NEW MEXICO

Continent’s largest powwow draws thousands

ALBUQUERQUE — Thousands of people gathered in New Mexico on the last weekend in April for a celebration showcasing Native American and Indigenous dancers, musicians and artisans from around the world.

Billed by organizers as the largest powwow in North America, the annual Gathering of Nations festival kicked off on April 25 with a colorful procession of dancers spiraling into the center of an arena at the New Mexico state fairgrounds.

Participants wore elaborate regalia — some with jingling bells and others with feathers— and danced to the tempo of rhythmic drumming, each coming for their own reasons.

“It’s not just for show,” said Deshava Apachee, who is Mescalero Apache and Navajo. “It’s for healing, it’s for strength, it’s for reconnecting.”

The event also featured the crowning of Miss Indian World, as well as horse parades in which riders were judged on the craftsmanship of their intricately beaded adornments or feathered headdresses and how well they work with their horses.

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Powwows are a relatively modern phenomenon that emerged in the 1800s as the U.S. government seized land from tribes throughout the Northern and Southern Plains. Forced migrations and upheaval during this period resulted in intertribal solidarity among Plains people and those from the southern prairies of Canada.

Alliances were formed, giving way to the exchange of songs and dances during gatherings between different tribes. In the decades that followed, powwows were advertised to pioneers heading westward as “authentic” Native American dance shows.

Today, some of the large powwows like the Gathering of Nations have become more commercialized events that use dancing and drumming competitions, with prize money at stake, to provide a glimpse into Indigenous cultures.

ARIZONA

Governor lifts blanket veto threat

PHOENIX — Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on April 24 lifted her blanket veto threat after Republicans and Democrats united on legislation supplying funding for a state agency that provides services for some of Arizona’s most vulnerable residents.

After a standoff that lasted months and running up against an early May deadline, Hobbs had announced she’d veto all bills not already on her desk — even policy she supports — until lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature come to a supplemental funding agreement for the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities. The division supports close to 60,000 people with autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, Down syndrome and other cognitive and intellectual disabilities.

Hobbs celebrated the funding bill, which she signed on April 24 after approval from the legislature, noting policies it puts into law like a 40-hour cap on the number of paid hours that parents who care for their children with disabilities can receive weekly per child.

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She ultimately did not automatically veto any legislation — neither the state House nor Senate sent bills to the governor’s office after she announced her bill moratorium.

Republicans’ frustration brewed after learning that Hobbs was requesting about $13 million more in funding for the division after having already put out her executive budget proposal. They said she mismanaged the funds.

Republicans had wanted to put guardrails on the program, and Democrats had wanted to discuss guardrails after approving the funding. GOP state Rep. Matt Gress, who sponsored the amendment to the bill that Hobbs signed, said he was happy with the compromise.

WYOMING

Committee to focus on gaming industry

CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s billion-dollar gambling industry will be the sole focus of a new select committee created by legislative leadership this year, given the “heavy lift” of the complex issue.

Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, one of the co-chairmen for the new Select Committee on Gaming said the issue had been “getting passed from committee to committee.”

Last year, the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee took the first stab at investigating gambling in Wyoming. The JAC created a special working group devoted to exploring this topic and paid for a statewide comprehensive study of the gambling industry. By the end of the interim, five committee-sponsored bills related to gambling were filed for the 2025 legislative session.

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One of these bills focused on allowing local governments to have a say in approving historic horse racing machines, and another would have allowed national betting on Wyoming live horse races.

However, a majority of these bills failed at the beginning of the session, and none made it to the finish line.

There are six members on the new select committee, three from the House of Representatives and three from the Senate.

Co-chair Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Jackson, said he appreciated that there’s a new select committee to take on the heavy lift of gambling issues, especially after legislative leadership reduced the number of committee meeting days from six to four this interim.

NORTH DAKOTA

State shields Roundup from lawsuits

A new first-of-its-kind law enacted in North Dakota could shield agrochemical manufacturer Bayer from lawsuits claiming it failed to warn customers that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer.

Though the immediate effect may be small, given that North Dakota is among the least populated U.S. states, Bayer is hopeful that success there could lead to similar laws being passed around the country. The company faces an onslaught of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars for alleged harm from Roundup. A similar bill is pending in Georgia before Gov. Brian Kemp.

Bayer, based in Germany, acquired Roundup with the 2018 purchase of St. Louis-based Monsanto. It contends glyphosate, an active ingredient in Roundup, has for decades provided a safe and efficient way to control weeds with less tilling, which helps prevent soil erosion. For crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton, Roundup is designed to work with genetically modified seeds that resist glyphosate’s deadly effect.

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Bayer has been hit with about 181,000 legal claims alleging that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Though some studies associate glyphosate with cancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

Bayer, which disputes the cancer claims, has teamed with a coalition of agricultural groups to back legislation in at least 11 states this year that declares that a federally approved label on pesticides is sufficient to satisfy any duty under state law to warn customers. Bayer also has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the legal claims.

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