The Bureau of Indian Affairs' Navajo Area director, Omar Bradley, has signed the final documents taking 405 acres of land into trust for the Navajo Nation.

The Hopi reservation sticks out like a sore thumb on the state's congressional map. Instead of being in the same district as the larger Navajo Nation, which surrounds it, the Hopi land is connected by the Colorado River to residents in the far western side of the state.

According to the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, the largest utility provider on the Navajo Reservation, more than 18,000 households there still lack electricity. that number accounts for 75 percent of all U.S. households without electricity. Nowhere in the entire country are there so many people without power, despite millions of dollars in federal grants that were supposed to bring power to parts of the Navajo Nation.

A Navajo presidential candidate and his running mate are among tribal officials charged in an investigation of slush funds.

No woman has served as Navajo president, although the matriarchal society has strong reverence for women as caretakers and heirs to everything from home site leases to sheep. When introducing themselves, Navajos start with their mother's clan name.

Arizonans who are registered to vote at a Tempe precinct, work in Glendale and drive their kids elsewhere for school would have more options to cast a ballot under a goal shared by the candidates for secretary of state.

A vote on settling the Navajo Nation's water rights in the lower Colorado River basin will have to wait for another day. The Tribal Council on Wednesday tabled a bill that would have given the tribe 31,000 acre-feet of water a year from the Colorado River, the unappropriated surface flows from the Little Colorado River and nearly unlimited access to two aquifers beneath the reservation.

A freshman lawmaker and a former Arizona real estate commissioner are vying for the Democratic nod to become the state's next chief elections officer and second in line to the governor.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill into law earlier this year to ban an Hispanic studies program in one school district while simultaneously crafting an exemption for culture-based classes for other minority populations.

A Navajo presidential hopeful has filed an expected challenge to tribal President Joe Shirley's bid for a third consecutive term and contends he's breaking the law on term limits.