National Native News

The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) is pulling out all the stops to block a Safari Club International proposal to reform the federal subsistence board. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, AFN says it is a direct threat to the Alaska Native subsistence way of life. Last year, Safari Club International, a sport hunting and fishing group, petitioned two Trump cabinet members for the review. It asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to address what it calls “federal overreach” in subsistence management. In mid-December, the Interior Department granted the request and announced a 60-day review, called a “scoping process”. During this period, it will consider the Safari Club’s recommendations, which includes a proposal to limit the size of the federal subsistence board to only the heads of five federal agencies. AFN President Ben Mallott says this would eliminate public seats, including three held by tribal representatives. “We’ve been working for that for a very long time, so we are concerned that any rollback in public member seats would just weaken our voices. And so for us, that is a major threat.” The petition also seeks to change the make-up of Regional Advisory Councils, the volunteers who recommend policies to the Federal Subsistence Board. The Safari Club says sport and commercial hunters and fishers are not adequately represented on these councils. But beyond changing the leadership structure of subsistence management, the Safari Club calls on federal agency heads, when setting regulations, to defer to state managers – a move that opponents say would undermine the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), legislation Congress passed 45 years ago to protect Alaska’s rural subsistence lifestyle. The Safari Club says it is stepping in to protect the state’s rights, because federal managers have repeatedly overstepped the bounds of ANILCA. John Sturgeon, a leading advocate for the Alaska Safari Club says, says this is a fight about fish and game management, not about the rights of rural Alaskans to subsist. “We have no problem with subsistence. We support it, so it’s kind of a perceived conflict. We just think the state of Alaska should be in charge of subsistence.” The problem is, the state’s constitution does not allow for a rural subsistence priority, which federal law mandates. Public comment on the Safari Club proposals closes on February 13. The campus of Spokane Falls Community College. (Photo: T85cr1ft19m1n / Wikimedia) Indigenous-knowledge focused centers are on their way to Spokane Falls Community College and the Spokane Community College campus on the Spokane reservation in Washington. As Steve Jackson reports, a grant from Avista Utilities is providing the seed money. Indigenous Healing Environments Across Lifeways (I-HEAL) centers will hold workshops on skills and concepts related to sustainability of water, land, animals, and climate. They will also include studies related to using plants for food and medicine. Spokane Colleges Tribal Relations Director Naomi Bender says she will seek out Indigenous presenters from tribes in the region, but she says instructors will be careful in what they present. “Traditional knowledge of plants and medicines, for example, was illegal in the U.S. And to this day, we’re very careful about what’s shared and what’s not because people want to monetize and they want to harm what knowledge they gain at times.” Bender says both Indigenous and non-Native students will be welcome at the I-HEAL centers. She anticipates they will begin holding workshops in about a year. (Courtesy IAIA) Congress recently approved more than $13 million in federal funding for the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, N.M. for Fiscal Year 2026. This comes after the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate IAIA’s federal appropriation. The funding maintains the institute’s current funding level to support academic programs, student services, and general operations.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, January 22, 2026 – A tribal mining development agreement: a path forward or a one-time anomaly?

Maleeka “Mollie” Boone, a Navajo girl who’d gone missing in the community of Coalmine near Tuba City, Ariz. marks the second time an alert system has been used in search of a Native American since its implementation last year. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, that search is now over. The FBI Phoenix Field Office confirmed that Boone’s body was found on Friday following a multiagency search that included law enforcement authorities from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, U.S. Marshals Service, Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, and Flagstaff Police Department. “To learn that this search has ended in loss is a pain beyond words.” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren took to social media to share his condolences – not just for Maleeka, but also 3-year-old Karson Apodaca, who was killed during a Christmas parade. “In just the past few weeks, with the tragedy in Kayenta and now this heartbreaking news from Coalmine, our Nation has endured tremendous pain. These moments remind us just how sacred our children are and how deeply connected every life is within our Navajo community. May we honor Maleeka’s spirit by cherishing and protecting every child across the Navajo Nation.” The investigation into Maleeka’s death is being handled by the FBI and Navajo Department of Criminal Investigations.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jonathan Juárez (@pueblobaddie) On the opening day of the New Mexico legislative session Tuesday, a protest was held at the state capitol in Santa Fe. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) spoke to Indigenous people at the event. Hundreds of New Mexicans rallied and marched up the steps towards the Roundhouse. Oglala Sioux Nation member John Swift Bird led the march with other Native drummers. “The energy always, always gets to the people. People have always resonated to the singing and to the energy of it.” He’s been advocating back and forth between New Mexico and South Dakota ever since the 2016 protests in Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Longtime activist Elder Kathy Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) gave a blessing and told attendees to not give up. “Every thing that is brought forth in a good way will survive, because all of us are not giving up on each other.” Siihasin Hope from the Mescalero Apache and Diné Nations is an advocate for the Southwest Solidarity Network and Revolutionary 2 Spirit Collective. Hope is advocating for land and water protections and says it’s important for Indigenous people to understand and exercise their rights. “It’s the only reason that we have them, is because people before us, our ancestors before us, have fought for us to be here. Have fought for us to have the right to, you know, live.” She wants lawmakers and the governor to continue upholding tribal consultation on Native issues and says she and other advocates will continue to fight for tribal rights. Photograph and MMIP activist Amanda Freeman stands before two portraits on January 14, 2026. (Photo: Brian Bull / KLCC) The founder of a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People organization is sharing the faces of those affected by the crisis. KLCC’s Brian Bull (Nez Perce) reports on a new exhibition in Salem, Oreg. Amanda Freeman founded Ampkwa Advocacy and has displayed nearly three dozen photos of Native people who have lost a relative or have suffered domestic violence or addiction. It’s titled, “Ampkwa: munk lush nsayka shawash tilixam”, which means “Healing our Indigenous relatives.” Red hand prints and a long red trailing dress adorn the walls and wrap around each portrait. Freeman says she wants visitors to leave with one impression. “I would like them to remember that we’re not disposable. And actually leave with the mindset of, “Let me share this information because I had no idea. Because any awareness is good awareness.” A reception and artist’s talk will be held January 28. The exhibit runs through February 6 at the Gretchen Schuette Art Gallery at Chemeketa Community College.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, January 21, 2026 – Native activists prepare for ongoing resistance and documentation as federal crackdowns expand  

Tribal leaders are among those raising concerns about the stability of local mental health and substance abuse services. That’s after a temporary major cut in federal funding last week, as Chuck Quirmbach reports. The White House announced roughly $2 billion in cuts to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The government said the money no longer aligned with President Donald Trump’s public health agenda. Then, about 24 hours later, and without explanation, the grants were restored. The HoChunk Nation is one of about 2,000 organizations that would have lost funding. HoChunk President Jon Greendeer says last week’s cuts, had they held, would have been on top of other reductions announced a year ago, that were only partly restored. “Those never came back on line completely. Especially those who work closely with the program.” Greendeer says the Indian Health Service has also lost staff nationwide. He says the uncertainty not only harms Indigenous communities, which he calls America’s most vulnerable populations. “It is dealing with the most vulnerable populations within a vulnerable population. We are working on mental health issues, we are working with addiction, domestic abuse and all the, you know, social determinants of health.” Greendeer says overall, the HoChunk Nation is providing a good level of services, but only after greater partnering with the state of Wisconsin and some nearby counties. The question for some organizations is whether the Trump administration will try again sometime to make major cuts in federal dollars. (Courtesy Sitting Bull College) Indigenous students and families are concerned about rising costs as the U.S. Department of Education resumes wage garnishment for federal student loans in default. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding has more. The Department of Education started to send notices to borrowers whose loans have gone unpaid for more than nine months. Employers can withhold up to 15% of disposable income without a court order. This policy may hit Indigenous communities especially hard. Higher education analysts say that about 40% of Native borrowers default on their federal loans, and many carry balances longer after graduation than other groups. Nez Perce tribal member Sienna Reuben, who graduated from the University of Idaho in 2021, says wage garnishment adds another financial burden to Native families already stretched thin. “I feel like student loans obviously come last because are you eating them? Are they feeding you? Are they housing you? Are they doing any of this stuff?” Reuben also says that Indigenous alumni often have the additional responsibility of supporting family members. The Ketchikan Indian Community is one of over a dozen tribal governments that have signed onto the new alliance. (Photo: Michael Fanelli/KRBD) More than a dozen tribal governments have formed the Alliance of Sovereign Tribes of Southeast Alaska. KRBD’s Hunter Morrison reports. The new partnership promotes a unified approach to addressing regional tribal concerns while acknowledging each tribe’s individual differences. Gloria Burns is the president of the Ketchikan Indian Community. She says the new partnership has already improved communication between the region’s tribes. “And as we communicate, we’re going to partner with each other, and when we partner with each other, then we’re creating real movement and change with each other.” Albert Smith is the mayor of the Metlakatla Indian Community, the only reservation in Alaska. He says there has not been an established partnership of Southeast Alaska tribes in more than 20 years. “The importance is just tribes helping tribes, working together for a common goal of the betterment of our region, and Indigenous peoples of our region.” Other tribal governments in the alliance include the Craig Tribal Association, the Organized Village of Kake, and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, January 20, 2026 – Tribes see increasing urgency to confront flooding threat

Photo: Dr. Jennifer Pierce with an Anchorage Fire Department vehicle on January 9, 2026. Pierce and the vehicle are part of a new program that will offer addiction treatment to those who overdose. (Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) Alaska is launching pilot programs in Anchorage and Juneau to offer addiction treatment in mobile care units. Emergency responders will give people medication to help them survive after an overdose. Indigenous Alaskans die of overdose at about three times the rate of white Alaskans. Alaska Public Media’s health reporter Rachel Cassandra has more. Dr. Jennifer Pierce shows off a new SUV for the Anchorage fire department’s pilot program. “We want people to see us as a beacon of help.” Pierce has a simple mission: to treat Anchorage residents who overdose and connect them with care afterwards. For the first time in a mobile unit in Alaska, responders can give patients the medication buprenorphine, which reduces withdrawals and can get patients on the road to recovery. “We don’t want people to fall through the cracks.” Narcan, or naloxone, is used to reverse overdoses, but it puts people into withdrawal. And research shows that offering that second medication, buprenorphine, makes it more likely patients will enter long-term recovery. But Pierce says even if people don’t continue treatment, the medication reduces the risk of a second overdose in the days immediately following – a dangerous window, according to research. She hopes the program saves lives. “Even if it’s just one life. Right? We’re saving lives out there and preventing individuals, maybe from overdosing the next day or overdosing again later and dying.” Pierce visited successful programs in Texas and Washington for ideas and best practices to replicate in Alaska. Dr. Quigley Peterson says he’s also seen the healing benefits of buprenorphine. He’s an emergency room physician heading Juneau’s mobile pilot program. He says he’s confident it will do well partly because he’s seen how helpful the medication can be in the emergency room. “We have something that can help engage people, that’s super safe and it’s cheap, and that it works.” He says they’ll collect data over the year to see what happens to patients after they’re given buprenorphine for an overdose. His hope is that it reduces emergency room visits and calls for emergency medical care. If the pilots are successful, Peterson’s goal is to inspire similar programs in more communities across Alaska. Three-year-old Karson Apodaca. (Courtesy Sayetsitty Family / GoFundMe) A Navajo man was facing the tribe’s criminal justice system after allegedly driving drunk and killing a three-year-old boy at a Christmas parade on the reservation. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, U.S. authorities are now stepping in to prosecute him in federal court. 67-year-old Stanley Begay Jr. was charged with vehicular manslaughter and could have faced up to a year in prison and a $500,000 fine. Now a grand jury in Arizona is handing him three counts, including second-degree murder, stemming from the death of three-year-old Karson Apodoca. Begay was taken into federal custody by FBI agents last week. The agency’s Phoenix Field Office is seeking photos and videos from that incident that can be used in the case against Begay, who has been assigned a Flagstaff attorney. Dignity of Earth and Sky is a sculpture on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River near Chamberlain, S.D. (Courtesy SDPB) Following the 2026 State of the Tribes address in South Dakota, Gov. Larry Rhoden (R-SD) met with over 50 dignitaries from eight of the state’s nine tribes. SDPB’s C.J. Keene reports. Gov. Rhoden says he left the private meeting feeling optimistic about the future of state-tribal relations. “There were things that we were palms up with them as far as some of the concerns, some of the areas we disagreed on. We agreed to disagree, and we had more conversation. As we walked out of the room, we had built a relationship, and I think that we’ll continue to build on that. It was a product of open, honest conversation.” State-tribal relations effectively collapsed during the administration of former Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who was at one point banned from every single reservation in the state. That came following tribal sovereignty disputes during the pandemic and Gov. Noem commenting that Native children “had no hope”. @nativevoiceoneRosebud Sioux Tribe President Kathleen Wooden Knife delivered South Dakota’s annual State of the Tribes address to lawmakers. The tribal leader discussed working with the state government on health care and law enforcement during her speech Wednesday, as South Dakota Searchlight’s Meghan O’Brien reports in the latest edition of National Native News with Antonia Gonzales. https://www.nativenews.net/thursday-january-15-2026 Video courtesy SDPB Network♬ original sound – Native Voice One &

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is in China for the first visit by a Canadian leader in almost a decade. Already, he’s signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Beijing that could result in more Canadian oil, natural gas, and clear energy exported to China. But as Dan Karpenchuk reports, before he left, PM Carney made a stop over in British Columbia to talk with Coastal First Nations about his plans for energy exports. The meeting was held in Prince Rupert, and on the agenda – Ottawa’s major projects. The Coastal First Nations, made up of nine First Nations, try to ensure that they have a say in how resources and waters are managed. They also work to protect the Great Bear Rainforest and the British Columbia (BC) coastline. And they have strongly opposed the idea of a new pipeline or the end of a ban on the moratorium on oil tankers. Both are major components of Ottawa’s plans to diversity Canada’s trade in energy, and move away from dependency on U.S. trade, especially now in the era of uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump. But Coastal First Nations remain opposed to any new pipeline to the BC coast. Carney played down expectations, saying that the meeting was more about dialogue to explore ways they could work together, but the coastal chiefs are not budging on their opposition, according to the group’s president, Maily Slett. “We reiterated that there is no technology that can clean up an oil spill at sea. And that it would take just one spill to destroy our way of life. We shared our reliance on a healthy and intact ocean and our determination to protect the ocean and the ecosystem that we rely upon.” Without their support, Carney’s government appears to be in a lose-lose situation. Coastal chiefs say they will use every tool available to stop construction if Ottawa pushes ahead with a North Coast pipeline. The St. Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral choir performs hymns during a Christmas celebration on January 7 at the Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a Anchorage Native Primary Care Center. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) The holidays may be over, but Alaskans across the state recently celebrated Russian Orthodox Christmas and New Year. Celebrations often include hymns, feasts, and a tradition called Starring, or Slaviq. One celebration in Anchorage brought together people who could not celebrate the holiday with their families or in church. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA was there and has the story. Singers in kuspuks and head scarfs chant Christmas hymns in English, Yup’ik, Russian, and Church Slavonic. Next to them, three young men spin sparkling pinwheel-shaped stars on wooden poles, each with an Orthodox icon of a Nativity scene in the center. The group is gathered for a Russian Christmas celebration hosted by the Alaska Native Medical Center at their primary care clinic. The singers are from St. Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral choir in Anchorage, though most of them are originally from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Alaska Orthodox Archbishop Alexei was a part of the opening of Slaviq, a custom he says originated in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. “This wonderful, beautiful tradition that has been in Alaska for over 100 years.” Okalena Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory is from Unalaska and grew up singing hymns in Aleut and Russian. Her family always gathered around Slaviq to decorate stars for the celebration. Now she makes them herself. Gregory says she wants to pass down the tradition to the next generation. “It’s our history. It’s been going, coming over from Ukraine, from Russia, and and still being sung today. To me, it’s powerful.” The best part of the night for Gregory is having a big feast, sometimes until two in the morning. And she loves it when the songs make people move. She remembers one song from her childhood, similar to @Joy to the World@, that shifted between fast and slow tempo. “You could see the people kind of dance or move to it. You’re not supposed to dance in church, right? But this song, they always did. All the elders, you can see them tapping their feet, and their head bop. I miss that.” Gregory says she was happy to attend Slaviq at the primary care center, to bring comfort and healing to patients. After the performance, the group crossed the street from the primary care center and continued the procession at the patient housing.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling  

A South Dakota tribal leader discussed working with the state government on health care and law enforcement during a speech Wednesday, as South Dakota Searchlight’s Meghan O’Brien reports. Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Kathleen Wooden Knife delivered the annual State of the Tribes address to lawmakers. She backed two pieces of legislation that impact tribal nations. She wants support to move toward a tribal-managed care model. That would pool Medicaid funding and allow tribes to negotiate costs for off-reservation care. She says support for managed care is essential for tribal members. “Imagine that when a patient is looking for an appointment, the managed care call center helps find the best appointment, with the least waiting time.” State. Rep. Will Mortenson (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe/R-SD) from Fort Pierre is sponsoring a bill to help with the effort. “I think this is among the most groundbreaking proposals that will come before the legislature this year.” President Wooden Knife also supports a bill that would add tribal police to the state’s legal definition of a certified law enforcement officer. That would add protections, like making it easier to prosecute people who assault tribal officers on non-tribal land. State Rep. Peri Pourier (Oglala Sioux Tribe/R-SD) from Rapid City, who recently switched her party affiliation from Democratic, is on a state committee studying the overrepresentation of Native American children in foster care. There is no legislation on that this year, but she says committee members are making progress. “They’re getting in the room, they’re having the conversations they need to have, and they’re coming up with mutually beneficial solutions.” There are nine tribal nations in South Dakota. Nearly 10% of people in the state identify as Native American. The Ketchikan Indian Community recently purchased and will convert the former Salmon Falls Resort into the state’s first tribally led addiction healing center. (Photo: Hunter Morrison / KRBD) Alaska has one of the highest rates of fatal drug overdoses in the country, but addiction treatment services in Southeast Alaska are limited. As KRBD’s Hunter Morrison reports, the Ketchikan Indian Community (KIC) is looking to change that by opening the state’s first tribally led addiction healing center. About 15 miles north of downtown Ketchikan, Second Waterfall gushes into a rocky shoreline. The natural wonder can be seen – and heard – from inside the clubhouse of the former Salmon Falls Resort, a longtime tourist destination for fishing, dining, and lodging. A long and blue staircase out the door leads directly to the large fall. The 11-acre facility has gone through many hands over the years and was foreclosed on in November. KIC purchased the property, in cash, two days after finding out it was up for grabs. KIC President Gloria Burns says the new facility will blend Western and traditional healing practices that will focus on an individual’s needs. “It met all of the qualifications we needed to be able to really move forward on a wellness center. For some people, they’re going to say that ‘my dissociation for not speaking my language is so profound that I can’t get by, and that is my path to healing.’ Some will say to us, ‘I dream of fish every day in the morning glory, I need to be on the water, I need to be providing for my family.’” A 2020 study from a Ketchikan nonprofit found that addiction treatment is one of the most pressing health needs in the area, but the island has just two addiction treatment facilities. Southeast Alaska’s only detox center, in Juneau, closed about a year ago. Unlike some tribally run healing centers, which are only open to tribal members or Native people, KIC’s new facility will be open to everyone. “We recognize that it takes the entire village to make somebody well. You can’t make the body well by just making the hand, and the arm, and the foot well. You have to make everything well.” The tribe is still fleshing out a plan for what the healing center will look like and how it will operate, but Burns hopes it will be open next fall.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, January 15, 2026 – What America’s bold actions in Venezuela could mean for the country’s Indigenous peoples

