Cronkite News

Articles From This Author

The improved access of the COVID-19 vaccine has raised interesting ethical question in the sports world, including should getting the vaccine, as Georgia coach Kirby Smart is here, be mandated and should athletes be prioritized. (Photo courtesy of Piedmont Healthcare via Cronkite News)
News

To mandate or not mandate?

Registered Nurse Shawna Snyder and her husband Ernesto Burbank, who sang Native American songs before she died of COVID-19 in July, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Ernesto Burbank)
News

Lost on the front lines

Dr. Amy Wagner, a naturopathic physician in Phoenix, says cannabis “helps with the PTSD. I’ve had wives come in with their husbands that say, ‘You know what, we’re getting along again’ because they’re not drinking anymore.” Feb. 2021 (Photo by Taylor Eagleston/Special for Cronkite News)
News

Marijuana and mental health

Latrinda Tohe enrolled at Diné College to learn more about her people’s traditions. “I feel like everyone on the reservation is family,” she says. March 23, 2021 (Photo by Jeff Rosenfield/Cronkite News)
News

'One generation away'

A monarch butterfly pollinates a flower at the Pismo Beach Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, California. (Photo by Leo Tochterman/Cronkite News)
News

2024 protection is 'too long' for monarch butterflies

Glendale, Arizona; March 14, 2021. Whitehorse throws his hand back as he rides Kent’s Wildride before getting bucked off in round 2. (Photo by Marlee Smith/Cronkite News)
News

'Mom I want to ride some bulls'

Cremated remains lie in the incineration chamber at the Paradise Memorial Crematory in Scottsdale, one of the state’s largest. Partly fueled by the pandemic, the U.S. cremation rate reached 56 percent in 2020; it was 67 percent in Arizona. (Photo by Kevin Pirehpour/Cronkite News)
Coronavirus

Hoping for relief from crematorium smoke

Volunteers deliver supplies to the Navajo Nation to help veterans living on the reservation. The efforts were coordinated by a new group called Native American Sustainability for Veterans and Those in Uniform. March, 2021 (Photo courtesy of Native American Sustainability for Veterans and Those in Uniform)
News

Veterans helping Navajo veterans: 'A sense of hope'

The U.S. performed more than 100 above-ground nuclear tests over a 12-year period at the height of the Cold War, sending out plumes of radiation that sickened “downwinders” in Arizona and other states. The government has long compensated downwinders, but not people living in most of Mohave County. (File photo by Jessica Boehm/Cronkite News)
News

Navajo officials push to broaden ‘downwinder’ coverage

Tribes in Arizona stand to get $88 million in housing block grant funding, part of a $450 million boost to tribal housing programs that was included in the American Rescue Plan. The Navajo Nation, shown above, will get an additional $49.8 million, the most of any tribe in the nation. (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski/Creative Commons)
News

HUD invests $450 million in tribal housing

Water hauling the only way to deliver water on parts of the Navajo Nation, which says it has almost $4 billion in needed water projects. In this 2017 photo, Darlene Arviso fills her truck with well water for deliver from the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School. (Photo by Maria Esquinca/News21)
News

More funding, less meddling for water projects

Registered nurse Elaine Crabb draws a dose of COVID-19 vaccine Monday, March 22, 2021 at a special vaccination site Bashas’ set up for its employees. It came as state officials announced that they will open registration for vaccine appointments to people as young as 16. (Photo by Travis Robertson, Cronkite News)
Coronavirus

Arizona opens COVID-19 vaccines to all 16 or older

Arizona National Guard Spc. Paige Curtiss speaks with a COVID-19 patient at an alternate care facility on the Navajo Nation in Chinle in this June 2020 photo. The Navajo Nation was hit hard by the coronavirus, with some of the highest infection rates in the country at one point. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Michael Matkin/National Guard).
News

Tribes welcome COVID-19 relief funds, say problems remain

From March 16 to 22, days after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic last year, the FBI conducted more background checks for gun purchases than in any week since its instant system launched in 1998. (File photo by Daria Kadovik/Cronkite News)
News

Rising gun sales 'most definitely increases risk'

New permits to drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands were paused for 60 days on Jan. 20, President Joe Biden's first day in office. (Photo by Zbynek Burival, Creative Commons)
News

Pause on leasing public land draws mixed reaction

Grand Canyon. (Photo by Mark, Creative Commons)
News

House OKs bill to ban mining around Grand Canyon

U.S. Army Sgt. Juan Arriaga repairs a light on a Border Patrol truck in Brownsville, Texas, in August. Thousands of National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers were deployed to the border, but they could only act in support roles – delivering meals, driving and repairing vehicles and assisting with border surveillance, among other jobs. (Photo by Staff Sgt. De’Jon Williams/National Guard)
Outside

