National Native News

Antonia Gonzales
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Daily News
  • Updated Daily

Daily, five-minute newscast featuring the latest headlines and breaking news from Native and Indigenous communities anchored by Antonia Gonzales (Navajo) with reporters and storytellers from around the globe.

  1. 2d ago

    Friday, September 11, 2026

    Photo: A steel beam recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center visited the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in June. (Courtesy missindianarizona / Instagram) A piece of the World Trade Center made a historic stop on Tribal land in Arizona. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s “Steel Across America” tour visited the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community near Scottsdale, Arizona this summer. A nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center’s South Tower was displayed at the USS Arizona Memorial Gardens at Salt River. Organizers say it was the tour’s first and only stop on sovereign Tribal land as the beam traveled more than 10,000 miles across the country ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The foundation says the stop recognized the longstanding tradition of military service among Native people. The memorial gardens are home to a piece of the USS Arizona, which was destroyed during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. For the first time, steel connected to the 9/11 attacks was displayed there alongside steel from the USS Arizona. Jani Ingram’s students investigate a water source on the Navajo Nation. (Courtesy Jani Ingram) A professor at Northern Arizona University has added new data to a map of safe drinking water on the Navajo Nation. KNAU’s Chris Clements reports the map is intended to help tribal communities still struggling with the effects of past uranium mining. Professor Jani Ingram, Navajo Nation, had been driving across the reservation for a while with her student. Their goal? Find and test a remote well that one family was using. “It’s something that needed to be tested because it it really wasn’t great. It had pretty high uranium.” It can be hard for Navajo families to know if the wells near their homes have been contaminated by high uranium levels, which have been linked to health issues like kidney disease and lung cancer. Blue and red dots show water points installed using federal funds from the Indian Health Service CARES Act following the COVID-19 pandemic. (Courtesy Navajo Safe Water) Ingram mapped safe wells using water quality data she and her students collected from years in the field. The map can be found online at the website Navajo Safe Water. And her work is not over: there are tons of tribal wells that have not been tested, something she says she is willing to do at no cost. Indigenous students enrolled within the Chandler Unified School District are featured in a land acknowledgement video from 2025. (Courtesy CUSD) Last year, Indigenous students filmed a brief land acknowledgment for the Chandler Unified School District in Arizona. Following a fierce public debate Wednesday, the governing board voted to play this video at the beginning of all its meetings and future graduation ceremonies. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. “We recognize the past, present, and future inhabitants on this land.” “We will cherish, respect and protect this land for generations to come.” This message is only a minute and 43 seconds long, but it means a lot to Indigenous Parent Committee co-president Monique John. “We went into creating this video with positive intentions for our students and communities – all students Native and non-Native.” Chandler governing board member Kurt Rohrs disagrees. “It has no real purpose in addressing our primary mission of improving academic performance for our students. This statement is an empty performance gesture of wokeness, which really doesn’t accomplish anything.” Basha High senior Syndel Preston, who is president of the school’s Indigenous student club, suggests otherwise. “I want my Indigenous peers to know that they are seen, that the lands CUSD stands on is theirs as well. I don’t believe it is divisive to want that for my community and those like me.” The measure passed in a 3-2 vote.   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 Native America Calling episode Friday, September 11, 2026 — How 9/11 reverberates a quarter century later