A team from the Canadian military has arrived at a northern Manitoba First Nation, which is dealing with a severe water crisis. One of the reserve’s water treatment plants has been out of commission for two weeks after a power outage. More from Dan Karpenchuk. The power was out for days after a line that ran between two islands on the Nelson River broke. Although power was restored after a couple of days, the outage resulted in frozen water systems, sewer backups, electrical issues, and burst pipes. About 4,400 residents were displaced after the reserve declared a state of emergency. Pimicikamak is more than 300 miles north of Winnipeg. Chief David Monias says a seven member military team from the Joint Operational Support Group, based in Kingston, Ontario, have arrived and will provide technical assistance and support related to critical infrastructure. “The army with their engineers and their logistics people are gonna be taking a look … they’re doing a site tour of the water plant right now. Take notes and identify what needs to be fixed and assess how it needs to be fixed and what resources are required to fix it.” Monias adds that nearly every one of the 1,300 homes in the community will need some kind of repairs. And Band councillor Shirley Robinson says having so many people forced out of their homes in mid-winter is taking an emotional toll. “They really want to go home and there’s a feeling of displacement that feeling of isolation, that feeling of they can’t be with their community.” Monias says a second military team is due to arrive on Wednesday. Meanwhile plumbers and other skilled workers from outside the province are also on their way to Pimicikamak to help with water and electrical issues. And Monias says a US company has reached out about sending a portable water plant to the First Nation. It’s not the first time Pimicikamak residents were forced to leave their reserve, many were sent south twice because of wild fires. Indigenous peoples across the U.S. have been swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, an Arizona tribe is taking steps to safeguard its tribal members. “Thank you for calling the Hualapai Tribe’s message line where we encourage you to report any encounters with ICE agents.” The Hualapai Tribe near Kingman has set up a hotline. VOICEMAIL: “Please leave your name and contact information as well as the date, location and a brief description of the incident. All information received will be checked and documented by tribal administration.” Hualapai Chairman Duane Clarke is urging members to remain calm and always carry their tribal ID cards with them. His administration is also pledging to aid its 2,300 members in verifying their identity should they be held by federal authorities. This comes in the aftermath of a fatal shooting by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minn., which is also where four members from a South Dakota tribe have been detained. A number of tribes in the Twin Cities this week are issuing tribal IDs to their citizens. Tribal leaders have been raising concerns about the safety of their citizens in the area following last week’s shooting. They are encouraging their citizens to carry identification, including tribal IDs. White Earth Nation, Red Lake Nation, Bois Forte Band, Mille Lacs Band, and Leech Lake Band are among tribes holding ID events at their urban offices. Leaders of Native organizations and grassroots groups have been responding to the shooting with community safety plans, as members of the Native community have been reporting interactions with ICE. A community prayer and gathering was held Sunday and organizers are hosting “know your rights” events this week.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, January 14, 2026 – A new tax law change means hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for tribes

The U.S. Supreme Court has once again declined to take up challenges to a federal law that protects subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska. The court rejected the state of Alaska’s petition to review a federal lawsuit against the state over salmon management on the Kuskokwim River in Southwest Alaska. KNBA’s Rhonda McBride has reaction from Native leaders. The state had argued the federal government was misinterpreting a law Congress passed to protect a rural priority for subsistence. Last year, after the 9th Circuit Court of appeals sided with federal fishery managers, the state asked the court to take up the case, but in a docket on Monday, the court denied the state’s petition. The Alaska Federation of Natives hailed the decision. Its president, Ben Mallott, says decades of hard-won protections under the landmark Katie John lawsuits were also on the line. “I feel relieved that we don’t have to spend our limited resources and efforts, fighting for what we know is right, hopefully our final time protecting what Katie John fought for.” John was an Ahtna Athabascan elder who fought for the right to fish on rivers that flow through federal lands. This is the third time the court has decided to let the Katie John litigation stand untouched. The federal government’s Kuskokwim lawsuit, which the court has left intact, now affirms similar protections. Michelle Anderson knew the late Katie John when she was little girl. Today, she is president of the Ahtna Native Coporation. She says the Athabascan elder taught her people well to stand up for what’s right. “During our history here is that you can’t sit back and rest on your laurels and you must always be vigilant and looking out for what’s coming next. No. I don’t think anyone is jubilant and celebrating and thinking this is it. We’re just waiting for the next time.” Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said in a statement that the state will respect the decision of the court to not address the legal issues regarding fish and game management authorities over navigable waters belonging to the state of Alaska, but the commissioner also said the state will continue to work with the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to ensure state rights are safeguarded. Mary Peltola, left, applaudes during a speech by former First Lady Jill Biden in Bethel, Alaska. Democrat Mary Peltola (Yup’ik), the first Alaska Native person elected to Congress, announced Monday that she’s running for U.S. Senate, taking on incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin reports interest in whether Peltola would run has been high for months. Her announcement Monday came with a video portraying her salmon-centered family life on the Kuskokwim River. She repeats her previous campaign slogan: “Fish, family, freedom.” She also hearkens back to Alaska senators who served in less partisan times. “(Former U.S. Sen.) Ted Stevens (R-AK) often said, ‘To hell with politics. Put Alaska first.’ It’s about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first and, really, America first looks like.” Nationally, Democrats believe that with Peltola on the ballot, Alaska presents one of their best hopes of flipping a seat. Political analyst and statistician Nate Silver said in a social media post last week that Democrats still have an uphill battle to win back the Senate majority, but that Peltola’s candidacy moves their chances in Alaska from a long-shot to plausible. Sen. Sullivan has already raised $6 million this election cycle. He has President Donald Trump’s endorsement and maintains a strong alignment with Trump. But, in what Democrats took to be a sign that he’s feeling the political heat, Sullivan last month unexpectedly voted to extend health insurance subsidies. He’s also touting a new bill that targets one of Peltola’s primary issues: Bycatch, or the accidental catch of salmon by the pollock fleet. Within minutes of Peltola’s announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and other groups supporting Sullivan issued a string of press releases, previewing the campaign issues they plan to use against Peltola. They link her to President Joe Biden and national figures on the left, as well as transgender rights and policies that restrict drilling on federal land in Alaska. Some Republican messages jabbed at her effectiveness in Congress, and at her high rate of missed House votes. Peltola tried to head off that last point. “D.C. people were shocked that I prioritized going back to Alaska in July to help put up fish for our family, but Alaskans understand.” For U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Peltola’s candidacy presents a dilemma. They’re both moderates, and Murkowski endorsed Peltola in the past, despite their party differences. Sen. Murkowski declined to pick a side when a reporter asked before Christmas, but Thursday, she said she’d made a decision: she is endorsing

Native community members in Minneapolis, Minn. held a press conference Friday to discuss immediate needs, resources, and plans for community care following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week in the city. Members of Native organizations and grassroots groups have set up two hubs in Minneapolis for people to gather and organize. Members of the Native community are also conducting street patrols. Robert Lilligren is the President and CEO of the Native American Community Development Institute and a member of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors. He says the Native community does not feel safe with the federal presence, adding they’re receiving reports of ICE interactions with Native people and detainment. “I know we are skilled at protecting our people, protecting our assets, protecting our non-Native people and their assets. And we’ve had to do this over and over again, historically.” Nikki Love is the Executive Director of the Tiwahe Foundation and a member of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors. “We’re all here to keep each other safe. And it’s very important that we think about not just as Native Nations, but that’s very important, right, but also as Native individuals to exercise our sovereign rights.” Leaders say they’re working with Native organizations, grassroots groups, and tribal leaders to address the ICE presence in their community. Press conference audio courtesy Darren Thompson Tribal leaders across the country are raising concerns about ICE activities and the safety of their tribal citizens, including leaders in South Dakota after the detainment of some of their tribal members in Minneapolis. South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene has more. A statement from the office of President Frank Star Comes out of the Oglala Sioux Tribe says he is aware of reports of the detainment of four Oglala tribal members by ICE in Minneapolis. In the report, an Oglala bystander was able to get their tribal identities, but unable to get their names. In his statement, President Star Comes Out wrote, “All Native people born within the territorial limits of the United States are recognized as US citizens by birth. Because I am both a tribal citizen and a US citizen, ICE has no lawful authority to detain me.” Star Comes Out also wrote that treaties confirm the inherent sovereignty of Native tribes and a nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. government. He advises tribal members, if detained, not speak to ICE agents without an attorney present. In another statement, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Steve Sitting Bear wrote, “Our nation is a sovereign government, and our members are not immigrants. We are not subject to immigration enforcement on our own lands.” He goes on to say that ICE activity is not welcome or authorized on the lands of the Standing Rock reservation, and that unauthorized personnel will be escorted from the reservation. He advises tribal members always carry their tribal identification cards, which confirms both the citizenship and political status of the carrier. South Dakota is not immune from the recent wave of immigration crackdowns, as immigration arrests and operations have been reported in communities across the state in rent months. A former White Mountain Apache police officer was arrested last Thursday stemming from a 15-count grand jury indictment alleging serial sexual abuse and kidnapping. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, federal law enforcement authorities are now asking for any additional victims to come forward. Karl Eugene Leslie is accused of sexually abusing and kidnapping victims while on-duty between 2020 and 2023. All are White Mountain Apache and one is a minor. FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Heith Janke thinks there’s others. “We have to be careful, so I won’t be able to talk a lot of specifics outside of what’s in the actual indictment. What I can say is we believe there are more victims out there.” Leslie’s nearly two-decade career ended in 2024. “There’s no preclusion of a victim coming forward – no matter how far it may have gone back. We just need to know who they are and the facts behind that.” Leslie has been assigned an attorney out of Flagstaff, Ariz., who declined to comment. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to a life sentence and $250,000 fine.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, January 12, 2026 – Native Americans caught up in federal crackdown in Minneapolis  

Tribes are raising concerns about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity and the safety of their tribal citizens living in the Twin Cities after 37-year-old Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent Wednesday in Minneapolis. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, White Earth Nation, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and Red Lake Nation have issued releases expressing remorse for Good and her family. A number of Native groups have also extended their condolences, included the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition and Native Women Running. The restaurant Owamni by Sioux Chef Sean Sherman, in Minneapolis, closed after the shooting. In a social media post, Owamni said it will reopen with a portion of sales this weekend being donated to Good’s family. Tribes are encouraging their citizens to report any interactions with ICE to them, to be mindful of their surrounds, carry identification, including tribal IDs, and to check on elders and relatives in the Twin Cities. The Red Lake Nation is condemning the shooting saying President Donald Trump must be held accountable for his “war of retribution” and that it has 8,000 members living in the Twin Cities where “ICE is presently terrorizing residents.” The Trump administration is justifying the shooting while city and state leaders disagree. The mayor wants ICE to get out of Minneapolis, and so does Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (White Earth/D-MN). On national television during an interview with ABC News Thursday night, Lt. Gov. Flanagan said, “it’s time for ICE to get out of Minnesota,” to leave them alone, and that enough is enough. Meanwhile in South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux Tribe is also raising concerns about its tribal citizens living in the Twin Cities. In an advisory to tribal citizens, OST President Frank Star Comes Out said he has been made aware that ICE detained four of their tribal members in Minneapolis. He said tribal attorneys have been instructed to reach out to Flanagan and work toward their release. The advisory to Oglala Lakota citizens also includes how to handle ICE interactions, and to contact Star Comes Out or other officials with the tribe immediately. Brian Bull contributed to this story. The Community Giveback event between MMIW Search & Hope Alliance and Project Lemonade benefited foster youth and generated donations of socks, hats and stuffed animals in Portland, Oreg., Saturday, December 13, 2025. (Courtesy Kimberly Lining) A Portland, Oreg. organization involved with Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) awareness and advocacy is holding volunteer training. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on what people should expect should they participate in MMIP events. For roughly a year and a half, MMIW Search & Hope Alliance has conducted searches and events that support their community. Founder Kimberly Lining says they rely heavily on volunteers to get things done across the region. Besides being physically fit for hiking, marches, and distributing materials, Lining says it is also important that people are emotionally mature and tough. “How they handle stress. How they handle dealing with confrontation because a lot of times we’re dealing with devastated families. And sometimes their anger can be directed at us, and it’s not personal. It’s because the families are under so much pressure.” Kimberly Lining, founder and coordinator of MMIW Search & Hope Alliance, at its first annual conference held in Gresham, Oreg., on Monday, May 5, 2025. (Photo: Brian Bull) Lining says a common misperception is that volunteering with groups like hers is some kind of true crime adventure, or that all they do is search for bodies. She says most MMIP cases result in finding people who are alive, but even then there can be challenging situations. “A lot of times they’re struggling from an addiction. So we kind of look at that aspect. ‘Hey, do you need to get into detox? Would you like to go here? Do you want to speak to your family?’ We really encourage the missing that we find to call home, call their family, and we offer to give them that resource.” Volunteers with special skills such as scuba diving, rappelling, or operating drones are great, Lining adds. The MMIW Search & Hope Alliance’s training will be held on January 10.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, January 9, 2026 – Where do Native Americans fit in with America’s Semiquincentennial celebration?    

Activities at Native organizations and a tribal college in Minneapolis, Minn., were canceled after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a woman Wednesday morning in the city. The Minneapolis American Indian Center canceled its Wednesday night programs due to community safety concerns and ICE activity in the neighborhood. The Red Lake Nation College, the Red Lake Nation Embassy, and the tribe’s wellness center in Minneapolis closed Wednesday, and are expected to be closed for the rest of the week due to due the incident. MIGIZI, which supports Native youth in the Twin Cities, also canceled its programming. Tribes are expressing concerns about the incident and the safety of Native community members living in the Twin Cities. The Red Lake Tribal Council is urging its citizens to be careful, and to avoid ICE and other federal agents. The council released a two-page written message Wednesday, outlining concerns, which includes asking tribal members to report any interactions with ICE to the tribe’s council or embassy. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa also raised concerns in a written message to its community about the safety of tribal members living in the Twin Cities. Robert Pilot is the host of Native Roots Radio based in the Twin Cities. He says the Native community is feeling the impacts of the shooting. “The reaction I’ve seen with the Native community is been just a gasp of what’s happened. 75,000 Native Americans live in Minneapolis (Twin Cities area). In that area of the shooting, there’s a very high percentage of Native Americans that live in that community, and they feel their community is being attacked by the federal government.” Pilot says members of the Native community are standing with their allies and took part in demonstrations against ICE on Wednesday in the area of the shooting. “There was a woman Native singer group that sang and it’s all about the healing. And I think the community, especially that community really knows that the Native community is really involved and really vetted into everything that happens there, happens to them. It was only a very short blocks away from the murder of George Floyd and that community is so scarred, but we have a resilience and our Native community is there and was there and is there and will still be there … we also are a big part of the community. And we want people to be safe, but we also want to be heard and be out there and support our community too, because this is our community too and all of Turtle Island is our community.” The woman killed was identified as 37-year-old Renee Good. The Trump administration is justifying the shooting, while the city’s mayor disputes that and is demanding ICE leave Minneapolis. The Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix, Ariz. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) A three-judge panel in Phoenix, Ariz., heard arguments on Wednesday over continuing a court-ordered injunction blocking a controversial land exchange. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, the land swap would result in a copper mining operation that is estimated to create a two-mile-wide crater, devouring an Apache holy site. It’s been 140 days since the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delayed a land swap first approved by Congress more than a decade ago. According to the 2015 law, 2,400 acres of Tonto National Forest must be turned over to Resolution Copper within 60 days of a final environmental impact statement being published, which happened in June. Plaintiffs in three different cases include the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, San Carlos Apache Tribe, and a group of Apache women and girls. Defendants asked for the injunction to be lifted, which could lead to an immediate public land transfer. The judges did not say when their decision will be made.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, January 8, 2026 — New post office rule is among potential hurdles for Native voters      

CTSI tribal members Todd Logan, Joshua Rilatos, and Dylan Gorman work with anatomic pathologist Kurt Williams of the OSU necropsy team to remove blubber, bones, and baleen for cultural use and tissue samples for diagnostic testing on Tuesday, November 18, 2025. (Photo: Jens Odegaard / Oregon State University) Last November, a stranded humpback whale near Yachats, Oreg. had to be euthanized after rescue efforts to put the 10-ton, 28-foot-long mammal back into the ocean failed. As Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports, what followed became a meaningful collaboration between the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and a team from Oregon State University (OSU). In mid-November, volunteers worked around the clock to keep the whale doused in sea water – and to try pulling it back into the sea. Video from The Oregonian captured some of those harried efforts. Finally, on-site stranding experts and veterinarians agreed to put the whale down. A necropsy team from OSU prepared to remove samples to determine how the whale lived before getting tangled in crab pot line. Kurt Williams is the director of the Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. “I’ve never done a necropsy exam on a whale, before. I don’t think I’ll have another opportunity – I hope I don’t have another opportunity, because I don’t want this to happen to these animals.” Another group of roughly 20 Siletz tribal members also came. Among them was Lisa Norton, chief administrative officer for the tribe. She said they began by laying down tobacco and praying with Williams’ team. “We offer up prayers for the animal and the bounty it’s going to give us. People kinda did their own thing, they prayed in whatever way was comfortable for them. But we just spent some time taking in the enormity of the task.” There’s been a historic tension between tribes and scholars, often due to academic institutions pillaging remains and artifacts from Native burial mounds and village sites. But these two groups – standing side by side with the whale – worked in tandem, conferring with each other as they worked against the incoming tide and pending sunset, said Norton. “We were able to get them to get more specimens than they would have otherwise, that resulted in them finishing quicker and getting more samples had they just done it on their own. But also allowed us to preserve more parts of the whale for future use.” Williams praised the experience. “I’m not going to kid you, being able to work alongside the members of the Siletz Tribe, it was amazing. And they were gracious and collegial, and to even allow us just a glimpse into their community and culture was, I felt honored to be honest with you.” The Siletz have stored 1,500 pounds of blubber for possible soap or oil, while the whale’s skeleton has been buried for possible use later as a museum piece. While the whale’s death was a sad event for many, the collaboration between the tribe and university gave a primer for how to handle similar incidents in the future. Angela Sondenaa is the Natural Resources Director for the Siletz. “We would anticipate that if something similar happened, that we would revive those relationships and collaborations that we’ve built from this experience.” Health and Human Services Secretary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with Gabriel Lopez, chairman of the Ak-Chin Indian Community, in Scottsdale, Ariz. in November 2025. The Indian Health Service (IHS) recently announced seven projects to build or renovate health care facilities – often in rural areas – throughout Indian Country. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, one of those beneficiaries will be Arizona’s Ak-Chin Indian Community. Gabriel Lopez, the tribe’s chairman, is grateful. “Currently, we have a satellite facility, which is 2,000 square feet and a triple-wide trailer with minimal services.” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with the Ak-Chin Indian Community in November. After that visit, he made a social media post with Lopez. “The elders in the community have to drive 60 to 80 miles to get decent care, and they have to go through Maricopa County with all the traffic, so it’s an inconvenience and it can be a lethal inconvenience.” Ak-Chin will construct a 60,000-square-foot facility and lease it at no-cost to IHS for two decades. In exchange, the agency will lobby Congress on behalf of the tribe for federal funding to staff and maintain the building. “In a roundabout way, we’re looking at maybe two years to be up and running,” said Lopez.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, January 7, 2026 – Remembering Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Harvey Pratt      

