Trump elimina el Parole para migrantes venezolanos, cubanos, haitianos y nicaragüenses
Este programa buscaba gestionar la migración de manera ordenada y abordar las necesidades humanitarias en respuesta a las crisis en los países beneficiados.
Alaska Native leaders call to preserve Denali name for Mount McKinley
(RNS) — In his second inauguration address on Monday (Jan. 20), President Donald Trump repeated his customary campaign speech promises to improve the United States’ credibility around the world, but after one such vow the president surprised some by announcing America’s resurgence would entail new names for some familiar geographical features.
“A short time from now we are going to be changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said, “and we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.” A few hours later he signed an executive order doing just that.
Alaska Native leaders, as well as state politicians, object that the order undoes years of work with the federal government to establish Denali as the rightful name.
“Located on the traditional homelands of the Dene peoples, it reflects a profound spiritual and cultural relationship with the land,” said Emily Edenshaw, president and CEO of the Alaska Native Heritage Center. “Keeping this name honors that connection and recognizes the enduring contributions of Alaska Native peoples.”
In a statement on X, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski wrote, “I strongly disagree with the President’s decision on Denali. Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial.”
Denali, which means “the High One” in Koyukon Athabascan, is indeed the traditional name for the 20,310-foot peak in Denali National Park and Preserve, covered by snow and glaciers year-round and visible from hundreds of miles away. But the park has only been known officially as Denali since 1980, according to a National Park Service website. Despite the advocacy of the park’s first superintendent, Harry Karstens, for “Denali,” as early as 1913, it had been popularly known as Mount McKinley since at least 1901, after President William McKinley was assassinated, and the area became Mount McKinley National Park on Feb. 26, 1917.
In the 1970s, the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Athabascan tribes in interior Alaska, started working to change the name of the mountain but was blocked by the congressional delegation with McKinley’s home state of Ohio. In 2015, President Barack Obama’s secretary of the interior, Sally Jewell, changed the mountain’s name to Denali just in time for its namesake park to celebrate 100 years.
Murkowski was part of that fight, she said in a statement on her website on Monday. “For years, I advocated in Congress to restore the rightful name for this majestic mountain to respect Alaska’s first people who have lived on these lands for thousands of years.” She added, “This is an issue that should not be relitigated.”
The Tanana Chiefs Conference did not respond to requests for comment on Trump’s executive order. Other Alaska Native groups say it’s too early to know how they’ll respond.
Trump’s wish to see it renamed for McKinley, the 25th president, a Republican who was assassinated early in his second term, appears to be motivated by Trump’s plans to broaden tariffs on imports. Monday’s executive order celebrates McKinley as a champion of “tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive the U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights.”
But Edenshaw argued that Indigenous values should take precedence. “These names carry the wisdom, identity and stories of the original stewards of this land. Restoring and honoring them acknowledges the deep, millennia-old connections that Indigenous peoples maintain with these lands and is a step toward respect and reconciliation,” she said.
Edenshaw’s organization advocates for Indigenous place names for a variety of reasons. “As we move forward in times of change, we hope to foster collaboration rooted in shared values of respect and understanding,” she said. “Together, we can celebrate the resilience of our shared heritage while building a foundation for reconciliation and unity across our great state and nation.”
Dearth of women in top higher ed leadership in North Dakota causes concern
Former university leaders are raising concern about the lack of women in top leadership positions at North Dakota’s 11 public higher education institutions. Currently only one has a woman president or CEO.
This comes at a time when the State Board of Higher Education is beginning the process of filling president vacancies at campuses in Bismarck, Dickinson and Devils Lake. In addition, North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott will leave his position toward the end of the year.
Those raising the profile of the issue point out that nationally and within the state, women account for between 50-60% of enrollment and graduation rates in higher education.
They believe leadership at those institutions should better reflect those figures.
“The SBHE’s record for hiring women in CEO positions for the last 25 years shows a pattern and practice of discrimination on the basis of gender,” said Ellen Chaffee, who served 15 years as president at Valley City State University (1993-2008) and nine of those concurrently as president of Mayville State University through 2001.
Ellen Chaffee, former president of Valley City State University and Mayville State University. Provided.
Chaffee notes that five institutions had female presidents during the 1990s. That dropped to zero after 2008, until Valley City had two between 2014-2018, and Dakota College at Bottineau hired a woman leader in 2020.
Nationally, rates of women in president or CEO positions at colleges and universities rose by 10% from 2006 to 2022 and currently women comprise around 33% of those top leadership spots across the country.
“When it comes right down to it, in my opinion, there needs to be a concerted effort to hire more diversity,” said Debora Dragseth, Baker Boy Professor of Leadership at Dickinson State University who served as vice-president there from 2020-2022.
Debora Dragseth, Baker Boy Professor of Leadership at Dickinson State University. Provided.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Dragseth said. “It’s ethical. But also the fact that the majority of college students are female. Who’s representing them? Who’s walked in their shoes?”
Dragseth calculated that women have served as the top leaders at higher education institutions throughout the state just under 6% of the time over the course of their history.
