National Native News

The Trump administration may be on the verge of reviving plans for a controversial mine upstream from Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

Alaska Public Media’s Liz Ruskin reports.

The company behind the proposed Pebble Mine says it’s in talks with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and hopes the agency will withdraw its veto of the project.

The open-pit copper and gold mine is widely opposed by area tribes and the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, as well as commercial fishermen.

They say it’s a threat to the bay’s prolific salmon runs that are the basis of the regional economy and vital to subsistence and Alaska Native culture.

Environmental studies found the mine would damage or destroy miles of salmon streams and more than 2,000 acres of wetlands.

Opponents have succeeded in blocking the proposal for decades.

The EPA issued a rare veto of the project in 2023, but a document filed in federal court this month reveals that the EPA is reconsidering that decision.

In his first term, President Donald Trump ran hot and cold on Pebble.

His first EPA administrator let the project move forward, then reversed course a few months later.

Then, in 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied Pebble’s Clean Water Act permit. That came after Donald Trump Jr., a sportfisherman who visited the region, publicly announced his opposition.

Several whaling crews join in a traditional Iñupiaq dance during Nalukataq. (Photo: Sarah Betcher)

The Trump administration’s new budget reconciliation bill is drawing criticism from some for its cuts to social safety net programs.

But residents in one Arctic community say the bill will support their economy, thanks to several carveouts for Alaska, including an increased tax break for whaling captains.

Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Charles Akłinik Lampe is an Inupiaq whaler, born and raised in Kaktovik, on the North Slope.

His whaling crew hosted a feast in June, celebrating their successful bowhead whale harvest and sharing it with the village.

“It doesn’t only go to the whaling captains or whaling captains’ families. It goes to our entire community.”

Lampe is one of the whaling captains in Alaska’s Arctic who are applauding the Republican megabill that President Trump signed into law on July 4.

The bill has been criticized for extending tax breaks for wealthier Americans and for slashing social safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was a deciding vote in the bill’s passage.

She defended her vote by pointing to delayed work requirements for food stamp recipients in Alaska, and offsets for Medicaid cuts with federal funding.

The final bill also includes a tax deduction increase for subsistence whaling captains from $10,000 to $50,000 for whaling-related expenses.

Lampe says those deductions will provide a big economic relief for 11 whaling communities in Alaska.

He says captains like him annually need to buy fuel, food, whaling bombs, and safety gear for their crews.

“It could be very, very spendy. Having that tax break frees up money to provide help for the rest of the year for not only the whaling captains, but to our family members and stuff too, because we help wherever we can.” 

The megabill also seeks to increase resource development across the state and includes new oil lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Nathan Gordon Jr. is the mayor of Kaktovik, the only community within the refuge.

He says those provisions acknowledge what many North Slope residents have been advocating for: Responsible resource development to support local economy and infrastructure.

“That’s where most of the tax money is going to go is to the new school in Kaktoivik, which is amazing,”

North Slope residents, like Lampe, also say they’re also encouraged by the nearly $25 billion in the bill for the Coast Guard – a federal agency that often assists them with search and rescue operations.

(Courtesy Rep. Sharice Davids)

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk/D-KS) and several of her colleagues are calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to restore the Not Invisible Act Commission Report to the DOJ website, which was removed earlier this year due to an executive order.

Members recently sent a letter to the DOJ which said the report includes critical information on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis, and say its removal erases years of research.

The members say accessible data is essential to addressing the crisis.

They’re asking the DOJ to take steps to immediately restore it.

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The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe in Nevada is expanding healthcare access with a mobile clinic.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more on how tribal patients are getting the healthcare they need.

After years of driving their vehicles to neighboring reservations, the tribe bought a mobile clinic last year.

It was funded by a $673,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, aimed at expanding rural healthcare access after the pandemic. 

The tribe’s mobile clinic serves its members and drives to the Lovelock Paiute and Yomba Shoshone reservations – covering a territory of about 200 miles. It can also treat any member of a tribe in Nevada. 