Ahead of the next legislative session this month, Arizona Democratic state lawmakers held a town hall at the end of December on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP). KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. State Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales (Pascua Yaqui/D-AZ), chair of the Arizona legislature’s Indigenous Peoples Caucus, made no promises. “We will not have solutions for you today.” But she and others spent three hours listening. Reva Stewart (Diné) believes families are repeatedly asked to relive their trauma by testifying with no results. “Listening without action has become a pattern. Legislation without enforcement is not protection. Taskforce without authority or accountability are not solutions. Meetings without funding are not justice.” Roxanne Barley (Cocopah) complained that criteria changed for the state’s Turquoise Alert, originally designed to notify the public of Indigenous disappearances. Of the five alerts in 2025, only one was for a Native American – a teen in Yuma. “That was the lie that we were promised, that was the hoax that we were told.” But State Sen. Theresa Hatathlie (Diné/D-AZ) explained how lawmakers negotiated and compromised. “And that is the ugly truth of politics.” Alaska state health officials are still recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, despite a recent, controversial change in federal guidance. The virus has historically seriously impacted Alaska Native communities. Alaska Public Media’s Rachel Cassandra has more. Hepatitis B is a virus spread through bodily fluids and from mother to baby during childbirth. Historically, Alaska has had high rates of hepatitis B, especially among Alaska Native people. In the 1970s, widespread infection led to high rates of liver cancer in Alaska Native children. State Epidemiology Chief Dr. Joe McLaughlin says screening and vaccinations have helped reduce rates of hepatitis B in the state. And McLaughlin says the vaccine is still important in Alaska, which has struggled with high rates of chronic hepatitis B. “This universal birth dosing helps to ensure every baby receives protection, regardless of their location or access to care or any follow-up challenges that they might have, this approach has definitely helped reduce disparities in hepatitis B outcomes across Alaska for decades.” Public health experts credit the vaccine with dramatically lowering the risk of developing chronic hepatitis B, serious liver diseases, and liver cancer. For over three decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that all babies across the country get the vaccine at birth. Then, last month, the CDC narrowed its guidance, recommending the vaccine only for infants born to women who test positive for the virus or whose status is unknown. The guidance says women who test negative should consult with a health care provider before vaccinating their newborn, but McLaughlin emphasizes that the CDC also acknowledged that each state has to consider its own hepatitis B rates and risk factors. “Alaska, where the rates are nearly three times the national average, clearly falls into a higher-risk category as a state in general. And our data support continuing universal birth dose vaccination to protect infants in Alaska.” Health insurers have said they will continue to cover the hepatitis B vaccine.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, January 6, 2026 — The Pleiades star cluster ushers in winter story season      

Photo: An aerial view of the Verde River. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Monday is the deadline for the public to weigh in on a potential rule change by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that could impact which water bodies may be protected from pollution. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, tribes are among those asking for a 30-day extension to comment. The Waters of the United States (WOTUS) guides which resources fall under the federal Clean Water Act, but as written, the EPA rule would narrow the law’s enforcement with estimates suggesting that 80% of the nation’s wetlands could be at risk. Daniel Cordalis (Diné) runs the nonprofit Tribal Water Institute. “I think it’s a big picture concern for everyone really. I think most tribes who want clean water – or the ability to make sure that water is usable, are probably going to write in opposition to kind of what the rule stands for.” While tribes can regulate waters on their reservations, they lack jurisdiction elsewhere. “Tribes can’t look to the EPA anymore. And arguably, there’s a duty on the federal government to protect these tribal resources, but who’s going to do that?” Some states are stepping up, like Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Trevor Baggiore is the water quality division director at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. “We’re coordinating with our neighbors, tribes or states or country on our southern border, to make sure that we each know what each other is doing. Hopefully, this new rule will add some clarity, as long as they are able to provide scientific tools to help us determine what’s regulated and what’s not.” Groups including the National Tribal Water Council, Association of Clean Water Administrators, and Environmental Council of the States are all asking for a 30-day extension to reply. Principal Brian Brown leads morning announcements as a part of his daily routine on December 17, 2025, at Norris Elementary School in Norris, S.D. (Photo: Meghan O’Brien / South Dakota Searchlight) Attendance at a school near the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations has nearly doubled in the past three years. School leaders say they are engaging one-on-one with students and families. They also are implementing Lakota language and cultural programming. South Dakota Searchlight’s Meghan O’Brien reports. “I’ve been waiting all morning for you…” This is a typical morning at Norris Elementary, where most of the students are Native American. Principal Brian Brown walks the halls on December 17, 2025, and discusses a sign that celebrates Norris Elementary’s attendance rate. (Photo: Meghan O’Brien / South Dakota Searchlight) Principal Brian Brown greets students and staff at the cafeteria tables as breakfast is served. Brown also asks teachers who is missing. It’s a way of getting ahead of the problem, he says. When students are not at school, he makes phone calls and home visits. Just three years ago, barely half the students came to school regularly. Now, the school’s attendance rate is above 90%. That is higher than the state average. It’s a source of pride for Brown, who took over as principal in 2022. “I was very happy. I was very pleased, but more proud of the kids and the parents for their support and believing in Norris.” The leader of South Dakota’s Education Department sees the success at Norris. The leadership and cultural engagement are important parts of that, says Joseph Graves. “So, now we want to see what kind of results this produces. We have the attendance. We have the drops in chronic absenteeism. Now we want to see what’s gonna happen with those proficiency rates and the graduation rates.” The school is on a gravel road about a half-hour from other schools in the White River School District. Its isolation makes it difficult to hire and recruit teachers. In a small community, it takes everyone to keep students involved, Brown says. Some teachers have multiple grade levels in one classroom. The school’s head custodian and office administrator are also bus drivers. Brown steps in at lunchtime to help serve food. He also finds ways to make Lakota culture and language an important part of every student’s day. Students sing every morning. Brown teaches Lakota studies to each grade once a week, and started the school’s first drum group: the Black Pipe Singers.     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts.      

<<<<Part 1 In our last story, we shared how leaders with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s treatment and recovery services say they are making strides in opioid addiction treatment. That includes work through Great Circle Recovery in Oregon. The tribe also provides transitional housing services through Main Street Recovery, a program with supportive housing, which also helps address mental health and addiction services on site. Kelly Rowe is the Executive Director of Health Services for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. “Instead of having to go to a facility where you might get 21 days or 28 days, that’s really been something that is more prescribed by insurance than it really is for the best thing for a person to have we’re not putting a limit on that. We’re saying what is good for you is what we want you to do. We’re letting them stay as long as they need to get well. So that’s become another piece in the continuum of care for us. So, we’re really working hard to make sure people can get well and we’re creating a whole community of recovery here at the reservation.” Culture is a key aspect in the services says Jennifer Worth, the Operations Director for Main Street Recovery. “Being able to provide that that holistic approach with access to mental health and substance use and kind of figuring out what the needs are and being able to tailor that to each person that comes through … there’s lots of activities and different things that we’re able to take the residents to. So for instance, tomorrow they’re going to be working on making paddles. And the other day they came in and they had been part of this carving class and they had all carved this ladle that’s going to be used for a future service that we’ll be adding on site at Main Street. So, things like that are really important.” Brian Krehbiel is a canoe maker who teaches paddle making and canoeing. “The canoe has just brought back so much our way of life all around the canoe. That bucket line that we feel when we’re all pulling together, we’re all going forward, we’re all making that forward movement and it helps with our noggins. If you should need it, if you don’t, you’re good. But if you should need some help of motivation and pushing you forward and to do try new things, however that is, that are good for you and it’s wicked fun.” For people on their mental health and recovery journey having trusted support is of great value says Sydney Clark a recovering addict and Peer Support Specialist Supervisor with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. “I walk with them, letting them know that they’re not alone in that it’s okay to reach out. It’s okay to feel scared and it’s okay to question things because I didn’t know what I could question and what I couldn’t question and go into meetings having someone sit there with you that might know those questions to ask because that trauma that you’re going through right then and there … I’ve always loved helping people because it helps feed my soul … to be able to learn what would help us grow as a tribe. And each one of us play a big role in peer support, helps get people walk through a door that they normally probably would have never ever walked through.” Highlighted throughout the services is the resilience of Indigenous people, says Rowe. “My hope is that we can get out of this cycle of seeking out artificial substance to hide our pain, to hide our trauma that we’re not afraid to let that out and to seek out our cultural ways to heal ourselves … for us, especially health and wellness, it becomes this this plan of no matter who you are, at what stage of life you’re in, we’re here for you and we want you to be able to become a part of something bigger and that when you’re ready, we’re here for you.” This story is a collaboration with First Nations Experience Television with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts.      

Leaders with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s treatment and recovery services say they’re making strides in opioid addiction treatment in both the tribal community and in neighboring towns and cities. Jennifer Worth is the Operations Director for Great Circle Recovery in Oregon. “There are no throwaway people, everybody deserves the chance for hope and help.” Kelly Rowe is the Executive Director of Health Services for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. “It’s changed lives. It’s saved lives for us.” Kelly Rowe and Jennifer Worth talk about Grand Ronde’s recovery services. Worth says Great Circle started out of an idea to help figure out what to do about overdoses. “Folks were coming in and out of jail, there was a pattern where they were kind of noticing that there would be higher overdoses. And that’s because when people have an opioid use disorder and they go into incarceration and there’s no support during that time and they come out, they are more at risk and more vulnerable of an overdose. Being able to find other tools and avenues to support that was part of the vision of Great Circle.” The care is located on the reservation and off through Great Circle Salem, Great Circle Portland, and two mobile clinics. “Great Circle is steeped in the cultural and community values that Grand Ronde shares. And the way they care for their people is the way that we care for every patient that walks through these doors. And everybody matters. Everybody heals in community. And there is hope for each person that walks through that door. “ Taking care of the health and wellness of community members is a key tribal value, says Rowe. “We are doing it not just for Indian people, but for each other. And I know that when I’m coming to work and we’re building programming or giving services, it’s for me, my relatives, it’s for my son, my grandson, and so on and so on and so on. And truly is the seven generations ahead … the substances that are out there now that are so hard to get away from it’s been difficult to make sure that we have enough services available to give to our people and we fight for beds, we fight for space to send our people to and that’s what really led for us to make these services our own.” Chairwoman Cheryle Kennedy is the tribe’s longtime leader and also has a long career in Native American health care, which includes addressing drug and alcohol addiction treatment. “I don’t believe that anyone, if you ask them today, ‘How many want to be an alcoholic or an addict?’. how many people are going to raise their hand? ‘Yeah, me, let me.’ No one starts like that, but it creeps in and it takes over, it consumes you. And pretty soon you have no life. You are then under the power of either the drink or the drug of choice, whatever it might be … as Native people, we think about ourselves in the whole. Colonization had those kind of effects … addictions, of use, misuse, need to be addressed.” The state, like many other states in the U.S., has been hit by the opioid crisis, including the misuse of prescription and illicit drugs. Addressing stigma around opioid use disorder is part of the work. Worth says this type of treatment shouldn’t be any different than having a chronic health condition that needs to be managed. “Substance use shouldn’t be any different, but yet it is. And so, the more we can normalize and have these clinics out and available and embedded into the other services that are happening, it just destigmatizes that for everybody.” Great Circle is the first tribally-owned opioid treatment program in the state. This story is a collaboration with First Nations Experience Television (FNX TV) with support from the Public Welfare Foundation. Part 2 >>>>   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts.      

Photo: Youth royalty from the Colorado River Indian Tribes stamp the Ireichō – or Book of Names – in Parker, Ariz. on October 25, 2025. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is among the chapters of U.S. history that the Trump administration is actively working to erase. It is part of a sweeping campaign to remove so-called “disparaging” signs and markers of the country’s past and focus only on “American greatness”. In the final installment of his series on the camps, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio visits the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) to see how others are making sure victims are highlighted in – not erased from – the history books. Inside a strip mall owned by the tribe, hundreds flock to its museum in Parker, Ariz. Director Valerie Welsh-Tahbo says her space used to be an old swimwear shop. Tucked in one teal-hued corner is an exhibit dedicated to the Poston camp’s 18,000 internees. “This was already up here, this structure in this store and I said, ‘Let’s hang onto this … just because of where it was situated, and that design, it just spawned that idea.” To honor Poston’s past. another way the museum is paying respect is by welcoming Soto Zen Buddhist priest Duncan Ryūken Williams and his Ireichō. “Chō, chō means like a book or a registry, and so we created a book with everybody’s names in it, and said, ‘How do we honor everyone?’ And we came up with this idea of stamping or placing this mark under people’s names.” The Japanese word Irei essentially means “to console the spirits”, and that’s what Wiliams hopes his book does by bringing forth personhood and dignity – one name at a time. “A lot of government camp rosters mangle Japanese names, and so we can’t honor people if their names are misspelled.” And their goal? “To make sure all 125,284 people whose names are printed in this book get at least one mark of acknowledgement.” There’s still 30,000 names unmarked, but Williams has a plan. “We’ll just systematically, from the beginning of the book, invite the general public to come and place a mark under the next name in the sequence of names that doesn’t yet have a mark.” “I think this person – Hisayo Kotsubo – does not yet have a stamp. She’s born in the year 1897 so if I could ask you to just place this stamp right under the letter H.” Their blue-tipped stamp is no bigger than your thumb. Some even practiced that art of dotting with Susan Kamei. “It’s a personal story.” Her parents, grandparents, and one set of great-grandparents were internees. Her dad’s side was brought to Poston, while her mom’s ended up in Heart Mountain, Wyo. “I try to put myself in their shoes.” 84-year-old Janet Brothers doesn’t have to imagine, because she lived it. “I was here at camp as a baby. I was six months old … feeling the heat, looking around, and seeing the desert and the mountains, knowing that’s what my parents saw every day, was very emotional for me.” The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is remembering the life of former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne/R-CO), who died Tuesday at age 92. NCAI President Mark Macarro in a statement said Campbell broke barriers and left a path for those who seek to follow as leaders in Indian Country and in America. Sen. Campbell is being remembered for his work on Indian policy and elevating Indian Country issues, serving on the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The Associated Press reports, his daughter said Campbell died of natural causes surround by family.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Wednesday, December 31, 2025 – Memorable moments in Native film and TV in 2025      

During World War II, Japanese Americans were held captive in 10 internment camps throughout the US. Two of them in Arizona, built on reservations without tribal consent. In our last story, we heard how the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) in western Arizona have made a point to preserve the remnants of one such war-time prison. Today, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio takes us to the state’s other site, which sits well-hidden in the shadows of Phoenix – slowly fading away atop of the Gila River Indian Community. He had the privilege to see this restricted site twice this year with the tribe’s Wally Jones, who supervised his trip. “I can’t give, really the location. I wanted to, but people do search it.” They first met in April at the Chevron gas station in Bapchule, Ariz. about 30 miles south of downtown Phoenix. The tribe did not allow KJZZ to record inside the camp itself, but Jones agreed to let Pietrorazio document their short ride there. No matter who is coming out, Jones stresses they’re not tours. “This is not a tourist camp. This is a regulated entry that the department processes for the council’s consideration for your visit. It’s not just anyone can come out here. These are one of the few sites that the community allows non-members to come in and kind of experience what was here.” What was here in 1942 would’ve equated to Arizona’s fourth-largest city, home to over 13,000 internees stuck in the Sonoran Desert. “The camp is not maintained. The community has decided to let nature recapture its natural state, but there are remnants of various barracks, facilities.” And there are at least 230 ornate garden ponds – now dried up – that prisoners built. “It always amazes me that we find these ponds out here, that it was a signal of their tradition and their hope that they would not let their culture fade away.” Seven months later, Pietrorazio returned – this time not on his own, but as a guest of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in a caravan of at least 20 vehicles. Bill Staples Jr. is president of the JACL Arizona chapter. “And I was really touched by how emotionally connected the Gila River Indian Community was in welcoming the Japanese Americans…” Pietrorazio caught up with Staples at the tribe’s Huhugam Heritage Center after a November ceremony. Also there, making the trip from Seattle, was 85-year-old camp survivor Sylvia Domoto. “They’ve been so welcoming and continue to respect and to keep the land there, so that we can say, ‘Yes, this really happened. It isn’t just a fantasy.’” Suicide prevention sign and phone on the east sidewalk of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif. (Photo: Guillaume Paumier / Wikimedia) A new law in California aimed at preventing suicides is taking effect in the new year. The measure requires the transportation and public health departments to identify best practices and countermeasures to avoid suicides on state bridges and overpasses. The bill by Assemblymember James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA) builds on his previous work, which includes efforts to improve mental health services and the establishment of a suicide prevention office.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, December 30, 2025 — The Menu: A memoir and a documentary film document two tribes’ connections to food sovereignty

Arizona tribal reservations were home to two of the nation’s 10 internment camps during World War II. On the western edge of the state, the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) welcome visitors to see abandoned relics from that dark past. In fact, there is even an annual pilgrimage – and this year, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio went along, in part three of his ongoing series. One way to remember those who lived – and died – at the internment camp officially known as the Colorado River Relocation Center, and more commonly known as Poston, is by rebuilding, with CRIT entrusting the care of crumbling buildings to the nonprofit behind the pilgrimage. Barbara Darden is a preservation architect from Aurora, Colo. “It’s not Poston Community Alliance. It’s not anybody that we work for. The building is our client.” She’s been restoring Poston piece-by-piece since 2009, turning that camp into a construction zone – this time, along with Andrew Phillips, owner of a Durango, Colo. company called Natural Dwelling. “The same mud, the same walls, the same exact material being reworked a second time around.” In October, camp survivors and descendants repaired a classroom wall internees made from adobe clay and mud. Youth groups from the Colorado River Indian Tribes honor Poston pilgrimage guests with bird dances and songs on October 25, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) “My first guess is they were able to find these little pockets of windblown clay in the foothills here … they used the few scant resources they had, made great brick and their workmanship and their mix design and how they laid it and stacked it and built it, is all top drawer.” For the restoration, new slabs were hauled out from a Phoenix, Ariz. brickyard to replace that broken wall, but the old material isn’t going to waste. It’s being blended into new mortar that will fill in the cracks, using a mixer much like one the U.S. Army gifted to internees over eight decades ago. Hard work also being done by CRIT member Adrian Antone Jr. to restore vandalized structures. “I thought it was pretty disrespectful. And so finally, giving my part to help out, especially build this little wall.” Darden dreamt of rebuilding a lot more. “We would love to restore everything.” But that comes with a big price tag, defrayed by National Park Service grants to preserve interment sites like this one. Now, the Trump administration is eradicating signs marking the camps and other so-called “disparaging” reminders of the country’s history. “We do not anticipate any more grants. Being more realistic, we’re looking at maybe four buildings here, and then the others will just have to let them go and watch them fall into ruin.” Either way, CRIT will keep working to protect this history – one brick at a time. President Donald Trump signed a bill into law on Friday that will give Alaska Native veterans more time to file for their Native allotments. KNBA’s Rhonda McBride has more. The deadline to apply is Monday, December 29, but legislation passed earlier this month gives veterans a five-year extension. The Native allotment program was created more than 100 years ago to put more federal land into private ownership. It allowed individual Alaska Natives to each claim 160 acres, but when the federal program ended in 1971. Vietnam vets missed out, because many were overseas fighting the war. As of mid-December, only about 25% of eligible veterans had applied for their allotments. Many said the process was too difficult to navigate. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), one of the main sponsors of the bill, said he will make staff available to assist veterans with their applications.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, December 29, 2025 – Wounded Knee’s perpetual stain on history    

