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:

My love for journalism is as old as I can remember. I drew a crayon newspaper when I was about eight years old, “The Sun.” And as a teenager I remember buying a copy of each of the newspapers in the stands, plugging dimes in a machine so I could skim through what was the same and what was different in each edition. In high school we started an “alternative paper” in class, “The Press Gang,” and I later discovered the power of a press pass, using the school’s Chronicle as an entry ticket into concerts and other venues.

When I was 17 years old I talked a radio station into doing a broadcast of the March basketball tournament at Fort Hall. I had listened to play by play from radio announcers, sometimes holding a transistor radio to my ear, as they described basketball, baseball and football games. I mimicked what they did. Describing the play and coming up with a few exaggerations.

And I had an audience. I was calling a game with a team from Ethete, Wyoming, and I said the players were Shoshone. About 15 minutes later someone handed me a note. A listener had called the station, “they were Arapahoes, not Shoshones.” Correction made.

I had so much fun I took my radio broadcasts on the road. I called a game in Yakima, Washington, for their tournament. (I have no idea how I talked my way into that one.) READ MORE — Mark Trahant, ICT

SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. CONTRIBUTE TODAY

Kadin Mills still remembers the moment he decided to pursue journalism. The 22-year-old Northwestern University alum had felt drawn toward reporting as early as elementary school.

“I remember we were moving from an apartment to a house across the street and there was this factory in my hometown that was getting demolished,” Mills said. “I wrote a story about it.”

Although he was only 9 or 10, Mills was a serious journalist. He even crafted his own newspaper, selling copies to his relatives as though it were an actual publication.

“I abandoned that idea for several years, and then my senior year of high school came around and I was like: ‘I want to be a writer,’” Mills said. “I thought: ‘Maybe I’ve always been destined (for journalism).’” READ MORE — Leah Mesquita, ICT

It’s the middle of the night, and Autumn Cavender drives down a country road through the pitch-black darkness. It’s a familiar routine for Cavender, who explains that most babies are born between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. As one of the few rural midwives in the area, she always has her bag prepared for the next birth.

Recently, Cavender was chosen as a Bush Foundation Fellow for her plans to revitalize Indigenous birth work. The fellowship, announced June 11, is among 24 awarded in the annual competition. Recipients receive grants of up to $150,000 each to fund leadership plans during the fellowship, which lasts from 12 to 24 months. Cavender will be a Bush fellow for the next two years.

The 34-year-old is from the Upper Sioux Community Pezihutazizi Oyate in Granite Falls, Minnesota. For the past 10 years, she has been working as a home birth midwife on her reservation.

As a midwife, Cavender implements traditional practices into her work, which can mean several things. This can include birthing outside the hospital, such as in a home, an earth lodge or outdoors, or in different birthing positions, such as squatting. Some choose not to implement any Western medical practices. Some ceremonies are kept secret from outsiders, but Cavender mentioned one when a healer or medicine man or woman smudges a household. For Cavender, who works with each patient to find the appropriate blend of traditional and Western medicine, it’s a mindset. READ MORE — Buffalo’s Fire

Formline carved paddles, beaded slippers, and a small totem were among the items returned to Kake last weekend by a Quaker woman whose ancestor taught in the mission school there in the early 1900s.

Joel Jackson, the Tribal council president for the Organized Village of Kake, said it is nice to have the objects home.

“That wasn’t meant for somebody else to display in their home as an artform or whatever. That’s sacred to us,” he said.

He said the village is working on repatriating other objects that are held privately or in museums across the country. READ MORE — Alaska Beacon

Sign up here to get ICT’s newsletter

Peru’s reclusive Mashco Piro ethnic group recently used bows and arrows to attack loggers suspected of encroaching on their territory in the Amazon, according to a regional Indigenous organization.

FENAMAD, representing 39 Indigenous communities in the Cusco and Madre de Dios regions, said Monday, Aug. 5, that it believes illegal logging was taking place on Mashco Piro territory and that one logger was injured in the July 27 attack.

A few weeks ago, photos emerged of the uncontacted tribe searching for food on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon, which some experts say was evidence logging concessions are “dangerously close” to its territory.

“It is presumably illegal because the area where the incident occurred is a forestry concession that belonged to Wood Tropical Forest until November 2022, and we are not aware of a concession that has requested or granted enabling rights in the same area,” said a FENAMAD representative, speaking anonymously out of personal security concerns. READ MORE — Associated Press

The restoration of 18 acres on the south side of Mille Lacs Lake means an end to decades of uncertainty for one family.

A bill passed by the state Legislature returning the land is not so much an example of “land back” — a phrase which has gained traction from tribal nations in the past few years — but rather a restoration of title to the land. Mille Lacs band members say they never left.

Don Wedll remembers the day almost 40 years ago when one Mille Lacs Band citizen walked into his office distraught. At the time, Wedll served as the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs Band.

“Melvin Pewaush, who was living on that property, came into my office with a letter from the state department of natural resources claiming that he had to move off of that land because it was public school district lands, and he wasn’t supposed to be there.” READ MORE — MPR News

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.