Five of North Dakota’s higher education institutions have never had a formal woman leader, including the University of North Dakota, Minot State University, Dickinson State University, Williston State College, and North Dakota State University (NDSU). NDSU did have an interim woman president for a brief period in 1969.
With Bismarck State College, Dickinson State University and Lake Region State College all in the process of searching for presidents, SBHE chair Tim Mihalick said there’s an opportunity to add female leaders at one or more of those schools.
“From my perspective, and I think of the board in general, I agree, we need more female representation,” Mihalick said. “When we get the qualifications that match the institution’s needs, I would absolutely see us hiring a female leader.”
State Board of Higher Education chairman, Tim Mihalick. Provided.
A big aspect of finding the best candidates is being intentional during the search process, said Kim Lee, director of community strategy and engagement at the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C.
ACE has been active for two decades in promoting an initiative to try to reach parity in hiring top leadership in higher ed called Moving the Needle: Advancing Women in Higher Education Leadership.
“We still have more work to do if we want to look at gender parity,” Lee said.
She said it would be beneficial for search committees to tap into leadership development programs ACE has developed, and to consider using search firms that strongly consider diversity in their processes.
The process of filling a vacancy starts with the chancellor appointing a search committee. A presidential search typically takes 4 to 6 months, according to NDUS staff, with the SBHE providing direction on the use of a search consultant.
Procedural rules require the committee to submit at least three candidates for consideration by the SBHE.
“It’s probably not out of the reach of the discussion around this to ask the search firms to look for strong female candidates,” Mihalick said.
Chaffee said that the best pools of candidates include the best men and best women and are diverse in other key dimensions as well.
“You can’t be sure you’re selecting the best if you discount or fail to attract women applicants,” Chaffee said.
She also believes the SBHE and the chancellor’s cabinet at the NDUS both need more female representation, and that this could attract more qualified female candidates to president positions. The SBHE currently has just one female voting member.
On Jan. 14, State School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler announced six finalists – five men and one woman – for two open seats for the SBHE. Those names have now been forwarded to Gov. Kelly Armstrong for his first SBHE appointments of his new governorship, with terms beginning July 1.
“College students need to see and interact with diverse people as part of preparing for success after graduation,” Chaffee said. “If the SBHE does not seek, recruit and hire women, there is virtually no chance they will have strong women applicants and have the best possible new presidents.”
Carmen Simone, campus dean and Dakota College at Bottineau, said that while she appreciates the sentiment regarding the need to hire more women leaders, her own experience has been “extremely positive” and she is “grateful for the support we receive as leaders.”
Of the SBHE, she said: “I have full confidence that they will carefully consider the qualifications of each candidate and ultimately, they will choose the leaders who they believe will best serve our respective institutions.”
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
Nonprofit pushes for tougher DUI laws amid spike in fatalities
Almost every Saturday and Sunday morning for the last year, Beth McBride, Carli Seymour or another self-described “Bar Fairy” roam the Flathead Valley looking for abandoned cars in front of bars. When they find one parked from the night before, they’ll slip a $5 gift card to a local coffee stand on the windshield as a token of appreciation for the person not driving home under the influence.
Seymour came up with the idea after her brother and McBride’s son, Robert “Bobby” Dewbre, was struck and killed by a suspected drunk driver as he walked across a street outside of a Columbia Falls bar on March 11, 2023. Dewbre was out celebrating his 21st birthday.
Robert “Bobby” Dewbre was struck and killed by a drunk driver outside of a Columbia Falls bar on March 11, 2023. Credit: Carli Seymour
McBridge said it was evidence of why the state needs to enact tougher laws related to drunk driving — something her group, Montana Bar Fairies, is now pushing for in the Montana Legislature. That push comes amid a recent spike in fatal drunk-driving incidents in northwest Montana, including four fatal accidents that are being investigated as DUIs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, according to the nonprofit.
“We have an extreme drinking culture in Montana,” McBride said.
According to the Montana Department of Transportation, between 2019 and 2022, 335 people were killed in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver with a blood-alcohol concentration of .08% (the legal limit) or higher; 72% of those fatal accidents involved a driver with a BAC of .15% (twice the legal limit). In 2020, 66% of all highway fatalities were the result of impaired driving, up from 58% the previous year. As a result, Montana has one of the highest fatal drunk-driving rates in the country.
In January 2024, Seymour was driving to her mother’s house early one morning when she saw cars parked in front of a Kalispell bar. It was then that she had the idea to start putting coffee cards on windshields to thank those people for not driving and encourage others to do the same.
The first weekend, Seymour and McBride handed out 21 cards in the Columbia Falls area. The next weekend they distributed 10 cards in Kalispell and then 29 and 49 cards the following two weekends in Whitefish. In the year since, Montana Bar Fairies has handed out 894 gift cards worth more than $4,400. Many of the cards have been donated by Copper Mountain Coffee, Florence Coffee Company and others, or covered by financial donations made to the nonprofit. Along with the gift cards left on windshields, volunteers include a small card featuring the story of someone killed by a drunk driver.