The Alaska chapter of Safari Club International took a group of men from Kipnuk deer hunting last month. The hunters were evacuees from a storm that ravaged the Western Alaska coast, unleashed by Typhoon Halong. After more than a month of staying in shelters and hotel rooms in Anchorage, they were quick to accept the invitation. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, what transpired turned out to be more than just a hunt. The Safari Club and Alaska Native subsistence hunters have often been on the opposite side in debates over fish and game management. And some who have followed the politics over the years find it puzzling that the Safari Club reached out to help Kipnuk hunters displaced by the storm. But John Sturgeon, a longtime Safari Club member, says it should not be a surprise. “The Safari Club and the subsistence people are much closer together than most folks would think. We’re hunters. They’re hunters.” Sturgeon helped to organize the hunt. “We have the resources to help. And them eating wild game and going out after wild game is really important to them. And we just said, ‘Well, this is something we can do to help, especially at Christmas time.’ So we’re hoping this will make a few people happy.” What started out with five hunters snowballed. The evacuees had no clothes or gear, which they either lost in the storm or had to leave behind. Club members loaned them guns and scopes. One dug into his own pocket to outfit them for the hunt. The Safari Club bought them hunting licenses and chartered a boat from Whittier, Alaska to Montague Island, where the men took nine Sitka black-tailed deer. It’s the first time Darrell John had gone hunting since an ocean surge carried his house away. “We were hunting deer on a beach, which I never ever thought I would be hunting.” “When I was gutting deer, I knew my family was going to eat something. Made me feel like I was providing for my family again.” Although John never dreamed he’d go hunting in a such in a faraway place like Prince William Sound, he suddenly felt more like his old self. When the hunters returned, they wanted to share their catch with others displaced by the storm. Suddenly plans mushroomed into a feast to feed more than 200. The Safari Club collected donations of fish and wild game, which included a seal from Kodiak Island. John’s wife Lacey John knew right away what was cooking. “Seals have a strong scent. The seal that was baking. It smelled like home. I just breathed in. (laughter) ” Karson Apodaca. (Courtesy Sayetsitty Family / gofundme) A Christmas parade on the Navajo Nation was suddenly cut short this week after a suspected drunk driver struck and killed a child and injured three bystanders. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. The Kayenta Township near Monument Valley shared joy on social media ahead of its annual Christmas market and parade at the rodeo grounds. “The parade is going to start on Navajo Route 591, which is right behind Chevron, okay? It’s like you’re going to the flea market here if you live in Kayenta … That one’s gonna start right at 5:00 p.m., so be ready.” But about 10 minutes later, that holiday cheer came to an abrupt halt after an alleged drunk driver entered the parade route and hit four people, including a child and a pregnant woman. The Navajo Police Department confirmed three-year-old Karson Apodaca died and a suspect is in custody. The Kayenta community and guests came together to honor and remember Karson Apodaca with a peaceful vigil walk, the singing of Christmas carols, and the decoration of a Christmas tree in his honor, followed by prayer circle. (Courtesy Sayetsitty Family / GoFundMe) The sale of alcohol, as well as possession and consumption, is prohibited on tribal land. Josephine Romines, a volunteer from Unconquered Life, during the Holiday Resource Rally on December 10 in Ada, Okla, which served about 800 families during the event. (Courtesy Chickasaw Nation) This year, the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma and Feed the Children partnered to bring holiday packages to an estimated 800 Ada, Okla. area families. The recent drive-thru distribution included a 25 lbs. box of food, and a 15lbs box of personal care items, books, toys, and other products. This is the 10th year the tribe and organization have partnered to help families during the holidays.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, December 26, 2025 – For all its promise, AI is a potential threat to culture

Photo: Mrs. Crystal Claus, Peppermint the Elf, and Solte Santa, as portrayed by Colleen Payne, Qalch’ema Friedlander, and Jerry Payne, visit the Chifin Native Youth Center in Springfield, Oreg., Sunday, December 14, 2025. (Buffalo’s Fire/Brian Bull) It’s the holiday season with many families across Indian Country waiting for Santa’s visit to reward all good children with presents. And while the mainstream depiction is of a jolly old elf who’s white and decked out in a red, fur-lined suit, some Native Santas are inspiring yuletide cheer in their own ways. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire shadowed one across Oregon. At the Chifin Native Youth Center in Springfield, Oreg., a packed classroom welcomes Solte Santa, accompanied by Mrs. Claus, Peppermint the Elf, and others from the North Pole. Jerry Payne, the man behind the curly beard, explains his role. “’Solte’ in Salish means ’warrior’, so I wanted to honor that. And I’m a veteran myself. Every community has their own style of Santa so I wanted to make sure that the Indigenous Natives got to be represented as well.” Solte Santa has made nine appearances across Portland, Eugene, and other places this month, listening to kids’ wish lists and posing for family photos. With a feathered bustle, candy cane staff, and festive beadwork, he contrasts sharply with the Coca-Cola Santa that’s been widely iconic since the 1930s. But Payne says that’s a plus. “The mall Santa or typical Santa that everybody knows like the Coca-Cola Santa … for whatever reason, kids are scared of that Santa. But I’ve had kids that … their parent would say that they would never come up to take a picture with me. Next thing you know, they’re hugging me and jumping in my lap and we take a good picture. Their parents are crying because they never got a good picture with their kid.” A study involving an Oregon State University scholar looked at non-traditional Santas. Bori Csillag, Stirek assistant professor of management, said for many Father Christmases, spreading love and joy for the holidays surpassed the need to conform 100% to the mainstream depiction of Santa Claus. “They see the fit, they hear the calling in their heart, they know that they are able to portray their role successfully.” Besides Solte Santa, a First Nations dancer called Powwow Santa has been firing up social media, and there are many others across tribal communities, reminding people that the Christmas spirit exists for everyone. A Navajo children’s television show returned this month with a holiday special. Jill Fratis reports. The “Navajo Highways” special is titled “Ya’ah’teeh Keshmish,” which is “Merry Christmas” in Navajo. It’s the show’s first full holiday themed episode. The creator of the series, filmmaker, and musician Pete Sands, says the show teaches Navajo language and culture. “Parts of it is my childhood, and part of it is how I wish my childhood was. It’s a balance of both, and I think shining positivity on Indigenous cultures is important to do.” The series blends puppetry, storytelling, and Navajo humor, all set along the winding highways of the Navajo Nation. Sands says that a memory he had of a teacher using puppets to help children listen, gave him the idea to use them in his show. “Seen a teacher friend of mine who was trying to tell her first grade students to clean up, but they wouldn’t listen to her, so she reached into her desk and she pulled out a hand puppet and started talking to her class, and they listened to her, through the puppet actually, and a lightbulb went off in my head like wait, maybe there’s something to this. Maybe I can use this.” The holiday episode highlights traditional winter teachings, including family gatherings, gratitude, and the meaning of giving. Season two of the series begins production next year. Sands says there will be new puppets and new locations, but says the heart of the show remains the same: teaching children simple Diné words and phrases through everyday scenes and conversations. The “Navajo Highways” holiday special, and season one, is now streaming on the First Nations Experience (FNX) platform.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by FNXTV First Nation Experience (@fnxtv)   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, December 25, 2025 – Mental health experts point to personal connections to maintain winter mental health

Long before World War II, the U.S. forced Native Americans onto reservations. After the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941, the U.S. forced Japanese Americans into camps. In Arizona, the federal government once again looked to Indian reservations. In part two of his series on World War II internment camps in Arizona, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. None of the eight other internment camps in the U.S. were on tribal lands, so why here in Arizona? UCLA anthropology professor Koji Lau-Ozawa has an answer. “John Collier, who was the commissioner of Indian Affairs at the time, advocated for all of the camps to be put on reservation lands. He thought that the Office of Indian Affairs was well suited to this task of managing these confined racialized populations.” The “Indian New Deal”, as FDR called it, was part of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and tried making amends for past treatment by investing in tribal infrastructure. That was, until the war effort began. “Funds were starting to dry up. This presented an opportunity.” An opportunity to turn Japanese Americans into a source of prison labor to develop tribal resources, as shown by a 1943 propaganda film narrated by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s brother, Milton, about an internment camp in western Arizona. Brian Niiya says the U.S. embraced a stereotype. “Japanese Americans, with their supposed expertise and farming and agriculture, could help build up the land that would allow for the Native Americans to benefit from – without the consent of the tribes themselves, of course.” Niiya is editor of Densho Encyclopedia, which chronicles the camps’ history. Without much legal representation or political clout at that time, the Gila River Indian Community and Colorado River Indian Tribes both tried fighting camp construction, but failed. “Through the Office of Indian Affairs, I think there was just a thought that we could bulldoze our way through.” Once again, today’s federal government is butting up against tribal land. The Trump administration’s “Alligator Alcatraz” is being built near the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. “We’re right in the middle of it. We have members that live within 500 feet of the detention center. You know, it’s not like this distant thing that it is for a lot of Floridians in Naples or Miami.” Talbert Cypress is chairman of the 600-member Miccosukee Tribe, which brought Alligator Alcatraz to a halt. “We don’t go to war anymore with the tomahawk or anything like that. You know, we go to courtrooms now, and we go to meetings with politicians.” (Photo courtesy Maxpixel / Boise City Archives, John Hardy Family Collection, MS084) Children across the country are being raised by relatives or close family friends. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding has more on a new report highlighting the challenges facing these kinship families, which are more common within Indigenous communities. According to the U.S. Government of Accountability Office (GAO), these households are more likely to experience poverty and mental health issues. Kinship families are common in Mountain West states with high Indigenous populations like New Mexico and Arizona. Kathy Larin at GAO says kin caregiving is an important part of tribal culture, but because many Indigenous caregivers are outside the formal foster care system, they often receive less financial support. “One of the biggest challenges that we heard across the board for grandparents and other relatives that are raising, you know, their relative children is just the financial burden of it.” Larin says states could adopt standards and programs designed to better support kinship families.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/wednesday-december-24-2025-2025-in-native-books/

A federal jury has ruled against the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, S.D. With just one exception, Retsel Corporation and the Grand Gateway Hotel were found to have discriminated against Native Americans. South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene was in the courtroom. In total, tens of thousands of dollars of compensatory and punitive damages were awarded to the people denied service to the hotel. Additionally, that discrimination suit means NDN Collective will receive its request of $1 from Retsel. In total, Retsel is now liable for six discrimination claims connected to the events of 2022. Regarding the assault claim against Sunny Red Bear, Retsel Corporation was found l iable for Connie Uhre’s assault against her. Uhre was also convicted in criminal court for the incident. For Nicholas Uhre, the current operator of the Grand Gateway Hotel, his two defamation claims against NDN Collective were thrown out by the jury. The final claim regarding an illegal nuisance was found in favor of Uhre and the hotel. That nuisance included a light projection displaying an “eviction notice” on the side of the hotel and the months-long protest that took place just off hotel property. In total, NDN Collective is ordered to pay $812 for that claim. The decision by the jury came after over nine hours of deliberation and represents an end to the three-year legal battle. Gambell is one of two Native Villages located on St. Lawrence Island, in the middle of the Bering Sea. (Photo: Walter Holt Rose / Wikimedia) Dancing and drumming are essential to Siberian Yupik culture, passed down by ancestors. Josie Ungott and Janissa Noongwook are dancers and high school students in the village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. They talked to their teacher about what the cultural tradition was like in different generations. Noongwook: “We have Chris Petu drumming for some students in a classroom in Gambell. He’s been teaching this Native dance class for over a year now.” Ungott: “Petu has been a teacher for so long. He’s welcoming and kind to all of us students. He says dance was much more strict in the past.” Petu: “Only dancers to a song was if it’s that composer’s daughter or wife, those were the only ones that dance.” Noongwook: “He says he probably wouldn’t have been a drummer if he had grown up in the old days because his parents weren’t drummers. Petu tells us back then, women would practice dance moves. But if a dancer made a wrong move, the older women would throw a shoe at them.” Petu: “They had a big pile of shoes once a little wrong move, a woman threw at the girl.” Noongwook: “Petu tells us a sad experience about missionaries coming here last century and saying what our people couldn’t do. That drumming, dancing, hunting, eating walrus, and speaking our language was evil.” Petu: “It was instilled deep in their heart that this was evil, that drums and church don’t mix.” Ungott: “Petu tells us when the younger ministers started working, they realized it wasn’t evil and came and apologized. As the years went by, the traditions slowly became less strict. For about forty years now, everyone started dancing to any song.” High school students Noongwook and Ungott wrote and produced this story with help from Alaska Public Media health reporter Rachel Cassandra.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, December 23, 2025 – Lumbee Nation secures its sovereign status  

It’s official — with the swipe of President Donald Trump’s pen, North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe is now the 575th federally recognized tribe. Correspondent Matt Laslo has the story from Washington. Dozens of members of the Lumbee Tribe traveled from North Carolina to Washington to be a part of history this week. Tears were heard in the gallery after the U.S. Senate approved the measure granting the Lumbee federal recognition Wednesday. And after President Trump signed it into law Thursday, Lumbee Chairman John Lowery could barely contain his joy. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, and our joy is here. It’s here. We finally achieved what our ancestors fought so long and so hard to achieve.” There are roughly 60,000 members of the Lumbee, making it the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River. North Carolina officials recognized the tribe after the Civil War in 1885, but not federal officials. U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has helped lead the fight in the Senate in recent years. “Yeah, we’re a little bit excited after 137 years, on their part, about 40 years on Senate members part, it’s good to see it get done.” Tillis is retiring at the end of his term next year, but he says the decade-long battle for federal recognition for the Lumbee shows Washington isn’t totally broken — even if the tribe and North Carolina lawmakers fought an uphill battle for years now. “A lot of educating and just, you know, prioritize the way. This is the way this works, right? You come in, you use leverage, you have discussions, you build a case. I think that’s what happened. I really appreciate the delegation. This was a well-coordinated effort.” Back in 1956, Congress partially recognized the Lumbee, but that left the tribe locked out of federal health services. And it meant the tribe couldn’t operate casinos or marijuana dispensaries like other tribes. Chairman Lowery says it’s a new day for the Lumbee. “The 1956 act, which left us in legal limbo, is now erased. It is no more and we are now fully, fairly recognized.” The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians fought the federal recognition of the Lumbee, which passed as a part of an annual $900 billion defense authorization bill. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas issued a statement this week to its tribal members about a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract after the deal was met with public scrutiny. In a video statement, Chairman Joseph Rupnick said the Nation and its subsidiaries have fully divested from the ICE contract. “As a result, Prairie Band, LLC is no longer a direct or indirect owner or participant in, or otherwise affiliated with, any ICE-related projects, contracts, or operations. In our next General Council meeting in January, Tribal Council plans to further address the steps we will take to ensure that our Nation’s economic interests do not come into conflict with our values in the future.” Tribal citizens from across the U.S. have raised concerns about ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Native people have also reported being confronted by ICE, including actress Elaine Miles, who has been sharing her story with media outlets about her run-in with ICE agents in November. (Courtesy Elaine Miles) U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, U.S Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and 10 of their Senate colleagues recently sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about reports of ICE encounters with tribal citizens. They are urging her to develop policy and trainings to recognize tribal IDs and requested a response by January 11.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, December 19, 2025 – Native music in 2025

The Lumbee Tribe is celebrating the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes legislation to grant the tribe federal recognition. The U.S. Senate passed the defense bill Wednesday, as Lumbee citizens gathered in Pembroke, N.C. for a watch party. Lumbee Chairman John Lowery was in Washington D.C. for the vote, and shared a short video message saying he’s the last chairman to go the nation’s capital to fight for full federal recognition. “Now our children and our grandchildren, our great grandchildren can come up here working and fighting and promoting other things for our people.” The tribe has sought federal status for more than a century. The Lumbee’s effort has faced opposition, including by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, while President Donald Trump promised the Lumbee Tribe federal recognition. President Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt in 1941 and President Donald Trump in 2025 invoking the Alien Enemies Act. This December marked the 84th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing – a shocking attack that drew the U.S. into World War II and unleashed a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria. While the U.S. would join a global fight against fascism and Nazi concentration camps, it was erecting camps of its own at home, forcing tens of thousands of Japanese Americans into internment. Two of those camps were set up on tribal lands in Arizona. In the first of a 5-part series, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio examines the law that has given presidents power to imprison perceived enemies. It all began December 7, 1941, a Sunday morning in Hawaii, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. More than 2,400 souls were lost at the naval base on the island of Oʻahu. The U.S. was suddenly swept into the Pacific Theater. “And we’re going to fight it with everything we’ve got.” During President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act. It’s a 1798 wartime law authorizing the president to legally detain and deport anyone suspected of engaging in acts like espionage and sabotage. “Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the forces of international brutality wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.” Weeks later, President Roosevelt directed the Secretary of War to herd more than 120,000 people with Japanese ancestry into camps in Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and as far east as Arkansas. Two-thirds of prisoners were American-born citizens. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt had empathized with them, even touring a camp south of Phoenix in 1943. Barbara Perry says Mrs. Roosevelt was simply ahead of her time. “And certainly on how she viewed Japanese Americans, but she couldn’t convince her husband of that.” Perry is co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia. She also points out precedent was set a century prior when President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 – marching tribes west of the Mississippi River. “America was pretty discriminatory…” Despite not being at war, President Trump reinvoked the Alien Enemies Act on day one of his second term. “…to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks, bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.” This proclamation wasn’t surprising to John Woolley, co-director of the American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara. “This is a domestic political rallying point that is very powerful with Donald Trump’s base.” Part two explores why a pair of Arizona reservations were picked to house the camps.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, December 18, 2025 — Amid Greenland’s independence push, Denmark accounts for colonial blunders