Joy Schultz, a registered nurse with the Fallon Tribal Health Center, helps a patient check in for a mobile clinic appointment. (Photo: Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau)

Jon Pishion is the director of the Fallon Tribal Health Center. He says they serve about 2,000 people, averaging about 20 patients each month.

They try to visit each tribe at least once a month, but that isn’t always easy.

“Challenge is weather and distance. They are far away. And during winter, sometimes these areas get hard to access here.”

Mobile health clinics are also being used by the Navajo Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona, and the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana. 

“I think having the providers go into community opens their eyes to the needs and how to better serve them.”

Dr. Christopher Chai is working at the mobile clinic here in Lovelock. He says they can even act as an urgent care for injuries and wounds.

“We will get the random rancher come in with a broken finger and say, like, what do I do with this – it sliced open – and we can put in stitches.”

Pishion adds that the clinic also helps tribal members be proactive instead of reactive about their health. 

“We have some people that maybe only come in when they’re sick, but now they’re seeing us for their preventative care when we come out.”

Like Barbara Bonta, an elder of the Walker River Paiute Tribe who lives in Lovelock. 

“I’ve been seeing them for my feet and other problems that I didn’t know I had till they started testing this and testing that.”

Barbara Bonta, left, an elder of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, sits on an exam table inside the Fallon Tribal Health Center’s mobile clinic. Nurse Joy Schultz prepares to check her vitals. (Photo: Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau)

Bonta was brought to the mobile clinic by her daughter Tia Happy.

“With my mom, she can’t sit for a long time in a car to go to Fallon or elsewhere to appointments, so it makes it super convenient when the mobile comes here.”

Happy says her mom’s been seeing Dr. Chai for the past two years, consistent care that’s been made possible by this mobile clinic, which isn’t slowing down.

This year, the clinic plans to add dental care to its services. 

An example of a Turquoise Alert issued for people missing under suspicious circumstances in Arizona. (Courtesy Arizona Department of Public Safety)

Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) announced last week the launch of the Turquoise Alert system for Native Americans.

It’s a new tool intended to help the state’s department of public safety and law enforcement respond when vulnerable people go missing.

In May, Gov. Hobbs signed legislation creating the alert. It was deployed before its effective date this fall.

Hobbs says the tool is a meaningful step to improve the safety and wellbeing of communities across Arizona, and in particular Tribal communities, which have suffered from a crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.

Tribal leaders were among those to advocate for the alert system.

Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis (Gila River Indian Community) took to social media to announce the launch of the Turquoise Alert, saying it’s in honor of Emily Pike, a San Carlos Apache teenager who went missing and was later found dead.

“I feel the weight of every story of a missing loved one. Now the creation of the Turquoise Alert System through Emily’s Law is deeply meaningful to me and to all tribal communities across Arizona. We have long lived with the painful reality that our Indigenous brothers and sisters, our relatives, go missing at alarming rates and too often slip through the cracks of systems not built to protect them.”

Gov. Lewis says the Turquoise Alert gives tribal communities a fighting chance to bring their relatives home.

The alert will be activated when a person goes missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances and is believed to be endangered.

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Manitoba has again declared a state of emergency because of wildfires.

It’s the second time this year.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the province’s premier Wab Kinew says more shelter is needed for people forced to leave their homes.

The wildfires continue to force community evacuations, especially in northern areas.

The province is in the middle of one of the worst wildfire season in 30 years.

So far, about 20 million acres of land have burned in the province, 11 times worse than the average.  And there are more than 100 active fires burning in Manitoba.

Now thousands of people are fleeing, some of them for the second time in the past couple of months.

Here’s Manitoba premier Wab Kinew.

“The primary reason that we have called this latest state of emergency is because we need access to more facilities to be able to shelter this large number of Manitobans who are being forced to flee their homes due to wildfires.”

The community of Snow Lake declared a local state of emergency earlier this week. Then the Garden Hill First Nation also issued an evacuation notice.

