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Each day we do our best to gather the latest news for you.
Okay, here’s what you need to know today:
First lady Jill Biden touted her husband’s push to eradicate cancer and the Biden administration’s efforts to improve health care for Native people during a stop Tuesday at the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Her motorcade was met by two cultural runners and escorted onto the nation, an honor bestowed to distinguished guests.
The runners led the way to cleanse and purify the road traveled on to make the journey a success for everyone.
In a visit last year to Arizona, Jill Biden spent a day on the Navajo Nation listening to female tribal leaders. Biden invited Native educator Melissa Isaac, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, as an official guest of the First Lady to the president’s State of the Union Address. Jill Biden met Isaac in October to talk about youth mental health in Michigan. READ MORE– Carina Dominguez, Indian Country Today
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The lead sponsor of a House bill to legalize sports betting in Minnesota said Monday that he’s confident that the state’s tribes will drop their long standing opposition and let it become law because it would put them in control.
Democratic Rep. Zack Stephenson, of Coon Rapids, said he’s met in recent months with leaders of all 11 of Minnesota’s Ojibwe and Dakota bands to develop a “Minnesota-specific model,” and that he would not be pressing forward now unless he was comfortable that they’ll support it in the end. The bill will get its first committee hearing Tuesday.
“If this bill passes, Minnesotans will be able to visit sports betting lounges in casinos all across Minnesota, and they’ll also be able to wager on sports from their own mobile phones anywhere in the state,” Stephenson said at a news conference.
A statement from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, which represents 10 tribal nations, was notable for not opposing the bill outright, but withholding approval until the details are nailed down. — Associated Press
It’s not often that one day in a news cycle captures complexity.
“We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports, and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.”
Then a few moments later he added this important kicker. “We understand Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine is causing prices to rise. We get that.” READ MORE– Mark Trahant, Indian Country Today
Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1953, the Firth twins were born under the Northern Lights in Canada’s far north, where the Mackenzie River Delta drains into the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Shirley and Sharon Anne Firth were born on the land in Aklavik in the Northwest Territories and would be raised off the land in a log cabin, by a Gwich’in Dene mother and a Métis father. READ MORE – Miles Morrisseau, Special for Indian Country Today
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Coming up on the ICT Newscast, one of our featured guests for Women’s History Month co-founded a major organization for Indigenous women. Plus, a newly formed council aims to Indigenize college athletics, and we break down major headlines from around the globe.
Watch:
On a drizzly January morning, Esther Stutzman’s dining room table is covered with sticky notes, worksheets, notepads and several bulky Kalapuya dictionaries. Seated next to Stutzman are her two daughters and granddaughter, all Kalapuyan descendants and enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. Their jovial banter belies the gravity of their mission: to revive the lost language of their ancestors. The scattered documents form a paper trail to their heritage.
“This is probably the biggest group of Kalapuya speakers in the world,” Stutzman said during a semi-regular language study that she launched at her Yoncalla home in western Oregon after the dictionaries were published in December. “And we speak the language at a preschool level.”
The dictionaries are the product of a decade-long passion project by the late Paul Stephen McCartney, Sr., whose fascination with Kalapuya compelled him to devote his post-high school teaching years to compiling and organizing it, and to reach out to the Stutzman family for their assistance. READ MORE.— Myers Reece, Underscore.news
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- Mille Lacs: ‘Our reservation was never diminished’: Federal court affirms Mille Lacs reservation boundaries and sovereignty.
- Joe Biden nominates Indian Health Service director: The new director will oversee a budget of $8.5 billion that provides healthcare for 2.6 million Indigenous people across the country.
- Native Americans fret as report card released on census: Native people expect those living on tribal land to be undercounted again.
- Scarves of the matriarchs: From Turtle Island to Ukraine, kokums, babushkas and grandmas connected through style.
- This is the story behind Indian SchoolRoad in Phoenix
- City of Tulsa says McGirt ruling makes tribal memberssecond-class citizens when it comes to obtaining justice
- A New Source of Support for IndigenousArt
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