

Once again, for its 25th year, the Northern Arizona Book Festival is taking place in Flagstaff April 1-4, a weeklong event featuring Native writers, readings, workshops with adaptions because of COVID-19, because of the pandemic, all events will be online.

With a new executive director, the only employee in its organization, Hopi Relief is still going strong and delivering help to the Hopi villages as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on.

The American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package proposed by President Joe Biden, includes more than $31.2 billion for Native communities — the largest investment in Native programs in history with money for tribal governments, the Indian Health Service, housing, Native education and more.

The Doris Duke Native Oral History Revitalization Project announced more than $1.6 million in grants to increase the access, use and visibility of the Doris Duke Native American Oral History Collections spanning 150 Indigenous cultures.

Change Labs, an award-winning Native American-led organization, is now accepting applications from Native American business owners and entrepreneurs to its business incubation program.

The Navajo Nation requested more COVID-19 vaccines and additional resources in a February meeting with the Biden-Harris administration officials and federal agencies from the White House, FEMA, Navajo Area Indian Health Service and others via teleconference.

The Navajo Nation Office of the Controller has launched a text messaging campaign that will notify applicants of the status of their applications or check processing for the Navajo Cares Act Hardship Assistance Program.

It’s been a hard few months for Jerrel Singer — he lost his sister to COVID-19 at the end of October and then in short order his aunt and uncle. By the Christmas holiday, Singer had become sick and was hospitalized himself.

The Navajo Nation Office of the Controller said the Navajo Cares Act Hardship Assistance Program is currently 90 percent funded, and the federal extension has not modified its expenditure strategy.

Elation spread throughout Indian Country Dec. 17 as word cirulated that President-elect Joe Biden would nominate Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as ‘a long overdue appointment of the first Native American cabinet secretary.’