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PHOENIX – Immigration judges, attorneys and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers are calling on the Department of Justice to close all immigration courts because it’s dangerous to hold people in public spaces as COVID-19 continues to spread. The department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review operates four courts in Arizona. The courts’ websites and automated.

PHOENIX – Arizona health officials have the go-ahead to test at the state level for coronavirus cases and are awaiting test results for a second potential case of COVID-19, a novel disease that has sickened nearly 89,000 worldwide and killed six in the U.S., public health officials said Monday. “We are taking precautions to protect.

PHOENIX – A bill that would disqualify early election ballots that are missing signatures would violate voters’ rights, opponents say. Senate Bill 1032 would throw out a vote if the envelope containing the ballot wasn’t signed as required – that signature confirms the person is registered to vote and voted on the ballot tucked inside..

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers split on party lines Thursday as the House passed a resolution that lays out the framework for the next public phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. The 232-196 vote followed two hours of fiery debate, in which Republicans like Peoria Rep. Debbie Lesko called the resolution a “total.

PHOENIX – A boom in manufacturing in Arizona – from electric cars to high-end golf clubs – is helping to lower unemployment in the U.S., Gov. Doug Ducey told business leaders this week, noting that manufacturing jobs in the state now outnumber construction jobs. Ducey, joined by Tom Gilman, an assistant secretary of the U.S..

WASHINGTON – The acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services insisted to a House panel that there are no new plans to end “medical deferred action,” but Democrats called the administration “cruel” for considering the notion in the first place. Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing came nearly two months after USCIS reversed its plan to.

PHOENIX – “How do you feel knowing that someone died because of one dollar?” Arizona Corporation Commissioner Sandra Kennedy asked that question of Donald Brandt, chief executive of utility company Arizona Public Service, as he sat at before the commission. APS has been under public scrutiny since the Phoenix New Times broke a story in.

WASHINGTON – One official called it fitting: The military operation that tracked down and killed the leader of the Islamic State this weekend was named for Kayla Mueller, a Prescott native who was killed while being held by that group in Syria in 2015. Operation Kayla Mueller led to the death of IS leader Abu.

WASHINGTON – Arizona joined 46 other states and territories this week in antitrust investigation of Facebook, including whether the social media giant violated consumer data privacy and whether it is a monopoly that has driven up advertising prices and suppressed competition. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Tuesday that he joined the investigation being spearheaded.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers were among dozens of Republicans who stormed the House impeachment hearings Wednesday to protest the closed-door meetings and demand that Democrats open the proceedings. The action brought an abrupt halt to the deposition of Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper, who was about to testify in the House’s inquiry into a.

WASHINGTON – More than three months into the school year, Chinle Unified School District still has teaching vacancies to fill and many of the teachers it does have on payroll do not have a standard teaching certificate. But that’s better than it was at the start of the year, and Chinle Associate Superintendent Doug Clauschee.

PHOENIX – Federal officials are determined to recruit workers and accurately count residents for the 2020 census, especially such historically underserved minorities as Native Americans and Hispanics, census leaders said Tuesday. “It’s important we hire people in every community in order to have a complete and accurate census,” said Timothy Olson, the Census Bureau’s associate.

WASHINGTON – Running for office has always required determination, funding, a message – and now it apparently requires a book deal. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., announced a book deal Monday that will put her memoir, “Dare to Fly,” on bookshelves in May, just six months before the election for her Senate seat. She’s not the.

WASHINGTON – Rep. David Schweikert’s campaign fundraising is down sharply against a possible Democratic challenger with a larger warchest, his office is dogged by ethics complaints and he appears to be running what one analyst called a “zombie” campaign. All that combines to make Arizona’s 6th District congressional race competitive and closely watched nationally. But.

WASHINGTON – Retired Phoenix firefighter Mike Lambert stood in a sea of red “Make America Great Again” caps Thursday and shared his opinion on Congress and its impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. “It’s a joke,” said Lambert, one of several hundred who rallied on the West Lawn of the Capitol to voice their support.