“It’s felt like we have been able to turn our grief into something positive,” Seymour said. “We want to reward good behavior rather than shame people.”
McBride said the reaction to the cards has been overwhelmingly positive. The group is now turning that goodwill into action by supporting LC 1340, a bill requested by Rep. Braxton Mitchell (R-Columbia Falls), for consideration this legislative session. The bill, which is tentatively supported by the Montana County Attorneys Association, is still being crafted but would revise state law to include a minimum of three years in prison for anyone convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide while under the influence. McBride said it would also allow prosecutors to consider only a driver’s blood-alcohol content when making charging decisions.
McBride said the changes would mean harsher punishments for people like the man who struck and killed her son.
“It’s just wrong that the guy who killed Bobby just got 18 months,” she said. “This is a common-sense law.”
LC 1340 is scheduled for a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 27. McBride is encouraging people to attend the hearing in Helena to support it.
For more information, visit montanabarfairies.org.
This spring, Montana Free Press will join local news outlets across the United States in the first cohort of a national visual journalism initiative led by CatchLight, a San Francisco-based visual media organization that seeks to provide inclusive, accurate, and locally contextualized information to the public through accessible and high-quality visual journalism.
The action document is not even a draft, but it does offer several insights into how the Forest Service hopes to address ever-increasing recreational usage on the three stems of the Flathead River.
House lawmakers in the Montana Legislature approved a bill in a preliminary vote Wednesday that requires bathroom and sleeping-area use based on a person’s chromosomes and reproductive biology.
Children’s mental health in Vermont and across the U.S. is in crisis!
In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) declared a National State of Emergency in Children’s Mental Health, highlighting the widespread challenges facing children and adolescents. This declaration was reinforced by the U.S. Surgeon General, who also recognized children’s mental health as a national crisis. More recently, in August 2024, the Surgeon General issued an advisory addressing the impact of parental stress and mental health on society and the economy, underscoring the urgent need for policymakers and advocates at all levels to prioritize the well-being of children, adolescents, and their families and communities.
“In addition to the traditional challenges of parenting – protecting children from harm, worrying about finances, managing teenagers who are searching for independence – there are new stressors that previous generations didn’t have to consider. These include the complexity of managing social media, parents’ concerns about the youth mental health crisis, and an epidemic of loneliness that disproportionately affects young people and parents, just to name a few.” (From Parents Under Pressure: U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-being of Parents. Online at: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/parents/index.html)
Of the Vermont youth responding to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023, 23% or about 3,589, reported cutting or burning themselves without intent to die. On the same survey, 14% or 2,184 youth reported making a plan to kill themselves in the past year. LGBTQ+ youth are three times more likely to report making a plan to kill themselves.
Several factors contributing to the current crisis include the isolation youth experienced during COVID and the dramatic increase in divisiveness and intense conflict in our communities. Such conflict, alongside feelings of loneliness and social disconnectedness, contributes to the acuity of stress in the community and especially for youth. This creates a social context in which chronic stress is becoming more widespread, which interferes with youth development and overall wellness. Efforts to destigmatize mental health and trauma are key strategies to break down barriers that prevent youth from seeking help.
Complexity and Acuity
The challenges facing youth today are not only growing in scale but also in complexity and acuity. Increasingly, more teens require crisis stabilization, and many present with significantly heightened levels of depression and anxiety compared to previous years. As highlighted earlier, suicidal ideation is alarmingly common among teens, with a growing number acting on these thoughts. The most frequent method of suicide attempts involves medication, ranging from over-the-counter remedies to prescriptions intended for themselves or family members. Tragically, these attempts often occur in moments of impulsivity during periods of intense emotional distress.
Firearms further exacerbate the risk. Easy access to lethal means, particularly during acute emotional crises, dramatically increases the likelihood of fatal outcomes. It is crucial for adults to recognize the severity of these risks and proactively limit access to both medications and firearms within their homes. By taking these preventative steps, we can help safeguard youth as they navigate the complexity and challenges in their lives.
Resources to Meet the Need are Falling Short
Workforce challenges across the state in schools, designated and specialized service agencies, and other youth supporting organizations are significantly impacting our ability to support our children and youth. The workforce challenges are in large part due to chronic underfunding as well as increased acuity. Consequently, any child-serving program or school may either serve fewer children or maintain the same level of service as before. As is the case for everyone, when our issues are not effectively dealt with, they become more pronounced and for youth this often means they need more intense services. The idea is to prioritize investment in more affordable, community-oriented services to prevent dysfunctional processes and address potential issues early on. This is called moving services up stream.
These workforce challenges, coupled with the growing need for upstream services, highlight a critical gap in Vermont’s ability to provide sufficient support for its youth, particularly in the foster care system. Throughout the COVID pandemic and now, Vermont is experiencing a serious shortage of foster families. Vermont has historically relied heavily on foster families for youth who can’t stay at home for a time. The staffing shortage also means that fewer staff are available for community-based in-home services. Many youth with intense needs can be successfully served in these programs instead of going to a children’s residential treatment program. Without adequate staffing of children’s community-based services and foster care, however, more youth are being referred for children’s residential care.
