The Daily Spark

New Mexico’s congressional delegation introduced the Chama Basin Watershed Protection Act on Aug. 6 to prohibit uranium mining across the Chama Basin Watershed in response to a Canadian company’s proposed exploratory drilling project near Canjilon, according to reporting from Source NM. Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández sponsored the bill.

Gamma Resources Ltd. seeks to drill as many as 12 exploratory uranium boreholes, up to 500 feet deep. The company’s application has faced backlash since March, according to the Source NM reporting. Lawmakers cited potential uranium contamination affecting ranchers, tribes and acequias.

Luján said he would not allow a foreign company to threaten Chama Valley communities. The United States Forest Service is reviewing Gamma’s application. Gamma has not filed for a state permit.

A federal appeals court Tuesday sided with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, refusing to revisit rulings allowing the tribe to seek the remains of two boys who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, according to reporting from ICT. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago left intact the court’s May 14 holding that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act applies to Samuel Gilbert and Edward Hensley, buried in the Army-run cemetery at Carlisle Barracks.

Judge Pamela Ann Harris said the law entitles the tribe to bring the remains home and bury them according to tribal and religious traditions. The case returns to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where the tribe will continue pressing for return.

Co-counsel for the tribe, Attorney Greg Werkheiser, said the Army must follow NAGPRA's congressionally established rights and processes.

Thomas Popp, 63, will stand trial in Woodbury County District Court on a first-degree murder charge in Terri McCauley’s September 1983 death in Sioux City, according to reporting from Iowa Public Radio. A day after a Woodbury County grand jury indicted him in January 2025,  authorities arrested Popp in Washington state.

McCauley, an 18-year-old member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, disappeared after friends last saw her enter a vehicle outside a bar. Her body was found 10 days later near what is now Trinity Heights.

Police suspected Popp at the time, but prosecutors did not believe there was enough evidence for a conviction, according to Iowa Public Radio. 

If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. McCauley’s nephew, Josh Taylor, told Iowa Public Radio that relatives feel anxiety and are seeking answers. Their advocacy grew into Red Sky Nation, an organization that works with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives families in Sioux City and beyond.

Daposka Ahnko-Dapi closed at the start of the school year after the Osage Nation’s $11 million budget shortfall forced cuts, leaving families who enrolled children in its Osage language and cultural programs to seek other school options.

The Osage Nation said it had no choice but to make the cuts. It also closed its visitor center and plans to close the tribal farm, according to reporting from 2 News Oklahoma.

Jessica Davis, whose child attended Daposka Ahnko-Dapi, said families are weighing their options. Some children had attended the school since age 5.

“We’re all stuck,” Davis told 2 News Oklahoma. Davis said many families moved their children from public schools to Daposka Ahnko-Dapi because of its benefits for community members, particularly Native American families.

Whether legal action could save the school was unclear.

Family-owned shoemaker Minnetonka and J.Crew-owned Madewell have launched a three-style shoe collaboration, according to reporting from Inc. Magazine. The collection includes a fringed moccasin, a driving shoe and an Adrienne Benjamin-designed suede bootie.

Benjamin, an Anishinaabe fiber artist and community activist who serves as Minnetonka’s reconciliation consultant, designed the bootie, called the “baashkinjibigwan,” or “a flower bursting outward,” boot. Minnetonka works with Native artists, including Benjamin, who retain copyright ownership and receive royalties when shoes with their designs are sold.

Jori Miller Shearer, Minnetonka’s chief commercial officer, told Inc. the partnership is not necessarily about expanding distribution but about telling a bigger story: the company’s evolution, past reconciliation and values. Alongside the launch, the companies will donate to the Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network to support Anishinaabe language preservation and education.

Molly Breivis, 57, of San Francisco, was sentenced on Aug. 5 in Phoenix federal court after pleading guilty to misrepresentation of Native American-produced goods, according to reporting from FOX 10 Phoenix. Breivis received a sentence of time served and a $10,000 fine after admitting she marketed Asian knockoffs as authentic tribal creations and sold more than $92,000 worth of counterfeit jewelry through eBay.

From 2020 to 2024, she advertised the jewelry as work handcrafted by Apache, Laguna, Navajo and Zuni artisans. Investigators said she ignored two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warning letters saying her sales violated the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.

Her plea requires an apology letter on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board website. Doug Ault, assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement, said the counterfeit sales harmed the marketplace and cultural heritage of artists and tribes.

