is at risk.

Currently, law enforcement agencies use the EMA system to investigate when a child or at-risk person goes missing.

The system asks for immediate information from the public to help in a swift recovery.

Here’s Rep. Ramos talking about the bill this summer at the state capitol in Sacramento.

“The rates of murdered and missing people in Native American communities is a shameful state and national tragedy that does not receive the scrutiny and attention it deserves. We are excited about this alert system, but even more excited about the growing momentum the momentum to tackle this issue not only from Indian Country by non-Native people, the California Highway Patrol, as well as the state legislature.”

California has the greatest population of Native Americans in the nation. And Rep. Ramos says the state also has the highest rates of reported cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people pointing to a number of studies.

The bill to create the alert system is expected to head to the governor’s desk this week.

Navajo Nation officials recently held a public forum to address the continued impacts of radiation exposure on tribal lands in the Southwest.

As Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports, Congress recently extended a federal compensation program for people known as downwinders.

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation updated attendees on the status of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

President Joe Biden signed a two-year extension of the law this summer just before it was set to expire.

Officials say it’ll allow more time for lawmakers to craft a long-term version of the law designed to last until 2040.

Tribal officials want the updated program to cover more diseases, and a broader array of workers and residents along with raising the amount of compensation.

At the forum, leaders also heard from tribal members who described the harmful impacts of radiation exposure on themselves, their families, and communities.

For more than three decades, RECA has awarded one-time payments to people who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site or worked in the uranium industry from 1942 to 1971.

Tribal leaders and others say the legacy of uranium mining on tribal lands has been devastating as many downwinders have developed cancers and other debilitating health problems.

The U.S. government conducted nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests between the end of World War II and the early 1960s.

Tens of thousands of workers, including many tribal members, mined and processed uranium for the program and were unknowingly exposed to large amounts of radiation.

The Institute of American Indian Arts is hosting a celebration of New Mexico’s Indigenous comedians on September 16 in Santa Fe.

It’s being held as the CloudTop Comedy Festival takes place during the week.

CloudTop is a nonprofit organization promoting world-class and up-and-coming comics.

It provides professional support, workshops, networking, and the annual festival.

Four Indigenous comedians will be taking part in the event.

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Higher education advocates for Native students say President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program will help Native students, but doesn’t address long-standing financial obstacles.

As Aaron Bolton reports, Biden recently announced that people under certain incomes will have up to $20,000 of their student loans forgiven.

Dave Sanders is the vice president of research at the American Indian College Fund, which provides scholarships for Native students.

He says loan forgiveness will help many students go back to school if they never finished and make it plausible for many to accomplish other life goals like buying a house. But it doesn’t resolve the disproportionate barriers Native students face.

“So, you’re still going to have issues of access as well as issues of affordability going through the system.”

A recent report compiled by Native scholarship funds found that Indigenous students drop out of college at nearly double the rate as their peers in part because they can’t afford tuition and other basic needs like housing and food.

Among many possible solutions listed in that report, Sanders says schools could help Indigenous students pay for things like books or waive various fees for housing and health care. He adds the federal government could find ways to offer more grants to help students cover those basic costs.

Navajo Nation officials are offering condolences to the family of Kiarra Gordon who was killed in an accident over the weekend.

The 17-year-old was among students on a field trip.

On their return home, their bus was rear ended by a semi-truck on Interstate 40 in Arizona.

Six other students were reportedly injured in the crash.

Funeral services for Gordon are pending.

The tribe is offering counseling services this week for students, teachers, and staff.

Alaska experiences some of the highest rates of suicide in the nation. Hannah Bissett from our sister station KNBA reports on a prevention program focused on young people.

In Alaska, a large community of people are trying to bring awareness and decrease suicide rates by holding educational meetings, events, and presenting in schools to teach the youth about the warning signs of someone that may be suicidal.

Bill Pagaran is Tlingit and Filipino and works as a president of a nonprofit in Palmer, AK called Carry the Cure.

Pagaran says that the idea of Carry the Cure was created after he played with a symphony in a village school in northern Alaska.

After the music stopped, the principal of the school told the students to go up to the musicians.

Many of the children came up to Pagaran, who played the drums.