Pentagon estimates of border duty costs, impact were unreliable

Diane J. Humetewa, Hopi, is the first Native American woman federal judge. (Photo by Patty Talahongva, Indian Country Today)
News

More judges needed for ‘meaningful justice to all’

Christopher Carrillo, a clinical tester at the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS in Phoenix, rolls a cart through the center’s parking garage for drive-thru HIV finger prick tests. (Photo by Gianluca D’Elia/Special for Cronkite News)
News

Pandemic prompts changes to HIV testing, treatment

The sun rises over the Navajo Nation Reservation, which is the size of West Virginia but is home to just 173,000 people. The COVID-19 death rate on the reservation is greater than that of any U.S. state. (Photo by Megan Marples/Cronkite News)
Coronavirus

Vitamin D can help fight COVID-19

Klee Benally of the Navajo Nation at a 2016 protest outside the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, demanding cleanup of abandoned uranium mines. Even though mining stopped decades ago – and was banned by the tribe in 2005 – the fight to clean up the toxic sites has lingered. (File photo by Danika Worthington/Cronkite News)
News

50 abandoned uranium mines + a mess = $220M from EPA

Researchers fitted this Mexican gray wolf with a radio collar in 2018. They estimate about two dozen Mexican gray wolf packs live in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. (Photo courtesy of Jenna Miller, Cronkite News)
News

Return of Mexican wolves in Southwest

An airsoft player points his gun around a corner at Dreadnought Airsoft in Phoenix on Nov. 22. Like many players, he has removed the imitation gun’s orange tip, which is required under a 1988 federal law. (Photo by Payton Muse/Special for Cronkite News)
Outside

The realism of imitation firearms

Jesse Yazzie is a Navajo artist and the first of four creatives who will exhibit their artwork quarterly on a 8X20-foot shipping container near the Roosevelt Row Welcome Center. Behind him is his mural “Triumph Over Tragedy.” (Photo by Eunique Yazzie/KJZZ)
News

Decking out downtown Phoenix

A 2013 photo of the Tres Rios wetlands, a reclaimed part of the Salt, Gila and Agua Fria rivers that is now teeming with wildlife. Tres Rios is one of the projects named in a bill creating a $150 million fund for local water projects in Arizona, with the first $900,000 being released for a Pascua Yaqui irrigation project. (Photo by doncentjoyce, Creative Commons)
News

Pascua Yaqui win water funds

Lonely alone loneliness (Photo by R. Fazio via Creative Commons)
News

The other pandemic: Loneliness

Hate crimes driven by religious bias are typically among the most frequent hate crimes in Arizona, after race and sexual orientation. They were the second-highest hate crime cited in the state in 2019, according to FBI data. Vandals in this 2017 photo spray-painted swastikas on the home of a Jewish political candidate in Pinal County. (File photo courtesy the Arizona Anti-Defamation League).
News

Arizona hate crimes bounced back in 2019; experts fear a surge in 2020

Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel, a distance runner from South Dakota, wanted to do more to help the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement, so she made it part of her running experience and featured it on her social media. (Photo courtesy Devin Whetstone)
News

Athletes lend a hand(print) to MMIW

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez was one of three tribal leaders who cast Arizona’s Electoral College votes Monday. (Photo courtesy of Nez via Twitter)
News

3 Arizona tribal leaders among electoral voters

Priscilla Coronado Madrid, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, cast her vote for Democrat Joe Biden on Election Day. She was a cashier at a Shell gas station before the pandemic cost her her job. “We’re still trying to get back on our feet,” she says. (Photo by Franco LaTona/Cronkite News)
News

Pandemic, Trump and racism drive voter turnout in some tribal communities

Activists have been protesting against the Resolution Copper mine at Oak Flat for years, including this 2015 protest in Washington. Opponents of the mine now worry that the Trump administration has fast-tracked the mine’s final environmental impact statement – a claim both the mine and the U.S. Forest Service deny. (File photo by Jamie Cochran/Cronkite News)
News

Opponents worry feds are fast-tracking mine

Mikayla Prudholme has her eye on the ball – and on a college scholarship. The four-year varsity starter from Tustin, California, has been traveling with her club team since August. So far, she has played six tournaments in Arizona. (Photo courtesy of Brenda Leon)
Outside

California high school athletes hit the road

In this Thursday, May 7, 2020 file photo, a pregnant woman wearing a face mask and gloves holds her belly as she waits in line for groceries with hundreds during a food pantry sponsored by Healthy Waltham for those in need due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, at St. Mary's Church in Waltham, Mass. On Thursday, June 25, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its list of which Americans are at higher risk for severe cases of COVID-19, adding pregnant women and removing age alone as a factor. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
News

