On Friday, March 7, 2025, three Tribal Nations— the Pueblo of Isleta, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes—along with Native students Ella Bowen, Kaiya Brown, Danielle Ledesma, Victor Organista, and Aiyanna Tanyan, filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of the Interior, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Office of Indian Affairs. The case, represented by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), was brought before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. challenges the staff reductions at the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and the BIE-run schools, Haskell Indian Nations University (Haskell) and Southwestern...

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MURDO/PINE RIDGE - Mahpiya Luta girls made it to State in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024; with wins over Pine Ridge 82-17 in the Region 7A semifinals and over Flandreau 62-27 in SoDak 16, the Lady Saders are back to State for the fifth season in a row, Mahpiya Luta had no sports teams in 2021. Mahpiya Luta’s smothering defense held Flandreau to just three first quarter points while junior Ashlan Carlow-Blount poured in eight points and junior Mya Mills added five points and the Saders were up 17-3 after one. In the second, junior Dottie Mesteth hit three twos,...

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In Lakota, Wakan Tanka represents the Great Spirit or Great Mystery—a sacred presence residing in all manner of things. This idea echoes throughout Indian Country in the United States, where Indigenous communities recognize and revere a Creator, a strong spiritual force that bestows everything with sacred power. What is particularly fascinating are obvious parallels between Wakan Tanka and the Judeo-Christian understanding of God as a transcendent mystery. Across both spiritual traditions, there is an emphasis on mysticism, stewardship, reverence, and pursuing communion with a divine entity. Wakan Tanka is not simply a singular thing. Rather, it represents an all-encompassing energy...

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The Trump administration’s efforts to claw back federal grant money, led by the world’s richest person, will affect access to fresh fruit for some of the nation’s poorest people. Late last month, a nonprofit organization that serves and is headquartered on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation got notice that it would lose access to a 7,000 federal- al grant funneled to it through the Nebraska-based Arbor Day Foundation. Sicangu Co. was set to use the funding to plant 70 fruit trees and 600 berry bushes in A new employee would’ve facilitated the program, according to Sicangu spokesman Aaron Epps, and the...

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In today’s terms white culture can be said to be partially represented by a two party system which primarily includes Democrats and Republicans. Of course there is a smattering of Independents, Libertarians and maybe even, a still smaller, smattering of Socialist to round out the political field of “whiteism” in this country. According to Wikipedia, “American author, journalist, and political satirist, Patrick Jake O’Rourke”, was born on November 14, 1947 and died on February 15, 2022. He was quoted in The Washington Post [taken from the news page of THE WEEK] wherein he described the following, “The Democrats are the...

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CHICAGO (AP) — The country’s preeminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy courses were canceled amid a “process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities,” according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice. Firefighters, EMS providers and other Tribal first responders from across the country travel to the NFA’s Maryland campus for...

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PINE RIDGE/EAGLE BUTTE/WANBLEE - After losing twice to Pine Ridge during the season, St. Francis showed up Saturday and upended the Thorpes 58-57 to win their Region 7A semifinal and earn a trip to the SoDak 16 game on Tuesday, CEB downed Platte-Geddes 58-55 at home to win Region 6A semifinal game and move on to SoDak 16 while Crazy Horse defeating Kadoka Area 74- 59 to win their Region 7B semifinal. On Saturday in Pine Ridge, it came down to the fourth quarter, the Thorpes led 20-17 after one over visiting St. Francis, led 32-28 at the half and...

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March 3, 2025. Last week, the CAIRNS director was back east for a Visiting Professorship Residency at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The University’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative and its Science, Technology, and Society Program were the sponsors. His host was Lukas Rieppel, Assistant Professor of History at Brown University. Rieppel and the CAIRNS director collaborated on a number of projects last year, including writing an article, “Why Museums Should Repatriate Fossils,” that was published last summer in the multidisciplinary science journal Nature; authoring a series of eleven weekly “dispatches,” published in Lakota Times, describing an infamous...

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