“Until I gained healing until I embraced who I was as a child in god, as a Tlingit until I embraced those things, it was just, ‘What could I do?’… and I just thought, gosh, if there was any way that I could bring hope for kids like me, kids like I met in that village, other people around the world, if there was anyway I could bring hope so that they could live another day.”

He created the nonprofit to tie spiritual, cultural, and clinical practices of healing to help save youth.

He also says a large part of the mission is to visit every village in Alaska with their Committed to Life suicide prevention program.

“Our main program is a suicide prevention program for the public, school assembly, and public presentations called Committed to Life. So we give people reasons to live. That’s the whole deal, giving people hope. Giving them practical tools, clinical tools, cultural tools, spiritual tools, reasons to commit to life”

The Committed to Life program is structured to be fun and full of games.

According to Pagaran, it is like a “Native-style ‘Tonight Show.’” In the presentations, there are Indigenous dancers from many cultures including Yupik and Cree.

“We use that as a way in saying, ‘This is who we are’ and it’s important to embrace that as apart as our message in committing to life”

After the dancing, he starts a presentation on addressing identity.

During the presentation, many illustrations drive home the message of identity.

When the presentation ends, participants make a vow of Commitment to Life.

“We just make this verbal commitment to make a commitment to life. It goes like this: ‘We make a commitment to life and pursue my purpose. Whether times are good or bad, whether I have money or not. Even when I’m sick. When I am alone or lonely, I choose life.’”

Other non-profit organizations work to educate the public of various tools, recognizing warning signs, and reduce suicide rates in Indigenous youth in Alaska.

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The state of Utah is suing the Biden administration for restoring the size of two national monuments reduced by former President Donald Trump.

In a joint statement, Utah’s political leaders say the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments are simply too big to be properly managed by the federal government, and that they draw unmanageable numbers of visitors.

They further allege Biden’s move does not comply with the Antiquities Act, which states that land protected by the law should be “confined to the smallest area” necessary for the care and management of the land.

The Hill reports groups allied with the administration argue presidents have historically used the law to protect important landscapes such as the Grand Canyon, and that the monuments need to be preserved and protected from threats like oil and gas extraction.

The state’s Attorney General filed the suit on behalf of Governor Spencer Cox, other state officials and the entire congressional delegation.

President Trump reduced the monuments by more than 2 million combined acres in 2017.  Biden then restored the original boundaries a year into his presidency.

He referenced tribal rights when restoring the areas, calling Bears Ears a place of healing that is “revered” and “sacred” to several tribes.

The Biden administration signed a historic cooperative agreement with five tribes to co-manage the monuments.

Photo: Corey Coyle

Tribal gaming has rebounded substantially despite the continuing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing in a record $39 billion of revenue in 2021.

That’s according to numbers from the National Indian Gaming Commission. It’s up 13% over 2019, and 40% over 2020, marking a record single year increase.

In a press release, NIGC says all areas showed some positive growth since reopening after pandemic-related closures brought on the largest decrease of revenue on record.

But the NIGC recognized the industry rebounded strongest on the coasts, and that rural tribes are still struggling to get back on their feet.

NIGC chairman Seqouah Simermeyer says the organization will continue to provide support to struggling tribes, offering training and applying regulatory lessons that have worked in other areas.

Tribal gaming accounts for more than 40 percent of all gaming revenue nationally, which comes to $92 billion total.

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are celebrating the return of burial lands.

Danielle Kaeding reports nearly 200 Ojibwe graves were removed from the burial grounds on a strip of land in Lake Superior.

The tribe settled on the sandbar stretching nearly three miles along Lake Superior as early as 400 years ago.

By the mid-19th century, Chief Joseph Osaugie was leading a small but thriving community there. But, in 1918, Osaugie descendant and Superior native Lorrie Madden says the community and the remains of her ancestors were wrongfully removed.

“They took 198 graves and they moved them by scow down the Nemadji River to St. Francis Cemetery where then they put them into graves there.”

The remains were reburied elsewhere to make way for U.S. Steel’s plans to put up ore docks that were never built. And the removal was paid for with federal funds intended to benefit tribal members.

Now, the city of Superior has returned the tribe’s sacred burial sites.

Fond du Lac Tribal Chairman Kevin Dupuis searched for words to capture the feeling of the moment.

“I just want to go in the woods. I think I should be at Wisconsin Point right now, or St. Francis Cemetery, telling them that what we did.”

Now, Dupuis says their people can finally be left to rest.

The last member of an uncontacted Indigenous group in Brazil has died.

Authorities found his body in a hammock outside a straw hut. Officials say it appears he died of natural causes.

The BBC reports the man’s name is not known but outsiders referred to him as the Man of the Hole because he was known to dig large holes to hide in or to capture animals.

He had not been contacted by outsiders for nearly three decades but officials monitored his whereabouts for his own safety.

He was the last of a group whose other six remaining members were killed in 1995, presumably by ranchers, miners, or loggers wanting to expand their land.

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Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez confirms the first case of monkeypox on the reservation. The infected person  lives in McKinley county, NM.

A press release says vaccines for the virus are expected to come in next week.

Health officials recommended vaccines only for people who have had close contact with someone who is infected, or for those especially at risk.

President Nez established a Monkeypox Preparedness Team in July that has been monitoring, planning, and coordinating precautionary steps in advance of the virus’s arrival.

It can take between five to 21 days for symptoms to develop, which start with muscle aches, fever and exhaustion, before a rash develops. Those who test positive should isolate and contact their doctor.

A federal ethics investigation concluded former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his chief of staff lied during an investigation into the department’s decision to block two tribes from opening a casinos.

The report, released Wednesday, says the Office of the Inspector General found Zinke spoke with a senator from Nevada, consultants, and lobbyists for a rival casino before deciding to block the tribes’ application.

When questioned by the OIG, however, Zinke denied speaking with anyone other than staff at the Interior Department.

The Montana Free Press says the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes wanted to open a casino in Connecticut on non-reservation land, which would require approval from Interior.

But the report says Zinke chose to return the application to the tribes, saying the decision was not within his jurisdiction.

The report focused on whether or not Zinke and his Chief of Staff Scott Hommel accurately described the influences on their decision.

This report comes on the heels of a similar one released in February that found Zinke had also misled investigators about a personal real estate deal with the chairman of oil giant Halliburton in Whitefish, MT.

Zinke is running for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives for Montana this November and denied any wrongdoing in a response from his lawyers.

He also asked the OIG to not release the findings until after the election.

His lawyers say the timing of the OIG report is nothing more than a political smear.

Photo: Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe

A federal appeals court ruling says Wisconsin can’t force tribal members to pay property taxes on reservation land that once fell out of tribal hands.

Danielle Kaeding reports the court ruled the state can’t tax tribal members on reservation lands that have changed hands without clear approval from Congress.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by four tribes in 2018 against the state and around a dozen towns.

The case was brought by the Red Cliff, Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, and Lac Courte Oreilles tribes.

Lac du Flambeau Tribal President John Johnson Senior says the ruling is a big deal as tribes buy back lands.

“For us here on the reservation, it might be two or three years of taxes, some of the time 10-15 years of taxes that we’re paying on this land before the BIA gets it put back in the Trust for us. So that’s going to be a money saver for my tribe.”

The tribes argued the 1854 treaty that set up their reservations provides tribal members immunity from taxation for all time.

The state maintains it could tax lands on reservations if they were ever sold to non-tribal members.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers says they’re reviewing the decision.

The state has 90 days from the ruling to decide whether to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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For the first time since it was established 43 years ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has developed a strategy to provide better assistance, and to better address its responsibilities to federally recognized tribes.

In an open letter to tribal leaders, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell recognized that tribal nations have been underserved in the past, and said the new strategy is “a significant milestone” for improving the agency’s relationship with all 574 recognized tribes.

The plan includes training for tribal governments, face-to-face consultations on natural disaster and climate change preparedness, resources, and funding for hazard mitigation planning and has earmarked 50 million dollars in grants to help tribes ready themselves for climate change.

According to a press release, the strategy was developed with extensive input from tribal representatives who met with the agency numerous times earlier this year to provide feedback on what exactly they need from the agency.

According to research from the National Congress of American Indians, tribes received on average nine times less in disaster recovery grants than other segments of the US, and have historically been disproportionately affected by natural disasters.