Alternative births

Second-grader Winona Begaye uploads homework in her family’s vehicle near Piñon. Navajo Nation schools have remained virtual this fall because it’s too dangerous to reopen their doors. To help families with no internet or poor access get online, the Piñon Unified School District outfitted school buses with Wi-Fi. (Photo by Megan Marples/Cronkite News)
News

‘It’s creating a new normal’

Dineh Benally operated a network of hemp farms on the Navajo Nation, but tribal and federal officials are now investigating his Navajo Gold farms for allegations of marijuana production, drug trafficking, labor and child labor law violations. (File photo by Marcella Baietto/Cronkite News)
News

Hemp investigation expands to federal pot, labor probe

Girlsfinal
News

Native American Basketball Invitational eyes 2021 return

Tohono O'odham Nation
News

11 Arizona tribes among broadband license winners

The voters who sued for extra time to count ballots mailed from the Navajo Nation cited a report that said a voter on the reservation has an average of 10 days less to consider and return a ballot than a voter in Sedona, because of differences in the level of postal service between the two places. (Photo by Upupa4me/Creative Commons)
News

Court rules against Navajo vote count extension

Legislation making its way through Congress aims to reaffirm that tribal epidemiology centers should have access to state and federal health data. Tribal leaders have had trouble accessing information to help fight COVID-19 and other diseases in places like the Navajo Nation, where this sign stands. (Photo by Daja E. Henry/Cronkite News)
News

Bill would remove barriers to federal health data

Democrat Mark Kelly arrives to debate U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, on Tuesday. The two were separated by plexiglass. In-person early voting begins Wednesday. (Photo by Rob Schumacher/POOL/The Arizona Republic via USA TODAY NETWORK)
Outside

Senate candidates spar in high-stakes Arizona race

The University of Arizona Cancer Center is working to address disparate rates of colorectal cancer in Native Americans. The center was awarded $3 million under the Cancer Moonshot Initiative to accelerate research and prevention. (Photo courtesy of University of Arizona)
News

University: More colorectal cancer screenings needed for Native Americans

Arizona State University students on the Tempe campus wait to vote in the 2018 midterms. Garrett Archer, a data analyst, calls the better-than-usual turnout of young voters in 2018 surprising. (File photo by Anya Magnuson/Cronkite News)
News

Swipe right on 2020 election: Groups grapple for young Arizona voters in new ways

Hopi Chairman Timothy Nuvangyaoma told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that renewal of a special diabetes prevention program is “critical” for tribes. But the program will expire in months if Congress does not act. (Photo courtesy Senate Indian Affairs Committee)
News

Hopi leader urges lawmakers to renew diabetes program

Pascua Yaqui leaders said they still hope to find an answer to their push to reopen a polling place on their land, after a Pima County Board of Supervisors effort failed. The county recorder has defended the decision to close the polling place and said it is too late to change course for this fall’s election. (Photo by Natasha Khan/Cronkite News)
News

Pascua Yaqui voting site stalls, feud continues

The Navajo Nation weighed several plans Thursday to spend the last $177 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds the tribe received – money that has to be spent by the end of the year or will be lost. (Photo by Chelsea Hofmann, Cronkite News)
News

Navajo Nation seeks to spend last of coronavirus money

National Congress of American Indians literature touting tribal voting. (Photo by National Congress of American Indians, Creative Commons)
News

Arizona policy could help Natives in voter registration hurdle

Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis, center, during a Senate hearing in 2019. Lewis on Thursday told a House committee that an accurate census count is vital to tribes, but that a Census Bureau plan to end counting early could threaten the count. (File photo by Keerthi Vedantam/Cronkite News)
News

Tribal leader: Ensuring accurate census is a ‘life and death’ issue

A Census Bureau plan to move up the deadline to end “enumeration,” the process of counting U.S. residents, from Oct. 31 to Sept. 30 was put on hold by a federal judge. Critics, including the Navajo and Gila River tribes, had sued to block the move, which they said would lead to an undercount, particularly for minority communities. (Photo courtesy U.S. Census Bureau)
News

Judge halts plan to end Census early as tribal responses lag

Tawny Jodie, 20, says serving her community with other young adults who share her Christian faith gave her the encouragement she needed to keep her spirits up during COVID-19. (Photo courtesy of Tawny Jodie)
News

Next generation of Native leaders grapples with loss of life, connection

Pascua Yaqui tribal officials are raising a new argument in their two-year fight to reinstate an early voting site on the reservation, saying the COVID-19 pandemic makes it essential. The county recorder disagrees, and now the tribe is trying to enlist the support of county supervisors. (Photo by Erik (HASH) Hersman/Creative Commons)
News

Pascua Yaqui Tribe renews voting site push