Native Americans

A recent $1B pledge from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could help chip away at a backlog dating to 1993. But Kennedy says it will take much more — $8B — to replace the seven clinics and hospitals still on the list.

The only problem: No one is fully fluent.

Colorado's capital city has managed two conservation herds of bison in its mountain parks since 1914. Six years ago, it started donating them to tribes rather than auctioning extras off to ranchers.

It's known by the name Velvet-Wood, and the project's Canadian owner got the go-ahead back in May as the first to undergo an "accelerated," two-week environmental review, during which tribes had only seven days to reply.

Brigham Young approved an order to “exterminate” Native Americans in 1850 after Latter-day Saint settlers arrived in Utah Valley. The Nation’s chief executive says her people still live in fear.

Dozens of the 575 federally recognized Native American tribes are making it easier to get tribal IDs by waiving fees, lowering the age of eligibility and printing cards on the spot. As Native Americans rush to secure the documents, many see a bitter irony in the first people of the land having to prove that they too are U.S. citizens.

The new Zion Discovery Center is under construction on Zion National Park’s less-crowded east side. The park hopes it will relieve congestion in Zion Canyon and offer visitors a different experience.

A pending deal to end the government shutdown is too late for about 30 buffalo on the Fort Peck reservation in northern Montana.

The Biden administration issued an order in 2023 banning new oil and gas development within 10 miles of the historic site for 20 years. Tribal leaders who had celebrated the move are now concerned about the potential for protections to be rolled back.

Native tribes across Utah are not feeling immediate impacts from the government shutdown, but state agencies and nonprofits are on standby.

The move by the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona and California would give rights of nature to the water, marking a historic first.

On July 16, 1945, the U.S. detonated the first nuclear bomb. In the years that followed, other tests led to a wave of health problems in Utah and across the West. Now, advocates are celebrating the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.