Green & indigenous News

Time is running out for Alaskans to speak out on a federal review of subsistence management. The families of three more victims of last year's fatal Bering Airplane crash have sued the regional airline.

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New research has found that we are more likely to back policies aimed at tackling climate change when we feel fearful, but feelings of dread make us less likely to support such policies.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A manatee that got stuck in a Florida storm drain while seeking warmer waters is on the mend at SeaWorld Orlando after a coordinated rescue effort. Multiple fire rescue units and officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the University of Florida and even Jack’s Wrecker Service were brought in Tuesday to get the 410-pound (186-kilogram) sea cow out of the storm drain in Melbourne Beach. The crews convened on the scene after a worker with Melbourne Beach spotted the manatee, the city’s Vice Mayor Terry Cronin told WESH-TV in Orlando. “We’re in the process of improving the storm drain across Melbourne Beach. Our people were doing a survey. And one of the surveyors noticed a manatee in what is called a baffle box.” Cronin said. The male manatee was taken to SeaWorld Orlando, where it is being cared for in one of the park’s medical pools, spokesperson Stephanie Bechara said. “He’s breathing on his own, moving independently and showing interest in food. Our teams are adjusting water levels to support buoyancy and comfort as part of his care,” Bechara said. She said they work to stabilize and rehabilitate rescued manatees so they can ultimately be returned to the wild. The protected species is still recovering from a mass starvation event. In 2021, officials recorded more than 1,100 manatee deaths, mostly caused by starvation. The state’s fish and wildlife agency said deaths have gone down significantly, with 565 deaths recorded in 2024, and 555 deaths in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Last Updated on February 12, 2026 Amid the discussion between U.S. President Donald Trump and Danish and European leaders about who should own Greenland, the Inuit who live there and call it home aren’t getting much attention. The Kalaallit (Inuit of West Greenland), the Tunumi (Inuit of East Greenland) and the Inughuit (Inuit of North […]

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After a 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) journey from Patagonia National Park to El Impenetrable National Park and a year spent adapting to their new environment, five guanacos, South America’s largest camelids, have been released into the wild. The guanacos (Lama guanicoe) are being reintroduced to boost the regional population across the Dry Chaco ecosystem in El Impenetrable and are meant to play an important role in helping the park’s grasslands recover after decades of overgrazing by cattle. But although Rewilding Argentina, the wildlife conservation NGO that led the effort, labels this initiative a success, some Argentinian academics argue that translocations like these risk mixing guanaco populations with different genetic makeup and could be more harmful than good. The guanaco’s population is estimated at around 1.5-2.2 million across the continent’s southern and western grasslands. Between 81 to 86% of guanacos are found in Argentina, 14- 18% in Chile, while a small relict population inhabits northern Peru. However, the last recorded sighting of a guanaco in Argentina’s Chaco province was in 1913; hunting and the loss of grasslands to livestock farming have led to the species’ local extinction, with only fragmented populations surviving on the border between Paraguay and Bolivia. The translocation of three females, a male and a juvenile guanaco was completed by Rewilding Argentina in coordination with Argentina’s National Parks Administration and the provinces of Chaco and Santa Cruz. The animals came from Patagonia, which, according to research, is home to around 90% of the guanacos in Argentina. The guanaco (Lama guanicoe)…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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When the Winter Olympics kicked off in 1924, the city of Chamonix, France, had the glacial temperatures and heavy snowfall needed to host the Games. In fact, just weeks before the games kicked off, a massive snowstorm brought more than 5.6 feet of snow in 24 hours, requiring crews to urgently shovel out the area to ensure the Games could still take place.

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There's been a seismic shift in science, with scientists developing new AI tools and applying AI to just about any question that can be asked. Researchers are now putting actual seismic waves to work, using data from the world's largest repository of earthquake data to develop "SeisModal," an AI foundation model designed to explore big questions about science. The effort, known as Steel Thread, involves researchers from five national laboratories operated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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A drone equipped with low-cost air quality sensors has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 meters above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important role in urban haze understanding and mitigation. The findings, published in npj Clean Air, demonstrate the feasibility of measuring air pollution up to 100 meters using an affordable, custom-built drone platform.

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Dan Ninham
Special to ICT

By day, Naomi Lang is a teacher at the Chandler Ice Den in Chandler, Arizona. On a recent night, she was watching the television coverage of the figure skating ice dance qualifiers for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.

Lang was a major force as a competitive ice dancer and represented the United States repeatedly in international arenas. She was a five-time national champion and placed in the top 10 in each of five world championships.

