Author: Donovan Quintero

Ina Noggle remembers the ambulances.

Sixteen years after Del Lynn Peshlakai, 19, and DeShauna Peshlakai, 17, were killed by a drunk driver in Santa Fe, their parents are still turning that loss into a public fight against impaired driving.

Navajo Nation leaders used Wednesday’s Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on S. 953, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025, to press lawmakers to ratify and fund a major settlement they said would help bring water to families who still haul it by hand.

In a chapter house on the Utah portion of the Navajo Nation, where the San Juan River cuts through red desert on its way toward the Colorado River, a small group of mostly elderly community members gathered on a Saturday morning to confront a question with consequences far beyond the meeting room.