It is especially challenging to retain and recruit staff for children’s residential treatment programs. Potential staff can be put off by working the evenings, nights, and weekends, or with kids who need intense support and who may become emotionally and/or behaviorally dysregulated. Several children’s residential treatment programs have closed in the last few years.
Some programs, despite facing staffing shortages, have managed to keep serving certain children by limiting services to just five days a week or by closing for certain periods. However, these adjustments reduce access for youth, particularly for those who lack family support during the days the program is closed or operates on a limited schedule.
Northeast Family Institute (NFI)
NFI, one of the Vermont Care Partners network agencies, is a statewide non-profit specialized service agency providing intense mental health services and special education through several programs across Vermont. Some NFI programs provide intensive outpatient services, others include psychotherapy and consultation, in home community-based wrap around programs, community-based residential programs, and licensed independent schools.
NFI has two hospital diversion programs for adolescents ages 13 to 21 years old who are experiencing a mental health crisis. These are alternatives to an acute inpatient psychiatry treatment program for youth. Each program serves a maximum of 6 youth. Due to a lack of funding and staff vacancies, they have only been able to serve a portion of the 6 youth in each program. The average length of stay remains at 7 to 10 days. Referrals and admissions continue to demonstrate a high need for crisis stabilization services. Most youth are referred due to self-injury and/or suicidal ideation or attempts.
Of the 381 hospital diversion program discharges last year, 85% reported suicidality as a primary reason for admission. In addition, 83% of the youth accomplished at least 75% of their treatment goals and 97% were discharged back to a lower level of care. These are extremely high rates of success for youth in acute mental health crisis served for only 7 to 10 days. Years after leaving, NFI hears incredible success stories. One graduate is an officer in the armed services, another is a trained engineer, and each one represents the future of our state.
NFI also operates Crossroads Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), providing group and individual therapy several hours a day, 5 days a week, which is often an alternative to inpatient treatment and accepts referrals from hospital emergency rooms. NFI Crossroads started with an adult program and added an adolescent and a Transitional Aged Youth Program for emerging adults ages 18 to 29 years old, at 45 San Remo Drive in South Burlington. All Crossroads use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which is an evidence-based practice, and assists adults and adolescents with urgent mental health needs. Referrals are from the emergency departments and inpatient units, as well as less acute settings and the public. Of the adolescents served by Crossroads, 90% report suicidality as a major concern and 100% of Transitional Aged Youth report suicidality.
“In discussing race, everyone deserves to be safe, and no one should be comfortable.”
Dr. Ken Hardy, Acclaimed therapist, presenter, and author on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
NFI extends its commitment to evidence-based practices and urgent mental health needs by prioritizing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion across its programs and community. As a trauma-transforming organization, NFI collaborates with Dr. Ken Hardy of Drexel University, who has led impactful discussions on race and systemic differences, attended by over 400 professionals, including therapists, attorneys, and educators. Dr. Hardy provides frameworks to understand systemic racism, our roles within it, and actionable steps to foster greater justice and equity.
Vermont Care Partners Network Agencies
VCP network agencies serve children and families struggling with anxiety, depression, self-harm, as well as behavioral challenges resulting from trauma and other adverse childhood experiences. Across the state, agencies practice with a family-centered approach, meeting families where it works best for them – in schools, homes, and other community settings. In calendar year 2024:
Agencies served nearly 12,500 children and youth and provided over 700,000 services
Each child/youth received an average of nearly 60 services
85% of children and youth stated they received services that were right for them
85% said they received the services they needed
91% said that staff treated them with respect
Action Needed
Vermont must take action to address the crisis in children and youth mental health. Providers, state officials, schools, and other youth involved organizations must focus on both short-and long-term services and solutions working together to ensure Vermont’s children and youth are safe and healthy. To achieve this we must: increase resources for children and families; establish a taskforce to establish comprehensive solutions; reinstate and fund best practices that we know work; address the erosion of community-based services by committing to sustainable and predictable funding that enables robust programming; support Success Beyond Six; align the crisis continuum with supports for children and youth; invest in the workforce serving children and families; and at large, place a greater focus on prevention and early intervention.
Children are complicated with many different needs and there are multiple effective solutions. Preventing issues and intervening early are not only the humane thing to do but also are extremely cost effective. Prevention and early intervention, often called upstream services, reduce future mental health and substance use challenges and decrease future costs. Children’s upstream mental health services are community-based and of less intensity. Easy access to effective upstream mental health services diminishes the need for residential mental health services, juvenile justice services, substance use services, youth homelessness, and incarceration rates.