  2. 3d ago

    Thursday, September 10, 2026

    Protests are ongoing outside of a church located on the Wind River Reservation. That is after a pastor made comments during her sermon, deriding the Northern Arapaho’s Sun Dance, or Hoseihoowuʼ, ceremony. Wyoming Public Radio’s Melodie Edwards attended. About a dozen protestors hold up signs outside the Foundations for Nations church near Arapaho, Wyoming. Cars honk in support as they pass. One sign summarizes the general sentiment: it says, “leave”. “ She called our sacred pipe an idol.” MiRae Yellowbird says Pastor Sarah Lucas’ July 5 comments were hurtful, especially because the federal government made the Sundance illegal until 1978. “ We weren’t allowed to practice our powwows, our Sun Dances, any type of ceremony. They would throw us in jail.” In an interview with the Riverton Ranger, Pastor Lucas admitted she struck the wrong tone when describing the pipe. “And words matter, right? Delivery matters. And that is where I feel repentant about it. I’m so sorry that that came off mocking.” But Lucas says she owns the church’s property on the Wind River Reservation and has no plans to leave. The family of late Ellen Paneok, her cousin Jillion Jones, left, sister Tina “Raven” Godsey, and aunt Lottie Jones, flew from across the state and country to celebrate the nonprofit’s launch (Photo: Alena Naiden) Efforts to connect rural Alaska Native villages by air got a lift this summer, when the new organization Paneok took off in Anchorage last month. In part two of her series, the Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA, spoke with the nonprofit’s founder and chair, Jamie Klaes. Klaes is a pilot and instructor, originally from Bettles in Interior Alaska. She said she started teaching aviation classes because it is hard for rural Alaskans to get jobs in the industry, even though they rely on it. Since then, instructors have worked with Alaska organizations and school districts to help connect students to aviation classes, and in some cases travel to Anchorage to attend them. Klaes said the classes had up to 200 students enrolled at one time. “If we get one kid that gets their pilot’s license, you know, from Chevak, all of a sudden, we have a lot of Chevackers applying. You can see the impact of not only the student that got their license and their confidence, but their whole community and the confidence of their peers.” But Klaes said enrollment dropped to just 50 students two years ago, after some partnering organizations lost federal funding and had to cut their support for the classes. So she decided to form Paneok. “I didn’t ever want to see this program stop. So I needed to do something that was going to help it grow.” Klaes named Paneok in honor of Ellen Paneok, the first Alaska Native woman to become a licensed pilot. Paneok died in 2008, but her family flew from across the state and country to celebrate the nonprofit’s launch. Lottie Jones from Utqiagvik is Paneok’s aunt. “I’m pretty proud. I’m glad that she’s recognized because it took a lot for her to pursue her dream.” U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, attended the launch of Paneok on Aug. 25, 2026. (Photo: Alena Naiden) U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also attended the event. She said Paneok was not only a pilot, but also an ivory carver, a writer, and a mentor. “This is Ellen. A woman who believed so much in what she had to offer and then was willing to pay that forward to help so many others, and particularly young Native kids from the villages, those who needed to be encouraged.” Murkowski commended the program leaders for their work to meet the needs of Alaska’s growing aviation sector. “It’s not just the young pilots. It is the ground handlers. It is the mechanics that keep everybody in the air safe. It’s the whole ecosystem of aviation that is so desperately needed in this place where we fly more than anybody else.” But Joelle Kamkoff from Kotlik, 17, said she wants to be a pilot. “I dream of working in medevac because I get to help people, and that makes me feel good. And also, like, being in the plane and in the air clears my mind.” For a start, Kamkoff took a ground handling class through the program last spring to learn how to fuel and load an airplane.   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 Native America Calling episode Thursday, September 10, 2026 — Shortage of wildland firefighters strains preparedness and safety

  3. 4d ago

    Wednesday, September 9, 2026

    Photo: Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola at her primary night victory party. (Courtesy C-SPAN) The 2026 Midterms shifted into top gear this week with showdowns set across the country. Nine Native candidates running for Congress made it to the general election, including three women trying to make history in the U.S. Senate. In Alaska, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola (Yup’ik), D-Alaska, is charging against President Donald Trump on health care and affordability, in a race that has the President’s attention squared right back at Peltola. “We have tens of thousands of Alaskans who can no longer afford health insurance, and we are being crushed by corporate greed. Dan Sullivan, every single vote was for corporate greed. From health care comments or groceries, to transportation, to heat, we are getting crushed.” The Alaska race includes incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and a challenger named Dan J. Sullivan, a distinction President Trump is highlighting as the race goes forward. “Well, it’s close for one reason, that they have a phony Dan Sullivan. This guy’s a phony. And he was put up by the Democrats, and they don’t admit it, but it’s been so proven. So I will go to Alaska to make sure that a great senator gets reelected. I will be going to Alaska. I’m going to be going the last 30 days before the election. I’ll be making a lot of stops.” The remaining Native candidates for Congress include incumbents like representatives Sharice Davids from Kansas – and Tom Cole and Josh Breechan from Oklahoma. Seeking new seats in the House are Jonathan Nez in Arizona, Bill Hill in Alaska and Sean McCann in Michigan. N’kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas is running as a Democratic socialist for Oklahoma’s senate seat. A crowd gathers at Paneok hangar at Merrill Field in Anchorage for the nonprofit launch on Aug. 25, 2026. (Photo: Alena Naiden) A new aviation nonprofit in Alaska hopes to train the next generation of pilots connecting Alaska Native villages with supplies and the rest of the world. In part one of her two-part series, the Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports on the organization’s launch this summer. Anchorage’s Merrill Field was buzzing with planes taking off and landing, as about a hundred people gathered to celebrate the launch of a new aviation nonprofit. Jordan Lewis from Chefornak was one of several young students in the crowd. At 22, he has already earned a private pilot’s license and has over 250 hours of flight time. And he dreams even bigger. “I want to fly for the big airlines one day, but my small goal is to fly for, like, the rural villages first.” Lewis said he became interested in aviation because his grandfather was a village airline agent, and he would follow him to meet the planes. “There’s like hundreds and hundreds of villages that aren’t on the road system. I believe if it wasn’t for aviation, most of those villages wouldn’t continue to exist.” Lewis took aviation classes through a career training organization called Alaska EXCEL. Those classes have been offered for about eight years through different local organizations, but instructors say the new nonprofit, the Paneok Project, will help them get funding more reliably and make classes more sustainable. Through Paneok, students from rural Alaska can enroll in piloting, maintenance, and ground-handling courses, as well as get mentorship and career opportunities. The program might offer a dispatcher course soon, too. Jamie Klaes is the founder and chair of Paneok. “It is very important for us to put rural kids in these positions because they do understand the terrain and the weather. And they have an invested interest in the community and the people they’re flying.” Tomorrow, in part two, we’ll learn more about the new nonprofit and its namesake, Ellen Paneok, the first Alaska Native woman to become a licensed pilot.   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 Native America Calling episode Wednesday, September 9, 2026 — Texas ‘ghost tribe’ rakes in millions of dollars with little to no official tribal documentation

