Navajo Nation

Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley and along with her running mate, former Arizona Democratic state House Rep. Chris Deschene, won by a margin of 1,115 votes. But the opposing ticket, led by New Mexico attorney Justin Jones, isn't giving up.

Four weeks of flooding washed out roads and sent thousands fleeing their homes on the Navajo Reservation. But many worked hard to get to polling places and voting day became part of the recovery process.

Sitting Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren was an Arizona delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention. But when it comes to coal, he closely aligns with President Donald Trump, who is reversing his Democratic predecessors' efforts to phase out use of the fossil fuel.

As Indigenous communities throughout northeastern Arizona continue to recover from major flooding, election officials are bracing for more rain in the forecast ahead of Election Day.

Cataloging information from the Confluence may also be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower — while the Trump administration is eyeing energy projects on tribal lands.

The tribe is asking the Trump administration to dramatically expand the life — and size — of an operational coal mine that could uproot the lives of some Navajo families. And their longtime homes.

The federal agency's action — published Tuesday — contends that its decision is intended to "encourage energy production" in the midst of Trump's self-declared national energy emergency.

So instead of Santa hand-delivering stockings of coal along with his team of reindeer, it's NTEC — or the Navajo Transitional Energy Company — with its diesel-powered trucks trekking across the sprawling 27,000-square-mile reservation.

Coal is perhaps most closely associated with Appalachian states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky — or Wyoming, the nation's leading producer of the fossil fuel. But the coal-mining business was once thriving in northern Arizona as well, atop the Colorado Plateau.

It's been an interesting few weeks since Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren suddenly fired the tribe's controller. The Navajo Nation Council contends Nygren's recent behavior has been "unlawful."