Unfortunately, chronic underfunding and subsequent limited community-based options result in needing more intense services, often decreasing options as youth move into adulthood. Our youth need our support. The VCP network agencies have effective evidence-based programs that will help our youth succeed but we need sufficient resources to hire, train and retain skilled staff to do the work of providing access to quality services that every Vermont family deserves. Schools need sufficient funding that includes ensuring adequate resources for upstream mental health services. We all need to talk with the children in our lives with the goal of understanding how they are doing. It is essential to a child’s well-being that they know the adults in their lives care about and understand them.
Our children are our future. Last year, the House Healthcare Committee in Vermont conducted hearings on mental health services. During a session focused on children’s mental health, a Representative urged his colleagues to engage in conversations with the children in their lives – whether family or friends. The representative shared a deeply unsettling conversation he had with children in his own extended family. He asked the children how they were coping, and the concerns they shared left him alarmed about the well-being of children both in his family and across the state. They spoke of overwhelming anxiety about various matters, including their future. These children came from a loving, supportive family. In his passionate address, the Representative urged his fellow lawmakers to talk to children they know, stressing the urgent need for more action. As he passionately stated, “They are our future!” And they are.
NFI Vermont, Inc. – Providing trauma informed, innovative mental health and education services to Vermont children and families.
This article is part of a series, collaboratively produced by members of Vermont Care Partners, a statewide network of sixteen non-profit, community-based agencies providing mental health, substance use, and intellectual and developmental disability supports.
Interior Secretary nominee questioned about stance on Native issues
Daniel Herrera Carbajal ICT
In his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of the Interior, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, responded to questions related to Native issues such as sovereignty and the epidemic of missing murdered Indigenous women.
If confirmed, Burgum will head a department that manages a half-billion acres of public lands, federal wildlife programs, and national parks and monuments. Burgum also would oversee many tribal functions, particularly the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education.
He would replace Laguna Pueblo leader Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the position.
If confirmed, Burgum also would chair a new energy council charged with promoting oil and gas development. The council could play a key role in Trump’s effort to sell more oil and other energy sources to allies in Europe and around the globe.
During Thursday’s hearing, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) asked Burgum if he believed in tribal sovereignty and consultation.
“Tribal consultation to me as governor of North Dakota is spending time going to tribes, listening, sometimes listening for hours to really understand what the issues are,” Burgum said. “Working on things that are important.”
Burgum is an ultra-wealthy software industry entrepreneur who was born and raised in small-town North Dakota. He first took office as governor of the oil-rich state in 2016 and won re-election four years later. He endorsed Trump after ending his own 2024 presidential bid.
As the former governor of a state with five tribes, Burgum has a long history addressing Native issues. Not long after he took office, protests broke out near Cannon Ball, N.D., over the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Fearing escalation, Burgum ordered all protesters leave the encampments by Feb. 22, 2017, saying he did not want protesters to be removed by force.
Burgum’s response to the protests raised alarms for tribes, and he and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe continue to have opposing stances on the pipeline, but the two maintain a solid relationship and meet regularly. He is considered to have good relationships with other tribes in North Dakota as well and is credited with significantly improving dialogue between the state and its tribes.
Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R) emphasized Burgum’s reputation by presenting to the committee a letter from the Coalition of Large Tribes praising Burgum.
“It’s been incredible for COLT tribes to have such a close supporter nominated to the secretary’s office,” said Daines. “He was someone in whom we have deep trust and confidence.”
COLT is composed of more than 15 tribal nations, including the Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego (D) brought up the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, attributing the problem to a lack of tribal law enforcement.
Burgum agreed.
“One of the great tragedies is the lack of law enforcement on tribal lands, and the fact that we got organized crime preying on those gaps,” he said. “This is an unseen tragedy in America. The FBI list is now over 6,000 unsolved cases.
“We lost a college kid during spring break. It’s a Netflix series and the whole nation knows their name personally,” he said. “But we have the same individual tragedies happening over and over again in Indian Country and people aren’t even aware that it’s going on. We have to change our entire approach to this.”
Burgum talks about MMIW in clip below (2:16-4:23)
Trump’s ‘energy czar’
As Trump has dubbed Burgum his “energy czar,” he will be responsible for carrying out the President-elect’s plan of increased oil production. “Drill, baby, drill,” Trump has said.
“President Trump’s Energy Dominance vision will end wars abroad and make life more affordable for every family by driving down inflation,” said Burgum in his opening remarks. “President Trump will achieve these goals while championing clean air, clean water and our beautiful land.”
Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) pushed back on this statement citing military leaders acknowledging climate change is a major issue.
“Were you aware that they testified before the Senate Armed Forces Committee a number of times that burning more fossil fuels is actually going to, in fact, not result in the end of wars but could very well exacerbate and cause wars?” Hirono said.
“Within fossil fuels, the concern has been about emissions, and within emissions we have the technology to do things like carbon capture to eliminate harmful emissions,” Burgum said.
Burgum attributed the need for more fossil fuel-powered electricity to America’s race with other global superpowers like China to develop powerful artificial intelligence technology that can have scientific, economic and military applications.
“We have a shortage of electricity and especially we have a shortage of baseload,” he said.
Baseload power is the minimum amount of electricity required over a period of time, and is generated by power plants that run continuously. Baseload power plants are a key part of an efficient electric grid.