On January 29, 1863, Union Army troops slaughtered between 250 and 500 Shoshone men, women and children along Idaho’s Bear River in what is often described as the deadliest anti-Native attack in U.S. history, according to reporting from the Smithsonian Magazine. Settlers long mischaracterized the tragedy as a military battle.  

The magazine reports that the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation purchased 350 acres of the sacred site in 2018, and began restoring the degraded landscape where the attack occurred, blending ancestral knowledge with climate science. The Shoshone are removing invasive trees and replanting native flora to heal the soil and returning 13,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Great Salt Lake.

Archaeology students uncovered a fully intact Native American pottery vessel at a former Spanish mission site in northwest Gainesville, Florida, according to a Florida Museum of Natural History statement reported by Archaeology Magazine. The small, bowl-shaped pot fits in the palm of a hand and is the only vessel of its kind among 7,000 artifacts recovered during the museum's previous excavations at the site, the museum said.

“Typically, we find things that were broken and discarded,” Gifford Waters, collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, was quoted as saying. Experts are still unsure of the vessel's purpose or why it was buried inside a Spanish-made structure.

The mission village was abandoned in 1706 after housing several hundred Potano people and, at times, a small contingent of Spanish soldiers.

The fourth annual All My Relatives (Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ) Festival will return Saturday, Aug. 29, to Levitt at the Falls in Sioux Falls, according to reporting from South Dakota News Watch. The festival celebrates Native American culture through creativity, performances and family-friendly activities.

Programming includes live concerts, a fashion show, guest speakers and cultural presentations. There will also be local artisan vendors and food trucks. Mato Wayuhi, an Oglala Lakota actor and musician from Sioux Falls, will return for a second year.

The event also includes a visual arts exhibition at Rehfeld's Modern Fine Art & Framing. Levitt at the Falls CEO Nancy Halvorson said the festival is about “Native excellence and shining a spotlight on that.”

The Chickasaw Nation began construction July 31 on a medical center in Newcastle, Oklahoma, the first phase of a planned campus southwest of Oklahoma City, according to an article in Tribal Business News. Chickasaw Nation Gov. Chris Anoatubby led the groundbreaking.

The project was selected for the Indian Health Service joint venture partnership in 2020, and a 20-year agreement was signed in late 2024, according to the article. The nation will finance the building, while IHS will pay some staffing and operating costs after the center opens.

The Chickasaw Nation Legislature approved a $1 billion development budget for phase one in June. The phase will include about 690,000 square feet and 50 inpatient beds.

When the campus is complete, it is expected to serve more than 100,000 patients, employ more than 5,500 people and have 140 beds.

More than half of North Dakota is in drought after one of the warmest and driest Julys on record, with heat shriveling crops and damaging pastures,  according to reporting from the North Dakota Monitor. The U.S. Drought Monitor update placed one-third of the state in moderate drought and more than 23% in extreme drought.

State climatologist Daryl Ritchison said July heat brought a rapid shift to dry conditions. The area in severe drought increased from less than 9% the previous week, and Ritchison recommended moving Sheridan County from abnormally dry to severe drought.

Miranda Meehan of North Dakota State University Extension, who reports about crop conditions for the state, said the conditions are  “like a flash drought.” The state uses crowdsourcing methods to obtain photos, comments and anecdotal information about drought conditions. Reports citing crop losses, dry livestock watering holes, and ungrazable pastures have increased.  Meehan said these reports, called Condition Monitoring Observer Reports, can improve drought mapping and support federal disaster-assistance applications because some U.S. Department of Agriculture relief programs require severe drought.

“To me, it seems like a huge piece of property because we are not federally recognized and do not have a reservation,” Nancy Sackman, vice chair of the Duwamish Tribal Council and Duwamish tribal member, was quoted as saying. “So any land that we do get is a huge event.” 

The land, called Heron’s Nest, sits on a mountain ridge less than a mile west of Seattle’s industrial district. The tribe partnered with Shared Spaces Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on ecological healing and rematriation, and over the course of six years, volunteers transformed the land — turning a hazardous waste zone into a garden greenhouse and community gathering space, according to Underscore’s reporting. 

The land was fully turned over to the Duwamish Tribe on June 13. “We will continue to heal and nourish this land using our traditional cultural practices to benefit our members, the larger community, and future generations,” Duwamish Tribal Council Chairwoman Cecile Hansen was quoted as saying.

Shared Spaces Foundation co-founder and board president Lee, who uses only one name, told Underscore Native News, “This is more than land preservation — it’s about creating sustainable community resources and supporting Indigenous land sovereignty.”

