Minnesota

It’s not easy being a wolf in northern Minnesota.

Every year dozens of the animals die of starvation, disease, parasites, vehicle traffic and poaching.

But the No. 1 killer of Minnesota wolves may come as a surprise: agents of the federal government, acting with the full force of the law.

As part of the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act of 2020, the transfer aims to "right a wrong" from the illegal transfer of allotted Leech Lake lands to the USDA in the 1950s.

Newly passed legislation evens the playing field between landlords and tenants, housing advocates say.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is withholding more than $20 million in conservation grants over concerns the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is allowing logging in sensitive wildlife habitat.

Minnesota’s moose are dying.

Researchers with the Department of Natural Resources and tribal groups estimate that the statewide population numbered around 3,300 this year. While the population has been relatively stable for the past decade, it’s a decline of more than 50% since the mid-2000s.

One major factor in that decline? Brainworms.

A local cannabis grower and wholesaler who goes by Tacoleaf has been growing the plant for himself and others for more than 15 years. He started with just one plant and a tent, and now makes a living by harvesting 8 to 12 pounds from his basement facility every nine weeks. Though police attention has been more relaxed as more states legalize cannabis each year, he said he’s seen his fair share of trouble.

After a 10-day trial in March, a jury found Lazzaro, 32, guilty of bringing five teenage girls to his apartment in downtown Minneapolis and paying them for sex, in violation of federal sex trafficking laws.

The new union says bosses are retaliating. Leadership says workers are creating 'false narratives.'

By Jay Boller

MN350, a progressive climate advocacy organization, trumpeted the January unveiling of the People’s Climate & Equity Plan, a localized version of the Green New Deal it helped draft with like-minded orgs. The press release announcing it references "union apprenticeships," "higher-paying union jobs," and "access [to] union careers.”

Unsurprisingly, the 12-year-old Minneapolis nonprofit is the type of place that attracts workers with favorable views of the labor movement. “We see ourselves as a community-led and volunteer-powered climate justice group, with an explicitly pro-union organizing posture,” says Andy Pearson, a nine-year MN350 vet who specializes in pipeline resistance.

This past spring, union activity began bubbling inside the offices of MN350. Talks began in April with Workers United, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union, and 10 out of 10 staffers had signed union cards by June. The next step—presenting your union to the bosses—tends to work two ways: voluntary recognition, which sidesteps surplus rigmarole, or, failing that, scheduling an election to be overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

MN350 leadership opted to recognize its unionizing workforce, but instead of clearing the runway for contract negotiations, things reportedly got messy. Fast.

“That voluntary recognition has yet to be affirmed to the NLRB; our leadership is withholding that affirmation,” Pearson says. “We’re very confused by it and, of course, we’re frustrated.”

Pearson says signs of acrimony appeared within days of the union reveal, alleging that management asked for concessions like: waiving the right to file objections with the NLRB, waiving the right to strike, and even waiving the right to talk publicly about the union with supporters. “Over the last year staff has been told they’ll be fired or disciplined if they communicate with our board of directors,” he says.

Then, on August 1, MN350 slapped Pearson with a formal disciplinary warning and, that same day, terminated Nancy Beaulieu, a MN350 organizer who has worked on treaty rights for the past six years. Pearson says he can’t get into specifics, but he describes both actions as “bogus” and “clearly related to union activity.” (Beaulieu agrees with that characterization.)

In response to the union’s airing of that turmoil, the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous women/two-spirit-led environmental justice org founded by tribal attorney and MN350 board member Tara Houska, publicly accused Pearson of “racist, tokenizing, underhanded patterns of engaging the frontline communities & BIPOC folks.” (Beaulieu, a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, strongly disagrees with that characterization.)

Theresa “Tee” McClenty, MN350’s newish executive director, tells Racket that there’s “a false narrative circulating about the board and me regarding unionization.” She reiterated her support of the union, adding that Pearson and Beaulieu were “not disciplined due to unionization at all,” though she declined to elaborate due to confidentiality concerns. “I still value the power of unions but not when they create false narratives,” she adds. Speaking generally, McClenty reports that “yes, absolutely I've experienced [racism] and continue to” as a Black woman in the workplace.

“There’s no false narrative; there’s animosity and retaliation for our union efforts,” Beaulieu counters. Her union has filed a complaint with the NLRB, and is “urgently” seeking the reinstatement of Beaulieu, the expungement of Pearson’s disciplinary writeup, and “a full investigation into internal working conditions at MN350,” Pearson says.

Meanwhile, Beaulieu says the treaty-rights campaign she helmed since 2017 has been mothballed: “We’ve worked for over five years, and we’re winning… now everything I worked for is gone now.”

“All we’re asking for is fair discipline, and an environment where we feel safe, heard, and part of the big decisions,” Beaulieu continues. “We’re the ones with our boots on the ground; we built MN350, and ya know what? We’re a movement, not a corporation—we need a leader, not a boss. I know we’re going to win.”

The first legal sale of recreational marijuana in Minnesota was made on the Red Lake reservation on Tuesday to a tribal employee before a throng of journalists and tribal leaders.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2466388

Minnesotans are now able to legally possess and grow their own marijuana for recreational purposes, after the Minnesota Legislature approved a 300-page bill earlier this year, and Gov. Tim Walz signed it into law shortly thereafter. It became official Tuesday.