Canadian Armed Forces transport plans have already removed about 1,000 residents.

So far, about 6,000 people have been transferred from their communities and 12,000 have been displaced.

The state of emergency allows the province to use convention centers and arenas to help provide shelter space.

Archaeologists with the Alutiiq Museum dig into layers on layers site at Karluk Lake called site 309, which revealed a “super structure”. This is separate from what was surveyed on Shuyak Island. (Courtesy Alutiiq Museum Archaeology Department & Repository)

Shuyak Island, Alaska is one of several located in the Kodiak Archipelago and like many islands in the area it has a rich history.

The Alutiiq Museum’s archaeological team has been surveying sites on the island for years and as KMXT’s Davis Hovey reports, they have pieced together more of the historical timeline of the island’s use.

Patrick Saltonstall is the archaeology curator with the Alutiiq Museum. He’s heavily involved in site surveys and excavations around the Kodiak Archipelago.

This spring, Saltonstall and staff from the museum’s archaeology team finished surveying Shuyak Island, which is located 54 air miles north of Kodiak.

“A lot of the old research had focused on the northwest part of Shuyak and we surveyed the whole island. And we found a lot of really big villages on the east side.”

He says they surveyed one site that dates back to roughly 7,000 years ago, which he suspects is the oldest found on that island thus far.

“I think we found that one village that had 11 house pits, probably had two to three hundred people living in it, you know, 300 years ago.”

Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people have inhabited areas around Kodiak Island for at least 7,500 years, according to archaeologists. And thousands of archaeological sites have been documented across the archipelago.

According to the Alutiiq Museum, Shuyak Island was an integral part of that history with at least two established Alutiiq villages. But Russian fur trader Gregorii Shelikov destroyed one of the villages and by the late 1700s there were no communities left on the island.

The word Suu’aq in Alutiiq means “rising out of the water”. And true to its name, Saltonstall says the island itself is rising at a faster rate than the sea level is, so the threat of eroding sites is not as prevalent today.

“What we found up there is that’s not happening anymore. All the sites are much more stable. You see grass growing on all the beaches, and it demonstrates…the land sank in 1964 and it’s rebounded ever since, and it’s outpacing sea level rise up there.”

Most of the island is now owned by the state and is included in the Shuyak Island State Park.

Mark Macarro, seen here on Air Force One with President Joe Biden in 2024.

Condemnation over conservative commentator Ann Coulter’s anti-Native post on social media site X continues.

Brian Bull has more.

Earlier this week, Coulter posted a video of Melanie Yazzie, a University of Minnesota professor and Navajo Nation member at a 2023 conference discussing colonization.

Coulter posted “We didn’t kill enough Indians”, sparking outrage.

The post has since disappeared from X, but tribal leaders and organizations have continued to denounce it as “violent” and low, even for a controversial figure like Coulter.

The National Congress of American Indians has added to the criticism.

NCAI President Mark Macarro says “Careless comments like this glorify the darkest chapters of U.S. history and actively endanger Native peoples’ lives today.”

Larry Wright Jr., the NCAI’s executive director, adds, “Free speech does not confer a license to advocate for or justify mass murder — past or present.  When a public figure with more than two million followers romanticizes extermination, it fuels harassment, hate crimes, and political violence.”

Others have pointed out the callousness of the post given the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis that has affected Indian Country.

Oklahoma’s Democratic Party has condemned Coulter’s post as disgusting, and supported boycotting Coulter and her associated products and media.

Amy Barela, chairwoman of New Mexico’s Republican Party, called Coulter’s statement “vile, reprehensible, and fundamentally opposed to the values of human dignity, respect, and decency.”

While Coulter’s post has disappeared, she has not recanted or apologized for her remarks.

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Photo: The Fallon Tribal Health Center’s mobile clinic parked at the Lovelock Paiute Tribe’s health fair in Lovelock, Nev., on May 16, 2025. (Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau)

Some tribal nations are among the most remote communities in the country – and the rural healthcare shortage has hit them especially hard.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel reports that one tribe in Nevada has found a solution: a doctor’s office on wheels.