“We know we have the technology to deliver clean coal,” Burgum said. “We’re doing that in North Dakota. This is critical to our national security. Without baseload we’re going to lose the AI arms race to China. And if we lose to China that has a direct impact on our national security.
“We need electricity for manufacturing and AI is manufacturing intelligence, and if we don’t manufacture more intelligence than our adversaries, it affects every job, every company, every industry,” Burgum said.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, questioned Burgum about the expansion of national monuments, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in his home state, under the Antiquities Act.
The monuments – considered sacred to several tribes – were created over the objections of state officials. Burgum appeared to sympathize with Lee’s concerns. The nominee said the original intent of the 1906 law was for “Indiana Jones-type archaeological protections” of objects within the smallest possible area.
Burgum later touted the many potential uses for public lands, including recreation, logging and oil and gas production that can boost local economies.
“Not every acre of federal land is a national park or a wilderness area. Some of those areas we have to absolutely protect for their precious stuff, but the rest of it – this is America’s balance sheet,” he said.
What’s next
Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the the Interior Department as Secretary of the Interior, arrives to testify before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Once the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources finishes its questioning of Burgum, it will send his nomination to the full Senate for a vote, either with its recommendation of Burgum or without it.
The Senate will then debate the nomination and vote on it, though no date for that debate has been set.
EPA takes unprecedented step to remove uranium waste from the Navajo Nation
As a child, herding her grandmother’s sheep, Teracita Keyanna unknowingly wandered onto land contaminated with radioactive waste from three abandoned uranium mine and mill waste sites located near her home on the Navajo Nation.
Keyanna and other Diné citizens have been living with the consequences of uranium mining near the Red Water Pond Road community since the 1960s. But now, uranium waste rock that has sat for decades at a Superfund site will finally be moved to a landfill off tribal land.
“This is a seismic shift in policy for Indigenous communities,” said Eric Jantz, an attorney for the New Mexico Environmental Law Center.
On Jan. 5, in a first-of-its-kind move, the Environmental Protection Agency signed an action memo to transport 1 million cubic yards of low-grade radioactive waste from the Quivira Mining Co. Church Rock Mine to a disposal site at the Red Rock Regional Landfill. The Northwest New Mexico Regional Solid Waste Authority owns and operates the landfill, which is located about 6 miles east of Thoreau, New Mexico.
“I feel like our community has finally had a win,” Keyanna said. She is a member of the Red Water Pond Road Community Association, a grassroots organization made up of Diné families that have been advocating for the waste removal for almost two decades. “It’ll help the community heal.”
“I feel like our community has finally had a win.”
Companies extracted an estimated 30 million tons of uranium ore on or near the Navajo Nation from 1944 to 1986, largely to fuel the federal government’s enormous nuclear arsenal. When the mines were abandoned in the 1980s, the toxic waste remained. Today, there are hundreds of abandoned mines in plain sight on the Navajo Nation, contaminating the water, air and soil. Altogether, there are an estimated 15,000 uranium mines across the West — 1,200 of them on the Navajo Nation alone — with the majority located in the Four Corners region.
The impact of all this mining on Diné communities has been devastating. A 2008 study found uranium contamination in 29 water sources across the Navajo Nation, while other studies show that people living near waste sites face a high risk of kidney failure and various cancers.
At Quivira, the cleanup is set to begin in early 2025 and will continue for six to eight years, according to an EPA news release. The permitting process, which will provide opportunity for public comment, will be overseen by the New Mexico authority that manages the proposed waste site and is responsible for its long-term safety monitoring.
United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock Uranium Mill. In 2013, the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission dumped 1 million cubic yards of waste from the Church Rock Mine on top of existing tailings located half a mile from the Red Water Pond Road communities. Credit:Shayla Blatchford
The EPA had considered multiple options for waste remediation. But for years, Red Water Pond Road advocates and other local organizations continually pushed it to simply remove the waste, a course of action that the EPA has never taken before, even though the Navajo Nation has repeatedly called for the federal government to move all uranium waste from Diné tribal land.
Throughout the Navajo Nation, said Jantz, “prior to this decision, EPA’s primary choice in terms of remediation of mine was to bury the piles under some dirt and plant some grass seeds on top, called cap in place.” But studies have shown that this approach is not effective at containing radioactive waste in the long term, he said.
The agency took a similar approach when addressing the other uranium waste in the Church Rock area. In 2013, the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees uranium mine-waste cleanup, dumped 1 million cubic yards of waste from the Northeast Church Rock Mine — a different waste site, roughly 3 miles from the Quivira Mine — on top of existing tailings located half a mile from the Red Water Pond Road communities.
“Prior to this decision, EPA’s primary choice in terms of remediation of mine was to bury the piles under some dirt and plant some grass seeds on top, called cap in place.”
But the EPA plans to handle the Quivira Mine’s waste differently, placing it in geoengineered disposal cells with a groundwater leak protection system after it is moved off-site, an approach that Jantz called “state-of-the-art.”
