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WASHINGTON — Climate change kicked off Day One of the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit.
“… we have to protect the ability of tribes and Native people to live in their homelands, to stay in their homelands,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, who is a citizen of Bay Mills Indian Community.
He reminded Indigenous leaders that the Department of Interior and the Biden-Harris administration invested $120 million in tribal climate resilience grants. This grant has been going on for 10 years but this year’s funding is more than the previous 10 years combined.
Simply “recognizing climate change” and “recognizing the reality that we do have a problem with climate change” was the big takeaway for Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Chief Nancy James, who was on the climate change panel. Her nation is located eight miles above the Arctic Circle. READ MORE — Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT
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It took a marathon of voting but at the end Cindy Woodhouse, former Manitoba regional chief, was elected the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).
Following a tumultuous year in which the first female National Chief Roseanne Archibald was voted out of office before her mandate was up, the assembly met in the first week of December to elect her replacement. There were six candidates nominated for the job at the AFN’s special assembly in Ottawa, Ontario, which began with an evening of speeches from candidates, supporters and nominators on Tuesday.
The voting began Wednesday but it would not suffice. When the final ballots were counted at the end of a long day of voting there was still no clear winner and the delegates were sent back to their hotel rooms with the knowledge they would have to start voting Thursday morning.
The election had 461 delegates and the eventual winner must get 60 percent of that total amount so a minimum of 277 votes no matter how many people vote in each round. On the sixth and final vote of the first day, Woodhouse had over 56 percent of the remaining voters but only 50 percent of the entire delegation. Some delegates needed to be reminded of that fact. READ MORE — Miles Morrisseau, ICT
Bettors wagered nearly $40 million in Maine during the first month online sports betting became legal, with the state’s tribes, two vendors and state government receiving benefits, officials said.
All told, $37.5 million was spent in Maine on online sports bets from Nov. 3 to the end of the month, according to the Gambling Control Unit, part of the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills gave exclusives rights to online sports betting to federally recognized tribes in the state, providing an olive branch after she scuttled a proposal for greater sovereignty for the tribes in 2022. Existing casinos, meanwhile, are allowed to conduct in-person betting.
Most of the mobile and online wagering was made through Boston-based DraftKings, the vendor selected by the Passamaquoddy tribe. Caesars Sportsbook, based in Reno, Nevada, is the vendor being used by the Penobscot Nation, Maliseets and Mi’kmaq.
For the month, the tribes received half of the gross receipts — about $2.3 million — while state government netted about $468,000 in taxes. The remainder of the gross receipts went to the vendors. — Associated Press
The Water Warrior Society, a group of Indigenous activists, has helped organize over 100 actions since 2016, including attempting to disrupt what they call a genocide happening in Palestine.
In 2016, Coast Salish and Indigenous activists from across Native country came together to fight the Puget Sound Energy liquefied natural gas facility. They believed the facility would endanger Puyallup citizens, their treaty-protected homelands and waters and surrounding communities in what is now known as Tacoma, Washington.
The activists began to gather regularly, sharing meals and discussing ways to push for change. In November, they made national news when they launched a traditional Nisqually canoe into Medicine Creek treaty waters of the Port of Tacoma to block a U.S. military cargo ship, MV Cape Orlando, believed to be loaded with weapons headed for the occupying state of Israel.
A Suquamish relative living in the Bay area, where protesters delayed the MV Cape Orlando for over nine hours, reached out to the Water Warriors when the ship headed north, bound for the Port of Tacoma. READ MORE — Luna Reyna, Underscore News + ICT
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These signs are brand new at the S’edav Va’aki Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. When this institution first opened in 1929, it was called the Pueblo Grande Museum. ICT’s Aliyah Chavez has this report.
Lucille EchoHawk serves on the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and has been a leader on many fronts, including in philanthropy and child welfare. She says she is always driven by an optimism that came from her parents. ICT’s Stewart Huntington caught up with EchoHawk recently.
The Owens Valley Indian Water Commission is still fighting for their rights to their ancestral land and water ways in California. A battle with the government and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power continues on after decades. ICT’s Paris Wise has this story.
MISSOULA, Mont. – Tescha Hawley was laying in bed while traveling for work when she felt a lump in her right breast.
The Gros Ventre woman from Montana had previously gone through a mammogram through the Indian Health Service and was told she didn’t have to get another for a number of years.
Hawley was 46 at the time, now 52, the breast cancer survivor was named a 2023 Top 10 CNN Heroes for her work with the Day Eagle Hope Project; a nonprofit she founded after her fight with breast cancer and the difficulties of navigating the healthcare system that came along with it.
“The ideas can be simple: converting a vehicle into a wash station for homeless veterans. Providing books for kids while they wait at the barbershop. Turning a passion for diving into a movement to save coral reefs,” according to CNN. “These are just some of the incredible efforts performed by the people who have been selected as this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes.” READ MORE — Kolby KickingWoman, ICT
- Indigenous Amazon women bring a tiny tribe back from the brink of extinction: ‘The largest responsibility I share with my sisters is to not lose Juma culture as taught by our father’
- MTV gives a platform to Oglala Lakota teens: In honor of Native American Heritage Month, MTV helped seven teens from the Pine Ridge Reservation present their short film
- Standing Rock’s fight against DAPL far from over: Years later, Standing Rock left with more questions than answers
- A Growing Number of Black Californians Are Claiming Their American Indian Lineage
- A Texas judge grants a pregnant woman permission to get an abortion despite the state’s ban
- Ivy League presidents reckon with swift backlash to remarks on campus antisemitism
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