Credit: (File photo: Vandana Ravikumar, Cronkite News)

Greetings, relatives.

A lot of news out there. Thanks for stopping by ICT’s digital platform.

Each day we do our best to gather the latest news for you. Remember to scroll to the bottom to see what’s popping out to us on social media and what we’re reading.

Also, if you like our daily digest, sign up for The Weekly, our newsletter emailed to you on Thursdays. If you like what we do and want us to keep going, support and donate here.

Okay, here’s what you need to know today:

WASHINGTON — The latest victory of the Supreme Court case, San Carlos Apache Tribe v. Becerra, has been a long time coming for Lloyd Miller.

Miller has been deeply invested in strengthening the Indian Self-Determination Act since the 1980s. For more than a decade, he worked on the Hill to craft amendments to the act that later became law. In 2002, his work shifted to litigation and forcing the federal government to comply with the statutes.

“It’s not just a 20-year battle over those three cases, but more like a 30-year battle to work with members of Congress to write the laws and then litigate,” Miller told ICT. “It’s been a lot of fun.”

He continues to work with tribes to defend or implement the law nearly four decades later. Miller is a partner at Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, a law firm that only represents Native American tribes or tribes’ interest. READ MORE — Pauly Denetclaw, ICT

SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. CONTRIBUTE TODAY

Climate change is having profound effects on the Indigenous peoples of North America. Take Arizona, as an example. The temperature in Phoenix nearly hit 120 degrees this month and has been hovering around 90 degrees for a low. June wasn’t much cooler, and summer 2024 is already rivaling last summer’s brutal heat dome that covered parts of Arizona.

Multiple tribes live in the Phoenix Valley and the city itself has a high Native population, most from one of the 22 federally recognized tribes in the state.

Dr. Vafa Matin, at Native Health Phoenix, said such high temperatures are dangerous for people exposed to the heat for hours, especially the elderly, children, and individuals with chronic illnesses.

“Indigenous people, like others in the region, are at risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. This is especially important because the exposure to the high temperatures is so prolonged. “We have from 5:00 a.m. to almost 8:00 p.m. exposure to the sunlight and the heat that creates, that’s present. These conditions can be life-threatening if not promptly treated or pointed out,” he said. READ MORE — Joaqlin Estus, ICT

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Candi Brings Plenty’s dedication to supporting and advocating for their Two-Spirit community has taken them across the United States, most recently to Washington D.C.

Brings Plenty, an Oglala Lakota Two-Spirit who is non-binary and uses both she and they pronouns, has advocated for their community for nearly two decades.

On June 20, Brings Plenty received notice that they’d been invited to attend the Biden Administration’s meeting celebrating LGBTQ and Two-Spirit Indigenous communities on June 25 in the nation’s capital. With just five days’ notice, Brings Plenty quickly shifted into fundraising mode to be able to make it to the celebration and represent the Black Hills.

Brings Plenty has been an activist for Two-Spirit people for nearly two decades, leading the Two-Spirit Society in Portland, Oregon and the Two Spirit Nation at the Oceti Sakowin Camp during the Standing Rock No-DAPL protests. READ MORE — Amelia Schafer, ICT + Rapid City Journal

Around the world: Report finds rangelands are vital to fighting climate change, Indigenous fishing Initiative seeks to empower Indigenous businesses, Yukon Indigenous group demands halt to mining, Uyghur group wins appeal to investigate alleged forced labor, and Māori and Pasifika people undergo diabetes amputations a decade earlier.

UN REPORT: Report: Rangeland preservation critical

When it pertains to conservation, forests and oceans often dominate conservation, but rangelands, covering 54 percent of Earth’s surface, are equally crucial. Including deserts, grasslands, shrublands and savannas, they host a third of global biodiversity hotspots. Over 40 percent of Africa’s iconic landscapes are rangelands, Mongabay reported on July 5.

Just like its forests and oceans, the world’s rangelands face threats. Climate change, industrial food production, mineral extraction, and unsustainable livestock practices contribute to rangeland degradation. A U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification report indicates up to a third of global rangelands are at risk, leading to desertification, soil fertility loss, and biodiversity loss, or conversion into plantations, including those for carbon credits from non-native trees. READ MORE — Deusdedit Ruhangariyo, Special to ICT

Sign up here to get ICT’s newsletter

MESCALERO, N.M. — On Sunday, June 30, parishioners and guests walked into St. Joseph’s Apache Mission in Mescalero for the 10:30 a.m. mass as they have done for close to 100 years. The stately, cavernous church was full of people, many dressed in their traditional native finery, all of them soberly taking their seats, filling the hall with men, women and children.

Missing from the hall were items significant to the Mescalero Catholics – ceramic communion goblets gifted to the tribe by a New Mexico pueblo, hand-woven Apache baskets, a large painting of Apache dancers honoring veterans and, most noticeably, the 8-foot icon called the Apache Christ which has hung behind the altar since 1990. The painting is the work of American Franciscan friar Robert Lentz, OFM and depicts Christ as a Mescalero holy man.

Those who entered the church that day were greeted by Apache women in full regalia handing out paper slips, similar to Monopoly money, for people to put into the collection baskets during services, because “we don’t want to support the diocese.”

Somewhere between Wednesday, June 26 and Thursday, June 27, someone had gone into the church and removed the paintings, including the Apache Christ. Many of those present Sunday regard this removal as a theft, claiming the Las Cruces Diocese, in the person of Fr. Peter Chudy Sixtus Simeon-Aguinam (known as Fr. Chudy to the parishioners) and the Knights of Columbus from Alamogordo had “stolen” the items. READ MORE— Las Cruces Bulletin

BISMARCK, N.D. — A tribe in North Dakota will soon grow lettuce in a giant greenhouse complex that when fully completed will be among the country’s largest, enabling the tribe to grow much of its own food decades after a federal dam flooded the land where they had cultivated corn, beans and other crops for millennia.

Work is ongoing on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s 3.3-acre greenhouse that will make up most of the Native Green Grow operation’s initial phase. However, enough of the structure will be completed this summer to start growing leafy greens and other crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.

“We’re the first farmers of this land,” Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said. “We once were part of an aboriginal trade center for thousands and thousands of years because we grew crops — corn, beans, squash, watermelons — all these things at massive levels, so all the tribes depended on us greatly as part of the aboriginal trade system.”

The tribe will spend roughly $76 million on the initial phase, which also will includes a warehouse and other facilities near the tiny town of Parshall. It plans to add to the growing space in the coming years, eventually totaling about 14.5 acres, which officials say would make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its type. READ MORE — Associated Press

FOLLOW ICT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, TIKTOK

We want your tips, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know. dalton@ictnews.org.

Like this story? Support our work with a $5 or $10 contribution today. Contribute to the nonprofit ICT. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter