A photo of Abbey Lynn Steele on display during a vigil on Dec. 6, 2022, outside the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City. (Photo by A.J. Etherington/Rapid City Journal) A group of Native American activists and their supporters have refined their demands for Pennington County officials following the death of
Read More
Shared by Native Sun News Today January 13, 2023
Mark Vargo, right, shakes hands with members of the Wambli Ska Society on Sept. 13, 2022, in Pierre. (Courtesy of SD Attorney General’s Office) Attorney General Mark Vargo stepped away from his post on Friday with a six-month legacy he hopes will serve as a building block to stronger relations
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today January 13, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC – A diverse coalition of religious groups, native tribes and legal experts filed half a dozen friend-of-the-court briefs yesterday in Apache Stronghold v. United States, asking a federal appeals court to protect Oak Flat, the spiritual lifeblood and sacred site of the Apache people in Arizona. The
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today January 13, 2023
Drew Zinecker (photo Courtesy Montana State Legislature) MONTANA—A legislative aide with aspirations of representing House District 80 in the 2023 Legislature questioned in public remarks last month whether members of tribes living on reservations in Montana should be able to vote in state elections. “If the reservations want to say
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today January 7, 2023
Dan Stusek HELENA, MT—In the very near future the Montana District and Re-Apportioning Commission will make a final decision on the new voting districts for the Montana Legislature going into effect in 2024. Why should tribal members be interested in this process? Simply because the voting districts determine how possible
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today January 6, 2023
Senator Mike Rounds meeting with Indian Education delegates in 2016 (Cheyenne River Chairman Harold Frazier at Right) addressing the initial stages of the RESPECT ACT. (Photo courtesy of Indianz.com) WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) has sponsored a new bill, the RESPECT Act (Repealing Existing Substandard Provisions Encouraging
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today January 6, 2023
“The Missing and Murdered Indigenous peoples crisis is centuries in the making and will take a focused effort and time to unravel the many threads that contribute to the alarming rates of these cases. But I believe we are at an inflection point. We have a President and a government
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today December 15, 2022
US Attorney General Merrick Garland speaking at the White House Tribal Nations Summit on Thursday (Photo courtesy SDPB Radio) U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is reiterating the Justice Department’s commitment to civil rights cases for Native Americans. Garland pointed to the case announced earlier this year involving the Grand Gateway
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today December 8, 2022
(Photo courtesy International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Facebook page) WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, renewed efforts to urge President Joe Biden to commute the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist convicted of murder in 1977 following a controversial
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today December 8, 2022
President Biden at Tribal Nations Summit. (Courtesy Photo) WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), ranking member and chairman, respectively, of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), all members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Read More Shared by Native Sun News Today December 8, 2022