The Arctic continues to warm faster than other parts of the world — and is experiencing record high temperatures and record low levels of sea ice. That’s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which released its annual report card for the region Tuesday. As The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports, those findings directly affect Alaska Indigenous communities. The Arctic Report Card has been documenting changes in snow and sea ice cover, as well as air and ocean temperatures in the northern part of the globe for the past 20 years. It has shown that, in that time, the Arctic’s annual temperature has increased at more than double the global rate of temperature changes. Hannah-Marie Ladd is the director of Indigenous Sentinels Network. “These changes cascade directly into people’s lives, affecting fisheries, coastal safety, and subsistence harvests. We are no longer just documenting warming. We are witnessing an entire marine ecosystem, which is tied to our economies and culture, transform within a single generation.” The report highlights an emerging phenomenon called rusting rivers. That’s when permafrost thaw causes ground water to seep deeper and interact with mineral deposits, which likely turns some streams and rivers to a rusty orange color. Abigail Pruitt says that, in Alaska, over 200 streams turned orange in recent years. “Within Kobuk Valley National Park, we observed the complete loss of juvenile Dolly Varden and Slimy Sculpin, in a tributary to the Akillik river when it turned orange. Beyond the effects on fish, rusting rivers may impact drinking water supplies to rural communities as well.” The report highlights how Indigenous communities have been observing the changes in their environments and wildlife and collaborating with scientists to better understand those changes. Ladd describes one example of such work. She says that St. Paul residents collect samples of harvested traditional foods like seabirds, marine mammals, and halibut. Those samples are tested in a tribally owned lab and analyzed for contaminants like mercury. “Indigenous leadership, local workforce development, and community driven observing are not optional. They’re essential to understanding the Arctic that we have today and preparing for the Arctic we are moving into.” In response to a question about how federal cuts to climate science might affect the future of the Arctic Report Card, NOAA officials said that they will continue their efforts to observe the changing environment. Two tribal communities in New Mexico will be receiving $200,000 in state grants for high-speed internet development. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. Santa Clara Pueblo and the Fort Sill Apache tribe will each receive a planning grant of $100,000 through the New Mexico Grant Writing, Engineering, and Planning Program. In a release, the state’s Broadband Policy and Programs Bureau Chief, Andrew Wilder, said the funding will help start important projects in tribal regions that lack high-speed internet. Santa Clara will use its grant to build fiber lines connecting homes and provide Wi-Fi service. Fort Sill plans to create a high-speed broadband network connecting unserved homes. The tribe has already secured $500,000 in infrastructure funding for fiber, equipment, and trenching. The state’s office of broadband has already issued 36 awards totalling $3.5 million to 17 tribal communities, 15 local governments, and four rural electric and telephone businesses. The broadband office stated that $1.5 million are still available in planning grants. The awards are assistance-based, not merit-based, so entities do not compete for funding. No matching funds are required.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, December 17, 2025 – Saving historic architecture and other important places

The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation neighboring Fountain Hills, Ariz. recently dealt with reports of “aggressive dogs running loose”, resulting in attacks that prompted its police department to increase patrols while urging the public to stay away. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports. Two tribal members were bitten last week and are now recovering from non-lethal injuries, according to acting chief of police Jesse Puffer. “We did catch three out of the four dogs.” Incidents like this are not uncommon on tribal lands with canines roaming their 24,000-acre reservation. Some are seen as strays – often dogs that are dumped there by owners who do not wish to keep them – while others are claimed by tribal members as pets. “We also have a dog ordinance, too, so people get cited for that as well – depending on what the nature anywhere from, you know, $150 fine and plus you and it can be higher if you can’t show record of vaccination and also licensing.” The documentary “Remaining Native” tracks Yerington Paiute Tribal member Ku Stevens as he confronts the horror of what his great-grandfather went through in boarding school. Stevens created a remembrance run tracking the same route his great-grandfather took to escape his boarding school. KNPR’s Jimmy Romo attended a screening of the film and brings us this report. Warning: This story includes accounts of violence against children In 1913, government officials ripped 8-year-old Yerington Paiute Tribe member Frank Quinn from his family and placed him in the Stewart Indian Boarding School near Carson City, Nev. As part of her history PhD studies at UNLV, Annie Delgado researches what actually happened to Native children in the U.S. boarding school system. “The early years are just filled with trauma, abuse, pain, and just assimilation.” Many students tried to escape the abuse. Quinn’s great-grandson Ku Stevens is the protagonist in the documentary, “Remaining Native”. In the film, viewers learn, along with Stevens, the story of his great-grandfather. To remember the courage of Native children who tried to escape, Stevens organized a remembrance run from Yerington, Nev. to the Stewart Indian School. The first run took place in 2021, followed by three others. The route marked the same 50-mile run Quinn took to go back home, as Stevens explains. “They were running, sweating and bleeding. I think of this guy Russell, who I consider just like an uncle, broke both his feet, fractured them by the end of the run. And he did all 50 miles.” In the most recent class action lawsuit, the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California filed a case against the federal government in May. They are suing over misused funds. Currently, the sovereign nations are requesting the U.S. itemize a $23 billion trust fund, established by pressuring Native nations to sign agreements. Most of these treaties promised that the U.S. would educate Indigenous children in exchange for their land. That wasn’t what happened, according to UNLV’s Annie Delgado. “The United States government itself knows that these schools did not educate [children] the way they intended to educate.” The communal trauma of boarding schools still affects Indigenous families across the nation. “Remaining Native” is still available for community screenings. The Bridging Agency Data Gaps & Ensuring Safety for Native Communities Act has passed the U.S. Senate. It supports the recruitment and retention of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) law enforcement officers, bolsters federal missing persons resources, and gives Tribes and states tools to combat MMIP. The legislation is led by U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NM), John Hoeven (R-ND), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Mike Rounds (R-SD). Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, December 16, 2025 – Native in the Spotlight: Randy Taylor

For the last few months, Navajo Nation leaders have been butting heads over who is its official controller – the person responsible for handling the tribe’s finances. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren tried firing that top official. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, that dispute is now over. Sean McCabe has been reaffirmed as the sole lawful controller through a legally binding stipulation between him and President Nygren, which also orders Controller McCabe to receive backpay and have his attorney fees covered. Nygren recently apologized for sending profanity-laced texts leaked by McCabe to council delegates. “I used language that I shouldn’t have. In moments of great stress we don’t always act as our best selves. This was one such occasion for me.” The October exchange preceded his sudden termination. Screenshots show Nygren pressured McCabe to unlock his government-issued purchase card, but McCabe told him there’s no budget. Nygren reiterates that his agreement with McCabe isn’t a “compelled admission” of any “unlawful action” or “wrongdoing.” Quinhagak resident Patrick Jones deploys a buoy in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region in early summer 2025. (Photo: Sean Gleason) A program that helps boaters in Indigenous coastal communities use buoys to track weather conditions wrapped up another season this fall. Advocates of the Backyard Buoys program say it increased safety for fishermen in Western Alaska – and helped hunters in Alaska’s Arctic land whales. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Several years ago, seven boaters went missing in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region and were never found. The loss motivated residents to find ways to better understand their changing waterways. Nalaquq is an organization that integrates Indigenous knowledge into research in the region. The company joined a nationwide initiative, called the Backyard Buoy project, and deployed three buoys in the area for the first time this year. Lynn Marie Church is Nalaquq’s chief executive officer. “We wanted to understand what was going on in our ocean … in our waterways, especially with the changes in the environment that we’ve seen over the past 10 years.” Backyard Buoys project helps Indigenous coastal communities in Alaska, as well as the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands, support maritime activities. Buoys track wave height, temperature, and barometric pressure in real time. Residents can see that information in an app and decide whether it is safe to travel. Church says that using the Backyard Buoys app has been easy. “When you look at where the locations are, it’s not by latitude and longitude, it’s by place names. That’s how we learn in rural Alaska.” Sean Gleason is the head of Research and Development at Nalaquq. “We picked locations where people travel for subsistence or daily travel.” The goal was also to spread out those buoys so communities in different parts of the region can use the data. “There’s no one community. Everyone’s related.” In Alaska’s Arctic, the project has been ramping up as well. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission facilitated the installment of buoys in six communities this year. Martin Edwardsen is the commission’s coordinator for the project and is also a whaling co-captain. “I was looking at the app and seeing that the waves weren’t too big in the general area where we were headed. So we went out that way and we successfully harvested a whale and brought it back to our community to feed.” The whaling commission is now looking for translators to allow users of the Backyard Buoys app see information in their Native language. Correction: In a previous newscast, we mistakenly said the Wounded Knee Massacre was observing its 130th anniversary this December. Actually it’s the 135th anniversary.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, December 15, 2025 – A Native entrepreneur’s view of the retail shopping season

A Tucson, Ariz. resident is facing federal charges for allegedly excavating and trafficking archeological resources from the Gila River Indian Community. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 46-year-old Leo Reynoso stands accused of violating the Archeological Resources Protection Act. Prosecutors said Reynoso allegedly removed several artifacts from the community without authorization. This included jewelry, Indian Trader tokens, crucifixes, and buttons from archeological sites on tribal land. He also stands accused of selling these items without a permit. The archeological value of the items is estimated at $29,000, while the cost of repairing the archeological sites is estimated at $23,000. If convicted, Reynoso faces a $20,000 fine and could get up to two years in prison. U.S. soldiers at a burial for some of those who were killed at Wounded Knee, S.D. on January 1, 1891. December 29 will mark 135 years since the Wounded Knee Massacre. In part two of his story, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio shares some Native reactions to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s assertion that the soldiers who took part in the violent and tragic incident deserved their Medals of Honor. David Martinez (Akimel O’odham) is founder and director of ASU’s Institute for Transborder Indigenous Nations. “Wherever you see America invading, sending troops, trying to intimidate – all that comes from America’s original attitude towards the so-called frontier, which was regarded as wild, which was regarded as dangerous, which was regarded as full of savages.” From the Utes across modern-day Utah and Colorado to the Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico, the Army fought over a dozen conflicts predating federal recognition of tribal governments. “There’s not a tribe anywhere in North America that did not experience deep, historic trauma.” Even the Bureau of Indian Affairs emerged in 1824 from within the original War Department. Two centuries later, Martinez suggests it’s fitting that President Donald Trump has restored the agency’s old moniker. “Well, for me, the Department of War is the true name, because, from my point of view as an Indigenous person, the objective in America’s conquest of Indian Country was to make Indian Country like America. It did so at the expense of Indian land and people. And so the reservation system that we see around us today, which includes my people, Akimel O’odham, is a product of war.” Lakota attorney Chase Iron Eyes calls the reservations prison camps. “There are those of us who never perceived an end of war. If you look at what the reservation system is, it’s not peace, prosperity, and privilege for Native people; it’s a little open-air prison camp.” For Iron Eyes, who runs the Lakota People’s Law Project, Wounded Knee is deeply personal. “As the great-great grandson of people who were killed at Wounded Knee, nobody in their right mind takes pride in the slaughtering of non-combatants – women and children.” Marlis Afraid of Hawk grew up hearing horror stories from her grandfather, Richard, who was only 13 when he survived Wounded Knee. The 68-year-old Oglala Lakota elder insists Sec. Hegseth is wrong. “He’s in denial, look it up. But he’s not going to.”   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, December 12, 2025 — Persistence pays off for tribes working to remove disturbing public monuments

Photo courtesy Cherokee Nation / Facebook In Tahlequah, Okla. this week, Cherokee language speakers and officials unveiled a Cherokee language dictionary app. They were joined by representatives of Kiwa Digital Limited, who developed the app based on a Cherokee dictionary 50 years ago, created by Native speaker Durbin Feeling. Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Junior said the new app will allow every Cherokee family to carry the resource in their pockets, and represented the tribe’s sovereignty and knowledge, as well as their commitment to keep the Cherokee language strong for generations to come. “For the last five centuries, our language and our culture has been under assault, has been eroded, and that’s the story of Indigenous languages around the world. Many of which the languages that have been lost and that we will lose in the future. Many of which are a part of history books, about languages that once were.” Chief Hoskin said he expected the app to become more than a simple curiosity for tribal members, and will be especially embraced by children and other youth. The Cherokee Language Dictionary App includes translations for more than 6-thousand Cherokee words, with audio recordings, grammar notes, and phonetics. Under my direction, the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their medals. This decision is final. Their place in history is settled. pic.twitter.com/klQlB6MZ6l — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) September 25, 2025 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an unusual speech in September to top brass in which he railed against “woke” ideology and hyped the recently rebranded Department of War. He also weighed in on a long-simmering controversy involving the so-called Battle of Wounded Knee which occurred on December 29, 1890, where hundreds of Lakotas were killed by the U.S. Army. Many consider that conflict a massacre – and have called for the soldiers to be stripped of their Medals of Honor. Sec. Hegseth dismissed the idea as political correctness run amok and released a video defending the soldiers and their medals. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it was a painful message for tribes throughout the country. “Under my direction, we’re making it clear, without hesitation, that the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 will keep their medals.” Although bipartisan efforts in Congress to rescind those Medals of Honor go back decades, only a president has the legal authority – beyond the Pentagon itself – to undo that distinction. “This decision is now final, and their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate. We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did.” In what would be the final chapter of the Army’s century-long “Indian Wars” campaign, as many as 300 Lakotas were killed at Wounded Knee in South Dakota – while at least 25 U.S. soldiers died. A rifle shot rang out when troops tried disarming a surrendering encampment on December 29, 1890. In that confusion, the mass slaughter of mostly unarmed men, women and children ensued. Army general Nelson Appleton Miles penned in private, “I have never heard of a more, brutal cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee.” To this day, there is still no official death count. Hegseth’s comments came a few weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order, rebranding his agency as the Department of War. “This is something we thought long and hard about. We’ve been talking about it for months, Pete and I … I think it’s a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now.” From the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza, the same dynamics of Wounded Knee – of civilians being killed by conquering military forces – continue to play out all around the globe, according to David Martinez. “And I would go further and say that what you see in contemporary American foreign policy was forged in America’s battles with Indian people.” Tune in tomorrow to hear how the history of Wounded Knee continues for many Native people today.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, December 11, 2025 – Tribes fight for solutions to dwindling clean water sources

Photo: Josh Engle, manager and peer support specialist at True North Recovery in Wasilla, gives out cookies as part of homeless outreach efforts in Anchorage on Tuesday, November 25, 2025. (Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) For people experiencing addition, it can help to talk to someone who has been through recovery themselves. Peer support specialists offer a different kind of support from therapists or psychiatrists. And in Alaska, there are state certifications for peer support roles, including a special track for Indigenous people with lived experience in recovery. Alaska Public Media’s Rachel Cassandra has more on peer-to-peer care in the state. Josh Engle is bundled up on one of the first really cold days in October. He walks along a forest path to do outreach in an encampment in Anchorage. He approaches a man in a weathered coat. “How long you been out here on the streets?” “Too long. Yeah. Yeah.” Several tents and makeshift structures lean together. “You connected with any resources?” Engle is a manager and peer support specialist at True North Recovery – and one of his aims today is to help guide people into recovery. It’s a path Engle knows well because he’s in long-term recovery himself. Now he supports people in ways that go well beyond what a more traditional therapist or psychiatrist can do. He may text with clients outside business hours, help them find work or get connected with benefits – anything that supports them in a way that might lead to recovery. “I personally, really enjoy being able to connect with them on a personal level of someone that has walked their path.” When patients interact with workers with lived experience, research shows it can aid recovery and can reduce healthcare costs. Aaron Surma is Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Juneau, which runs training for peer support. And Surma experiences mental illness himself. He says psychiatrists and mental health professionals play an important role in supporting recovery and treatment, but there is a strong power difference. “You’re in a small room, you’re making intense eye contact, and the dynamic is that you have the expert and the person who needs help.” Surma says he was arrested multiple times during high school and was court ordered to go to Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He says hearing peers in those groups was awesome, but things felt different when talking with his formal providers. “When I was a teenager, I was lighting stuff on fire and buying garbage bags of weed. So then to go into a small room and talk to somebody who you know, like, imagine the counselor from “South Park” who’s saying ‘Drugs are bad, Mkay?’ And it’s a million miles from what you know.” He says it’s easier for peers to bridge those gaps in early recovery. Peer support specialists speak the language of addiction and mental illness and also understand the more traditional language of behavioral health professionals. Seeds of Eden, which offers addiction recovery services and community-based behavioral health services, recently received a $30,000 grant from the South Dakota Community Foundation. The grant will help the organization’s work to provide sober living, peer support, care coordination, and case management, including a project to build a recovery housing facility on the Standing Rock Reservation on the South Dakota side. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe straddles the South Dakota and North Dakota border. Isaiah Keller is one of the co-founders of Seeds of Eden. He says they’re already secured a home, which is being remodel to offer future services. “The house that we have been remodeling is about 90% complete. So, a small portion of the funds that were awarded will go to finish that project, that house and to make it livable and to make it functional.” Keller says Seeds of Eden was designed to help fill a gap when it comes to addiction recovery services, and he says the group realized there was a need for assistance within tribal communities. He says they’ve been working closely with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Native American board members, and Native advocates. “We’ve partnered with a really good ally and advocate. And her name is Bobbi Jamerson. She’s the chairwoman of the Bear Soldier District on the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And she has been advocating and promoting recovery and community involvement. We’re at a point right now where we feel like we have some great traction and some great movement.” Keller says they would like to expand services across South Dakota and beyond.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, Decemb

Native actress Elaine Miles, known for her roles in TV’s “Northern Exposure” and the 1998 movie “Smoke Signals” has spent the last month contending with a run-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents – and the response to her sharing her story with local and national media. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports. On November 3, Miles says she was at a bus stop in Redmond, Wash. preparing to do a Target run when several men in camo fatigues and tactical gear appeared. For 45 minutes, she says they deliberated over the legitimacy of her tribal ID, and if they were aware of her rights as a U.S. citizen. “I go, ‘Are you federal? Are you recognized as a federal officer? Do you have the warrant stating that you have right to stop me?’ And then they kept saying, ‘We don’t need a warrant.’ And I go, ‘Yes, you do.’” Miles said the men often looked confused at her assertions and finally left when another man called them back to a waiting SUV. In the following weeks as ICE activity continued around Redmond, Miles retreated from doing things around town, prompting concern from relatives and friends. She decided late last month to share her story, including with the Seattle Times, Newsweek, and Salon. She found support, but also toxic trolling. “People are calling me a racist, a bigot. I’m hateful, you know? And then I even had some people say I was a Pretendian. Oh, and I like this one: ‘Miss Piggy, go back to the reservation where you belong.’” Miles says she’ll keep sharing her story, and advises her fellow Natives to carry their tribal IDs, passports, and copies of their birth certificates. Meanwhile, Miles is looking forward to her next project: a TV series that will start filming next year. “Probably be January, February. She’s a knowledgeable cop.” Tribes across the U.S. have reported their citizens being confronted by ICE as President Trump’s immigration crackdown continues. On Veterans Day, a Native woman in Des Moines, Iowa had an ICE detainer placed on her, which almost led to her being put into ICE custody, until it was learned jail administrators confused her with another person with the same last name. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Janice Talas-Denny (Hopi), the tribal veteran support coordinator at Televeda, installs a Starlink at New Pascua on October 2, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Without reliable internet, it’s often challenging for veterans to apply for and access financial and health benefits, including mental health care. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, a Phoenix-based telehealth company and the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services are partnering to help better equip those living on remote tribal lands. So far, Janice Talas-Denny (Hopi) with Televada has so far delivered 16 military-grade kits containing Starlink satellite internet systems – at no-cost – to over a dozen tribes across Arizona beginning this year in Parker. “If I can do this, anyone can do this.” Her latest stop, New Pascua, is just on the outskirts of Tucson, Ariz. “It’s a hot day today. We don’t want to be out here too long.” Fortunately, it takes only ten minutes, she says, for the satellite hookup once they figure out which direction is north. Along with her is Dylan Dalzotto on behalf of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services. “Let’s start with 50, see where it goes and here we are rather quickly, excited to get the rest of them out there and a big roadblock for a lot of vets is the internet connectivity.” Even for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. “And a lot of times, they’re not.” Carmen Rivera is the tribe’s veterans benefits counselor and often travels to the Mexico border, meeting with tribal members living off-grid. “And when you give them, you know, information, whether it be off this system, or you give it to them in paper, they like that.”     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, December 9, 2025 – Tribes ponder blood quantum alternative