  4. 5d ago

    Tuesday, September 8, 2026

    Photo: Alaska Native Medical Center in May 2026. (Courtesy Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium) The Indian Health Service officially handed ownership of the state’s biggest tribal hospital, the Alaska Native Medical Center, to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, as Alaska Public Media’s Rachel Cassandra reports. The transfer happened on August 24, according to the consortium. ANTHC CEO Natasha Singh, a Stevens Village tribal citizen from Fairbanks, says the transfer is the result of decades of advocacy. “This marks a historic achievement. It advances tribal self-determination in healthcare, and it’s achieved through the direct advocacy by Alaska tribal leaders.” Singh says, beyond practical implications, the symbolism of ownership is powerful. She says it is rare that tribes truly have self-governance over something so critical to their lives. “You don’t see it in management of our traditional territories or our fish resources. You don’t see it in education and public safety, but you see it in healthcare. Having this ability to control our future is allowing us to address the historical impacts of colonialism.” Singh says the hospital endured decades of underinvestment from the federal government and the transfer will allow the hospital to pursue funding only available to tribally owned facilities. Wilson Justin is a shareholder of the Ahtna Regional Corporation and has advocated for the rights of Indigenous people in the health care system since the 1990s. He says the ownership transfer is momentous. “It’s been a long wait, and I really appreciate the fact that it’s finally occurring. We’ve been waiting for it for half a generation, basically.” He says he hopes that the transfer allows the hospital to strengthen healthcare for Indigenous Alaskans across the state, especially for smaller tribes. The Little Colorado River, a tributary of the Colorado River, flows during the springtime through the Navajo Nation near Cameron, Arizona. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio) The Navajo Nation Council has taken a major step toward protecting one of its most precious water resources. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on the recent measure that formally recognizes the Confluence – where the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers meet – as a sacred site under tribal law. Doing so formally documents what Navajos already know – the spiritual and natural significance of where these two life-giving rivers converge. This information may be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower or dams. Erik Stansfield testified on behalf of the tribe’s Historic Preservation Office. “When that comes forward, we can show what impairment of those resources look like.” He likens the Confluence to its council chambers, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “Like the murals in this room, changing that would be an impairment to the sort of historical and cultural importance of this place. It’s very much the same with the plants and animals, water quality and offerings that have been made at that place. We detail that out, and that helps us kind of defend this area.” Ratified Indian Treaty 70. And on this day in 1815, leaders from eight Native Nations signed the Treaty of Spring Wells with the United States near Detroit. The agreement formally restored peace following the War of 1812 and returned certain rights and possessions Native Nations held before the war. The treaty involved the Wyandot, Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee, Miami, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Nations.   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 Native America Calling episode Tuesday, September 8, 2026 — Life after a wrongful murder conviction for Santiago Ventura Morales

