National Native News

Some tribal leaders are supporting a proposed bill that could expand sports betting in Wisconsin, as Chuck Quirmbach reports. About three dozen states allow some form of  sports betting, but in Wisconsin, the only legal way to place a wager on a sporting event is at some tribal casinos. Proposed legislation would allow Wisconsin tribes to operate computer servers and other technology, so that spor...

Photo: Craters as a result of underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. (Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration) President Donald Trump wants the Department of Defense (DOD) to resume nuclear weapons testing immediately. He instructed DOD to “immediately begin” nuclear weapons testing last week. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, that directive has been sending shock wave...

Photo: Volunteer Tristan Pall packs food boxes in a truck bed at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Ariz. on October 30, 2025. (Shi Bradley / Cronkite News ) The Navajo Nation is bracing for the gap in SNAP benefits. It’s yet another food insecurity problem for tribal members living on the sprawling reservation. KJZZ’S Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. With only a dozen or so stores in the Nation,...

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) In a historic moment, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have transferred land to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. As Danielle Kaeding reports, it is the first known land transfer nati...

Photo: Wesley Dixon Jones and his daughter Mollyanne, in Mission, Oreg., Sunday, April 13, 2025. (Courtesy Mollyanne Jones) This weekend on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, volunteers will search for 71-year-old Wesley Dixon Jones, a tribal elder who’s been missing since October 5 . As Buffalo’s Fire senior reporter Brian Bull explains, the search team is testing a device that the...

The government shutdown is creating a lot of uncertainty and disruption for Native American and Alaska Native communities, and for tribal organizations that administer federal programs. Liz Ruskin reports. These include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food assistance and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which subsidizes energy bills. Ben Mallott, pre...

Thousands of Indigenous people across the Mountain West are among those who will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits if the government shutdown continues. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding reports, that tribal officials are concerned about cuts to programs that were already stretched thin. SNAP will run out of money on November 1 if the shutdown conti...

It has been 100 years, but the Vatican is now expected to return Indigenous artifacts to Canada. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Indigenous communities are preparing for the return of the items. The museum in the Vatican City has held the artifacts since 1925. But in a few weeks, an announcement is expected that will see the return of dozens of artifacts that could be back in Canada by the end of the y...

Photo: The Gila River Indian Community’s Sacaton Market was unveiled during its grand opening on October 23, 2025. (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,...

Photo: Wrangell City Hall on June 26, 2024. (Colette Czarnecki/KSTK) The City and Borough of Wrangell in Southeast Alaska is pausing work at a housing project after archaeologists confirmed artifacts at the site. KSTK’s Colette Czarnecki has more. While excavating a subdivision development site on Wrangell Island, construction crews uncovered a shell midden. Middens are ancient sites made up of sh...

Photo: Spirit Lake Nation. (Courtesy Spirit Lake Nation-Mni Wakan Oyate / Facebook) The Spirit Lake Tribal Council in North Dakota has declared a state of emergency as the federal government shutdown continues. The council declared the emergency this week in response to potential impacts on essential federal programs, including food and heating assistance. If the shutdown continues past October 31...

Photo: Debris sits in water in Kipnuk, Alaska following high winds and flooding brought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. (Jacqui Lang / Alaska Public Media) Hundreds of people remain displaced a week after the remnants of a typhoon wreaked havoc on some of Alaska’s most remote and vulnerable communities. Reporter Emily Schwing has this update. One of the hardest hit communities is Kipnuk, a vill...

With fire season winding down across many parts of the US, it is not unusual to find people doing deliberate burns to eliminate slash or improve habitat. Outside Eugene, Oreg. recently, a group of Native youth and state and tribal agencies conducted a cultural burn. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports. Five interns with the Long Tom Watershed Council’s Traditional Ecological Inquiry Program (TEIP...

Photos: Willard Bill Jr. and the Black River Canoe Family provide the opening protocol at Seattle’s No Kings protest. (Courtesy SEIU6 / Protectors of the Salish / Instagram) Millions of protesters – including many Native and Indigenous people – joined this weekend’s 2,600 “No Kings” events held across the U.S. Muckleshoot tribal member Willard Bill Jr. and the Black River Canoe Family provid...

Photo: Debris sits in piles in Kwigillingok after the remnants of Typhoon Halong brought widespread devastation to the region. (Brea Paul) Searches are ongoing for two people missing from a western Alaska village after remnants of Typhoon Halong left one dead and much of the region devastated by high winds and flooding, but large-scale search and rescue efforts are largely on hold pending new info...

Photo: Personal hygiene products are laid out for storm evacuees at the Bethel Search and Rescue building in Bethel, Alaska on October 14, 2025. (Corinne Smith / KYUK) Donations are pouring into Bethel Search and Rescue in the wake of the catastrophic storm that hit the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta over the weekend. As KYUK’s Evan Erickson reports, the building has been buzzing with volunteers and recent...

Photo: Waves from ex-Typhoon Halong cover the Kuskokwim River waterfront in Bethel, Alaska on October 12, 2025. (MaryCait Dolan / KYUK) The remnants of Typhoon Halong over the weekend have left at least one woman dead and more than 1,000 people displaced in Western Alaska. The disaster happened right before the start of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention and the Elders & Youth C...

Photo: An overturned home in Kotlik. The National Weather Service reported a maximum wind gust of 78 mph in Kotlik Sunday morning. (Adaline Pete) One person has died, two are still missing, and 51 have been rescued following a record-breaking storm that slammed into the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwest Alaska over the weekend. Alaska Public Media’s Eric Stone and Liz Ruskin report. Officia...

Photo: Mike Duncan, founder and CEO of the Native Dads Network, is one of the featured speakers at November’s opioid summit in New Mexico. (Courtesy Mike Duncan) Indigenous health workers are stepping up their battle against opioid addictions. As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Jenny Kinsey reports, tribal communities are looking for solutions to the ongoing crisis. Indigenous people have be...

The federal government shutdown is in its second week. Tribal leaders across the country are continuing to raise concerns saying Indian Country will bear the burden. Matt Laslo has more from Washington. No one knows the full extent of how this federal government shutdown will hit Indian Country, but policymakers are braced for pain to come. Democrats continue banding together, demanding Congress i...

President Donald Trump’s Navajo pick for Assistant Secretary of the Interior was officially confirmed Tuesday during Day 7 of the federal government shutdown. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. Senate Republicans confirmed William Kirkland (Navajo) among more than 100 Trump nominees along party lines – while Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), voted agains...

Photo: The Gila River Governance Center located in the tribal capital of Sacaton. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Arizona’s 22 tribes rely on federal dollars to fund programs and even to pay some employees. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, two Valley-based tribal communities say the ongoing government shutdown should have limited effect. Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River In...

Photo: The Old San Carlos Memorial is located in Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The U.S. Supreme Court will not reconsider the nonprofit Apache Stronghold’s effort to preserve sacred lands from a massive copper mining project east of Phoenix, Ariz. Monday, the justices declined to revisit an earlier decision to throw out the case for a second and final t...

Photo: USCGC Neah Bay on frozen Lake Superior in 2021. (Jim Sorbie / Wikimedia ) A resource guide to help small and medium-sized governments in the Great Lakes region adapt to climate change has been published. Chuck Quirmbach reports that some tribal communities in the area are already trying to reduce problems caused by higher temperatures and additional flooding. The guide is from the Internati...

Photo courtesy Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope / Facebook A tribe on Alaska’s North Slope hosted an emergency management course in Utqiagvik last week. Organizers say it’s the first for a tribe in Alaska and part of an effort to bolster coordination between communities in the Arctic during disasters. Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Iñupiat Com...