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:

The U.S. Department of the Interior released its final investigative report Tuesday on the ugly history of federal Indian boarding schools, calling for a formal apology from the U.S. government and ongoing support to help Native people recover from the generational trauma that endures.

The second — and concluding — report from the department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative also calls for return of lands that once housed the boarding schools, and construction of a national memorial to honor the children who were separated from their families and forced to attend schools that sought to wipe out their culture, identity and language.

The overarching theme of the boarding school initiative report and recommendations is that of healing for Indian Country, with a list of specific ways the federal government can tangibly assist tribal nations and peoples. It also reported that hundreds of additional children are now known to have died at the boarding schools and that additional burial sites had been discovered.

“The federal government – facilitated by the department I lead – took deliberate and strategic actions through federal Indian boarding school policies to isolate children from their families, deny them their identities, and steal from them the languages, cultures and connections that are foundational to Native people,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, said in a statement released with the report. READ MORE — Mary Annette Pember and Stewart Huntington, ICT

SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. CONTRIBUTE TODAY

Roger Nyhus, a citizen of the Chinook Nation, has served as U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean since January. His length of service could depend on what happens in the 2024 presidential election – he’s a Democrat appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden.

Nevertheless, Nyhus may be remembered for the energy he brought to the job. In his first five months, he introduced a U.S. partnership to improve court system efficiency in Barbados; trained with the Barbados National Defense Force; accompanied U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in an air search for drug traffickers; promoted U.S. business investment in the region; attended the World Cricket Cup; wrote a column for Barbados Today about how sports can foster “deeper cultural ties and stimulate economic growth through tourism and international collaboration”; and brought U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to Antigua for a gathering of island nations to discuss investments in climate change adaptation and sustainable development.

The gathering in Antigua was historic. It brought together the first Indigenous person to serve in a U.S. cabinet (Haaland, Laguna Pueblo), the first Indigenous president of Dominica (Sylvanie Burton, Kalinago), and the only Native American currently serving as a U.S. ambassador (Nyhus).

In a recent phone interview from Barbados, Nyhus talked with an ICT correspondent about his tenure so far and the importance of a strong relationship between the U.S. and Caribbean nations. READ MORE — Richard Arlin Walker, Special to ICT

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 stands as a pivotal thread in the tapestry of Indigenous civil rights in the United States. Before its enactment, Native Americans confronted a bewildering legal landscape that systematically withheld citizenship and its accompanying rights.

Propelled by the advocacy of U.S. Rep. Homer P. Snyder and endorsed with presidential signature by Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924, the Act swept aside barriers that had long relegated Indigenous peoples to the fringes of citizenship, extending its mantle to 40 percent of Native Americans previously denied this fundamental status, as recorded by the Library of Congress.

Native people were once barred from voting; today, they are the decisive factor in some races.

“I think it was a step by the U.S. government to make amends for generations of mistreatment. Native people have always had the will to prevail in the face of hardship and we have always had resiliency in our blood,” said O’Shay Birdinground, 21, Crow. Birdinground is a student at the University of Montana majoring in political science, with a minor in economics. Birdinground was voted Rocky Mountain Representative for Montana and Wyoming at this summer’s national gathering of UNITY, or United National Indian Tribal Youth in Portland. READ MORE— Underscore Native News

A spending bill passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives would reduce funding for environmental priorities, but includes a 34 percent increase in funding for tribal law enforcement.

The legislation passed 210-205 largely along party lines, with all but one House Democrat – Vicente Gonzalez of Texas – voting against it and all but five House Republicans voting for it.

It now moves to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, voted for the measure. Johnson and the other members of South Dakota’s congressional delegation have pushed for additional public safety dollars for tribes. READ MORE — South Dakota Searchlight

The Navajo Nation president and leaders from Acoma, Ohkay Owingeh and Zuni Pueblos joined tribal leadership from across the nation on Capitol Hill, offering testimony about the benefits of $3.7 billion federal dollars in six proposed water rights settlements across New Mexico.

The deals would settle tribes and Pueblos’ water rights in four New Mexico rivers: the Rio San José, the Rio Jemez, Rio Chama and the Zuni River.

Another bill would also correct technical errors in two previously ratified water rights settlements: Taos Pueblo and the Aamodt settlement Pueblos of Nambé, Pojoaque, Tesuque and San Ildefonso. Finally, a sixth bill would add time and money for the Navajo-Gallup water project to construct drinking water services.

New Mexico representatives presented a record six settlements for Pueblos and tribes at a subcommittee hearing Tuesday, the first step in getting needed Congressional approval to end decades of litigation. Companion proposals from the Senate were heard Friday in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Mescalero Apache Tribe President Thora Padilla was introduced to senators with support for the settlements. READ MORE— Source New Mexico

Sign up here to get ICT’s newsletter

An advocacy group for Indigenous peoples has released photographs of a reclusive tribe’s members searching for food on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon, calling it evidence that logging concessions are “dangerously close” to the tribe’s territory.

Survival International said the photos and video it posted this week show members of the Mashco Piro looking for plantains and cassava near the community of Monte Salvado, on the Las Piedras River in Madre de Dios province.

Several logging companies hold timber concessions inside territory inhabited by the tribe, according to Survival International, which has long sought to protect what it says is the largest “uncontacted” tribe in the world. The proximity raises fears of conflict between logging workers and tribal members, as well as the possibility that loggers could bring dangerous disease to the Mashco Piro, the advocacy group said.

Two loggers were shot with arrows while fishing in 2022, one fatally, in a reported encounter with tribal members. 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.