It’s a clear morning in Lovelock, Nev., a small desert town about 90 miles northeast of Reno. It’s also home to the Lovelock Paiute Tribe, which has a 20-acre reservation on the edge of town.

At a tree-shaded park, where the tribe is hosting its annual health fair, there is live music, jewelry vendors, information booths, and food trucks.

There’s also a vehicle that looks like a large blue-and-white motorhome idling on the edge of the park.

But inside are two patient rooms and a center lab with a blood draw station. It’s a mobile health clinic brought here by the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe – located about an hour away. 

Gabriel Bourne just stepped out of the vehicle.

“Having access to this, I was able to get some shots I needed – that I should’ve probably had a long time ago but didn’t get.”

Time and travel are the biggest barriers, he says.

Bourne (Fallon Paiute-Shoshone member) lives in Lovelock, so seeing a physician in Fallon is a two-hour round trip. 

So when Bourne, who hadn’t been to the doctor in more than a year, realized he was steps away from a mobile clinic, he took full advantage. 

“I’m able to get my eye appointment, which I’ve needed glasses for a while, along with some cancer screening setups, and follow up with the doctor to see labs and everything else.”

Accessing quality health care has long been an issue for tribal nations, especially in rural areas.

The federal Indian Health Service has less than 100 hospitals and medical clinics nationwide, all to serve about 2.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

And most facilities suffer chronic staffing shortages.

Some of the highest vacancy rates have been felt by the Navajo Nation, Albuquerque, N.M., Phoenix, Ariz., and Billings, Mont. 

Jon Pishion is the director of the Fallon Tribal Health Center, which runs the mobile clinic here at the fair. He says the lack of access was amplified five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A lot of healthcare facilities were being shut down. And with all the services being closed, we needed something to go out to the communities.”

(Courtesy Yurok Tribe / Facebook)

The Yurok Tribe in rural northern California is catching up to the digital age.

Like many tribal communities that are located in remote regions, the Yurok Nation has gone without high-speed broadband internet, but that is changing.

Christina Aanestad reports.

“Where I grew up there wasn’t any power and phone lines. No connectivity at all.”

Shannon Hulbert is board president of Yurok Telecommunications (YTEL), the first-time provider of broadband internet on the Yurok reservation and surrounding communities in northern California’s redwood region.

She says the multi-million-dollar project will create more than 200 jobs and make a world of difference.

“This creates a reason for people to move back to the reservation, because they have that ability to connectivity to have jobs anywhere. They can work remotely from the reservation and still be part of their reservation activities and communities. Students will have access to online collaboration tools that everybody else is using.”

A Census Bureau report last year found Native American communities lag behind the rest of the nation in broadband connectivity.

Ninety percent of US households have access, compared to 70% of Native communities.

Hulbert says it’s largely because Native American reservations are remote in rural areas, where there remains a digital divide.

The YTEL broadband project was made possible through federal and state grants.

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The Eklutna Tribe has operated its new casino outside Anchorage, Alaska, under the shadow of two separate lawsuits.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, a federal judge has dismissed one of them.

Ever since a group of property owners tried to block the casino with a lawsuit, tribal advocates have kept a close eye on this case, because their attorney, Don Mitchell, challenged the Native Village of Eklutna’s status as a federally recognized tribe.

“Congress has never allowed a middle-ranking employee of the Interior Department to just wave a magic wand and create 200 Indian tribes, either in Alaska or any other place.”

Mitchell is referring to Ada Deer, who was Assistant Interior Secretary in the Clinton administration.

In 1993, she included Eklutna in a list of Alaska tribes on the Federal Register to eliminate any doubt that they have the same status as other tribes in the United States.

Numerous court cases have tried and failed to invalidate Deer’s decision.

Last month U.S. District Judge James Robart stood by those cases – and ruled that the Eklutna lawsuit should be dismissed in “equity and good conscience.”