She also became the first Native American woman to represent the United States in the Winter Olympics as a member of the U.S. team in 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

She went on to skate professionally in shows across the United States, Europe and Russia, and in 2023 was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame.

Favorites Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev perform during the compulsory dance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 9, 2002, in Los Angeles. Credit: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

Today, Lang continues to empower young skaters as she has for 20-plus years, encouraging them to pursue their own dreams on the ice.

As the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics approached, she spoke to ICT contributor Dan Ninham about viewing the Olympics from an Indigenous perspective. The questions and answers have been edited slightly for clarity.

ICT: Please introduce yourself, your tribe, who you are as an Olympian, and where you.

LANG: I’m Naomi Lang. I’m from the Karuk Tribe in Northern California. I am a figure skater. I’m a 2002 Olympian, a five-time national champion, and I currently reside in Arizona.

ICT: What does it mean to you to represent your indigenous community on a world stage?

LANG: Representing the Indigenous community on a world stage was probably the coolest thing that happened to me at the Winter Olympics. Becoming the first Indigenous female to participate in the Winter Olympics was quite an incredible feeling of accomplishment and pride. Being the first person to actually do that, and showing that my hard work and my perseverance and just working through all my struggles through life and sport. … It hopefully set an example for other future athletes along the way to pursue their dreams as well.

ICT: How has your cultural background influenced your approach to the sport of skating?

LANG: It’s interesting because I grew up a little bit differently [and] I didn’t live on a reservation or I really wasn’t connected with my Indigenous family until later in life after my father passed away. So I’m really on a reconnection journey at this point, and I feel like if life hadn’t happened that way, I wouldn’t be where I am today with my culture.

So I feel like everybody has their own path in reconnection, and right now I’m experiencing the most wonderful thing of learning my language, going to ceremonies, and it may not have had the same impact on me if I had learned it back when I was younger compared to now and have experienced things in life that I have.

ICT: What message did you hope to send to Indigenous youth watching you compete? And how are you continuing to share your story to Indigenous communities?

LANG: I think the most important thing is to let people know that they can do big things and dream big things. If you don’t come from the richest family or you don’t have the most expensive things, you can still work hard to make your dreams come true. You can still persevere over hard times as I did because I did not grow up very well off, yet I made it in the most expensive sport through perseverance and hard work. So I think for me, being on the world stage shows that you can make it no matter what if you put your mind to it. I think that’s my main message.

ICT: You’ve had a number of firsts in your career. How does it feel to be a trailblazer in the sport of skating?

LANG: Even to this day, and it’s been what … over 10 years since the Olympics happened? I still feel that excitement that I was able to do that. Nowadays I’m able to share my story. I just finished an event at the Heard Museum in Arizona, one of the biggest Native museums probably in the country. I was able to share my story and connect with people, and to be able to do those things and trailblaze and maybe give hope to the younger generation really means a lot to me. And I really try to show up for my tribe as well. I have another event coming up at Mount Shasta where I’m gonna do a figure skating event for them. We’ve never skated together before so it’s really exciting for me. And I just want to keep doing that, keep showing up for my culture.

ICT: What was your biggest challenge in getting to the Olympics and how did you overcome it?

LANG: The biggest challenge, well, there’s a lot of challenges that go along with getting to the Olympic rings. I just had this conversation that it is not a straight line in sport. … You’re this way, then you go this way, you might get injured, you might have a mental breakdown, but some way, somehow you make it to those Olympic rings and it takes a strong mind. The hardest thing I would say was probably 9/11. … I was living in New Jersey at the time and we could actually see the smoke from the towers at that moment when everything happened. That was right before the Olympics were going to happen, I think in like three months. So we were very uncertain and it was very mentally draining and heartbreaking that just something like that could happen to the world, because I’m going to cry.

But it’s the perseverance and the camaraderie of the country that brought everybody together and it ended up being the most amazing event in our own homeland … Our own U.S. athletes felt so protected and loved at the same time.

ICT: What is the most important lesson you have learned about resilience as an Olympic athlete?

LANG: It’s so important to be resilient and just not give up. I think that’s what really makes you an Olympic athlete is if you’re resilient. Whatever is thrown at you, you kind of have to work through it no matter what. And it’s a great life lesson for just life in general. Like, if you’re at a job and somebody says something to you or maybe you get fired, you can’t let those things stop you. You have to keep pursuing your dreams and keep trusting yourself that you know what you want and that you’re strong enough to do it.