WASHINGTON – The dream of a national museum dedicated to the Latin American experience took one step closer to reality Thursday, as lawmakers and advocates touted a bill that they think has a good chance of putting a museum on the National Mall. A building may still be years away, but advocates said it is.

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm Arizona businesswoman Barbara Barrett as the next Air Force secretary, one day after brushing aside an attempt to stall her nomination over Air Force use of Trump hotels for official business. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was unhappy that Barrett refused at her confirmation hearing last month.

WASHINGTON – Three Arizona Republicans held fast with President Donald Trump as the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to rebuke the president’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. The 354-60 vote included 129 GOP lawmakers who crossed the aisle to vote with every Democrat in support of the resolution that also called on.

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just announced a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump and the White House whistleblower report was about to drop when Arizona Democrats and Republicans met on a recent morning. Not to fight. But to chat over doughnuts and coffee. It was the latest of what has become.

WASHINGTON – Two weeks after a federal court halted some detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Arizona law enforcement agencies say they are still doing business with the agency as usual. A U.S. District judge in Central California ruled last month that ICE requests to hold people based solely on an electronic database of.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers joined a growing bipartisan chorus critical of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull American troops from Northern Syria, even as Trump continued to defend the plan Thursday. Sen. Martha McSally is one of several Republicans – including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who this week called the move short-sighted, saying it.

WASHINGTON – Congress returns next week from a two-week recess, a time when lawmakers can go home and meet with voters – except that many of them don’t. A report by the Town Hall Project found that Arizona lawmakers have held just 28 town halls so far this year – and 19 of those were.

WASHINGTON – Border officers apprehended nearly 1 million migrants at the southern border in fiscal 2019, an 88 percent increase over the previous year, according to Customs and Border Protection numbers released Tuesday. Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said at a White House press briefing that the “staggering” increase was one that “no immigration system.

WASHINGTON – Three days after he told staff at the McCain Institute that he was still their executive director, Kurt Volker resigned Monday because his role in a House impeachment inquiry “risks becoming a distraction” to the institute’s work. Arizona State University President Michael Crow praised Volker’s “service guiding this important university initiative” and said.

Updated Monday, Oct. 7 at 12:30 p.m. WASHINGTON – Three days after he told staff at the McCain Institute that he was still their executive director, Kurt Volker resigned Monday because his role in a House impeachment inquiry “risks becoming a distraction” to the work of the institute. Volker’s future with the institute was called.

Leer en español PHOENIX – The neon “Open” sign in the window casts a weak glow across La Olmeca, which is quiet except for a couple of diners. Georgia Martínez rushes from the kitchen, where a TV is tuned to a Spanish sports channel, to bring beers and plates of Mexican food to the tables..

WASHINGTON – To President Donald Trump, the White House whistleblower who reported concerns about his call with the Ukrainian president is comparable to a spy and a traitor. To Marianne Jennings, whistleblowers aren’t sinners – but they aren’t always saints, either. Jennings, an Arizona State University professor of business ethics and an expert in corporate.

WASHINGTON – Democrats have a 38-seat advantage in the House, where San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi has regained the speaker’s gavel and announced a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. Three House committees are aggressively pursuing charges that Trump misused his office for political purposes and the president has fired back by suggesting that.

WASHINGTON – Arizona has long been at the forefront of the school voucher and school choice movement, but State Treasurer Kimberly Yee told a Washington audience Tuesday that more needs to be done. Yee was among officials from several states who joined Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and White House Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway to promote.

PHOENIX – The voting rights of Native Americans in Arizona are routinely suppressed by a slew of requirements and practices, such as photo ID laws and a scarcity of polling places, Navajo and Gila River leaders said Tuesday at a congressional hearing in Phoenix. “If someone from the Navajo Nation submits a ballot on Election.

