January 14, 2025
For nearly four years, a multi-billion-dollar Medicaid scam involving hundreds of fraudulent providers in Arizona victimized Native Americans under the guise of addiction care.
Currents
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has allocated $150 million in Indian Housing Block Grant Competitive Program funds to support housing development and rehabilitation across Indian Country.
From Our Partners
Exhibition examines Indigenous representation and identity during a period of regional transformation
Opinion
Guest Opinion . As a Karuk Tribal member from the Klamath River, my heart goes out to everyone in Southern California who has been displaced or devastated by the recent wildfires. Our communities know this pain all too well—we, too, have seen homes reduced to ash and sacred lands scorched by wildfires. Fire, which can be a source of renewal, has become a destructive force, intensified by years of mismanagement, climate change, and systemic disregard for Indigenous knowledge.
Guest Opinion. This month we celebrate an important birthday: Our Speaker Services turns three . Its future is bright.
Sovereignty
The Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will reinstate nighttime barricades on multiple roads within their reservation, reigniting tensions with the town of Lac du Flambeau.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to North Dakota’s legislative map, affirming one Native-majority district and dismissing an appeal regarding another.
Education
California enacted Assembly Bill 1821 (AB 1821) last week, mandating the inclusion of Native American history and perspectives in public education.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) will return to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in the 119th Congress, his office announced today.
Arts & Entertainment
When Ojibwe filmmaker Elizabeth Day joined Without Arrows as co-director, she knew the documentary needed to speak directly to Native audiences. That confirmation came during a recent test screening in Duluth, Minn., when the packed theater roared with laughter at a scene showing family members struggling to drag a fresh buffalo hide across the ground and heave it into a car trunk, blood staining everything in its path.
At the Chase Center in San Francisco, history and heritage came together on January 5, 2025, as Phil “The Flash” Jordon, the first Native American player in NBA history, was honored with the Golden State Warrior Impact Award.
Health
Environment
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement Friday to improve fish passage in Mill Creek near Walla Walla, Wash.
If you want to find a turning point in Washington state’s modern history of environmental protection and advocacy, just go back a few decades to the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was a time period marked by an upsurge in commitment to enact meaningful legislation, create new agency initiatives, and emphasize partnerships with tribes .