Native Americans enter the Rice-Eccles Olympic stadium during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City on Feb. 8, 2002. The ceremony showcased the Native nations of Utah. Credit: AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian

ICT: Describe your favorite memory in your Olympic competition.

LANG: I actually have two favorite memories. So my first one was …I was chosen as the U.S. athlete to give the gift to the Five Nations [of Utah] in the opening ceremonies to basically open the games. So I have a vivid memory of these magnificent men in all their regalia on horses riding across the ice surface in the big opening ceremony stadium. Everything was white. The lights were white. Everything was just beautiful. It looked like snow. And they were just coming at me. And I was like, ‘Wow, where am I right now? Is this like heaven?’ It was just an incredible moment. So you can kind of see me on the video as I give the present to them. The smile on my face was like a little kid. It was just an incredible moment to be able to do that.

And my second favorite memory would be at the end of my program, I’m waving to the crowd. I’m like, ‘Wow, I just did that. I’ve skated my best. I gave it a hundred percent. I can finally say I’ve done everything.’ And all of a sudden yellow roses were just flying from the stands all over the ice. And at that time yellow was meaning friendship, camaraderie. People coming together was the color that they chose for the roses to be thrown on the ice. So I got to go home with buckets and buckets of yellow roses that night and sorted through all of them … That was probably the coolest experience, yeah.

ICT: What advice would you give to other Indigenous athletes with Olympic dreams?

LANG: If you have a dream, make sure that you are visualizing that dream every day and that is in your mind and you’re pursuing that in any moment you can. Don’t take no for an answer. Just make sure that you trust yourself. Make sure you surround yourself with good people. Make sure you’re healthy. Make sure that you listen to your coaches. They do know what they’re doing. Take instruction well, be a good student, and just follow your dreams. That’s all you need to do. Trust yourself.

ICT: Do you have anything that you would like to add that we didn’t touch on?

LANG: I actually brought out my costumes. I don’t get to really take them out of my closet very often. So maybe every four, maybe 10 years. I think it is 10 years since I actually brought them out of my closet. So I have my torch here. I have my opening ceremonies jacket. So actually at the opening ceremonies, President [George W.] Bush came and sat with the Olympic figure skating team in our stands, which was really cool. And this is the jacket and the infamous hat that everybody wanted at that moment in time. So that was pretty cool.

But a fun fact is on the bus ride there I actually rode the bus with the Backstreet Boys, which was really cool. Our theme for the Olympics was “Light the Fire Within.” and it says it right on this side here. I don’t know if you can see it very well, and then there’s my number, which matches my outfit. So we all had our own everything. It was really cool. So just some fun facts about my Olympic games.

ICT: Were you able to hang out with the Backstreet Boys or were they staying away from everybody?

LANG: No, they were actually really nice and they really wanted to meet the athletes and find out what sports we were in. So we actually got to talk to them a little bit and I got some pictures. So yeah, they were really nice. I was happily surprised.

This was fun. I love to share my Olympic memories with everybody.

The post ‘Dream Big Things’: An Indigenous view of the Olympics appeared first on ICT.

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The Brazilian government has built a map to help commodity exporters comply with the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR. The country’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, created new technology to generate deforestation data in polygons of a half-hectare (1.2-acre) threshold — one of the EUDR requirements. Brazil’s official deforestation data for the Amazon comes from INPE’s satellite-based monitoring system, PRODES, which uses a one-hectare threshold. “It was the first time we did [this in] less than 1 hectare [2.5 acres],” Claudio Almeida, coordinator of INPE’s BiomasBR monitoring program, told Mongabay by phone. The EUDR, when it comes into effect at the end of 2026 (delayed for the second year in a row), will require suppliers to provide geolocalized data and other documentation to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from areas illegally deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. The legislation aims to address increasing claims of products imported into the EU being linked to illegal deforestation, including in the Amazon Rainforest, and will target seven commodities: soy, cattle, rubber, palm oil, coffee, cocoa and timber. Graphic by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay. PRODES’ annual deforestation rate refers to data from Aug. 1 from the previous year to July 31 in the following year, but INPE also used high resolution satellite imagery and developed new technology to produce deforestation data with the cutoff date required by EUDR, Almeida said. December is the start of the Amazon rainy season, which poses challenges to track deforestation due to the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Turfgrass found on golf courses, athletic fields and lawns is susceptible to a fungal pathogen known as dollar spot disease, which is characterized by the appearance of circular spots of dead turf about the size of a silver dollar. University of Delaware researchers are decoding how UD1022, a UD-developed beneficial bacteria, helps protect turfgrasses from this fungal foe, which is a costly problem to control.

