ICT

On this week’s IndigiPolitics, we learn about the races where the Native vote will be key in the upcoming elections, including Arizona, where former Navajo Nation president Jonathan Nez is running for Congress. ICT political correspondent Pauly Denetclaw is here with regular contributor Holly Cook Macarro.

His artwork is bringing Mississippi Choctaw heritage to the world stage. MacArthur genius fellow Jeffrey Gibson has an exhibit at the prestigious Venice Biennale showcasing his multimedia work. Shirley Sneve and Sandra Schulman have this report. Gibson’s exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion opens April 20 and runs through November.

Law students from around the country are fresh off excitement in the annual moot court competition. The Native American Law Student Association created the event to allow students studying federal Indian law to argue a case in a mock setting. Reporter Robyn Iron covered the event where hundreds of soon-to-be Native lawyers competed.

  • The Supreme Court has added a case to its docket this term involving federal Indian law and health care services. Last week the justices heard oral arguments in Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe. The question before the high court is whether the Indian Health Service must pay contract support costs. Not only to support IHS funded activities, but to also support tribal expenditure income collected from third parties, like Medicaid, Medicare and private insurers.  
  • Yurok citizens in California are celebrating a land back victory. That’s after the National Park Service, the state parks department and a private organization agreed to return 125 acres to the tribe. ICT’s Nika Bartoo-Smith reports.
  • An agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a tribal college will support Indigenous seed sovereignty distribution. Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College will work with the USDA in a collaborative effort to increase the number of traditional varieties of seeds of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation crops.
  • While all eyes are on college basketball right now, high school hoops wrapped up last month through tournaments of their own. In South Dakota, Pine Ridge made it to the finals. SDPB producer Jonathan Rous has this story.