The Navajo Nation is one step closer to legalizing marriage equality.

A bill sponsored by delegate Eugene Tso would repeal the 2005 Dine Marriage Act that banned same-sex unions.

The new language extends recognition to all marriages.

At their regularly scheduled meeting on August 15, the Navajo Council’s Law and Order committee passed the resolution.

The Navajo Times reports the bill now goes to the Budget and Finance committee.

The Times says the legislation has to pass through that committee and one other before finally reaching the Navajo Nation Council for vote.

If passed would make the Navajo Nation only the 41st federally recognized tribe to recognize same-sex marriage.

Navajo Nation Pride Program Director Josie Raphaelito told committee members the bill is about more than just the right to get married.

She said if the measure passes it would send a clear message of support to LGBTQ+ Navajo citizens, which could help to reduce suicide rates.

Raphealito says the bill will also guarantee the rights that come along with marriage that are often overlooked in these discussions such as “the right to be next to our loved ones in the hospital…The right to access health care as a spouse…and the right to create a family.”

“The bill was originally set in motion in April, but was pulled for revisions in May. The new bill was introduced in July, and is expected to make it through committee to the council by the end of the year.”

As the school year starts around the country, Indian Health Service officials are on a push to encourage parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.

IHS Chief Medical Officer Loretta Christensen (Navajo) says the vaccine is proven safe and effective for children six months and older.

She says some parents remain wary of the vaccine so it’s often up to Native health professionals to address each person’s hesitancy.

“And maybe people are afraid of specific things. You have to drill that down and see what the problem is, what the fear is and what information might persuade someone to get the vaccine.”

Christensen says the risk of hospitalizations is three times higher for Native Americans and Alaska Natives than white populations. IHS says death rates for COVID are almost double.

Christensen insists the vaccines are safe with at least two million doses distributed to Native people with only minor side effects in most cases. And, Christensen says, parents shouldn’t stop at COVID vaccines.

“What happened during COVID, we kind of disrupted our normal rhythm of getting the basic vaccinations to our kids and we certainly don’t want them vulnerable to preventable diseases.”

Christensen says health providers can offer guidance on which types of vaccines are most appropriate for each individual.

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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently traveled to northwest Montana to celebrate the first expansion of the National Wildlife Refuge System under the Biden Administration.

Aaron Bolton has more on the Lost Trail Conservation Area.

The ceremony started with a song by Vernon Finley of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The Lost Trail Conservation Area is part of the CSKT’s traditional territory.

Both tribal and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials were on hand to celebrate the new conservation area, which will preserve public access to 38,000 acres of private lands to start. That protection can be expanded up to nearly three times that size through future land easement purchases.

The conservation area neighbor’s the existing Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge.

Sec. Haaland commended efforts to establish the newest addition of the National Wildlife Refuge System, which protects public access to millions of acres of wildlands nationwide.

“Today’s celebration is the culmination of a 20-year locally led effort to conserve important big game corridors and recreational areas in this region.”

She added the area will also conserve endangered and threatened species like grizzly bears.

The Navajo Nation is set to receive its first supply of monkeypox vaccines this week.

The tribe advocated for the vaccine as part of preparedness efforts.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez talked about the vaccine Tuesday during a virtual town hall.

“We sent a letter to the White House, to the Department of Health and Human Services, letting them know we need to have the vaccines for monkeypox as soon as possible. And within a couple of weeks, we got the answer from the federal government and the White House. Just the same thing we did with COVID-19, we advocated heavily we sent a letter and we got the vaccines. No confirmed cases here on the Navajo Nation of monkeypox, we just need to be safe.”

Nez says the tribe wants to keep monkeypox out and will be using the same protocols for monkeypox as they do for COVID-19, which include a number of public health emergency orders.

The Navajo Nation was hit hard by COVID-19.

Capt. Brian Johnson with the Navajo Area Indian Health Service says the arrival of vaccines were an important part of efforts to fight COVID-19, and says the arrival of monkeypox vaccines will help the Navajo Nation be prepared.

“We’ll know we’ll have that protective measure of having the JYNNEOS vaccine here onsite, which is very important for us. Local providers with all the tribal health care organizations, the Indian Health Service, the providers will be the ones to work with patients and determine who might be at most need of those early vaccines, if needed.”

