Thursday, July 23, 2026

Photo: “Navajo” Bob Sandoval announces the results of the 2025 Navajo Nation presidential primary (Courtesy Crystalyne Curley for Navajo Nation President / Facebook)

Tuesday was primary Election Day not only in Arizona, but across the Navajo Nation, which includes Utah and New Mexico.

And as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, incumbent President Buu Nygren will not be moving on to the general.

Before midnight, the tribal radio station KTNN – known in these parts as the “Voice of the Navajo Nation” – called the 16-candidate race.

Here is host “Navajo Bob” Sandoval reading the unofficial score from the 110 polling places.

“Here we go, Justin Jones – 15,039. Crystalyne Curley – 8,424. Buu Nygren – 7,410.”

Farmington attorney Justin Jones came in third behind Buu Nygren during the 2022 primary.

Justin Jones speaks during his 2026 primary watch party in Window Rock, Ariz. (Courtesy Justin Jones for Navajo Nation President / Facebook)

This time, Jones and sitting Navajo Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley beat out incumbent President Nygren, who has faced ethics violations and allegations of corruption.

Now, Jones and Curley will pick their VP running mates before November.

If elected, Curley would be the first Diné female president.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) makes remarks regarding her bill that passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on July 17 2026.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced last week that her bill allowing five Alaska Native communities in Southeast Alaska to receive land entitlements passed out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The legislation, called The Alaska Native Landless Equity Act, would allow Petersburg, Wrangell, Haines, Ketchikan, and Tenakee to form Alaska Native corporations and each receive about 23,000 acres of federal land, as KFSK’s Baiz Hoen reports.

Those communities were excluded from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) when it became law over 50 years ago.

ANCSA transferred 44 million acres of land to more than 200 regional, village, and urban corporations to resolve land claims throughout Alaska.

The Landless movement is not without controversy.

ANCSA mandated the newly recognized Native corporations to make a profit. Because of this, some who oppose Sen. Murkowski’s bill argue that it would privatize 115,000 acres of land in the Tongass National Forest.

Murkowski spoke directly to the opposition in her committee remarks last week. She addressed concerns about environmental conservation, but said “this should not be the controversial measure it has historically been viewed as.”

“There are no better stewards of our Alaska lands than the people who have lived on them for thousands of years.”

The Alaska delegation has been introducing landless legislation since the early 1990s without success. In 2023, a landless bill introduced by Murkowski cleared committee for the first time.

Murkowski also noted during remarks that a companion measure by U.S. Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) passed in the House of Representatives last month — with no recorded opposition.

Rep. Begich’s bill is the first Landless bill to clear the House.

“ And I think there’s good reason for that because it comes back to the inequity that we have seen, uh, and in an effort to do right by the Alaska Native peoples who were excluded so many decades ago.”

Murkowski’s legislation now heads to the Senate floor for consideration.

Fort Harney in Oregon in 1872.

On this day in 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed an executive order canceling Oregon’s Fort Harney Military Reservation and placing those lands under the existing Malheur Indian Reservation.

The order expanded the reservation established in 1872 for the Northern Paiute and Snake peoples as federal policies continued reshaping Native homelands.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026 – First Nations in Canada wary of new bill addressing longstanding water issues