When Julie Badonie was growing up in the small Navajo community of Tohatchi in the 1940s, her father drove a horse-drawn wagon early each morning to a nearby spring. There, he filled wooden barrels with water the family would use that day to drink, cook, and wash.

Badonie, the youngest of seven children, including brothers who fought in World War II and the Korean War, or one of her siblings would go along. She remembers it as fun. At home, a hose siphoned the water into buckets to bring into the house.

Badonie left for boarding school in kindergarten, first just a few miles across town, then several days’ travel away in Crownpoint, where an older sister worked as a cook, and...

Moving forward to restore Tribal homelands,

empower Tribal governments

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued Secretary’s Order 3400 on April 27. It re-delegates the authority to review and approve applications to place land into trust to the Bureau of Indian Affairs regional directors. This action reverses steps taken in 2017 that unnecessarily elevated land-into-trust decisions to the Department’s headquarters staff, increasing the complexity of the decision-making process and causing delays. This order will not apply to gaming applications.

“At Interior, we have an obligation to work with Tribes to protect their lands and ensure that each Tribe has a homeland where...

Week ending Friday, April 30, 2021

Lightning Capital

Florida, especially around the Tampa Bay Area, has long been renowned as the capital of lightning strikes in the United States. But researchers from the Finland-based environmental monitoring company Vaisala say that Oklahoma has narrowly surpassed the Sunshine State for that distinction. Its research found there were 83.4 lightning events per square kilometer in Oklahoma between 2016 and 2020 compared with 82.8 in Florida. But Vaisala meteorologist Chris Vagasky says with statistics that close, it’s hard to say that one state has truly overtaken the other.

Earthquakes

A temblor in eastern India’s Assam state cracked walls and...

The McKinley County Humane Society is offering a deal to help homeless animals find their forever homes.

During the dates of the Empty the Shelters Bissell Pet Foundation promotion, May 5-9, they will lower their adoption fees.

The McKinley County Humane Society is not one of the 200 shelters originally listed as a participant in the promotion, and may not receive the financial benefits from it. Nevertheless, Animal Protection Supervisor Cosy Balok told the Gallup Sun May 5 that the shelter would join in.

Bissell Pet Foundation includes McKinley County Humane Society on the list of shelters and rescue operations it partners with across the country.

The Empty the Shelters event is...