December 08, 2025
Opinion. For generations, Native Americans have faced extraordinary health disparities: We die younger, suffer higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, and suicide, and are more likely to lack insurance than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States.
Currents
WASHINGTON — In addition to articles already covered by Native News Online, here is a roundup of other news released from Washington, D.C. that impacts Indian Country recently.
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
Guest Opinion. Thirty-five years ago, our people made a courageous choice to dare a new path. What began as a humble bingo hall in Roland in 1990 has grown into a thriving gaming and hospitality enterprise — Cherokee Nation Entertainment — that today embodies opportunity and drives revenue for Cherokees families across our reservation and the world. The decision to invest in ourselves was rooted in hope, self-determination, and the belief that true prosperity for the Cherokee Nation must come from within.
Opinion. For generations, Native Americans have faced extraordinary health disparities: We die younger, suffer higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, and suicide, and are more likely to lack insurance than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States.
Sovereignty
Cherokee Nation leaders and Cherokee language speakers joined representatives from Kiwa Digital Ltd. on Tuesday to launch the new Cherokee Language Dictionary app during an event at the Durbin Feeling Language Center.
Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick released a YouTube video on Friday addressing concerns that surfaced after the announcement that KPB Services — a subsidiary of Prairie Band, LLC, the Nation’s economic arm — had received a $29.9 million Homeland Security contract.
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
Vision Maker Media (VMM), a leading source of media by and about Native Americans since 1976, has named filmmakers Ivan and Ivy MacDonald, members of the Blackfeet Nation, as recipients of the 2025 Frank Blythe Award for Media Excellence. The award, named for VMM’s late founder, recognizes individuals or organizations that advance Indigenous media opportunities by engaging and empowering Native American and Alaska Native creators. The MacDonalds will receive $2,000 for professional development.
The Muscogee (Mvskoke) Nation on Saturday will celebrate the grand opening of the Mvskoke Waters Gallery, the first tribally owned art gallery in the Tulsa metropolitan area, with its inaugural exhibition, Mvskokvlke: Road of Strength .
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.