This week, as part of the continued work by the Departments of the Interior and Justice to implement the Not Invisible Act and combat the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP), Secretary Deb Haaland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco hosted the first in-person plenary session of the Not Invisible Act Commission at the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. The two-day meeting follows a series of online sessions since the establishment of the Commission last year. The Not Invisible Act, which was authored by then-Rep. Haaland and passed into law in October 2020, established the Commission as a cross jurisdictional advisory committee composed of both federal and non-federal members including law enforcement, Tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and survivors. Secretary Haaland and Deputy Attorney General Monaco announced the members of the Commission last year as part of a live event to recognize National MMIP Awareness Day on May 5.
FEMA announced that federal disaster assistance has been made available to the state of South Dakota to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by the severe winter storms and snowstorm during the period of Dec. 12-25, 2022. Public Assistance federal funding is available to the state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures and the repair or replacement of disaster-damaged facilities in Bennett, Brookings, Clark, Day, Deuel, Hamlin, Jackson, Jones, Kingsbury, Mellette, Oglala Lakota, Potter, Roberts, Stanley, Todd and Tripp counties. In addition, federal funding is available on a cost-sharing basis for snow assistance for a continuous 48-hour period during or proximate to the incident period for Bennett, Jones, Mellette, Stanley, Todd and Tripp counties.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
