Flagstaff Today - News and Photos

Two immigration agents will begin working Monday in northern Arizona for a 90-day trial period as part of a federal effort to determine if agents should be posted there permanently, officials said Tuesday.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who will work out of Flagstaff, will assist local police agencies investigating immigration-related crimes in Coconino, Yavapai and Mohave counties.

The agency, responsible for immigration enforcement away from the border, focuses on southern Arizona and metropolitan Phoenix and has never had agents stationed in northern Arizona. Its response to immigration incidents in rural areas has been criticized in the past by state officials.

The move wasn’t based on complaints from local officials, but instead was meant to examine whether the agency needed to expand its enforcement into northern Arizona, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

KVOA

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Work is under way to develop a wireless grid on the Navajo reservation.

The Navajo Technical College in Crownpoint has teamed up with staff at the University of California-San Diego’s supercomputer center to develop the grid.

The first phase calls for building a network that could hook into the national LambdaRail, an ultrahigh-speed network used by the University of New Mexico and other schools.

The first phase also calls for taking advantage of another next-generation network known as Internet Two.

An extended system of broadband towers would then allow schools, medical clinics, hospitals and homes within a 15- to 30-mile radius of Navajo chapter houses to be connected.

Developing a wireless grid on the Navajo Nation could take years.

KOBTV

Single, larger campus will have room for more students

Northern Arizona University will soon consolidate its smaller Phoenix locations by moving to a larger campus April 1.

Classes, which will be part of the school’s distance learning program, begin this summer. NAU committed to a 10-year, nearly $570,000 annual lease for a 40,000-square-foot building at 15601 N. 28th Ave., formerly a University of Phoenix campus.

University of Phoenix will move about two miles north and lease space at the Union Hills Office Plaza at Interstate 17 and Union Hills Drive.

Arizona Republic

A man living in a tent near Mountain Dell died in November from a fire that engulfed his tent.

Another man, from Tuba City with no address in Flagstaff, died in January behind the Safeway on University Plaza.

Both deaths can be attributed, at least in part, to the northern Arizona cold this season.

In an effort to try to prevent more weather-related deaths of transients or homeless people, some local non-profit agencies are working together with police and social services to offer an emergency shelter during the winter months….

….The emergency shelter, which opened Saturday at El Divino Redentor, the oldest church in Flagstaff on South San Francisco Street, will house up to 30 homeless men a night for the rest of the winter….

….The shelter opens at 6:30 p.m. and closes at 7:30 a.m. The day drop-in room will be open from 8 a.m. to noon. But White said depending on volunteer help, the room could be opened for longer periods during the day, especially in cold, stormy weather.

azdailysun.com

Navajo Indians who served as code talkers in World War II urged lawmakers in Phoenix on Monday to pass legislation honoring them, but a Hopi tribal leader sparked debate by saying Navajos weren’t the only code talkers.

“We want to be remembered significantly for helping the U.S. in its time of emergency,” Keith Little, a member of the Navajo Nation who served as a code talker in the Marine Corps, told the Senate Committee on Government.

Philip Quochytewa, a Hopi Tribal Council member and Vietnam veteran, told lawmakers that honoring just Navajos would overlook members of his and other tribes who he said served as code talkers throughout U.S. history.

Tucson Citizen

PHOENIX (AP) — A natural gas company that has been locked in negotiations with the Navajo Nation on right of way access for a pipeline has reached an interim deal with the tribe.

The deal between El Paso Natural Gas Co. and the Navajo Nation extends the pipeline right-of-way agreement for a year while the two sides continue to negotiate compensation terms. El Paso operates an east-west gas pipeline that crosses about 900 miles of the reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. It delivers gas from Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma to western markets.

MyWestTexas.com

More than a month has passed since the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office deemed the police shooting death of Kyle Garcia justified.

But neither the Garcia family nor the Arizona Daily Sun has gotten access to the investigative report that serves as the basis for the finding.

That has the family’s attorney outraged. He has just 20 days remaining under the law in which to file a possible wrongful death claim against the city of Flagstaff.

azdailysun.com

PORTLAND, Ore. Four condors from the Oregon Zoo are now at Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, to prepare them for release into the wild in Arizona.

The birds include Tatoosh, born in April 2005. Tatoosh was the second condor to be hatched in Oregon in more than a century.The others are Meriwether, also hatched in 2005, and Ursa and Wiley, both hatched in the spring of last year.

Tatoosh and Meriwether are slated for release this summer into the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona. The younger two will be released during the summer of 2008.

KOLD

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Flagstaff, has joined Democrats this year in voting to negotiate lower drugs prices on behalf of all seniors, cut interest rates for undergraduate college students and raise the minimum wage.

He’s voted for three out of six bills that Democrats deemed early priorities, suggesting he might have an independent streak.

This contrasts with two prior terms during which Renzi voted with the Republican majority on nine out of 10 bills.

In addition, he joined an ultra-conservative minority in voting against the McCain anti-torture bill and for a bill to end all U.S. funding of the United Nations.

azdailysun.com

The northern Arizona city sits in one of the most volcanic areas in North AmericaWhen it comes to Mother Nature rearranging the furniture, give me fire every time. Hawaii? Lava. Iceland? Lava. Pompeii? Sneaky, middle-of-the-night lava.

Colliding continents are fine, but too big and too slow to appreciate, and erosion is hardly sexy.

But trudging down the gullet of an inky-black lava cave north of Flagstaff – once a pumping artery of gajillion-degree magma that would have vaporized my flesh at 20 yards – it occurred that, as amazing as this formation is, you wouldn’t have wanted to be around to see it happen.

Orange County Register

Navajo Code Talker David Tsosie has died at age 83.Tsosie died Saturday in Bloomfield, where he had lived for several years.