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Millions of bats in North America have died from white-nose syndrome, and a new study from the University of Waterloo explores why and how the fungal disease has devastated bat populations on this continent, while it has had little effect on bats in Europe. The paper, "Strategies and limitations of the bat immune response to Pseudogymnoascus destructans: the causative agent of white-nose syndrome," appears in Frontiers in Immunology.

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An international research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has described the oldest known impressions of reptile skin from the Thuringian Forest in central Germany. Particularly remarkable is the possible preservation of a cloacal opening within the skin imprint. The fossils, dated to approximately 298 to 299 million years ago from the early Permian period, document detailed scale patterns of the stem group of modern reptiles for the first time. The results were published today in the journal Current Biology.

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A study from the University of California, Davis, found that temperature affects the sound and quality of male frogs' mating calls. In the colder, early weeks of spring, their songs start off sluggishly. In warmer weather, their songs pick up the pace, and female frogs take note.

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The California Department of Public Health reported 39 related poisonings in the last three months, leading to the death of four people, at least three liver transplants, and many more people made sick. The culprit? In each case, it is believed death cap mushrooms are the source.

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As part of a new study, researchers from Bournemouth University (BU) have discovered European eels, Anguilla anguilla, at the stage of silvering living in the inland waters of Cyprus for the first time. The paper is published in the Journal of Fish Biology.

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Researchers at McGill University and the United States Forest Service have found that plants living in areas where human activity has caused population crashes carry long-lasting genetic traces of that history, such as reduced genetic diversity. Because genetic diversity helps species adapt to climate change, disease, and other stresses, the study suggests it is vital to consider a population's history-influenced genetics alongside its size and habitat in conservation planning.

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For obvious reasons, it would be useful to predict when an earthquake is going to occur. It has long been suspected that large quakes in the Himalayas follow a fairly predictable cycle, but nature, as it turns out, is not so accommodating. A new study published in the journal Science Advances shows that massive earthquakes are just as random as small ones. A team of researchers led by Zakaria Ghazoui-Schaus at the British Antarctic Survey reached this conclusion after analyzing sediments from Lake Rara in Western Nepal.

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Researchers have arrived in Peachester State Forest to collect environmental samples to help unlock new insights into how planned burns shape and support ecosystems. Decades-long research in Peachester State Forest has proven planned burns can have a positive impact on environmental health if they're conducted at intervals specific to the ecosystem.

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Rice University biologist Amy Dunham has spent decades studying the mountainous rainforests of Madagascar's Ranomafana National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site that was designated a national park in 1991. In a project co-led by Dunham and Rice's Matt McCary, together with a team of U.S. and Malagasy researchers, the group published a study showing that strawberry guava, an invasive plant, can prevent natural forest generation in areas of Ranomafana with a history of past disturbance, even decades after deforestation has ended. The findings are published in the journal Biological Conservation.

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Cities everywhere are running experiments to respond to climate change and sustainability challenges, such as new mobility trials, energy pilots, green space projects, circular economy approaches, and more. New research from the Monash Business School has found that many of these efforts stay small, stay siloed, or fade when funding ends.

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JAKARTA — When old mattresses and broken chairs are dumped by the roadside in his neighborhood, Erwinsyah faces a choice: leave them there and risk accidents, or set them on fire. The head of a neighborhood unit, or RT, in the city of Bogor, south of Jakarta, Erwinsyah says residents often discard bulky waste such as used spring beds and furniture along the street. Left unattended, they become an eyesore — and a hazard. “The mattresses are already dirty, smelly, full of rat droppings. So they just get placed by the roadside. But that’s an area where people pass by, children go to school,” Erwinsyah told Mongabay. “If a child walks past and it falls on them, then I’m the one who’ll get blamed as the head of the neighborhood unit.” To prevent that from happening, he sometimes burns the items in an empty field away from houses, staying to monitor the flames. What Erwinsyah describes isn’t unusual. Across Indonesia, open waste burning remains widespread despite being prohibited under the country’s 2008 Waste Management Law. A 2023 national survey by the Ministry of Health found that 57% of Indonesian households still burn their waste , making it the most common method of waste handling. By comparison, 27.6% hand waste over to collectors or informal waste pickers, 8.7% dump it directly at disposal sites, and just 0.1% reported recycling. Open waste burning in Indonesia in 2023. Image courtesy of Ecoton. Health impacts Open waste burning releases a mix of pollutants, including…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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During 2026, new legislation—the result of an agreement between the UK Government and the European Union—is planned to come into force for recreational pollack fishing that limits catches to three fish per angler per day. It will result in more fish being released after they are caught, but new research has suggested changing how that release happens could have a marked difference to the fisheries' long-term sustainability.

