Laurel Morales
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Native Americans have some of the highest substance abuse rates compared to other ethnic groups. Alcohol and meth are the drugs of choice. Now, cartels are taking advantage of lax police enforcement.
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The Navajo Nation started taxing junk food and soda. No other tribe has passed such a law. But half of the tribe is unemployed and say they can't afford expensive food.
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Some tribes are trying to set up growing operations after the Justice Department announced it would back off enforcement. Others worry about the potential for substance abuse.
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For decades, residents of the Navajo Nation's Smith Lake community have had to make their water stretch; a mission trucks it in monthly from 50 miles away. But soon, they'll be getting their own well.
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Developers and the Navajo Nation are negotiating to bring a tourist complex — and jobs — to the edge of the Grand Canyon. But some Native Americans say the project would tread on sacred land.
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The father of one of the 19 firefighters who died a year ago in the Yarnell Hill Fire wants to create shelters that better shield against direct flames.
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There's an estimated 350 bison living in Grand Canyon National Park. The herd has grown too big and is overgrazing park land, draining already low water resources and trampling archaeological sites.
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The National Park Service says that an 89-year-old Navajo elder will be the last to live at Wupatki National Monument. Stella Peshlakai Smith's family faces eviction when she dies.
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In a series of marches that began in 1864, the U.S. Army forced thousands of Navajo and Mescalero Apache people to walk 400 miles to an isolated reservation; more than a third died. Some say today's ills in Indian Country — severe poverty, suicide, addiction — have their roots in the "Long Walk."
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The controversy over the recent Paris auctions of Hopi objects boils down to competing definitions of what is sacred. The same tension exists elsewhere in Indian Country where economic development projects are proposed for land Native Americans consider to be holy.