The tribe is also preparing for COVID boosters, which will be ready for the fall and winter season.

Unofficial results from Oklahoma’s Tuesday primary election show U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) won his party’s runoff for a U.S. Senate seat.

Rep. Mullin (Cherokee) was first elected to serve Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District in 2012.

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Native advocates are defending the Indian Child Welfare Act, intended to keep Native children with Native families, as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear challenges to the decades-old law this fall.

Eric Galatas spoke to an advocate in Nebraska who says the Indian Child Welfare Act is still needed today.

The ACLU of Nebraska has joined a national brief filed in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the 1978 law passed by Congress aiming to stop harmful assimilation practices separating Native American children from their families and tribes.

Misty Flowers with the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition says the Indian Child Welfare Act is still very much needed, in part to help kids maintain their cultural identities.

“We see a lot of times that those that don’t have a strong cultural identity have higher rates of substance abuse, mental-health issues, suicide rates. And it’s kind of all connected with those assimilation policies and historical trauma.”

The ACLU is urging the high court to uphold the constitutionality of the Act, which requires state courts to help keep Native families together.

Before its passage, some 35% of Native children were being removed from their homes, from intact families, with 85% placed in non-Native homes.

A U.S. appeals court invalidated portions of the act, in a Texas adoption case, for imposing duties on states.

The brief also calls on the Supreme Court to uphold the centuries-long legal precedent of tribal sovereignty, including tribes’ right to preserve their unique cultural identities, raise their own children and govern themselves.

The Indian Child Welfare Act also establishes preferences for placing adopted Native children in Native homes. Flowers, quoting her social worker mother, says Native children will always find their way home.

“It’s like an innate human need to have that connection with your family and your tribe, especially when you look different than other people that are around you.”

Yellowstone National Park is hosting a range of Indigenous events for its 150th anniversary.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Taylar Stagner has more on the historic collaboration between tribal nations and the park.

Yellowstone Revealed August 23-28 was planned for and by Indigenous people.

The week will include guided tours of Indigenously significant areas in the park as well as art and live musical performances.

Franchesca Pine-Rodriguez is with Mountain Time Arts in Bozeman, MT.

She says the 150th anniversary is a celebration, but the Indigenous nations of the land have another relationship with the park’s birthday.

“It’s a reminder of being removed from an area that we traditionally inhabited. So that is something that we are not celebrating. But when we think about everything that our people have been through, and, you know, it’s just a miracle that we are still here.”

Pine-Rodriguez hopes to continue the relationship with the park in furthering the discussion on Indigenous input in management and conservation.

Yellowstone National Park says there are 27 Indigenous tribes who have historical and contemporary ties to the land.

The first tipi village in the park in 150 years is part of the festivities.

Three Michigan tribes have donated proceeds from a missing and murdered Indigenous people march to two domestic violence relief shelters.

This year, the Michigan Potawatomi Tribes joined together to honor missing and murdered Native women and girls during an event in Grand Rapids.

They recently donated 100% of funds raised (more than $4,000) from the sale of masks and t-shirts from the event to tribal domestic violence shelters in the area.

It’s part of efforts to help address violence in tribal communities.

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The Montana Supreme Court has found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be held liable for a sexual assault committed by one of its officers on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

Aaron Bolton has more.

According to court documents, in 2015 BIA officer Dana Bullcoming threatened to jail a women for violating local alcohol laws at her home, and used that threat to pressure her for sex.

Bullcoming was later convicted for the assault, but the woman, known only as LB, later filed a civil suit for damages.

The judge in that case did award some damages, but found that the BIA can’t be held liable as the assault was out of Bullcoming’s official duties.

Both federal district and appeals courts agreed, but the case was then passed to the Montana State Supreme Court last year.

Montana’s highest court found that Bullcoming used his official capacity to coerce someone into sex, that the BIA can be held liable.

A Native woman won the Democratic nomination in Wyoming’s primary last week for U.S. House and will face Republican Harriet Hageman, Congresswoman Liz Cheney lost her seat.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Taylar Stagner reports.

Lynette Grey Bull won the Democratic Party’s nomination for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat.