  5. 6d ago

    Monday, September 7, 2026

    A Native girls softball team made history this summer, winning a Babe Ruth Softball World Series championship during its first year competing in the tournament. Na7ive Na7ions brought together Native athletes from different tribal communities to compete in Florence, Alabama, but founder and former Major League Baseball pitcher D.J. Carrasco says their success was not only about what happened on the field. They were also battling the summer heat. Temperatures hovered in the 90s, with high humidity making conditions even tougher, but inside the Na7ive Na7ions dugout, there was something you might not normally associate with championship softball: Watermelon. Grapes. Oranges. Pickles. And a team favorite: frozen pickle juice, or “pickle pops”. Autumn Lopez is a holistic nutritional therapy practitioner and co-founder of Na7ive Na7ions. “We feed them from the moment they start swinging the bat, warming up through the entire game. And at first it was hard for them, and they didn’t really understand, but they adapted really fast to eating during the game.” Lopez says the approach was intentional. Carrasco pitched professionally, including ten seasons in Major League Baseball, while Lopez has a background in massage therapy and nutrition. Lopez says the goal is to develop the whole athlete, not just what happens between the lines. And in Alabama, she believes it made a difference. “We were probably one of the only teams, if not the only team, who didn’t suffer heat exhaustion, nausea, throwing up. Every time you looked around, there was a coach throwing up… We didn’t have one girl go down, so that was huge.” Lopez says she repeatedly reminded the girls that winning required more than playing good softball. They also had to stay healthy enough to keep playing. Carrasco says the tournament tested them against some formidable competition, including Puerto Rico. He says the experience also gave the girls a chance to represent Native people and their individual cultures on an international stage. “They’re literally ambassadors. They’re truly ambassadors of their tribe and their cultures.” Lopez says other teams began noticing what looked like a buffet inside the Na7ive Na7ions dugout. And eventually, what started as the team’s own nutrition strategy spread beyond it. Before another game against Puerto Rico, Lopez had extra bananas. “I thought, do I share my secret weapon?… So I grabbed those bananas and I took them over to Puerto Rico… and I said, hey, I have some bananas for you, for your team.” She also handed out electrolytes to umpires and other teams. For Lopez, that reflected something bigger than winning. (Courtesy Native Nations Sport / Facebook) Na7ive Na7ions wants young athletes to leave the program understanding how to care for themselves long after the final out. And the girls left Alabama with something else: a championship. Lopez says watching the final out was emotional after four years of building the organization, but her thoughts quickly turned toward what the victory could mean for the Native girls coming behind them. “When I saw the girls go out there, that last pitch was thrown, that last hit was hit, that last catch was caught, and they realized they won, I just thought they have just changed the trajectory for so many generations of young girls underneath them.” It was the first year Na7ive Na7ions fielded a girls softball team at the Babe Ruth World Series. Carrasco and Lopez says interest in the program has surged since the victory, with Native families asking how their children can participate. For the girls who made history in Alabama, he says the magnitude of what they accomplished might not sink in for years, but eventually, he hopes they’ll be able to look back and say: “They started it.”     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 Native America Calling episode Monday, September 7, 2026 — A conversation about law, advocacy, and redemption with attorney Courtney Jordan