Tribal legal experts like Michelle Demmert applauded the ruling, but she says cases like this one consume time, energy, and precious dollars.

“Time and time again, the law is clear in these areas that continue to be challenged. If the argument was that the Eklutna tribe is not a tribe, there’s legal precedent. There’s federal law that says, ‘They are.’”

In a statement, Aaron Leggett, the president of the Native Village of Eklutna, called the ruling a significant step forward because it affirmed an important principle to the tribe – that its rights are firmly rooted in the land.

The tribe still faces another federal lawsuit, this one brought on by the Alaska Attorney general. It also aims to shut down the casino.

Canada’s Senate debates Bill C-5 before its passage.

A recent federal law that passed in the Canadian parliament, called the major projects bill, has drawn criticism and anger from Indigenous leaders.

They call it a betrayal of reconciliation and a failure to properly consult with Indigenous stakeholders.

More from Dan Karpenchuk. 

First there was Bill 5 from Ontario, which allowed the provincial cabinet to designate special economic zones.

The aim to fast track resource development such as mining of critical minerals.

That bill passed without consultation from First Nations and they say it oversteps treaty obligations.

Now at the federal level the controversial Bill C-5 has also passed. It is legislation to fast track major projects across Canada.

It gives Ottawa the power to side step environmental protections and other laws.

Originally it was aimed at circumventing the Indian Act, but that part was removed.

Some Native leaders have warned that it could lead to protests and legal challenges if it does not respect rights and title.

And some had called on members of parliament and other lawmakers to slow down Bill C-5 so that Indigenous leaders could review the law.

Senator Paul Prosper (Mi’kmaq) is calling the rushed passage of the legislation a betrayal.

“We do not want success and progress to come on the backs of Indigenous peoples. We want to be at the table making decisions alongside Canadian politicians because these decisions affect us. They affect our lands and resources.”

Sen. Prosper said Canada is becoming a country of extremes and the ability for moderate social discourse is gone. He says it isn’t right or acceptable.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce praised the quick passage of the bill, saying it has the potential to unleash the Canadian economy, but also urged the government to ensure that there is full compliance with rights of Indigenous communities and environmental standards.

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Photo: San Carlos Apache College Vice President and Provost Lisa Eutsey, left, and San Carlos adjunct professor Marcus Macktima commencement on May 17, 2025. (Samuel Meade)

President Donald Trump is proposing drastic funding cuts for tribal colleges and universities.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on institutions in Arizona and New Mexico.

“Without doubt, this is threatening to close their doors.”

Ahniwake Rose (Cherokee) is president and CEO of the nonprofit American Indian Higher Education Consortium.

These schools depend on three federal agencies to stay financially afloat.

“If you take away any one of those legs, you know that stool will fall. We actually saw flat funding at both the Department of Education and the USDA.”

As for the Interior Department …

“Ironically, the agency that’s really in charge of the trust responsibilities to Indian people is the one that zeroed out funding.”

The White House did not respond to KJZZ’s requests when asked to explain why.

But Scott Davis (Standing Rock Sioux), senior advisor to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, testified during a congressional hearing that these huge cuts are nothing new.

“We’ve been through the ebbs and flows of funding with Congress for a long time. We’ve seen cuts, we’ve seen increases, we’ve seen it all, but we’ve always been resilient.”

Map of tribal colleges and universities nationwide. (Courtesy American Indian Higher Education Consortium)

Tohono O’odham Community College president Stephen Schoonmaker worries this is nothing short of a death sentence.

“Some tribal colleges will die quickly and others will die slowly, but we cannot sustain without the obligated funds that should be coming and have come for a long time.”

While the community college is home to nearly 1,200 students with four campuses statewide, Schoonmaker says they are still dependent on the feds.

More than half of its operational funding comes from the Bureau of Indian Education.

He fears funding shortfalls could have cascading effects, like losing their accreditation, which took years to achieve.

“Our accreditor is going to say, ‘Are you fiscally stable?’ And if you aren’t, they’re just going to look at that as a red flag.”