The Quivira Mine cleanup is part of the 2014 Tronox settlement, which provided $5.15 billion to clean up contaminated sites across the United States. The settlement allocated $1 billion of those funds to clean up 50 uranium mines across the Navajo Nation.
There is a lot more to be done, said Susan Gordon, coordinator for the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, a grassroots organization led by uranium-impacted communities. Hundreds of abandoned mines pepper the Navajo Nation, and the EPA has not formulated a broader plan to clean up the majority of them. Funding is also an issue, she added.
What the EPA’s decision means for the future of uranium mine waste remediation is unclear. Under other circumstances, Jantz said that the decision would signal a sea change for the EPA’s policy of removing waste from the Navajo Nation. But the incoming Trump administration has not indicated its policy on hazardous waste disposal.
“I don’t think that it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we let them gain more access to our ground,” Banks told fellow lawmakers Thursday. “I also think it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we don’t allow just outright sales of state ground.”
The slate of all-Republican co-sponsors includes Reps. Ocean Andrew of Laramie, Jeremy Haroldson of Wheatland, Reuben Tarver of Gillette, John Winter of Thermopolis and Sens. Bob Ide of Casper, John Kolb of Rock Springs and Cheri Steinmetz of Torrington. Banks and most of his cosponsors are counted among the hard-line cohort that includes the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its Wyoming Senate allies.
If enacted unchanged, the bill would add a new legal directive for Wyoming land managers, who often pursue land sales and swaps with the federal government. Some of those deals are compelled by the Wyoming Constitution, which requires officials to maximize revenues from school trust lands to fund public education.
“We have rules and regulations, and we also have statutes that have been provided to us, and they’re a little bit contrary to what the intent of the bill is,” Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments Acting Director Jason Crowder told the House Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee Thursday as the panel took public comment and expert testimony on the measure.
The Office of State Lands and Investments, he explained, is charged with protecting and increasing the value of “the whole corpus” of the state’s lands and associated trust accounts.
“Land transactions are the best way for us to do that,” Crowder said.
Looking down at the Jackson Hole valley from the elevated northeast corner of the Kelly Parcel in November 2024. The state of Wyoming sold the parcel to the National Park Service for $100 million the following month. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)
In the case of the Kelly Parcel, the $100 million Wyoming received for 640 acres was $38 million more than the property’s appraised value. When the State Board of Land Commissioners OK’d the sale in a 3-2 vote, Treasurer Curt Meier said that, through investments, his office could turn the proceeds into $1.6 billion.
“That could be a perpetual, actually generational fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming,” the treasurer said at the time.
Not all of his board colleagues agreed. Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder contested the sale, pushing instead for a land swap that would return fossil-fuel-rich federal land in the Powder River Basin.
Degenfelder, the daughter of an oilman, spoke in support of Banks’ bill.
“I fundamentally agree with the concept that we cannot continue to increase federal ownership of the state of Wyoming,” the superintendent told the House Ag committee. “48% of the surface is owned by the federal government, 65% of mineral acreage is owned by the federal government. We cannot afford to increase that number.”
Lawmakers echoed displeasure with federal land management inside Wyoming’s borders. Banks cited both the Bureau of Land Management’s recent revisions of resource management plans for the Red Desert region and the Powder River Basin.
Rep. Reuben Tarver (R-Gillette) testifies to the House Agriculture Committee during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session in Cheyenne. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)
Tarver, a co-sponsor representing Gillette, wasn’t on the committee and couldn’t move to amend it, but suggested sweetening the pot for Wyoming and requiring a 10-to-1 or 100-to-1 acre requirement for any land deals.
“I don’t see where the federal government manages absolutely anything very well,” Tarver said. “Everything they touch turns into a problem for the state of Wyoming.”
Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, asked her fellow representative if he’d be OK with the bill if it infringed on private property owners’ rights to sell their land to the federal government.
The valley in which the West Fork dam and reservoir would be constructed. (Angus M. Thuermer, Jr./WyoFile)
The Medicine Bow deal’s benefit to an agricultural community didn’t sway Kelly Carpenter, a lobbyist for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, who testified in support of the legislation.
House Bill 118 passed through the House Agriculture Committee in an 8-1 vote after minimal debate, with Provenza opposed. It heads next to the Wyoming House of Representatives, where it’ll need to be read, and voted on, three times on the lower chamber’s floor.
Republicans in the Legislature put a referendum on the April 1 ballot to add the requirement to the state constitution. State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said the amendment makes it “harder to vote” than to buy a gun.
In Wisconsin, federally licensed gun dealers are required to do background checks on gun purchasers, but other sellers, such as individuals selling privately or at gun shows, are not.
According to a 2015 national survey of gun owners, 22% who made their most recent purchase within two years said they did so without a background check; the figure was 57% among gun owners in states such as Wisconsin that didn’t regulate private gun sales.
It’s the latest national survey, said Johns Hopkins University gun policy expert Daniel Webster.
On voter ID, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated Wisconsin’s law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.