  6. Sep 4

    Friday, September 4, 2026

    Photo: An arch topped with a cross marks the entrance to the Wounded Knee Memorial and cemetery on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on June 30, 2024. (Makenzie Huber / South Dakota Searchlight) Two South Dakota candidates for U.S. Senate have different views about the Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers at the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. South Dakota Searchlight’s Meghan O’Brien has more. About 20 U.S. Army soldiers who were at the massacre received medals. They were part of a force who killed 200 or more Lakota people, including men, women and children. The massacre happened near Wounded Knee Creek in southwest South Dakota. The U.S. Department of Defense decided to retain the medals after a recent review. U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, is on a Senate committee that is seeking more information about that review. He says descendants of massacre survivors want to know more about how the review was conducted. He wants to help them get that information. Rounds has not supported past legislation to rescind the medals. “What we’ve said is, let’s do the investigation, and then allow the military to actually make the determination, rather than having Congress get in the middle of it.” Rounds is running to keep his seat in the Senate. His only challenger is Brian Bengs, an independent. Bengs served 26 years in the U.S. military and taught at the NATO School in Germany and the U.S. Air Force Academy, including courses in the law of war. “And I will say categorically: those medals are not earned. They are not deserved. They should not stand. Their continuing standing is a dishonor to the individuals who currently hold the Medal of Honor.” Bengs will face Rounds on the November 3 ballot. Ameerah Bad’r is the current artist-in-residence at Sitka National Historical Park. (Photo: Lauren Salemo / KCAW) Sealaska Heritage Institute’s artist residency program hosts Indigenous artists at public spaces in Southeast Alaska throughout summer. The residency, which expanded to Sitka, Alaska this year, provides the artists room to create and connect with their heritage where visitors can stop by to watch their work come together, as Lauren Salemo from KCAW reports. Ameerah Bad’r (Tlingít Palestinian) is the current artist-in-residence at Sitka National Historical Park. Her work combines drawing, watercolor, and formline design, a traditional art style used by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest that incorporates curved lines and shapes. Sitka’s flora will be her main subject. “I’m working on a foxglove painting right now. I definitely want to draw the fireweed, paint the fireweed. It’s a little intimidating, though. It has a lot going on.” A lot of her work has focused on flowers from the places she has traveled over the last few years. Bad’r says she finds it meditative to study plants’ delicate details. “The work is kind of rooted in grieving and memory and the cycle of life. If you can truly be present with a flower and really look at it, you’re really getting to see something beautiful, but in the end, that flower is totally gonna die. But then after that, another flower is gonna come back.” Bad’r is currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She says she has been wanting to come to Southeast Alaska for a long time because of her family’s roots. “It’s a gift to be able to come here and meet people and learn more about the culture, and see where I fit in here. And I’ve learned a little bit about my family lineage already.” She says her time in Sitka has been peaceful, and that this won’t be her last trip here. Today is Bad’r’s last day at Sitka National Historical Park. Map of the Potawatomi Trail of Death. (Photo: Chris Light / Wikimedia) And on this day in 1838, 859 Potawatomi people were forced from their homelands in northern Indiana at gunpoint. The removal began a 660-mile journey to present day Kansas that became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death. During the two-month journey, 42 Potawatomi died, half of them 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 today’s Native America Calling episode Friday, September 4, 2026 — Two historic preservation fights in Kansas exemplify the power of persistence

  7. Sep 3

    Thursday, September 3, 2026

    A row of coal next to skid steer inside the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. coal yard in New Mexico. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio) The Trump administration has just approved a plan that could let the Navajo Nation dig up more than 500 million tons of coal by extending the life of a New Mexico mine over the next century – until the year 2136. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. The U.S. Interior Department says denying this permit would be at odds with President Donald Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” agenda. It could also destabilize the Navajo Nation economy. The tribally owned Navajo Transitional Energy Co. fuels the aging Four Corners Power Plant. That lease is set to expire in 2041, but the U.S. government notes the next coal buyer is unknown. The United States argues those financial factors outweigh a slew of environmental and other harms posed by the expansion – including the relocation of nearby families. Jason Smith and Kremena Doust with some of their horses on the Warm Springs reservation in central Oregon, July 30, 2026. (Courtesy James Smith Ranch) While the Bench Fire in Oregon has been largely contained, its effects are still being felt. A ranching couple on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon needs help caring for their cattle and wild horses after the fire destroyed their grazing land. Brian Bull of Underscore Native News and KLCC reports. Jason Smith and Kremena Doust say they were preparing to do a live auction and photo shoot with their horses on July 25, but they canceled once they realized the Bench Fire was burning fast through their area. Smith: “It run like 14 miles in one day, y’know. It made it from our westerly range where we run our cattle and horses, clear to our front door.” Doust: “It was intense, it was orange. It was like pretty high in the sky.” Smith: “There were a bunch of fires, just south of the reservation there. And they looked like they were comin’ our way big time, y;know.” The flames almost came up to their doorstep, but a highway created a natural break that spared their home. They say at least 80% of their grazing district was consumed by fire, leaving between 400 to 500 wild horses and their cattle without food. So now Smith and Doust are trying to raise funds to help buy emergency feed for their animals and offer the horses for adoption by good homes. Doust: “So if we can take care of that through community support and grants, that would be a game changer.” Smith: “The biggest thing is feed right now, though.” Doust: “Right now, immediately feed. Absolutely.” Mares, yearlings, and studs are all available on the ranch’s website for adoption. Doust said she is also trying to set up a nonprofit. Photo: Spirit Lake Nation. (Courtesy Spirit Lake Nation-Mni Wakan Oyate / Facebook) Two North Dakota Tribes are renewing their legal fight over a state legislative map they say weakens the voting power of Native people. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Spirit Lake Tribe, and individual Native voters moved Friday to file an amended complaint challenging North Dakota’s 2021 legislative districts. The Tribes originally won their case in 2023, when a federal judge ruled the map violated the Voting Rights Act by denying Native voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, but in May, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an appeals court ruling in the case and sent it back for further consideration following another voting rights decision. The Tribes now argue the map also violates the U.S. Constitution because it was drawn with discriminatory intent and improperly divided Native voters. Spirit Lake Chairwoman Lonna Jackson-Street says the Tribes have fought the map for five years and are prepared to prove their case again.   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 Native America Calling episode Thursday, September 3, 2026 — Osage school closure delivers blow to tribe’s language revitalization