Photo courtesy Assembly of First Nations / Facebook More than sixty Indigenous artifacts have now been returned to Canada from the Vatican. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders were on hand at Montreal’s airport over the weekend to welcome them back. There were 62 items in large crates on board the plane that landed on Saturday morning. Many Native leaders as well as those involved in the repatriation efforts were on hand. Some bowed as the crates were lowered onto the tarmac, for most, the objects on board were more than simply artifacts. One of those present was the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak. “This is an important and emotional moment for many First Nations across this country. And I also hope it’ll be an important moment for all Canadians to consider the history and the future of this country. Reconciliation isn’t one stop here, reconciliation is every single day doing this work.” After many years of advocacy and under the guidance of Knowledge Keepers and Elders, sacred First Nations items have now arrived back in Canada and will be repatriated to their rightful communities of origin. (Photo: Assembly of First Nations) Indigenous leaders in Canada have been calling, for years, on the Vatican to repatriate the artifacts in its collection. They met with Pope Francis in Rome in 2022 to talk about the legacy of the residential schools. At the time they were also given a private viewing of some of the objects held by the church. They included embroidered gloves, a kayak, and a sling for carrying a baby. Some Indigenous leaders say it’s not about bringing home objects or artifacts, but about bringing home memories, bringing home the dignity and power that was taken from their ancestors. The artifacts will not be available for public viewing until sometime early next year. Nepinak also says there are more artifacts in the Vatican Museum so the work to repatriate them will continue. U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), left, meets with Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr. in Guadalupe on May 5, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) After finally being sworn in following a historic seven-week delay, U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is using her first legislative act to fulfill a campaign promise she made to tribes across Indian Country. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. In 2015, her father, the late U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, first introduced the Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act to protect an Apache holy site east of Phoenix by stopping a congressionally approved land exchange between the U.S. Forest Service and Resolution Copper. He said at the time that, “So maybe the foreign company has millions and billions of dollars, we have a spirit.” A decade later, the fight isn’t over. The controversial land swap has been put on hold until as early as next year. And the new congresswoman is taking on that mantle by reintroducing her dad’s old bill. “The bar is very high. Again, this is new to me, not new to the family, but new to me. I mean, I hear it even from Democrats mining is super important, right, but none of the ore is staying here. It’s all going to China.” As for Resolution Copper, the company tells KJZZ that Rep. Grijalva has been invited to meet their workforce to talk about what they call her “highly concerning” bill, which, they say, threatens hundreds of jobs today and billions of dollars for Arizona’s future. The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma is concluding its emergency food assistance response this month. The tribe issued a declaration of emergency in October after the federal government announced the suspension of SNAP benefits for recipients in November. The declaration tapped millions of dollars in the tribe’s reserve funds for cash assistance for Cherokee citizens, and support for food pantries, meal sites, and food banks. According to the Cherokee Nation, the tribe delivered nearly $2 million in assistance to individuals and non-profits.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, December 8, 2025 — Tribal museums reflect on tumultuous year, chart their next steps

Photo: In her closing remarks, AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak thanked those who contributed to the success of #AFNSCA2025, the dedication of Chiefs and delegates, and emphasized the importance of unity, collaboration, and continued advocacy for First Nations. (Courtesy Assembly of First Nations / Facebook) The final day of the special chiefs meeting of the Assembly of First Nations was on Thursday. And there was continued push back to the notion of a new pipeline to Canada’s west coast, and the lifting of a tanker ban along that coast. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, three federal cabinet ministers took the stage to address the chiefs. The cabinet ministers included Rebecca Alty, Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations, Mandy Gull Masty of Indigenous Services, and Finance Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne. They were there to push the prime minister’s agenda of major nation building projects and they stressed that they needed First Nations as economic partners. The main issues that continued to dominate discussion is likelihood of a lifting of the oil tanker ban on the west coast to support a new pipeline. Eldon Yellowhorn is an Indigenous Studies expert at Simon Fraser University. He says Native leaders have good reason to fear a lifting of the tanker ban. “Driving by fears of an oil spill the tanker ban. For good reason the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 is still has its mark on the land and the sea around Alaska. And there’s very real fears here that something similar could happen. It could wipe out entire coastal communities and their livelihoods. So, there’s a real fear about that particular resolution.” The key minister helping to advance the major projects agenda was not present for the final day. He had run into trouble last week when he brushed off concerns from coastal First Nations after he failed to meet with them before the signing of the pipeline agreement with Alberta. He did eventually meet with those First Nations, but some have said they weren’t satisfied with what they heard. Many chiefs say the proposals for developing resources are an attack on First Nations rights. Some however have expressed an openness to pipeline ownership. Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told the meeting that Indigenous partnership was key to speeding up major projects, boosting economic growth, and strengthening Canada’s position at home and abroad. A scene from the “Navajo Highways’ holiday special. (Courtesy “Navajo Highways”) A Navajo children’s television show is returning with a holiday special on Friday, December 5. Reporter Jill Fratis from our flagship station KNBA has more. The “Navajo Highways” special is titled “Yáʼátʼééh Késhmish,” which is “Merry Christmas” in Navajo. It’s the show’s first full holiday-themed episode. The creator of the series, filmmaker and musician Pete Sands, says the show teaches Navajo language and culture. “Parts of it is my childhood, and part of it is how I wish my childhood was. It’s a balance of both, and I think shining positivity on Indigenous cultures is important to do.” The series blends puppetry, storytelling, and Navajo humor, all set along the winding highways of the Navajo Nation. Sands says that a memory he had of a teacher using puppets to help children listen, gave him the idea to use them in his show. “Seen a teacher friend of mine who was trying to tell her first grade students to clean up, but they wouldn’t listen to her, so she reached into her desk and she pulled out a hand puppet and started talking to her class, and they listened to her, through the puppet actually, and a lightbulb went off in my head like ‘wait, maybe there’s something to this. Maybe I can use this.’” The holiday episode highlights traditional winter teachings, including family gatherings, gratitude, and the meaning of giving. Season two of the series begins production next year. Sands says there will be new puppets and new locations, but says the heart of the show remains the same – teaching children simple Diné words and phrases through everyday scenes and conversations. The “Navajo Highways“ holiday special and season one is now streaming on the First Nations Experience (FNX) platform. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, December 5, 2025 – Tribes work to define legal boundaries for online sports betting  

Curtis Rogers holds his master’s degree in tribal administration and governance outside AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. in May 2022. (Photo: Rachel Rogers) This year’s 29 Bush Fellows included five Native Americans from across the upper Midwest. The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 dollars over two years for their fellows to hone their talents and leadership skills. In the final fifth profile, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a White Earth tribal administrator who wants to best serve his community. Curtis Rogers is the deputy director of the White Earth Nation of Minnesota. He works with 1,300 employees who serve the tribe’s 17,000 citizens, and covers everything from public safety to economic development. In addition to that, he’s also a husband and family man. With his Bush Fellowship, Rogers says he’d like to level up with a law degree. “And that’s because every single day we have people that are coming to us with all kinds of jurisdictional questions. There’s big Land Back issues that we’re facing continuously, with attacks on tribal sovereignty. And I just want to lead and make decisions that are best.” Rogers remembers his family growing up in the projects of the White Earth Reservation, and struggling to make ends meet. He says he aims to help his people any way he can, and part of that plan will be to help the tribe regain some of its state forest. Rogers says he hopes to start law school in the fall of 2026. Charlene Aqpik Apok, left, Maria Destrikoff-Francis, Qimalleq Teter, and her daughter Bugs work on an affirmations activity during a workshop about Dene coming-of-age ceremonies. The workshop took place at the Elders & Youth conference on Monday, October 13, 2025. (Photo: Alena Naiden) In one Dene family, there had not been a ceremony for girls coming of age for three generations. Then a group of aunties, mothers and daughters came together to restore it – first, just for their family. And then for all young Alaska Native women interested in learning. They presented their work at the annual Elders and Youth conference this fall in Anchorage. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports. Fourteen-year-old Manu David is pouring hot tea blended by hand. She brings cups to women of all ages who fill a room during a workshop at the Elders & Youth conference. David and other girls made these teas during a gathering for girls coming of age, called Nodoyedee’onh. Her family has been reviving this Dene tradition through sharing circles. “It’s really fun. It’s just like, everybody gets together and we just share about anything and everything.” They also harvest plant medicine, make their own body products and work on traditional skills like sewing and beading. Helena Jacobs is one of the women leading the event and has been working with the girls during Nodoyedee’onh. “I feel like the work we’re doing with them right now is healing multiple generations.” Her family started to gather every few months and transitioned the family gatherings into a community event for teenage girls. “…just empower them with knowledge about their bodies and just surround them with a lot of love and support throughout these big transitions in life that can sometimes feel kind of scary or isolating.” Qimalleq Teter is Yup’ik and Cup’ik from St Mary’s. She says she came to the workshop because she wanted to learn how to guide her four-year-old daughter, but Teter says that she realized she herself still wants guidance. “You get of age of different things, all throughout your life.” Teter says that in Yup’ik culture, the ceremonies celebrate different milestones. Like when a woman catches her first fish, makes her first thing and has her first baby. Teter says the workshop reminded her that it’s not too late to honor transitions in her life. “I think maybe deep down, I just really wanted this for me, not just for my baby, so Quyana.” The workshop closed with two activities. Women and girls wrote affirmations for themselves and others, and connected them by a string. They also made heating pads filled with rice and fragrances. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, December 4, 2025 — An increasing number of workers turn to side hustles

Canada’s Assembly of First Nations (AFN) chiefs have voted unanimously to reject any changes to the oil tanker ban off the northern coast of British Columbia. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the resolution came during a First Nations meeting in Ottawa, and less than a week after the federal government and Alberta signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) about a future pipeline. The chiefs also voted in a favor of requesting that Ottawa withdraw the MOU, since it could pave the way for a new pipeline through BC. But the national chief of the AFN, Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, says Native leaders are united. “Canada can create all the MOU’s, project offices, advisory groups that they want, the chiefs are united. When it comes to approving large national projects on First Nations lands, there will not be getting around rights holders.” Prime Minister Mark Carney also addressed the AFN meeting, saying he plans to meet with coastal British Columbia First Nations. Merle Alexander is lawyer who represents two of those bands. “First Nations in Canada are feeling overwhelmed. They’re feeling as though there is, that the duty to consult is being undermined. There also is a push back against this regression on environmental and climate change policies.” Last week, PM Carney and Premier Danielle Smith (C-AB) signed an MOU to co-operate one energy. That opens the way for an exemption from the coastal tanker ban to support a new pipeline to the west coast and easier access for Canadian oil to Asian markets. The ban has been in place for about 50 years. It bars oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil from stopping or unloading at ports from the north end of Vancouver Island to Alaska. (Courtesy Indian National Finals Rodeo) For five days, the Indian National Finals Rodeo (INFR) is held in October in Las Vegas. The older generation passes the torch to the new one as up and coming riders compete for a shot at a world title. KNPR’s Jimmy Romo attended the rodeo and has this story. Behind the bucking chute at the Indian National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, young riders suit up in their protective gear. There’s a good chance a 2,000-pound bull could step on them after they hit the ground. Rodeo hands funnel the bulls from their pens to the chute through a series of gates, then they set them one-by-one to let the riders get on. When it’s time, the gate opens and the animal bucks repeatedly, trying to throw the rider off its back. A junior bull rider has to hold onto a bull with one hand for at least six seconds to score points. Cashes Thomas, 17, held on long enough to secure his win in the junior bull riding INFR world championship. “I just love the feeling, love the adrenaline, and, sure, love the money.” Cashes’ father, 52-year old Daniel Thomas, was also a bull rider in his youth. Both are enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. “The Navajo Nation, I believe, this is the way of life, how we’re given the horses, the livestock, the sheep. So it all goes back to that.” Children are inspired by watching their older relatives participating in the sport. That was the case for Cashes. It was also the case for bronc rider Ethan Heisman Yazzie. The 18-year-old finished at the top of his category to win the rookie saddle bronc riding INFR world championship. Young cowboys like Cashes and Ethan are the next generation of athletes. Daniel Thomas was in the stands watching other junior bull riders get thrown before scoring any points. Then it was time to watch Cashes take his turn. “The feeling of while the bull was bucking, I could kind of anticipate what it felt like, so I was moving back and forth, back and forth, I was like moving around like I was dancing or something,” Ethan and Cashes will go home with belt buckles and cash prizes, making the trip to Vegas worth the gamble.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, December 3, 2025 – Tribal colleges see an uncertain federal funding road ahead

Photo: Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph paints the Totem Heritage Center’s Eagle house post. (Hunter Morrison / KRBD) If you visited Southeast Alaska’s Totem Heritage Center this fall, you may have noticed something missing from one of its outside walls. That’s because three carved posts, which were made by students and master carvers, were temporarily removed for much-needed restoration work. As KRBD’s Hunter Morrison reports, the house posts were reinstalled in November. Inside a workshop at Ketchikan’s National Guard Armory, Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph is hard at work. He’s slowly shaving a block of wood into the shape of a dorsal fin with an oddly shaped knife named Charlie. He then trades Charlie, the reverse bentknife, for a tool that looks like a sickle, but works like a hammer. Large wood shavings fall to the floor. The new dorsal fin will later be affixed to the Heritage Center’s Killer Whale house post, which is like a small totem pole. It’s a small piece of a larger project to restore three of the museum’s house posts. Historically, house posts are carved to honor events, clans, or tribes. Joseph says the three he worked on were cracked on the outside due to decades of wear. “It’s time to take care of them, treat them a bit and clean them. Clean them, then treat them. And hopefully, you can give them lots and lots of life and a future here.” The Totem Heritage Center’s Raven house post is reinstalled last week. (Photo: Deborah Mercy / Ketchikan Museums Department) The three posts were carved in the mid-1980s as part of the Heritage Center’s Native Art Studies Program. Students worked alongside Indigenous master carvers to create five posts for the museum’s exterior. But like totem poles, house posts traditionally aren’t restored. They’re meant to last the lifespan of a person, about 80 years, then returned to the Earth for decomposition. But these house posts have only been around for about half of that time, and museum staff say they still have life in them. Museum Director Samantha Forsko says the house posts document the museum’s history and relationships between students and instructors. “They tell the story of the Totem Heritage Center in a way that is not just about the totem poles inside of it.” This is one of a handful of totem restoration projects Joseph has been a part of in Southeast Alaska. He says each one is different from the last. Robert Mesta (Pascua Yaqui) sings before blessing a pair of eagles at Liberty Wildlife in Phoenix on November, 16, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) It’s not everyday you get to see an eagle – let alone two together – alive and up close. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it’s something visitors of a Phoenix, Ariz. nonprofit recently did while blessing these animals during a Native American wildlife celebration. Robert Mesta (Pascua Yaqui) with Liberty Wildlife honors eagles Cisco and Anasazi with a song. “And they’re revered for their strength, their intelligence and even their healing and protective powers.” Things the Phoenix nonprofit is helping guests tap into one November Sunday morning. “Pinch some sacred tobacco, take it to the eagle and say their prayer. And oftentimes, the eagles will flap their wings – to feel the wind of the eagle is like the ultimate experience.” That lasted for an hour. Augie Molina (Pascua Yaqui) spiritually prepared people bringing offerings to the birds. “When you smudge, it’s gonna take as long as it’s gonna take.” Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, December 2, 2025 – Short films taking on big stories

Photo: Reggie Paul of Kipnuk, Alaska holds up a house frame he helped to build. (Rhonda McBride) For several southwest Alaska communities, it took one night of hurricane force winds and floods to destroy what will take years to rebuild. How and where to begin is a question that a group of men from Kipnuk tackled at a construction workshop in Anchorage, where they’ve been staying since their village was evacuated after an October storm. But as Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA found out, this time, instead of disaster, it was opportunity that came knocking. The whack of a hammer. The buzz of a saw. Those are the sounds of hope. A group of Western Alaska disaster evacuees volunteered for training on basic construction skills, that they hope to use to rebuild their village. (Photo: Rhonda McBride) Tiffany Caudle is the training coordinator for Alaska Works Partnership, which offered a one-week program on how to frame a house. “They just lost their homes. They lost everything. I do think this is really helping them positive and stay hopeful. They’ve all been so grateful for this training.” They were all volunteers, like Devon Mann. “This is the door. And this one’s going to be the window.” Devon Mann, 19, works on building a house frame. His house was destroyed in a flood that picked it up and carried it more than five miles. (Photo: Rhonda McBride) Devon looked sharp in his brand, new hoodie, given to him after a military cargo plane airlifted him and most of Kipnuk to Anchorage. He came with only the clothing he had on – and feelings of trauma, after a five-mile ride in a floating house. “I thought something bad was going to happen to the house, like break apart. I thought that would be it for us. But almost gave up. But I had hope. I had hope.” It is hope that keeps Devon going now. “Everything we’re learning in here and doing, it’s going to be useful for our village.” Alaska Works Parternership held a workshop for a group of Western Alaska Disaster evacuees, who were mostly from Kipnuk. (Photo: Rhonda McBride) William Andrew is impressed with his crew of trainees. “From what they went through, I’ll be honest with you, their attitudes are awesome. They’re wanting to learn. They’re being great.” Andrew says one week of training in basic construction skills is not enough to learn how to rebuild a village. “I’m excited about their future. And I’m hoping they get to rebuild it.” For now, there are hopes the training will lead to jobs and other opportunities. Earlier this year, five Natives were among 29 people named Bush Fellows. The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 over two years for their chosen fellows to develop their leadership skills. In the fourth of five profiles, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a tribal judge who wants to Indigenize the bench. Since childhood, Megan Treuer has been fascinated by the judicial system, and concerned with making sure Native people receive fair and equitable treatment under the law. The daughter of a White Earth Ojibwe tribal judge and an Austrian Holocaust survivor, Treuer serves as Chief Judge for the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. She has very specific goals for her Bush Fellowship. “I’m going to cut my judicial caseload in half. And take Ojibwe courses for the two years of the fellowship, and I’m really going to make focusing on the language my top priority and try to learn as much as I possibly can. And then part of my fellowship will be going around to Indigenous scholars, spiritual leaders and mentors that have worked in the area.” Ultimately, Treuer says she wants to bring humanity to the judicial system. Her late mother, Margaret Treuer, was the second Native American attorney in Minnesota, and was appointed as a federal magistrate in 1982, making the elder Treuer the first female Native judge in the country.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, December 1, 2025 – Advocates push back against new obstacles to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives momentum