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Athens to build low-income housing on city’s West and Near East sides
David Funk, owner of Capstone Properties, gave an affordable housing presentation to the city Monday. Funk said that a public-private partnership funding projects internally in Athens and the surrounding county, rather than enticing out of town developers, would be much more beneficial to the local economy.
ATHENS, Ohio — Housing was a major topic at a Monday night’s Athens City Council meeting, with discussion of a new affordable housing project; news that a planned project is on hold; and a pitch from a local real estate developer to build more affordable housing.
At a combined regular and committee meeting, the council heard first reading of an ordinance that would authorize an agreement with Community Building Partners, LLC, to develop and build 14 single-family homes in the city.
The project is underwritten by a $2 million grant the city received in November 2024 from the state’s Welcome Home Ohio program. Community Building Partners will receive a developer fee of $10,000 per unit, according to the agreement.
The project description attached to the grant award calls for construction of eight three-bedroom homes on the site of the former West Elementary on Central Avenue by Nov. 1, 2026. A future second phase would see construction of an additional six units on Grosvenor Street and Hudson Avenue.
However, council member Alan Swank, 4th Ward said that those sites weren’t set in stone.
“The state got a little ahead of the ball game and identified the spots they wanted,” Swank said. “I’m not sure if they drove down here or talked to anybody, but that’s fine — we’re not bound to what they suggested.”
Athens City Service-Safety Director Andy Stone did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding the accuracy of Swank’s statement.
Each unit would cost approximately $250,000 to build and would sell for $130,000 to $150,000, Swank said. The proceeds of the sales would fund further construction, he added.
According to the multi-property listing service realtor.com, the median home sale price in the city of Athens was $287,500 in December 2024.
Under the program terms, each home would have a deed restriction barring sale to anyone who earns more than 80% of the county’s annual median income as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“These have to be homes that are going to be homes for many, many, many years — not turned into rentals in the next three, five, 10 or even 15 years,” Swank said.
The ordinance will have its second reading at the council’s next regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
Other housing projects
Meanwhile, a proposed housing project near Monticello Village apartments on Hooper Street has stalled.
Hill Tide Partners of South Carolina had asked the city to rezone the area from R-1, single family residential, to R-3, multi-family residential for the project.. During the meeting of the Planning and Development Committee Monday, Swank said Hill Tide had withdrawn its request pending upcoming changes to Ohio’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program.
The project involves construction of 50 to 80 apartments on 18 acres at 111 Hooper Street.
Hill Tide Partners may bring its proposal back sometime between February and April, Swank said.
LIHTC projects offer developers a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal taxes for building affordable housing projects. Developers front the costs of construction in exchange for tax credits of 4% or 9% of the project cost. In addition, the developer earns project fees and reaps the profits from leasing or selling the housing units.
And projects in Athens County are especially attractive to developers using LIHTC, Funk said, because the state and federal governments offer additional incentives to encourage projects in Appalachia.
“There’s a reason why all of these developers are chasing these projects in Athens County — they’re lucrative,” Funk said.
A LIHTC project underway in The Plains, Funk noted, will earn Woda Construction of Columbus nearly $6.6 million in developer fees and construction profit — none of which will be spent in Athens County.
Big development firms like Woda, Hill Tide and Spire Development have an edge in obtaining tax credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Funk said, because they have more experience in such projects.
“LIHTC is very much a closed house of developers,” he said. “It’s a pretty small group, and it’s not a club that wants to have other people come in and compete against them.”
In the past eight years, 12 LIHTC projects have created 595 housing units in Athens County — “probably the highest number of LIHTC projects per capita in the state of Ohio,” Funk said. But none of them had local participation, so the county has lost an estimated $282 million in local economic impact, he said.
“The affordable housing that’s being created is fantastic, but it’s tended to take jobs away from the local builders,” he said.
“But what if all this work had gone to them?” Funk asked. “We’d probably have a vibrant community of builders, a vibrant community of local suppliers.”
Funk suggested that the city create a public-private partnership to support local developers in pursuing LIHTC projects.
“If done right, there’s enough resources here, enough income coming off these projects, to create an endowment fund,” he said. “Imagine what one could do with $6 million off one single project, in terms of furthering other affordable housing initiatives in Athens County.”
There are no models for such an initiative, he said.
“This would be really creative, to put forth this kind of partnership,” he said.
Patterson said he and Service Safety Director Andy Stone had met previously with Funk and seen the same presentation.
“I think that this would be really interesting, to be able to pull together various entities that might be interested in trying to apply for LIHTC themselves,” he said.
The Athens County Foundation could bring stakeholders together, he added.
Solveig Spjeldnes, 1st Ward, chairs Affordable Housing Commission and said it could become involved in supporting such a partnership, including through identifying site locations. She suggested a land trust could potentially be used for projects, too.
Athens City Council’s next regular meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, in Athens City Hall, Council Chambers, third floor, 8 E. Washington St. Meetings are also available online. Regular sessions are on the first and third Mondays of the month; committee meetings are on the second and fourth Mondays.