WASHINGTON – Arizona businesswoman Barbara Barrett’s nomination to be Air Force secretary is expected to proceed without incident when the Senate returns from its two-week recess, despite concerns of one Senate Democrat who had threatened to hold it up. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was unsatisfied with Barrett’s answer when he asked if she would prohibit.

WASHINGTON – Kurt Volker is still serving as executive director of the McCain Institute, after resigning as U.S. special envoy for Ukraine when his name surfaced last week in a whistleblower’s report on President Donald Trump’s dealings with that country. Volker’s resignation, first reported by The State Press at Arizona State University, came after he.

PHOENIX – Immigration officials are not the “bad guys” trying to make the lives of law-abiding immigrants miserable but are going after undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, an Arizona Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday. “We’re human ourselves,” said Albert Carter, acting field office director for ICE enforcement removal operations in Phoenix. “We have.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers split on party lines this week as Congress voted again to terminate President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border, which he has cited to justify use of Pentagon funds for border construction. The resolution passed by the Senate Wednesday and the House Friday is virtually identical to.

WASHINGTON – State Rep. Jennifer Longdon, D-Phoenix, didn’t need to tell congressional lawmakers Thursday about the harm firearms can do: She showed them, when she rolled her wheelchair into a House hearing on the costs of gun violence. Longdon is paralyzed from the chest down, and her ex-fiancé lives with brain trauma and blindness, after.

WASHINGTON – Refugee organizations in Arizona and nationally said they were disappointed, but not surprised, at a Trump administration plan to reduce the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to the lowest level in modern history next year. White House officials announced late Thursday that the administration was proposing to cap the number of.

PHOENIX – As dusk fell Wednesday, activists with March for Our Lives Arizona placed sandals and shoes of people touched by gun violence at the base of the “Release the Fear” statue, cast from old firearms. “After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, it was time for me to step up and do something,” said Josie.

WASHINGTON – Arizonans on opposite sides of the immigration debate were in Washington Wednesday where they rallied on opposite sides of the Capitol in hopes of making their respective cases to Congress. On the West Front, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb joined close to 200 other sheriffs, lawmakers and “angel families” to say the U.S..

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers agreed Wednesday that President Donald Trump must turn over documents in the latest probe of his administration, even as they disagreed on what those documents mean and how the investigation should proceed. After hours of bitter partisan debate, the House voted 421-0 Wednesday to demand that the White House release the.

WASHINGTON – State officials agree on this much: “Not one red penny” of the $150,000 allocated for a task force on missing and murdered indigenous women that was created in May has been seen yet. But they disagree on who’s to blame. Arizona Sens. Jamescita Peshlakai and Sally Ann Gonzales, in Washington this week for.

WASHINGTON – Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday that the House would open a formal impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump, but her announcement did not appear to change any minds in the Arizona delegation. All four House Republicans repeated their vociferous opposition to the “baseless” inquiry, while four of the state’s five House Democrats who.

WASHINGTON – Arizona schools started this academic year with 21% of all teaching positions vacant, and nearly half of the teachers who were on the payroll did not meet the state’s certification standards. And that was an improvement from last year. Those are the findings of an Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association survey of 150.

WASHINGTON – The number of Arizonans without health insurance rose by about 55,000 people last year, according to new data from the Census Bureau, as a relatively strong economy was offset by hefty cost increases for coverage. The change from 2017 to 2018 raised the total number of uninsured in the state last year to.

WASHINGTON – An intraparty threat to censure Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is on hold for now, but progressives who called for the vote said they achieved their goal of putting the freshman Democrat on notice over her voting record. A censure vote could have come up as early as this weekend’s meeting of the Arizona.

WASHINGTON – Officials at a forum on human trafficking said Arizona is “leading at the state level” on prevention, but warned that people need to remain vigilant to what one speaker called a trafficking “epidemic” in the state. The remarks from Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Cindy McCain, widow of former Sen. John McCain and.