Photo: A board with resources for evacuees at the Wingate hotel on November 14, 2025. (Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) Hundreds of evacuees from Western Alaska are staying in Anchorage hotels after last month’s storms destroyed their homes. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA spoke to a few families who are adjusting to their new daily lives, so far away from everything they know. Ally Shangin’s room at the Wingate hotel is crowded. On one bed, she sits with her two year old daughter. Her partner sits on another while their children play nearby. Shangin and her family are among around 650 evacuees from Western Alaska who are staying in Anchorage after being displaced by a devastating storm last month. State and federal agencies are working to rebuild the affected villages. But for many, returning before winter is not an option. “Moving here with our family – it was okay, but it’s not okay. I want to go home.” For Shangin’s nine-year-old daughter Katelynn, that means homeschooling so she can help her parents take care of her siblings. Shangin says the family gets breakfast every day, but the hotel room has no kitchen, so they order fast food for the remaining meals. “They are used to homecooked meals all the time. They’re used to the Native food and stuff that we eat.” Julia Tuutaq Stone is Kipnuk’s police officer and another evacuee. She is staying at the Aspen Hotel in Anchorage, along with her two adult sons and young grandsons – each family in their own room. “It was gonna be heartbreaking if they didn’t come with me.” Stone says the hotel provides them with free meals and snacks. She takes buses to go to the store and to play bingo. And her grandsons attend the Yup’ik immersion program at College Gate Elementary School. Her son, Alexie Aqumkallak Stone, says his kids are having more fun than him. “They’re enjoying their stay here. …It’s not fun for me, that’s for sure, because it’s not my kind of life. My life was subsistence.” Back at the Wingate, Shangin says her family has been looking at apartments already. They even filled out paperwork to receive assistance for rent. “But some of us are tired of waiting.” The family especially liked a two-bedroom apartment they looked at. Shangin says it was big enough for the older children to share their own room. “My family will be happy. I’ll be happy because I’ll be able to cook my family food.” Shangin already knows what their first meal will be: a rice dish baked in the oven with meat and seasonings. She says that will be enough for the whole family. A new report is highlighting the high levels of childhood trauma among juveniles who are tried as adults. Juvenile justice advocates are seeking reforms that consider these experiences before, during, and after interactions with the court system. Judith Ruiz-Branch reports. The research from Human Rights for Kids show that of the more than 2,200 incarcerated people surveyed, greater than 80% experienced four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences – a rate far higher than the general population. In a recent webinar, report co-author Aiden Lesley explained many respondents endured severe abuse beginning around age six, had been trafficked or exploited, or had committed offenses linked directly to their abuse. He says almost none had their trauma taken into account by judges during their sentencing. “Once children end up in the adult justice system, they face a level of repression and victimization that only serves to compound the trauma they’ve already experienced, while failing to actually address that trauma. The justice system itself also tends to serve as an extremely intimidating and traumatic experience.” Lesley says some of the profound developmental impacts of trauma include higher rates of mental health conditions among youth in the system, with especially severe experiences for girls and Native American children.     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling  

Photo: Annmarie Decoteau, left, Indigenous curriculum and instruction specialist for Bismarck Public Schools, and Tomi Cimarosti, the district’s Indian Education director, on Monday, October 13, 2025. (Courtesy Annmarie Decoteau) Thanksgiving is a holiday that often gives Native people mixed feelings. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire shares a few perspectives from across Indian Country. One on hand, the romanticized depiction of Pilgrims and Indians happily feasting together in 1621 sidesteps the wars, disease, displacement, and oppression that came in the centuries afterwards. Some Native people boycott Thanksgiving, and the United American Indians of New England will hold their 56th annual Day of Mourning this year, a protest held in Plymouth, Mass. since 1970. On the other hand, Native people love to eat, with friends and family. What is one to do? Annmarie Decoteau is the Indigenous curriculum and instruction specialist for Bismarck Public Schools. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Decoteau helps educators teach about Thanksgiving from a more authentic Native perspective. And her family reframes holidays like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July to be more relevant to them. “So instead of celebrating the holidays, they celebrate still being here, the survival, the ancestor histories. they acknowledge what happened to us, that’s one thing I would like to push that we’re still here and that’s why we still celebrate: to keep our language, stories and culture still alive.” And that Thanksgiving turkey might be pushed aside to make room for frybread, Indian tacos, and Decoteau’s personal favorite, wild rice casserole. Someone else who has given the holiday a lot of thought is Nancy Kelsey (Anishinaabe of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians), a columnist for Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper. She thinks it’s important Native people reflect on the holiday and make it their own. “Given all of the centuries of labor on our ancestors’ part for us to be here as thriving people, there is no wrong way to celebrate Thanksgiving. We can make the holiday into something that is special for us.” Kelsey says allies – including teachers – can learn about the tribes native to the lands they stand on, lift up and celebrate Indigenous storytellers, and speak up when racist and ignorant things happen. The Gila River Indian Community’s Sacaton Market was unveiled during its grand opening on October 23, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona has long relied on convenience stores to feed its 13,000 residents, who otherwise may have to drive as far as half an hour away to neighboring cities with grocery stores. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, a new market – a decade in the making – has opened much closer to home. Duncan Winston is with Gila River Development and says the tribe’s new 11,000 sq. ft. supermarket in the heart of Sacaton is much more than a store. “This isn’t a Bashas, it’s not a Safeway or a Walmart.” It’s a symbol of their sovereignty since few, if any, tribes outright own their own grocers. “We don’t want to leave that in the hands of a larger chain to determine who gets what – we want to be able to fight for ourselves and bring the necessary goods to our community when we need them.” From fresh produce and butchered meats to a deli serving local favorites, like the work’s burger. “One of the biggest demands from the community was, ‘You got to bring the works back.’ And so we’ve done that.” But that doesn’t come cheap, because of what some refer to as “rez-flation”. “We have experienced it here. I mean, it’s difficult finding reputable vendors who are willing to bring us goods and services at a fair price. Although we are rural, we are a lot closer to the metropolitan Phoenix area than a lot of the other tribes in Arizona.” Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, November 27, 2025 – Australia provides a promising model treaty for Indigenous recognition and self-determination

*Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify the vice president’s position. The Navajo Nation Council is considering a motion to remove the tribe’s president, Buu Nygren, and Vice President Richelle Montoya after a special prosecutor accused President Nygren of misusing government funds. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, the council could have taken action as early as Thursday – until a judge in Window Rock, Ariz. stepped in. Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley sponsored the bill to oust the pair. Nygren has accused Speaker Curley of seeking his removal so she can take his place. “All I can say, this is not a political move on my part. This is a necessary step to protect our Nation’s financial stability.” Two-thirds of the 24-member council must approve and it’s unclear whether Curley has the votes. On Friday, she released 465 pages detailing allegations and hoped for a swift vote while acknowledging the delegates needed time to examine the evidence. “Given the complexity of the issue, the number of alleged violations, and the volume of documents involved, I’m pretty sure that a vote before Thanksgiving is very unlikely. A more realistic timeline would be after the holiday.” That timeline changed Tuesday when a judge granted a motion from Nygren’s attorneys to block the bill pending a hearing next month. As for Vice President Montoya, she denies involvement with any of his alleged violations and says he stripped her of duties, resources, and budget. One invoice documented a $3,000 loan for travel expenses Nygren said he needed because of an argument with his wife, Apache County Attorney Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren. He also spent $3,000 renovating his Apache County home and borrowed nearly $12,000 renting tables and chairs for his daughter’s birthday party. Another $6,000 went directly to his then-Chief of Staff Patrick Sandoval to cover car repairs. Sandoval also got a loan to gift Nygren a $1,500 birthday present. It’s unclear, according to the receipts, whether anything has been paid back. When asked, Nygren’s staff reiterated he would not comment on any specifics. (Courtesy Lori Pourier) This year, five Native Americans were among 29 people named Bush Fellows. The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 over two years for their fellows to build on their leadership skills. In the third of five profiles, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire highlights an Oglala Lakota advocate for the arts and boosting financial support for creative Natives. Lori Pourier has been active in the arts for decades, but beyond making art, she also wanted to find ways to make it sustainable within tribal communities. When Pourier became active with the First Peoples Fund in 1999, she coordinated research into the arts in Native communities, particularly the Pine Ridge Reservation. “And through that research we found that 71% of the households were engaged in some sort of tradition-based, home-based business. But 52% of that household was tradition forms of art. So that’s how the Rolling Rez Arts Bus was born, because we were seeing the needs for artists. And then being in a community the size of Pine Ridge, it was hard for artists to get to our training workshops, and we partnered with Lakota Funds which is a loan fund. And it was really our artists’ idea.” Lori Pourier stands in front of the Rolling Rez Arts Bus, along with visitors from the National Endowment for the Arts, in July 2023. (Courtesy NEA / Lori Pourier) The Rolling Rez Arts Bus has traveled 8,000 miles across the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River reservations, and even visited the Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock. It also doubles as a mobile bank, and teaches Native artists about running a business and accessing credit and capital. Pourier says she will use her Bush Fellowship to explore socially responsible ways to invest in Native artists that align with cultural values.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, November 26, 2025 – Native in the Spotlight: Mel Tonasket

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation and Pueblo leaders held a press conference in Albuquerque last week to urge Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to visit Chaco Culture National Historical Park in the state, and to continue protections from oil and gas drilling. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. In October, the Bureau of Land Management began a process to revoke protections for 10 miles around Chaco Canyon to allow for possible oil and gas exploration. This comes after the New Mexico congressional delegation and Pueblo governors held a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol in September to demand that the Trump administration protect Chaco, a significant National Historic Park with massive buildings constructed over a thousand years ago by ancestral Pueblo people, with roads leading to other far flung settlements. Craig Quanchello, Governor of the Picuris Pueblo, spoke on the cultural significance of Chaco at the press conference last week. “Our ancestors lived there, prayed there, studied the stars there, and carried teachings outward into our modern Pueblo communities. Our ties to Chaco live in, our songs, our ceremonies, our pilgrimages and our ancient roads and shrines that stretch far beyond the park itself.” U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) were in attendance alongside U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM). Rep. Stansbury said during the federal shutdown, tribal leaders were unable to reach the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but did receive a letter from the Trump administration informing them that they had two weeks to respond to Chaco being taken out of federal protection. “Can you imagine the cruelty, the insensitivity, the stupidity of an administration contacting tribal leaders as they are trying to figure out how they are going to feed their people and balance their budgets and keep their public safety in order to tell them that they are going to take away their most sacred lands and open it up for private oil and gas drilling?” Quanchello said that this issue affects everyone. “This is not only a Pueblo issue, it’s an American issue about history, heritage and a landscape recognized around the world.” Congressional and Pueblo leaders invited Burgum to visit Chaco and to have a meaningful talk with them. Kodiak peer counselors, other staff, and volunteers with Kodiak KINDNESS are joined by new Northwest Arctic team members Nauyaq Baltazar and Frances Williams. (Courtesy Kodiak KINDNESS) A Kodiak-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting families with newborns is expanding into the Northwest Arctic Borough. KMXT’s Davis Hovey has more on how Kodiak Kindness is helping families across Alaska raise babies. For years “Nauyaq” Wanda Baltazar has been teaching infants in Kotzebue through a local program that serves children with disabilities or delayed development. It’s the only such Infant Learning Program based out of a school district in the state. Baltazar says it’s about helping kids from birth to three years old and their families around the Maniilaq service area, which covers 12 communities in Northwest Alaska from Kotzebue to Kobuk. “Working with birth to three, it’s always good about helping families, ensuring that they’re strong, supported …. and any way we can support families and nursing moms to help their babies grow, I think is great.” Baltazar and Frances Williams from Ambler are bringing their experience working with children to Kodiak Kindness as they continue doing what they already do, but under the new title of peer counselors. Williams, who is known in her hometown as the “village mother,” says being part of the organization will give her more support and tools to do things she already does on a regular basis in the Northwest Arctic community. “Kodiak Kindness would be able to help because there’s a lot of things that I learned when we went to the trainings, yeah, things that we didn’t know. So all the training will be able to help, like I’ll be able to do my own mix with Kodiak Kindness and my Inupiaq traditions.” Williams says she uses native plants like stinkweed or spruce trees to make salves or other traditional medicines to help her friends, family and neighbors heal from the land. Aside from the traditional knowledge Williams has from her mom and aunties, she’ll also be able to help her community with assistance from a certified lactation consultant if she wants support virtually from the Kodiak Kindness team via telehealth. Kodiak Kindness’ two new peer counselors in the Northwest Arctic Borough come online this winter and hope to start enrolling families in the region early next year.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, November 25, 2025 – For all its promise, AI

This year, five Native Americans were among 29 people named Bush Fellows. The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 over two years for their fellows to build on their leadership skills. In the second of five profiles, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire highlights what a South Dakota university administrator wants to accomplish. John Little is the director of Native Recruitment and Alumni Engagement at the University of South Dakota (USD). The Standing Rock Sioux tribal member works with many Native students and wants to get more fired up for higher education. He says part of getting many ready is adapting from small Midwestern rural communities to large campuses with many academic offerings. “It is a shock factor for a lot of students.” Boosting Native enrollment and retention will be a challenge. In a census review shared by the Postsecondary National Policy Institute, data showed that nearly 26% of Native Americans ages 18-24 were enrolled in college, compared to 39% of the overall U.S. population. Additionally, undergraduate enrollment dropped 40%, while graduate enrollment fell 18% for Native students. Little says he’s been lucky to have parents who’ve supported his academic goals, including a masters degree from USD and a Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. “Especially my mom has been really influential in me going to school and has been there every step. Not every student that I work with in South Dakota has that. Or maybe they do, but they’re first-gen so they just don’t know what that looks like.” Little says he’ll research college fairs and regional programs to develop stronger preparation initiatives for future students. (Photo: Liz West / Flickr) A study aims to shed light on the hidden impacts of domestic violence in Native communities. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding reports on the effort to understand the unrecognized brain injuries many survivors are living with. The Urban Indian Health Institute’s survey aims to find out how common traumatic brain injuries are among Native survivors of domestic and sexual violence. More than 80% of Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. According to Abigail Echo-Hawk, the institute’s director, many survivors of domestic and sexual violence suffer from brain injuries that never get diagnosed or receive proper care. “They deserve justice, they deserve safety, and they deserve to get the treatment that they need when they’ve been impacted by traumatic brain injury.” The goal of the survey is to ensure survivors get the right care and support, through programs and policies designed to help them heal. The survey began in October and will remain open through January 2026. Members of the Hualapai Tribe stand in front of the 2025 Capitol Christmas tree. (Courtesy Hualapai Tribe) Another Arizona tribe has been picked to keep a newer holiday tradition going by supplying this year’s Christmas tree for the state Capitol. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. For three years running under Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), the state has taken bids from tribes, beginning with the White Mountain Apache in 2023. Then, the San Carlos Apache last year. Now, the Capitol tree will come from the Hualapai or “People of the Tall Pines”. “And I hope, no matter who is in the Office of the Governor, that this holiday spirit of bringing all our communities together continues.” Duane Clarke is chairman of the 2,300 member Hualapai Tribe north of Kingman, Ariz. “Oddly enough, the one tree that has been selected, it’s close to, I want to say about 30 feet, was not one of the three options, to be honest. Councilman [Diane] Imus did a quick prayer. He turned to the right and said, ‘That’s the tree.’ We all looked and it was a moment of awe.” The tribe will bless the tree before trucking it more than 200 miles to the state Capitol from their reservation hugging the Grand Canyon’s West Rim. It will be on display by December 1. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, November 24, 2025 – Native candidates make strides in local elections

An important report on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis has been removed from the Department of Justice website. Many MMIP awareness advocates and officials have questioned its absence, according to Newsweek. U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) says the “Not One More” report disappeared in February. She was with the Senate Committee that introduced the 2020 Not Invisible Act, which mandated the report. Sen. Cortez Casto and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) reached out to the Trump administration to have the report reposted, but Newsweek says they were told the White House took it down to comply with the president’s executive order that determined there were only two sexes. Cortez Masto is quoted in Newsweek’s coverage as saying she firmly believes this isn’t about gender, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), or ‘Wokeness”, but about keeping tribal communities safe and providing tribal leaders and law enforcement with the tools they need. (Courtesy Keʻōpū Reelitz / Linkedin) A Native Hawaiian organization is tasked with taking care of Native Hawaiians across Hawaii and the continental U.S. when it comes to the health and wellbeing of Native Hawaiian people. Keʻōpū Reelitz, director of policy and strategy at Papa Ola Lōkahi, says the organization was created by an act of Congress in the 1980s to address the Native Hawaiian health care system. Reelitz was among the more than 2,500 attendees at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) annual convention taking place in Seattle this week. “At home, it means making sure that we’re supporting our Native Hawaiian health care systems. It also means that we’re supporting community-based organizations that are helping to make sure our people are thriving and able to live and thrive in Hawaii. And that also means that they’re doing so if they are one of the diaspora Hawaiians. So, if they were either born outside of the United States or had to move we also support community-based organizations that are making sure that they’re connected to their identity, connected to resources that they need. Because as we know, as Native people, if we don’t have our culture, if we don’t have our language, if we don’t have that identity, then the core of our well-being is impacted. So, making sure that we’re providing those kinds of supports and connections to our people.” Reelitz says it’s important to be at events like NCAI in order to listen and learn from other Native people. She says it’s good to be partners, allies, and advocates pointing to the partnership, which helped create the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act – done in collaboration with tribes. Health and wellness were among the many issues discussed at the NCAI gathering, which wraps up on Friday. The Nez Perce Tribe hosted A Night of Indigenous Jazz & Soul Thursday at the Seattle Convention Center before the last day of the 82nd NCAI Annual Convention & Marketplace. (Courtesy NCAI / Facebook) Robert Mesta, who is Pascua Yaqui, sings before blessing a pair of eagles at Liberty Wildlife in Phoenix on November, 16, 2025. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) And it’s not everyday you get to see an eagle – let alone two together – alive and up close. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it’s something visitors of a Phoenix nonprofit recently did while blessing these animals during an annual Native American wildlife celebration earlier this month. Robert Mesta with Liberty Wildlife is Pascua Yaqui and honors eagles Cisco and Anasazi with a song. “And they’re revered for their strength, their intelligence and even their healing and protective powers.” Things the Phoenix nonprofit is helping guests tap into one November Sunday morning. “Pinch some sacred tobacco, take it to the eagle and say their prayer. And oftentimes, the eagles will flap their wings – to feel the wind of the eagle is like the ultimate experience.” That lasted for an hour. Augie Molina, who is Pascua Yaqui, spiritually prepared people bringing offerings to the birds by burning sage bundles and tapping them with a fan made from feathers – while those being cleansed bathed in the smoke. “When you smudge, it’s gonna take as long as it’s gonna take.”       Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, November 21, 2025 – Native Bookshelf: “The Bone Thief” by Vanessa Lillie and “The Devil is a Southpaw” by Brandon Hobson  

