Local News

An estimated 15,000 households on the Navajo Nation lack electricity. But efforts are underway to bring power via off-grid solar systems to residents in some of the most isolated communities there.

Top federal officials traveled to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Thursday to announce a $20 million grant to the Hopi Nation for a solar power project and 12 miles of powerlines that will bring electricity to nearly 900 homes.

Each spring and fall, migrating birds take on journeys that put Olympic athletes in the shade. For example, a Western Tanager weighing-in at around an ounce may fly from Western Canada to Central America.

At the Crane Petroglyph Heritage Site in the Verde Valley, visitors can reach through time for a glimpse of life in this place almost a thousand years ago.

More than 200 volunteers helped plant pine seedlings in a fire scar east of the San Francisco Peaks. The area burned in the 2010 Schultz Fire, was replanted, and then burned again in the 2022 Pipeline and Tunnel fires.

More than a hundred people gathered Saturday at Red Butte south of the Grand Canyon to protest the mining and hauling of uranium ore. It’s the latest in a string of Indigenous-led protests calling for the closure of the Pinyon Plain mine.

In northern Arizona a dry spell can last for weeks, even months, before the monsoon arrives. During a severe drought a Navajo medicine man invited commentator Scott Thybony to join a rain-bringing ceremony below the San Francisco Peaks.

Visitors awed by the size and beauty of the Grand Canyon often comment on how beautiful its night skies are, too. Many visitors get their first-ever sight of the Milky Way there – and night sky programs are the most popular run by the National Park Service, with attendance around five times higher than for geology presentations.

It's been nearly two decades since astronomers voted on the definition of a planet and demoted Pluto. Some scientists are still unhappy with the decision, and a group in California recently proposed a new definition. Gerard van Belle of Lowell Observatory says the proposal falls short for Pluto fans but has reignited the debate.

In late July, the first truckloads of uranium ore were shipped from the Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon. The mine’s owner says it's crucial as the world moves away from fossil fuels, but conservationists and Indigenous communities are pushing back.