In addition to preserving the area’s rich history, the Beltrami County Historical Society may now be making it.

Recently a court granted the museum permission to break up arguably its most important collection — the John Morrison collection — so that culturally sensitive artifacts could be repatriated back to the Indigenous communities from where they originated.

Emily Thabes is the society’s executive director. Sitting in the museum she gave an overview of the building’s own history.

“We're in the Great Northern Depot in Bemidji, Minnesota, so this was the last depot that was built by James J. Hill,” Thabes said. “It was built in 1913, so it's 110 years old this year and this building was converted into the history center in 2000.”

Emily Thabes is executive director of The Beltrami County Historical Society. She said the old Great Northern Railroad Depot was turned into a museum in 2000. This year it will turn 110 years old.

But it’s some of the items in the building which has focused her attention recently.

A few years ago, a First Nations tribe in Canada sent the historical society a letter enquiring about a ceremonial water drum.

The museum no longer had the artifact, but it forced the staff to re-examine what was in their archives and in particular the John Morrison collection which contained about 2,000 artifacts from numerous tribes throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The collection also includes the largest number of Red Lake artifacts outside of the reservation.

Morrison who was half Native American, acquired much of his collection during the 1920s and 1930s although many of the artifacts predate that. At the time he owned the trading post in Ponemah on Red Lake. He later served as the local school’s first headmaster as well as the postmaster.

In the 1960s shortly before his death, Morrison donated his collection of artifacts to the historical society. It became the foundation of the museum itself. Morrison also recorded descriptions of some of the objects.

Upon hearing of the Red Lake artifacts former Red Lake executive administrator, Thomas Cain Jr., had to see them for himself. He says it used to be that trading posts like Morrison's sometimes took objects as surety for things people needed until people could pay, much like modern-day pawn shops. Red Lake Reservation

Red Lake Reservation encompasses nearly 800,000 acres across northern Minnesota with four primary communities; Red Lake, Redby, Little Rock and Ponemah.

“The families were more than likely hungry for food. So that's an example of how a lot of these artifacts end up where they do is through hunger, starvation, poverty,” Cain said. “You know, people got to eat every day.”

In Morrison’s recordings he describes how he came into possession of many of the artifacts, including some regalia.

“The jacket was not originally a part of the costume. And I got that I think in 1920, along there I traded some of the Indians around there when I had the store,” he said in the recording. “The headdress I bought from a Catholic priest from the Pine Ridge Reservation (in South Dakota).”

Among the objects in the collection were 150 to 200 objects protected under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA.

Passed in 1990, the federal law protects human remains, funerary objects or objects of cultural patrimony. It applies to institutions that receive federal dollars, all except the Smithsonian Institution which follows different guidelines.

According to Thabes, the Bemidji collection contained all of those kinds of items except human remains.

“We've had these items for some time and of course the law has been in place for some time,” she said. “But the will that Mr. Morrison left regarding the items and how he wanted those items to be treated put restrictions on us about being able to follow NAGPRA guidelines.” A box with artifacts

Much of the Morrison collection is stored in boxes. Emily Thabes said the items have been blessed by Indigenous members from the communities they were taken from.

Basically, Morrison said the collection could not be broken up.

Last year after consulting with area tribal members the historical society secured the help of a Twin Cities law firm and a consultant. And in an unprecedented move, with help from volunteers and the county, they successfully argued in court to amend the will, allowing the repatriation process to move forward.

“We put forth the right argument regarding why we wanted to make the change,” Thabes recounted. “Because it's a significant thing to not follow a will but it is a more significant thing not to follow the rights of Native American people.”

Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member, Jim Jones Jr., is a NAGPRA expert. He served 22 years with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. As a former culture resource director, he's been involved in countless repatriations. He says it's uncommon to see an institution do what Beltrami County's did.

“The items that were identified were in fact sacred items. And so, the institution knowing what those items are, working with tribal communities realize that, 'Hey, we shouldn't have these, the right thing to do is to return them back to the tribal communities,’” Jones said. “It’s rare that you see something like that because if you don’t have a tribal community or you’re a private collection or private museum, there’s no law that mandates that you have to return those items.”
A hand holds a horn

Emily Thabes displays a hand-carved powder horn that is part of the John Morrison collection. Most of the pieces were gathered during the 1920s and 1930s while Morrison operated a trading post in Ponemah, Minn.

Jones hopes other institutions follow Bemidji's lead.

Following NAGPRA guidelines the Beltrami County Historical Society created an inventory and sent letters summarizing the items to nine tribes they know are affected. However there may be others. The items will also be entered into an online registry with descriptions and photos when possible.

Thabes said the organization now looks forward to whatever next steps develop. Personally, she says, she’s grateful how this experience has changed her worldview.

“If this was my grandmother, right? This is literally pieces of my grandmother, that's how I have to think about these things. Would I want her to be on display somewhere?” Thabes asked.

“No, of course not. Nobody wants that. So, if we think about things from our basic human needs, desires and instincts, because that's where we all are. Then I think that helps to guide where we need to go.”

Survey about the changes to I-94 from the MNDOT. The differences are hard to see but would have large changes in the quality of life within the cities