And the looming cuts could discourage student interest, with Schoonmaker saying the mere threat hurts enrollment.

“Why would a student say, ‘I’m going to go to Tohono O’odham Community College’ when they may lose 90% of a major funding source?”

The Institute of American Indian Arts campus in Santa Fe, N.M. (Photo: Jason S. Ordaz / IAIA)

In Santa Fe, N.M., the Institute of American Indian Arts is bracing for the Trump administration to do away with its $13 million appropriation.

“They’ve never given us a reason, didn’t expect this one though.”

President Robert Martin (Cherokee) never imagined his summer being bogged down by grave budget talks before retiring later this month.

Now it’s up to lawmakers in DC to decide the fate of this prestigious arts school in the Southwest.

“In our name, it has Indian and arts, and both of those, I don’t think, are considered to be very important to this current administration.”

Ann Coulter at CPAC 2013. (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)

Leaders of Native organizations and tribes are speaking out against conservative commentator Ann Coulter’s recent post on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, which she stated “we didn’t kill enough Indians,” with a photo of a Native professor.

Native American Rights Fund Executive Director John Echohawk, in a statement Monday, called the post “ignorant”, “immoral”, and “genocidal language”.

A post shared by Native American Rights Fund (@nativeamericanrightsfund)

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. shared a long response on Facebook, calling the post beyond abhorrent and dangerous hate speech.

Navajo Nation council speaker Crystalyne Curley, left, and Billy Kirkland shake hands with guests at the Navajo Nation Washington Office. Kirkland was honored at the office during a reception in January. (Photo: Antonia Gonzales)

The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has a hearing scheduled this month to consider the nomination of William Kirkland for Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior.

Kirkland (Navajo) is a political strategist from Georgia and served in the first Trump administration.

The National Congress of American Indians applauded his nomination in February, stating the position is critical to upholding the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities, and ensuring the effective delivery of services to tribes.

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Photo: A pendant for San Carlos Apache College hung on campus. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)

While Congress continues mulling over President Trump’s fiscal agenda, part of the White House budget proposes to essentially defund tribal colleges and universities – reducing federal funding by nearly 90%.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports on how Arizona schools and others across Indian Country are bracing for devastation.

Among them is San Carlos Apache College, which is not your typical campus.

The tribe has been building toward this dream of making higher education more accessible on the reservation for the last decade-plus.

That vision from San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler is still a work in progress, but one he’s been contributing to in ways – big and small.

“So we asked the chairman if we can borrow his podium. We didn’t know he had more than one.”

Lisa Eutsey is vice president and provost of San Carlos Apache College. She’s talking about the first commencement in May 2020.

“And so the next year, I had texted him or something and I was like, ‘Hey, can we borrow your podium again?’ But then I realized we found it, and he was like, ‘Just keep it.’”

That’s been a theme for the chairman, when it comes to piecemealing this makeshift campus together in the heart of San Carlos by slowly turning empty tribally owned buildings – including one home to old council chambers – into classrooms.

“Actually, a lot of the artwork on the walls are things that the chairman donated.”

Chartered in 2014, then officially opening its doors three years later, the college has graduated over 100 students.

“I joke I was leaving, in a way, the most fully funded, built out, oldest tribal college.”

Eutsey used to be dean of faculty for Diné College, which was founded on the Navajo Nation in 1968.

“…to come to a college with no funding, no classrooms, no faculty.”

By this fall, Eutsey says the college expects to employ eight full-time teachers and enroll 500 students but they and another 36 Indigenous schools across more than a dozen states are still dreading the worst. Trump wants to cut their federal funding by almost 90% – down to a collective $22 million.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds during a 2025 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing.

U.S. Senators have a deadline of July 18 to decide whether to eliminate federal funding for public media.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s CJ Keene has more.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) sits on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He says supporting tribal radio stations is a priority through the process.