WASHINGTON – An inspector general’s report on the mental health of migrant children in federal detention found multiple shortcomings in how officials cared for children in custody last fall, with significant trauma and worsening mental health problems. Four Arizona detention facilities were among those surveyed for the report, which pointed to a shortage of clinicians,.

WASHINGTON – Tribal representatives told a Senate committee Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission is not doing enough to ease the regulatory burdens that keep Indian Country from getting wireless broadband access. The hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee was in response to a November Government Accountability Office report that highlighted the barriers tribes.

WASHINGTON – A Phoenix business owner told House members Wednesday that the Small Business Administration is doing a better job of giving minority-owned, small businesses a leg up, but that the agency still needs to improve. The comments by Fortis Networks CEO Clarence McAllister echoed those of other witnesses at a House Small Business Committee.

WASHINGTON – A new report claims that Arizona loses as much as $1.9 billion every year to costs directly associated with gun violence, from lost wages to expenses on everything from health care to police and criminal justice. That number balloons to $5.4 billion when indirect costs, such as the “reduced quality of life attributable.

WASHINGTON – A congressional attempt to salvage a foundering student loan forgiveness program was only marginally better, with just 4% of Arizona applications approved in the second round – and that was four times better than the national rate. The Government Accountability Office reported this month the same confusing guidelines and lack of communication in.

WASHINGTON – The Arizona Supreme Court Monday sided with two Phoenix women who said a city law aimed at preventing discrimination would have forced them to violate their Christian faith by creating custom invitations for same-sex weddings. A narrow majority of the court said that the religious convictions of Brush & Nib owners Joanna Duka.

WASHINGTON – Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey joined business leaders in Washington on Monday to push for final approval of the “critical” U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement and protect trade that is worth billions in trade to the state. Ducey and Arizona Chamber of Commerce President Glenn Hamer, speaking to a meeting of U.S. Chamber of Commerce members from.

WASHINGTON – Farming, real estate and manufacturing representatives stood and applauded as Army and Environmental Protection Agency officials formally signed documents this week to repeal an Obama-era rule that greatly expanded waters that are subject to federal regulation. But while some welcomed the end of the “Waters of the United States” rule, environmental groups warned.

WASHINGTON – Arizona vape-store owners were alarmed by the Trump administration’s announcement Wednesday that it plans to begin enforcing rules that would drive flavored e-cigarettes out of the market, an industry official said. The surprise White House statement was in response to recent reports that vaping-related lung illnesses have been confirmed in 33 states and.

WASHINGTON – Arizona businesswoman Barbara Barrett might have been the subject of a Senate hearing Thursday on her nomination to be the next Air Force secretary, but it was President Donald Trump who was often the focus. In an otherwise amicable confirmation hearing, some senators pressed Barrett and Ryan McCarthy, the Army secretary nominee at.

WASHINGTON – A House panel worked late into the night in a sometimes heated, sometimes emotional hearing on gun-control bills Tuesday, a potential preview of congressional debates to come in the weeks after a string of mass shootings. And in another preview of what could come, the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee rejected all Republican amendments.

WASHINGTON – Advocates reacted with alarm Tuesday to published reports that the Trump administration may again cut the number of refugees allowed in to the U.S., a move they said would endanger vulnerable people and tarnish the country’s standing. President Donald Trump has cut refugee admission limits every year since he took office, from a.

WASHINGTON – Despite repeated failures, Republican leaders rallied Tuesday in support of their latest version of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, called “the most important bill in Congress.” She was one of a score of GOP lawmakers at an hours-long hearing where lawmakers and health care providers called for.

WASHINGTON – Apprehensions at the southern border dropped sharply in August, to just more than 64,000 people, in part because of increased cooperation from Mexican authorities, a Customs and Border Protection official said Monday. But while apprehensions have fallen by more than half since peaking at 144,255 in May, this August was still higher than.

