December 17, 2025
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is set to gain federal recognition once President Donald Trump signs the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2026 into law.
Currents
Native News Online presents a timely and powerful conversation on Native Bidaské between host Levi Rickert and acclaimed author and journalist Julian Brave NoiseCat, focusing on the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina’s historic path to federal recognition—a victory nearly 140 years in the making.
From Our Partners
For generations, many Native families have relied on community knowledge, not institutions, to guide their financial lives. That wisdom remains essential.
As First American Capital Corporation’s (FACC) influence expands across Wisconsin, it is through strong community partnerships that connect Native entrepreneurs with business loan options, education and resources for success.
Across the country today, museums are being forced to reckon with the truth. For centuries, most mainstream museums were built from taking — taking objects, taking stories, taking lands. They displayed the Ancestors of Native Nations under the banner of “education,” while silencing the very Peoples those Ancestors came from.
Opinion
Renewable energy is an internal Tribal matter and an exercise of sovereignty—not something that requires approval from rural electric cooperatives.
Guest Opinion. The judiciary should be above reproach and when a judge falls from grace, it is alarming. When the judge comes from the highest court in a state, it is cause for particular alarm.
Sovereignty
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians of Michigan and Indiana and Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency have signed the state’s second tribal-state cannabis compact, giving the tribe access to Michigan’s licensed adult-use cannabis market.
The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairman Joseph "Zeke" Rupnick issued a statement via a YouTube video late Wednesday afternoon to tribal members announcing that the nation and its subsidiaries have fully divested from the $29.9 million U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract that has recently come under scrutiny.
Education
It’s a scene straight from a Dickens novel: a family sits around the table on Christmas Day with an empty chair amongst them and a somber air. Except this isn’t the Victorian classic, it’s real life for far too many Native families and no well-intentioned spirits to save the day. The epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) in the United States that has existed for years continues unabated. And while Native students deal with the same end of semester pressures and holiday stresses as other students, they’re more likely to also be living in a state of fear or mourning for a relative who may never make it home.
Submissions for the sixth annual Tribal College Blanket Design Contest, hosted by American Indian College Fund and Pendleton Woolen Mills, are open from now until January 15, 2026 .
Arts & Entertainment
At the award-winning Indian Pueblo Kitchen, Chef Josh Aragon stood with a smile at the fresh bowl of green chile stew in front of him for a photo shoot celebrating the dish being named the Best in the City by Albuquerque the Magazine.
Late Hollywood icon Rob Reiner's final project was” Wind River: Rising,” a sequel to Taylor Sheridan’s 2017 film set on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming. The film, which Reiner served as an executive producer on, is in post-production and has no set release date, according to IMDB .
Health
Environment
President Donald Trump has signed a resolution backed by members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation to revoke restrictions on drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve on the North Slope.
Nearly 900 acres of land have been returned to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation in California. The land borders Yosemite National Park -- one of the most visited National Parks—— and the Sierra National Forest.