Photo: Breakfast bar at the Wingate Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. (Courtesy Wingate by Wyndham) Hundreds of evacuees from Western Alaska are staying in Anchorage hotels after last month’s storms destroyed their homes. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA spoke to a few families who are adjusting to their new daily lives, so far away from everything they know. Ally Shangin’s room at the Wingate hotel is crowded. On one bed she sits with her two year old daughter. Her partner sits on another while their children play nearby. Shangin and her family are among around 650 evacuees from Western Alaska who are staying in Anchorage after being displaced by a devastating storm last month. State and federal agencies are working to rebuild the affected villages. But for many, returning before winter is not an option. “Moving here with our family – it was okay, but it’s not okay. I want to go home.” For Shangin’s 9-year-old daughter Katelynn, that means homeschooling so she can help her parents take care of her siblings. Shangin says the family gets breakfast every day, but the hotel room has no kitchen, so they order fast food for the remaining meals. “They are used to homecooked meals all the time. They’re used to the Native food and stuff that we eat.” Julia Tuutaq Stone is Kipnuk’s police officer and another evacuee. She is staying at the Aspen Hotel in Anchorage, along with her two adult sons and young grandsons – each family in their own room. “It was gonna be heartbreaking if they didn’t come with me.” Stone says the hotel provides them with free meals and snacks. She takes buses to go to the store and to play bingo. And her grandsons attend the Yup’ik immersion program at College Gate Elementary School. Her son, Alexie Aqumkallak Stone, says his kids are having more fun than him. “They’re enjoying their stay here. …It’s not fun for me, that’s for sure, because it’s not my kind of life. My life was subsistence.” Back at the Wingate, Shangin says her family has been looking at apartments already. They even filled out paperwork to receive assistance for rent. “But some of us are tired of waiting.” The family especially liked a two-bedroom apartment they looked at. Shangin says it was big enough for the older children to share their own room. “My family will be happy. I’ll be happy because I’ll be able to cook my family food.” Shangin already knows what their first meal will be: a rice dish baked in the oven with meat and seasonings. She says that will be enough for the whole family. More than 100 winter items and more than $15,000 dollars were collected this week, during a winter coat drive at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) annual convention in Seattle. Attendees brought in new coats and other cold weather essentials from gloves to scarves to hats. The items will help support unsheltered Native people in the city and will also benefit evacuees in Alaska affected by last month’s devastating storm. The Seattle Indian Health Board was among organizations that teamed up with NCAI on the coat drive. Abigail Echo-Hawk (Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma) is the executive vice president of the health board. “It’s really important for us as Native people to come when we come to areas and we think about how we contribute not just to the local economies, but to the people itself. And so here in Seattle, we have a very large unhoused population. “Native people in the Seattle area are 10 times more likely than non-Hispanic whites to live unhoused on the streets of Seattle. And organizations like the Seattle Indian Health Board, United Indians of All Tribes, we work with a lot of these relatives. “Having a coat drive really allows us to get some really high quality, nice things out to our communities, both our unhoused relatives and also for our youth and folks who are in need of a nice warm coat in a cold Seattle winter.” Echo-Hawk says distribution of the winter items will begin as soon as her organization receives the donations from NCAI.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, November 20, 2025 – Federal immigration crackdown collides with Native Americans

For decades starting in 1907, Indigenous women and women of color across the country were sterilized without their informed consent. Last week, a coalition of women’s reproductive rights advocates called on New Mexico legislators to create a commission to investigate the abuses. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. Numerous reports show sterilizations peaked in the 1960s through the late 70s. That’s when upwards of 70,000 Indigenous women were forced or coerced into sterilization procedures by the Indian Health Service (IHS) and contracted physicians, including those at the University of New Mexico. By the mid 1970s, at least 25% of Indigenous women of childbearing age had been sterilized. Rachael Lorenzo (Mescalero Apache and Laguna Pueblo), executive director of Indigenous Women Rising, says she was a target of coercion. @Doctors refused to take out my IUD, despite the fact the copper IUD, which is called paraguard, made me bleed for 10 months, and four different doctors refused to take it out because it was working the way it was supposed to, and they said I was too young at 22 to have another baby.@ The proposed joint memorial would establish a memorial to victims,but also a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would make New Mexico the first U.S. state to formally investigate and acknowledge the violations done to Indigenous women. State Sen. Linda Lopez (D-NM) agreed that the legislature needs to acknowledge the role New Mexico played in this history. “It wasn’t us who are here in the Roundhouse at this point in time. And yes, it was maybe another governmental entity. But Madam Chair, I think those of us who are elected have a responsibility to say this should never have happened, this will not happen, and that we apologize.” State Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta (D-NM) says there also needs to be more resources for educating youth about reproductive care. New Mexico currently doesn’t have a law on forced sterilization. NCAI President Mark Macarro, left, and Executive Director Larry Wright, Jr. presented the inaugural NCAI Lifetime Achievement Awards to honor two titans in Indian Country: the late Chairman of the Indian Gaming Association Ernie Stevens, Jr. and founder and Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) John E. Echohawk. The first award was accepted by Chairman Stevens’s family, including a blanketing of his spouse Cheryl Stevens. (Courtesy NCAI / Facebook) The Native vote was center stage Tuesday morning at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) annual convention in Seattle. Panelists discussed various barriers facing Native voters and efforts to protect Native voting rights. Matthew Campbell, deputy director, at the Native American Rights Fund was on the panel. He says the state of the Native vote across the country has its ups and downs. “Typically, a voter might choose to only vote in the presidential election every four years. But I think it’s really critical to remember that if we elect candidates of our choice in the state legislature, for the school boards, you know, every single race really can make a difference in our lives. You know, if we elect people that lift up and fight for tribal sovereignty at the state level, that’s really important. And if we elect people that are aware about our culture and our tradition at the school board level, that’s also really important (possible cut for time).” Jaynie Parrish is the executive director of Arizona Native Vote. She says work on Native voting issues takes place year-round and not just during big election years like presidential or mid-terms. “Like many issues, uh whether it’s tribal sovereignty, climate, there are people constantly working on these issues, whether that’s on advocacy side or lobbying or policy. It’s the same thing with civic engagement and voting and elections.” Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) John E. Echohawk. (Courtesy NCAI / Facebook) Parrish is a panelist on civic engagement in Indian Country Wednesday afternoon. Voting is just one of the many issues attendees at the NCAI annual convention are focusing on. Organizers say this year’s convention is seeing record numbers, with 2,500 people registered.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, November 19, 2025 – Indigenous voices speak up, but have little clout at COP30

Photo: The Little Colorado River, a tributary of the Colorado River, flows during the springtime through the Navajo Nation near Cameron. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Last week, more than a dozen tribes commented on a proposal by the Trump administration to let developers obtain preliminary permits for hydropower projects on reservations in spite of tribal opposition. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. This new rule would apply to projects like dams, reservoirs and pump-storage facilities – all overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which under a Biden-era rule does not issue such permits without consent. That independent agency is now being asked to change course by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Stewart Koyiyumptewa is the Hopi tribal historic preservation officer and commented on behalf of his tribe. “He put tribes in the same sentence as third parties. And what that tells me is that there’s that lack of respect.” As for their neighbors in northern Arizona, the Navajo Nation thinks dialogues with future developers have improved. Navajo Acting Assistant Attorney General Erika Pirotte, who penned their brief, wants an extension. Tribes had only 17 days to reply while dealing with the longest U.S. government shutdown. “What we’ve seen is contrary to, I think, what was included in the letter for the request for rulemaking from the Secretary – that the policy has not, in fact, hindered development on the Nation. We received notice of this, October 27, it’s been a pretty tight turnaround.” Young Native people from across the country are gathered in Seattle this week, developing their leadership skills and discussing tribal issues, including sovereignty and policymaking. They’re taking part in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Youth Convention, which is being held alongside NCAI’s annual convention. Shania Guacheno is an eight-grade student from the Soboba Band in Southern California. “I’m with TANF program from Soboba and just going to the conferences to learn new things. Learning about Native American tribes, their traditions and stories, and everything.” Crystal Williams, vice chair of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, says it’s important to have young people be part of NCAI’s gathering. “To me, it’s very important as a tribal leader. I’ve been in this for a decade and it’s so important for me to make sure that our youth know about leadership, how to run tribes, because they will be the ones that are going to be handling this here in the next 10, 20, 30 years. So I am an advocate for youth in leadership, so I feel like we have the responsibility to teach them as much as we can.” 161 young people, ages 14 to 24, are attending the youth convention. They’re also encouraged to attend the main NCAI general sessions and meetings to hear from tribal leaders from across Indian Country. Both events run through Friday. Chief Joseph And on this day in 1895, the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Idaho was opened up to white settlers. After encroachment, war, and a gold rush compromised the previous treaties’ defined boundaries, prevailing white sentiment deemed the unfarmed and undeveloped areas as “surplus”, leading to the further breaking up of lands held by the Nimiipuu. (Courtesy of Wilma Mankiller Foundation) And it’s also the birthday of Wilma Mankiller, born in 1945. She became the first woman to be elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. A lifelong advocate of Native and women’s rights, Mankiller said she was largely inspired by the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz by Indigenous activists. She died in 2010, with friend and feminist icon Gloria Steinem by her side.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, November 18, 2025 – The constant burden on tribal hunters to justify their treaty rights

A Native American woman and her family are thankful that she’s not been detained – and potentially deported – by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire has the story. On Veteran’s Day, 24-year-old Leticia Jacobo completed a short sentence at the Polk County Jail in Des Moines, Iowa for a traffic infraction. She was supposed to have been released at midnight, but things took an odd turn. “I don’t know how to put it in words. It was, it was shocking. I was like, “How do I have a ICE hold, when I’m Native American? And, yeah, it was just weird. It was just crazy.” Jacobo’s mom, Ericka Burns, learned that her daughter was placed under an ICE detainer and was worried. Both women are members of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and therefore legal U.S. citizens. Jacobo’s aunt, Maria Nunez, said her sister sprung into action. “And being a holiday that day, we couldn’t do much. And you know, here on her reservation side of the family we just jumped on the media, and reached out to everyone and however we could. Because we didn’t want her removed and sent to who knows where.” Nunez says the tribal police chief called in to corrections officials to vouch for Jacobo’s citizenship. And an investigator learned that another inmate at the jail had the same last name as Jacobo. A spokesman for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said it was all a clerical mix-up and staff have been talked to about preventing repeat errors. Leticia Jacobo reflected on the experience. “I’m very thankful for having family members and people out here, because if I didn’t, who knows what happened, I would have just unknowingly went to ICE custody. And you know, so it would have been a scary moment.” Many Native people and supporters are calling this a case of racial profiling, and Jacobo is weighing a lawsuit. For now though, she plans to celebrate the holiday season with her family. Ericka Burns, left, and her daughter Leticia Jacobo, who is a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. (Courtesy Maria Nunez) Maria Nunez says she’s happy that her niece is safe. “And I’m just so proud to be Native American and have all the love and support and knowing that …we’re all ready to fight and protect what’s ours and what our rights are.” Since the Trump administration ramped up its immigration crackdown, tribes have complained of ICE confronting their enrolled citizens. Many have issued guidance on their rights and what documentation to present if detained. Neither the Des Moines ICE office nor the Salt River Pima-Marcicopa Indian Community returned requests for comment. A sunset view of the Colorado River from Cienega Springs in La Paz County, Ariz. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The Colorado River has long been considered a lifeline for the Southwest. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, one Arizona tribe is now acknowledging the waterway as having the same rights and legal protections as tribal members. The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) would not say whether it was unanimous, but the nine council members still voted to recognize personhood for the namesake river under tribal law. It comes at a pivotal time when sustained drought threatens this natural resource – CRIT considers “a living entity” – running parallel to the tribe’s nearly 300,000-acre reservation along the California border. This measure also tasks tribal councils to take the Colorado River’s needs under consideration amid an uncertain future on two fronts: climate change and ongoing inter-state water negotiations. Tribal leaders from across the country are gathered in Seattle for the National Congress of American Indians annual convention and marketplace. Leaders are tackling top issues facing their communities from economic development, education, and climate to language and culture. Additionally, a youth convention is taking place. Both gatherings continue through Friday.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, November 17, 2025 – Native hemp producers caught off guard by near total ban in the bill reopening federal government

Photo: Construction is underway for a 22-unit housing project on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone reservation, the first housing project on the reservation in over 20 years, on Monday, September. 15, 2025, in Fallon, Nev. (Jimmy Romo / Nevada Public Radio) Housing isn’t just a problem in major cities in Nevada. It’s also an issue in rural parts of the state, including Tribal nations. Thousands of tribal members want to come back home, but there’s not enough housing available at the moment. KNPR’s Jimmy Romo visited two tribes to tour their newest housing developments. On the Walker River Paiute Tribe reservation, tribal officials and community members break ground on the highly anticipated water looping system. This water project was a decade in the making as Tribal members have been wanting to live on the reservation. With no available housing, they can’t. Genia Williams came back home to the reservation a decade ago to become the housing director for the Walker River Paiute Tribe to build out the tribe. Instead she was met with unavoidable infrastructure issues. “You’re thinking, OK, you can build homes and do things and find out that that was not going to happen, there had to be a moratorium.” It wasn’t until 2024 that the Walker River Paiute Tribe was approved for a $20 million grant. That funding was later taken away months after President Donald Trump took office. Walker River Paiute Tribe Chairwoman Melanie McFalls knew that, although the tribe is trying to save funds, coming up with the water looping funding would be worth the investment for generations to come. “You know, it was kinda hard to just give up $3 million just like that, but we had to or else we would’ve lost the entire project.” Forty miles north of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, the Fallon Shoshone-Paiute Tribe’s housing program development manager, Russell Dyer-Redner, has seen how difficult getting housing can be. “It seems like you’re basically waiting for someone to die or something to even have a chance at housing.” When Russell wanted to come back home to the reservation, he was told the same thing as many others: there is no housing available. To combat the lack of housing, the tribe is building a 22-unit housing project. These projects are adding housing to the reservation, but in small numbers with the help of federal funding. These federal funds come out of a big pot of money where all 574 federal tribes nationwide are applying for a piece of the pot. And every year the pot keeps shrinking. Federal appropriations like the Indian Housing Block Grant have declined for decades, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities study from this year. “There’s always going to be a shortage, but if we can meet a majority of our needs then we’ll you know do our do diligence, and hopefully people will be able to come back,” Williams said. And that’s what leaders from tribes across the state want, to bring their members back home. Leya Hale holds up her regional Emmy for “Reclaiming Sacred Tobacco,” which won Best Topical Documentary at the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards, Bloomington, Minn., Saturday, October 7, 2017. (Courtesy Leya Hale) Five Native Americans were among the 29 people named Bush Fellows this year. The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 over two years for their fellows to build on their leadership skills. In the first of five profiles, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire shares what an award-winning filmmaker plans to do. Leya Hale has been with Twin Cities PBS for 13 years and has won regional Emmys for her work, including the films “Reclaiming Sacred Tobacco” and “The People’s Protectors”. But the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and Diné Nations artist feels she falls short in one area: technical expertise. “Learning about how to capture good quality audio. Even when it comes to more of the technical side of editing like color-correcting and those types of things, that’s something that I really want to learn more of, because I get asked often to do mentoring to up-and-coming youth and storytellers.” Hale’s grand vision is to create a worldwide network of Indigenous filmmakers and artists who will share their cultural stories authentically and accurately. Hale also hopes to use her Bush Fellowship award to build on her Dakota language skills. Her new film, “Medicine Ball”, is set for release next year. It looks at how basketball emerged out of boarding school.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, November 14, 2025 – A Pueblo answer to the work and renown of artist Georgia O’Keefe

Photo: Liz West / Flickr A new study aims to shed light on the hidden impacts of domestic violence in Native communities. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding reports on the effort to understand the unrecognized brain injuries many survivors are living with. The Urban Indian Health Institute’s survey aims to find out how common traumatic brain injuries are among Native survivors of domestic and sexual violence. More than 80% of Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. According to Abigail Echo-Hawk, the institute’s director, many survivors of domestic and sexual violence suffer from brain injuries that never get diagnosed or receive proper care. “They deserve justice, they deserve safety, and they deserve to get the treatment that they need when they’ve been impacted by traumatic brain injury.” The goal of the survey is to ensure survivors get the right care and support, through programs and policies designed to help them heal. The survey began in October and will remain open through January 2026. Moses Marr’aq Wiseman and Indra Arriaga with the Alaska Institute for Justice on Nov. 6, 2025. The organization released the new online glossary with Yup’ik words for behavioral health terms. (Photo: Alena Naiden) A nonprofit has released a new Yup’ik glossary with behavioral health terms. Yup’ik speakers, including those affected by the recent Western Alaska storm, which devastated communities, can use it to communicate with their health providers and to understand their mental health better. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Last month, Moses Marr’aq Wiseman was helping with Yup’ik translation at the Anchorage shelters that hosted evacuees from the recent Western Alaska storm. He was also sharing a new glossary with Yup’ik words for behavioral health terms. “When you have a culture of your own, that’s not a part of American culture. It’s a taboo thing to talk about behavioral health and mental health care. So like having this available, when it was available, it’s just an ease of mind I think.” Wiseman is the Alaska Native Languages Program director at the Alaska Institute for Justice. Last month, the nonprofit released a new glossary. People can type in a modern health-related term and listen to its Yup’ik pronunciation. Wiseman says it should help Yup’ik interpreters and service providers to break down language barriers and help people understand their health better. Indra Arriaga is the strategic and operational director at the Institute for Justice. “Where you do have a stigma around depression, a stigma around suicide, this is a way of getting information and not feeling like you’re exposing yourself, right? It’s out there. It’s reliable. It’s in your language. It’s a door.” Arriaga says the glossary has been years in the making, in collaboration with Yup’ik speakers. The plan was to launch the project on Nov. 1. But when the remnants of the Typhoon Halong forced hundreds of people to evacuate to Anchorage, the organization decided to release it sooner. “The care and the healing of the folks who are here from Kipnuk and other villages is going to continue. So this is a resource that now can really be used in settings where they’re going to be talking about different things that affect their mental health.” The organization is now looking for funding to complete a similar glossary but for terms relevant for emergency care and intake. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) says it welcomes the reopening of the federal government to restore stability to critical services to tribes. In a statement, NCAI said during the shutdown the Indian Health Service largely remained opened due to advance appropriations, but it’s depending on Congress to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits. NCAI says reopening the government restores funding to food assistance programs, which many Native people rely on. The organization says temporary fixes are not enough, and that data collected from tribes during the shutdown “made clear” how long term, lasting solutions, and structural funding reforms are needed to honor tribal trust and treaty obligations.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, November 13, 2025 – Educational outcomes are about more than just grades for Native American students