Press Pass, Wednesday, August 23

Here’s some of our top stories from Wednesday’s edition. It’s your Press Pass to some of the best stories we bring you every day.

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Victim, suspects named in Bowman motel murder

The man found dead Saturday in a Bowman motel has been identified as Nicholas Johnson, 23, of Rhame.

Bowman Police Chief Charles Headley said during a press conference Tuesday that he wouldn’t share specifics about the cause of Johnson’s death, but said three people - two of whom worked at the El-Vu Motel, where Johnson was found dead - were arrested last weekend in Colorado on suspicion of homicide.

First International Bank takes ownership of Hawks Point

Kelly Peterson assured residents of Hawks Point on Tuesday that “the cloud is off” the assisted living facility on Dickinson State University’s campus as First International Bank and Trust officially took ownership of the property.

Peterson, the bank’s president of the western North Dakota region, told around 50 residents and staff that its foreclosure on the property closed at midnight Tuesday, ending a 60-day redemption period without payment from past ownership group Dickinson Investments LLC.

ND pipeline protesters march across Bismarck bridge; actress to lead ‘solidarity’ rally in D.C.

Waving the flags of their tribes and singing the songs of their ancestors, more than 200 protesters marched across a Missouri River bridge in Bismarck Tuesday ahead of a federal court hearing that will determine the fate of the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s route in North Dakota.  

“This water belongs to all of us,” Vic Camp, a 41-year-old from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, said as he rallied the crowd before the march. “We all know that tomorrow in Washington they’re going to make a decision that affects every single one of us.”

Cultural survey at heart of pipeline challenge

The confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers is considered so sacred to tribal communities that enemy tribes once camped within view of each other but remained peaceful because of their reverence for the water and the land.

That’s how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe describes the area where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross the Missouri River.