“For our Native American reservations, there are some small radio stations in South Dakota and the United States who really rely on the public broadcasting funds to survive. We know that you want to revert some of those funds, but if you do that, some of those small stations that provide emergency service and community information – they may not survive.”

Sen. Rounds says White House counterparts have agreed to work with Congressional leaders seeking to keep tribal-operated radio functional through the process.

(Courtesy 25th Navajo Nation Council / Facebook)

Over the weekend, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) visited the command center for the Oak Ridge Fire in Window Rock, Ariz. to get updates and offer her support.

The Oak Ridge Fire is on the Navajo Nation near St. Michaels.

Gov. Hobbs says her administration will continue to coordinate with the tribe to contain the fire, and with recovery efforts.

Tribal officials, including Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley, met with Hobbs during the visit.

As of Monday morning, the fire was covering more than 10,900 acres.

It started on June 28.

Officials say the fire has not grown significantly in recent days and additional growth is not expected.

Efforts will soon be shifting to the recovery phase of the fire.

Officials say in the coming weeks, it will be critical to assess the fire’s impacts on the land, vegetation, wildlife, and cultural sites.

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Photo: Jalisco Miles, left, holds a checklist while Farrell Hayes and Riston Bullock check on the fire truck engine on June 12, 2025. (Lauren Paterson / NWPB)

As the Trump administration looks to combine multiple fire agencies under one organization, firefighter numbers are dwindling.

Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Lauren Paterson reports on how the Nez Perce Tribe is stepping up despite the challenges.

Three young firefighters are standing under the hot sun in Lapwai, Idaho, doing an engine check on one of their fire trucks.

All of them are members of and firefighters for the Nez Perce Tribe.

Riston Bullock is going into his thirteenth season.

He says he does this job because he’s dedicated to protecting the land, and his community.

“Now that I’ve been in fire for so long, it’s kind of more, being the first one to respond, put the fires out.”

A big challenge here in Idaho, and across the nation, is that there aren’t enough people to help.

“ We’re losing firefighters. The numbers are going down.”

People can still volunteer, but…

“We need people at the shop ready to go when those fires start..”

Across from the shop in the air conditioned office, Jeff Handel, the fire management officer, is on the phone trying to schedule repairs for fire trucks.

“OK what I need is, I got a couple rigs that need radios put in ‘em.”

He’s also worried the younger generation doesn’t seem too interested in firefighting.

“ It’s pretty tough in today’s world when you can get a job, work from home and, and, and do okay financially, why would you wanna go out and do the firefighting thing? Which is very hard work.”

Back at the shop, the firefighters are organizing equipment like ropes and hatchets.

There could be changes coming to how the Nez Perce Tribal fire crew works with other agencies in the region.

The Trump administration is trying to merge all federal firefighting into a single agency. That could mean shifting thousands of jobs around just as fire season is ramping up.

Bullock says he’s not sure how that would work.

“I feel like it’ll just kind of be a new name, but I still feel like we’ll still have our shops and everything here will be mixed out through each other.

Approximately $1.2bn will be requested as part of the new Wildland Fire Service budget.

For now, Bullock and the rest of the crew aren’t giving it too much thought. They’re busy getting ready for the next call.

Alameda County Coroner’s sign. (Photo: I Love Old Signs! / Flickr)

A group of researchers found gaps in how death certificates are maintained with implications for Native Americans’ health.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

Researchers from prestigious universities to Indigenous communities studied death certificates from 2008 to 2019.

They found Native Americans have a life expectancy of roughly 72 years old. The national average is 79.

That’s a much bigger gap than official stats show, says Jacob Bor. He’s an associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and the study’s lead author.

“American Indian populations have been subjected to deliberate policies of physical and cultural erasure for centuries. These patterns have contributed to today’s economic and physical marginalization and deprivation and to poor outcomes in these populations.”

Bor and his team uncovered another problem. Death certificates for at least 40% of Native Americans failed to identify them as American Indian or Alaska Native.

In most cases, their race was misreported as “White.”