Grey Bull won the nomination in 2020 against Cheney as well. She says she’s ready to fight for the seat again.

“It’s definitely a David and Goliath type of campaign.”

Grey Bull is Northern Arapaho and resides on the Wind River Reservation. She wants to use her platform to shed light on the importance of renewable energy and social issues.

“I want to gear my campaign towards values, family values, values that concern humanity, values that concern the marginalized communities such as the Indigenous community and the LGBTQ Two Spirit community.”

Grey Bull says it’s important to her to give voters in Wyoming a choice, and Hageman is spreading misinformation about former president Donald Trump winning the 2020 election.

The two will go against each other in November.

The Canadian government has agreed to release Catholic entities from their pledge to raise $25 million for residential school survivors.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Indigenous leaders and some legal experts are questioning the decision.

The deal was made in 2015, but was not widely publicized.

It meant Ottawa, under the previous Conservative government, agreed to forever discharge 48 Catholic church entities from paying the $25 million in compensation to residential school survivors, a commitment that was made in 2006. It also agreed to pick up their legal bill.

The Catholic Church raised only $4 million and is off the hook the remainder.

At least one Indigenous leader says the request to discharge the pledge came from the Catholic Church after it said it couldn’t raise the money.

Percy Lezard is with the Indigenous studies program at Wilfrid Laurier University.

“It undermines the labor of 6,000 folks who were brave enough under the conditions of colonialism to come forward and share their experiences and the 126 years of Indian residential schools.”

Indigenous leaders have questioned why the Canadian government gave up its appeal of a court decision in which Catholic entities were let off the hook for paying their remaining financial obligations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.

Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller had said he would find out why the government abandoned its appeal.

He has hinted that he’s open to a review of the 2015 decision, but some Native leaders say it’s unlikely that Ottawa can compel the Catholic entities to meet their financial obligations.

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Rapid City’s Lakota immersion program appears to have folded for the coming school year.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene has more.

Rapid City school board members heard concerns at a Tuesday meeting about whether the district can sustain an existing Lakota immersion program. The board took no official vote, however a lack of qualified teaching candidates for open positions appears to mean an end to the program – for now.

Nicole Swigart is the interim CEO for Rapid City Area Schools. She says there are two options.

“If we were going to be able to move forward with the program, or if we would need to shutter it for one year and work hard to reset and determine where we were falling flat on the recruiting process.”

Some parents involved with the program disagree. Val Big Eagle is the chair of a local parent advisory committee.

“I know there were qualified candidates that applied, and for whatever reason, they’re unable to get on.”

Another member of the parent advisory committee is Amy Sazue. She says there is a lack of trust.

“I don’t know about the new school board, but I do not trust Rapid City’s administration to do the work that’s needed to make this happen again, or to sustain it. I do not trust them. I’m happy to see the additions to the school board and hope they jump in fast and learn the history this district has had with Title VI, with parents, with Indigenous people, and that they educate themselves on that and why this is important.”

During the meeting some, but not all school board members offered a commitment to keep the district’s Lakota immersion program.

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) is celebrating 100 years of its Santa Fe Indian Market. People from all over the world are traveling to Santa Fe, NM for the event.

SWAIA Executive Director Kimberly Peone looks back on how the Indian market has grown.

“I can always reflect back to the 60s and 70s when my parents were participating in market and how small the footprint was and intimate it was and that’s a vast difference from this event we put on now. It’s over 650 booths and there’s lots of different people and it really is a big event and so you have to make an effort to meet everybody and to have that opportunity to say I touched you, but I think that to me is one of the things I’m in awe of just how big Indian market is.”

Artists are featuring their latest creative works and competing in best of show.

There are also Indigenous fashion shows, cultural performances and much more to see at the much anticipated event.

“Looking at what SWAIA is doing in reference to Indian art, it really has been one that artists come to that with living culture and really share who they are and where they come from and expresses that. Also, I think that the art that we’re seeing really reflects on the times that we’re at. We’re known to record history through art and you can definitely see that occurring and of course the competition people just really excelling at their best and competing against one another in a very healthy way. So, I think there’s lots of opportunities.”

The Santa Fe Indian Market takes place Saturday and Sunday in downtown Santa Fe.

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