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Richard Arlin Walker
Special to ICT

Early into President Donald Trump’s second term, more than 100 tribal leaders and Native organizations surveyed by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development said they were optimistic about several administration policies: removing harmful additives from food; the potential for expanded business opportunities resulting from “America First” policies; the reduction of regulatory red tape; and more efficient allocation and use of federal tax dollars.

Native American voters surveyed by the First Nations Development Institute and partner organizations said the rising cost of living, tribal sovereignty, land rights and cultural preservation were their top concerns in the 2024 election. Trump won the support of 47 percent of Native American men and 39 percent of Native voters overall, the Institute reported.

Whether that optimism remains in 2026 will be proven Nov. 3 in the midterm elections, when all 435 U.S. House seats and 33 U.S. Senate seats will be on the ballot. The Republicans have a 218-214 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

At stake: Trump’s legislative agenda and Republican control of Congress.

If the Democrats win the majority in the House and/or Senate, “It’ll definitely make things more difficult for his agenda,” Republican strategist Michael Stopp, Cherokee, told ICT in an earlier interview. “But we have seen something out of this president we haven’t seen from many others, in the way that he’s willing to push presidential power and executive power. So he may become more brazen without a Congress that works with him.”

Trump’s impact on Indian Country

The Trump administration did recognize the Lumbee Tribe, which shares geography with North Carolina, and returned 680 acres to the Spirit Lake Nation, which shares geography with North Dakota.

On the other hand, Trump changed the name of North America’s tallest peak, Mount Denali — a Koyukon Athabascan name — back to Mount McKinley. His administration suggested that programs for tribal nations were race-based rather than a fulfillment of treaty and trust obligations; made arguments in court that questioned the scope of Native American birthright citizenship; reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument; and opened protected areas to oil leases and mining. Indigenous people have also been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as suspected undocumented immigrants.

Trump continued to use offensive language and racist tropes, and to demean immigrants and those he considers adversaries. Several prominent Republicans condemned Trump on Feb. 6 after he shared an online video that depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

The economy may be a significant factor in the midterms, however, as it was for Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024.

Job growth slowed during Trump’s first year back in office, and manufacturing employment was down a half-percent, according to Business Insider. The jobless rate is expected to tick up to 4.5 percent this year, according to Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research. And health care premiums have increased as much as 114 percent, the institute reported.

Revenue collection is also up, according to the U.S. Treasury — $5.23 trillion in 2025, up from $4.9 trillion in 2024. That includes $195 billion in tariffs, a tax paid by U.S. import companies on foreign products they bring into the United States. Tariffs can be costly downstream because they are generally passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices, increasing the cost of living.

Trump has said tariff revenue could be used to pay down the national debt, but the national debt is now $38 trillion, up from $36 trillion in 2024, according to the U.S. Treasury. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates Trump’s signature legislation in 2025 – the “Big Beautiful Bill” – will add about $3 trillion to the national debt through 2034.

Overall, a growing number of Americans surveyed — including Republicans — say their confidence in the Trump administration is eroding. “Last year, 67 percent [of Republicans polled] said they supported all or most of Trump’s plans and policies,” the Pew Research Center reported on Jan. 29. “Today, 56 percent do.”

Among all Americans surveyed, Trump’s approval rating has dipped to 37 percent, down from 40 percent in the fall, Pew reported. Trump won 31 states in the 2024 election, but today has a favorable rating in only 16, according to Pew.

A different way of doing things

But Trump has defied the polls before. Dino Rossi, Tlingit, believes Trump’s policies will ultimately prove to be correct.

Rossi, a Republican, represented a Seattle-area district in the Washington state Senate for eight years, and in 2004 came within 130 votes of becoming Washington’s governor. He also owned and managed commercial real estate, and said he gets Trump’s negotiation style.

“If you understand the experience and pay attention to what he says and does, you realize that everything he says and does is to the max and then, as a negotiator, he’ll bring it to somewhere in the middle, usually on a deal,” Rossi said.

“Being a Seattle real estate guy is different from a New York real estate guy. A New York real estate guy, especially a developer, is a bare-knuckled bear,” Rossi said. “And that’s just who he is. They’re not polite, but you know exactly where you stand. He comes out with the most extreme volley right out of the gate, and then both sides figure things out. And he usually wins.”

