Laurel Morales

When someone with a mental disability is arrested and winds up in federal court, their attorney has to reveal whether the person is competent to stand trial. The defendant must then go through analysis and restoration before even entering a plea. That can take a long time. The hard part is they have to wait it out in jail. It’s a slow process that’s been exacerbated by COVID-19. → More Fronteras Desk News

A recent study shows as many as 600 jobs could be created reclaiming recently shutdown coal mines on the Navajo and Hopi nations.

The White Mountain Apache Tribe fears a second wave of COVID-19 cases. Nearly 2,800 people have tested positive. More than 20% of the small eastern Arizona tribe have contracted the virus. Most have recovered but 42 people have died.

Some Navajo are having trouble applying for the tribe’s hardship assistance program. Last month the Navajo president approved a plan to provide $49 million in CARES Act funds for emergency financial assistance during the pandemic. An enrolled member can receive up to $1,500.

The Navajo Nation has built more towers to improve wireless access for students and first responders. The tribe is using federal COVID-19 relief funds for the project.

KJZZ's Laurel Morales tells the stories of people who faced darkness and how those incidents changed the trajectory of their lives in a new podcast from KJZZ Original Productions.

Five years ago an EPA crew investigating a mine in Colorado accidentally unleashed 3 million gallons of metal-contaminated waste into the southwest river system. Downstream hundreds of Navajo quit farming as a result. But that’s changed in recent months as the tribe became one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

Two decades ago the National Forest Service banned mining in parts of the Southwest for ecological or recreational reasons. Some of those so called “mineral withdrawals” are expiring this year.

The federal government is opening seven offices across the country, including one in Phoenix, to solve cold cases involving the hundreds of murdered and missing indigenous people.

Even though the number of new coronavirus cases continues to decline on the Navajo Nation, its president has decided it’s too soon to reopen.