The New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department announced this week the appointment of Joannie Suina as assistant secretary for Native American early education and care.

The citizen of Cochiti Pueblo recently served as special projects coordinator at the state’s Indian Affairs Department focusing on issues including Indian education and MMIP.

She previously served as communications director for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

The position will work on strengthening state-tribal early childhood partnerships.

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In a 6-3 ruling this week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court says a Native citizen living on her reservation isn’t exempt from state income tax.

The Journal-Record reports that Alicia Stroble, a member of the Muscogee Nation, had argued that her income was exempt because she lived and worked on her tribe’s land.

In 2020, Stroble had filed three Oklahoma Individual Income Tax Returns for the three previous years.

She said the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case, McGirt v Oklahoma, supported her stance as that ruling reaffirmed the existence of the Muscogee Nation’s reservation.

Two years later, the Oklahoma Tax Commission denied her exemption, leading to an appeal and the case making it up to the state’s highest court.

The definition of “Indian Country” was deliberated in oral arguments last year.

The Oklahoma Justices said McGirt doesn’t apply to state tax law.

In an opinion, they said that extending McGirt to pre-empt Oklahoma from taxing the income of tribal members residing on unrestricted, non-trust, private-fee land must come from the nation’s highest court.

Gov. Kevin Stitt (Cherokee/R-OK) praised the ruling, saying he rejects race-based tax exemptions.

Tribal leaders have denounced the ruling as inconsistent and a form of “legal gymnastics”.

The Muscogee Nation said they are reviewing their next steps.

Quincy Adams prepares to jump on a sealskin blanket during Nalukataq festival in Utqiagvik in June 2025. (Photo: Sarah Betcher)

Several coastal Arctic communities hosted festivals throughout June to celebrate a successful whaling season.

In Utqiagvik, that meant four full days of sharing subsistence food, prayers, dance, and traditional blanket toss.

It also meant gathering as a community, in joy and in loss.

The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Trigger warning: This story discusses suicide

Whaler Quincy Adams soars above a seal blanket at Simmonds Field in Utqiagvik, with a bag of candy in his hands. He leaps even higher and tosses the kaleidoscope of sweets, as the children around him whoop with joy and catch treats.

Adams is one of the captains of the Aaluk whaling crew. They were among those who landed a bowhead whale this spring and threw a feast for the community – especially for elders and widows who can’t hunt for themselves.

On a recent visit to Anchorage, Adams watched his kids play in a park as he reminisced on the season.

“It’s all for the community, not just for us or our crew. It’s to make sure everybody gets a bite to eat, to make sure that nobody goes hungry. Feeding our people.”

Nalukataq, which means blanket toss in Iñupiaq, is a traditional celebration of the successful bowhead harvest.

The whaling crews serve several courses of subsistence dishes throughout the event: caribou, duck and geese soup, donuts, boiled whale meat, muktuk, akutaq, and a delicacy – fermented whale meat and blubber, or mikigaq.

When the feast is over, the whalers stretch a sealskin blanket, inviting everyone to jump on it. Then, the crowd moves indoors and continues with Inupiaq dancing and drumming throughout the night.

This year’s Nalukataq also had an emotional side for Adams.

A young member of their crew died by suicide earlier this year and the crew opened the event with a prayer and a message of hope.

“It’s just something we wanted to get out to the other people and to the young people and the teens, tell them that there is hope, there is family that loves them, and if they need to talk to somebody, talk to somebody.”

Whaling captain Herman Ahsoak says that dedicating Nalukataqs to those who passed is not new. He says the event is about the community coming together.

“We put on the blanket and jump and let it all out on the blanket and just jump for joy.”

The communities of Wainwright, Kaktovik, Nuiqsit, and Point Hope also celebrated whaling festivals in June.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide Crisis Lifeline.

And this Saturday, Minnesota’s first-ever Native American Food Truck Festival kicks off in St. Paul.

Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine says more than 20 Native food trucks will serve up both traditional and urban Indigenous fair foods at Harriet Island Regional Park.

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