Rossi believes Trump’s economic policies will ultimately make life more affordable and be more empowering for the individual.

“Look at what he’s trying to do with health care. Instead of giving all the money to the big insurance companies, he wants to give you the money and you actually go out and find the insurance program that you like, which will mean more options, which is better for the consumer,” Rossi said.

“The idea of trying to create opportunities in America should appeal to everybody, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to do and, you know, he is doing it,” he said. “He does it in a different way than people have done in the past. Most people in the past have just talked. He ‘does’.”

Trump also enjoys the support in Congress of three Indigenous Republican members, all from Oklahoma: U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Cherokee; U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen, Choctaw, who represents Oklahoma’s 2nd District; and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, Chickasaw, from Oklahoma’s 4th District. (A fourth Indigenous member, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, of Kansas, is a Democrat.

Mullin is out in front in his defense of Trump’s foreign and domestic policy agendas, including immigration, border security, finishing the southern border wall, and accelerating asylum processing. On social media, Mullin credited Trump for a secure southern border, lower inflation, tax cuts, wage gains, and lower drug prices.

“We have a lot more work to do, but … it’s been 365 days of promises made, promises kept,” Mullin wrote. “I’m humbled to be in this fight alongside the Trump administration to Make America Great Again.”

Rick Lewis, a descendant of the Bridge River Indian Band in British Columbia, is a Republican who represents portions of Clackamas and Marion counties in the Oregon House of Representatives.

He sees a commitment to Indian Country in this administration, with a number of Native Americans in key roles in the administration.

Mark Cruz, Klamath, for example, who served as a congressional and legislative chief of staff and as a deputy assistant secretary of the Interior, is senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I kind of look at it like, there’s a big improvement when it comes to interaction with the tribes, and it comes fully from knowing Mark and knowing the commitment that Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration have for healthcare issues,” Lewis said.

“I know Secretary Kennedy and Mark have traveled to a number of the tribes around the United States and listened to their concerns, all related to health care,” he said. “But listening to them, right? That, to me, is encouraging.”

In addition to Cruz, two other Republican Native Americans have significant roles in the administration. Former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, Cherokee, of New Mexico, is awaiting confirmation as an assistant secretary of Agriculture. Former North Carolina state Rep. Jarrod Lowery, Lumbee, is senior adviser to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.

‘A lesson here’

Trump’s return to the presidency has been empowering for those Americans who’ve felt like their voices weren’t being heard, Lewis said. And there’s a lesson there for the majority party, whether Republican or Democrat.

“The urban/rural divide in this country is real,” Lewis said. “I think there’s a level of frustration, particularly in the more rural communities: ‘What difference does it make if we vote? We can’t change anything.’ It’s this notion among leaders of the party that has the majority: ‘Because we’re the majority, we can do pretty much anything we want and you can’t stop us.’ Now they’re starting to find out that the people can stop them.”

Stopp said a course change in the midterms could result in a new commitment to bipartisan work in Congress.

“There is bipartisan work being done in Congress, but you don’t really hear about it,” said Stopp, a former chief of staff for Mullins. “What surprised me when I got there was, in fact, that the majority of members are elected because they love this country and they want to see good things. We may disagree on how we get there, but most of them want to see the best for this country.”

MIDTERMS AT A GLANCE
Primaries: Each state sets its own dates for candidate filing deadlines and primary elections. The first primaries are scheduled for March 3 in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas. The last primaries are scheduled for Sept. 15 in Delaware and Massachusetts.
General election: Nov. 3, 2026.
Terms begin: Jan. 3, 2027. Members of the House are elected to two-year terms. Senators are elected to six-year terms. Representatives and senators are paid $174,000 a year.
House authority: The House has the constitutional authority to begin the process of creating and passing bills that raise revenue, or taxes. The House has the constitutional authority to impeach federal officials. An impeachment is the political equivalent of an indictment; impeachments are tried in the U.S. Senate. The House also has the constitutional authority to elect the president should the Electoral College be deadlocked.
Senate authority: The Senate has the constitutional authority to try impeachments, approve presidential appointments, approve or reject treaties, and elect the Vice President in the event of an Electoral College tie. The Vice President serves as president of the Senate and votes in the event of a tie.

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The enzyme Na⁺-NQR is a sodium pump that drives the respiration of many marine and pathogenic bacteria. Using redox reactions, the process of exchanging electrons between materials, it powers the transportation of sodium ions across the membrane, supporting the growth of the bacteria.

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