  8. Sep 2

    Wednesday, September 2, 2026

    Photo: Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Carlisle, Pa. (Courtesy Office of Army Cemeteries) The remains of 12 Native children who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania are beginning their journeys home. The Office of Army Cemeteries is beginning its latest round of disinterments at the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery. The children died more than a century ago while attending the federal boarding school, which operated from 1879 to 1918. Carlisle became a model for the federal Indian boarding school system, where Native children were separated from their families and communities and forced to abandon their languages and cultures. Families and Tribal leaders are gathering at Carlisle as the remains are prepared to return to their homelands. According to ICT, this marks the ninth round of disinterments at the cemetery. The 12 students include four Alaska Native children and students from several Tribal Nations across the country. The repatriation process is scheduled to continue through October 12th, as descendants and communities bring the children home more than a century after their deaths. Red dresses and a sign reading “No More MMIW” adorn a tree in Heron Park in Springfield, Ore. during a special poetry reading on May 1, 2024. (Photo: Brian Bull) Violence prevention, victim advocacy and MMIP services across Indian Country are dealing with disruptions and cuts at the federal level, as Brian Bull of Underscore Native News and KLCC reports. A recent report from the Urban Indian Health Institute says more than 200 programs and organizations have lost funds or cut back services since President Donald Trump began his second term. Whether through the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” or initiatives against programs the White House deems “DEI” — diversity, equity and inclusion — or “woke”, many Native services are seeing support eroding. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they were “substantially impacted” by funding cuts since January 2025, with 60% of unmet need requests for safe housing support. UIHI director Abigail Echo-Hawk said this will exacerbate issues for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. “They’re staying in their cars, they’re becoming homeless, they’re in shelters with their children, then having to move from one shelter to another. And in the worst case scenarios – that I know is happening – they’re going back to the people that are abusing them because they don’t want their children to become homeless, or they’re in such desperate circumstances, they have no other choice.” State Representative Tawna Sanchez (Shoshone-Bannock and Ute descent), D-Oregon, has worked on MMIP and other Native issues. She is worried about how the Trump administration’s continued implementation of HR 1 will affect marginalized communities and vulnerable populations. “The larger issue, right now, obviously, is: how do we value human life? Any life. And we have only begun to feel the effects of HR 1. The real effects are coming. And they’re going to be hard.” Some Native advocates including Echo-Hawk say educating lawmakers can help. She said some anti-DEI initiatives have been reversed as tribes are political entities, not DEI. Another advocate, Desiree Coyote, is the family violence services program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She says there is an obligation from the federal government to honor all treaties signed with tribes. “This is part of what they agreed to do with us as tribal nations to help us ensure and protect our community in regards to public safety. I look forward to when the tribal nations – in regards to their sovereignty, as a way of ensuring intimate partner violence, sexual assault, dating violence, missing and murdered – are addressed quickly and in a meaningful way that benefits the people we serve.” The report, titled “Sacred Responsibility: Protecting Our People“, includes recommendations for tribal and federal agencies.     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 Native America Calling episode Wednesday, September 2, 2026 — Persistent heat puts strain on people, the environment, and the economy

See All (304)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Daily, five-minute newscast featuring the latest headlines and breaking news from Native and Indigenous communities anchored by Antonia Gonzales (Navajo) with reporters and storytellers from around the globe.

Information

  • Creator
    Antonia Gonzales
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    304
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Koahnic Broadcast Corporation - All rights reserved - Contact nola@nv1.org for permission
  • Show Website
    National Native News

You Might Also Like