Dartmouth has launched the Dartmouth Tribal Sovereignty Institute to support tribal nations in advancing their economic, cultural and environmental priorities through collaboration, research and leadership development. President Sian Leah Beilock announced the institute July 27 during the Tribal Leadership Academy welcome breakfast, according to Dartmouth News. A $5 million gift from Tom and Gina Russo, who graduated with the class of 1977, will endow the institute's executive director position and provide long-term leadership for the initiative.

Dartmouth said the institute has secured $5.5 million toward its $15 million fundraising goal and has begun a national search for its inaugural executive director.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Buffalo Authority Corporation will host a buffalo grazing school Aug. 4-6 on the Cheyenne River Reservation in north-central South Dakota, according to a Nature Conservancy press release. The three-day program will train current and future tribal herd managers.

About two dozen participants from multiple tribal nations will take part in professional development, cultural learning, peer-to-peer discussion and field-based learning. Participants will study herd management, Indigenous knowledge, buffalo health and behavior, food sovereignty, soil health and grazing stewardship.

The school is intended to strengthen tribal buffalo management and support buffalo restoration on tribal lands. According to the InterTribal Buffalo Council, 89 tribal Nations manage more than 25,000 buffalo on tribal lands.

According to Native News Online, Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations presented its Legacy of Leadership Award to Cheryl Stevens and the late Ernie Stevens Jr. during its 2026 conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The award recognizes the couple's longtime commitment to tribal sovereignty, Native women and Indigenous leadership. Indian Gaming Association Chairman David Z. Bean and Secretary Christie Modlin accepted the award, with Modlin accepting on behalf of Cheryl Stevens, who was unable to attend because of a family bereavement.

Bean said Ernie Stevens Jr. supported WEWIN throughout his leadership of the Indian Gaming Association because he believed in investing in Native women and future leaders. According to the Native News Online reporting, WEWIN said the award also honors Cheryl Stevens for carrying forward her husband's commitment to tribal nations, Native families and future generations of Indigenous leaders.

On July 31, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation celebrated the grand opening of the Fort Berthold Rural Water Administration Office. The office will keep employees equipped to handle and deliver safe, reliable drinking water to the community, even in the event of an emergency, according to an MHA press release.

“Reliable, clean water from the Missouri River is our nation’s lifeblood,” MHA Nation Chairman Mark Fox, was quoted as saying. “Nothing is more paramount for keeping our community healthy and whole.”

He added, “If a natural disaster, contamination event or emergency takes place, our Nation is prepared to ensure clean water is a constant resource.”

The opening of the new facility includes “top-tier equipment,” as well as “centralized control and the opportunity for real-time monitoring.”

The annual Many Nations Powwow at the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem brought together incarcerated Native people, their families and honored guests for a day of cultural celebration, according to Underscore Native News. The event, organized by the prison's Many Nations Culture Club, featured Grand Entry, drumming, dancing, storytelling and a shared meal while allowing participants to practice Native traditions with visitors.

Several incarcerated participants said the powwow provides an opportunity to reconnect with their culture and families, according to the Underscore Native News reporting. Nestor Diaz-Miller, who is of Cow Creek Band of Umpqua heritage, was quoted as saying that  participating in the prison's sweat lodge and drum "literally saved my life." Law professor Aliza Kaplan of Lewis & Clark Law School, a returning guest, said the gathering helps participants explore their identities and build community, according to Underscore Native News.

About 100 people gathered outside the Bureau of Land Management's Santa Fe office on Wednesday to oppose a federal proposal to eliminate or reduce a 10-mile buffer that limits mining around Chaco Culture National Historical Park, according to reporting Source NM. The demonstration coincided with the final day of the public comment period on the proposal, which has drawn criticism from Indigenous leaders and New Mexico's Democratic congressional delegation.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez also filed formal comments opposing the proposal, calling Chaco Canyon "one of New Mexico's greatest cultural and historical treasures," according to the Source NM reporting. Indigenous leaders said the proposal threatens a site of cultural and spiritual significance and criticized the federal government's two-week public comment period and tribal consultation process.

At least 13 Indigenous candidates are running for public office in Minnesota ahead of the 2026 primary elections, nearly doubling the number who ran in 2022, according to ICT and data collected with Advance Native Political Leadership. The candidates represent eight tribal nations and include Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Holly Cook Macarro, a citizen of the Red Lake Nation, told ICT the increase reflects growing Native political engagement in Minnesota. If elected in November, Flanagan would become the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate and the fifth Native American to serve in the chamber, according to U.S. Senate archives. The remaining Native candidates are running for offices ranging from city council and school board to the Minnesota Legislature and Congress.