WASHINGTON – Mesa Mayor John Giles said he has spoken to friends, neighbors and strangers – including many conservatives – who he said support universal background checks on gun purchases, particularly after a string of mass shootings last month. “Frankly, the leaders of our country and our communities need to catch up to where the.

WASHINGTON – Potential challengers to Rep. David Schweikert were quick to jump on new ethics revelations Friday that there was “substantial reason to believe” the Fountain Hills Republican may have used congressional staff and resources to benefit his political campaigns. The allegations were released Thursday by the House Ethics Committee, which was already pursuing a.

WASHINGTON – The Trump Administration violated federal law when it diverted funds for national park improvements toward keeping places like Grand Canyon National Park open during the last government shutdown, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday. The 17-page legal opinion claims the Interior Department’s decision to use park maintenance fees for day-to-day services – including.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s road to renomination could get easier through Arizona, with the state Republican Party signing the paperwork Monday that will let it drop its presidential primary next year. One analyst turned his nose up at state Republicans who “don’t want to go through the process of actually allowing people to vote,”.

WASHINGTON – Two years after the Trump administration announced plans to kill Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program still has a pulse – though advocates worry about how long that might last. On Sept. 5, 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Obama-era initiative to protect young immigrants from deportation would be phased.

WASHINGTON – The Navajo Nation Council voted unanimously Thursday to oppose a Trump administration draft plan that critics say could put income restrictions for the first time on applicants to the Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program. The Department of Housing and Urban Development proposal would limit participation in the program to those making 115% of.

WASHINGTON – Hunting groups are applauding new federal rules creating longer seasons, extended hours and expanded methods for hunting and taking different types of game on national wildlife refuges. The changes, announced last week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, affect 1.4 million acres of federal land, more than 800,000 of which are in.

PHOENIX – Some in the audience snapped their fingers, showing approval of a politician’s words on gun violence. At times, some gasped. An audience of young and older, racially and ethnically diverse, came to a recent town hall to listen to ways to stop gun violence, particularly in communities of color. Congressional candidates and members.

WASHINGTON – Border construction near Yuma will receive almost $1.3 billion of the $3.6 billion the Defense Department said it will divert from planned military projects under the national border emergency declared in February by President Donald Trump. Among the 127 Pentagon projects scheduled to lose funding this year for Trump’s border construction push is.

WASHINGTON – Arizona will get more than $20 million in State Opioid Response grant funds from the federal government, part of $1.8 billion in grants the Trump administration said it was releasing to states Wednesday. The grants, now in their second year, are designed to give states the flexibility to “meet the needs of their.

WASHINGTON – Phoenix and 11 other Arizona police departments are among more than 400 in the U.S. that have partnered with video-doorbell maker Ring to connect authorities with homeowners who use the company’s technology. Some privacy advocates have raised concerns that the program could give police “access to essentially a networked” closed-circuit TV of communities..

WASHINGTON – When the state’s new universal licensing recognition law took effect last week, the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners was ready. The board had “over 40 applications pending prior to the application date, waiting to be granted on the first day,” said Emily Rajakovich, the director of boards and communications in Gov. Doug.

WASHINGTON – Arizona business leaders said they worry that a 15% tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods that takes effect Sunday will backfire and end up hurting economic growth at home. The new tariffs are set to be imposed on more than 6,000 items but will fall largely on consumer goods, according to the.

WASHINGTON – Time is running out for Navajo landowners who want to take part in the second round of a $1.9 billion federal program to buy back scattered and isolated parcels of land on the Navajo Nation. Friday was the last day for some owners of Navajo land in New Mexico to apply for a.

WASHINGTON – Arizona’s Senate race, already expected to be one of the toughest in the nation, got tougher this week when a Phoenix businessman announced a Republican primary challenge to incumbent Sen. Martha McSally. Longtime GOP donor and Trump supporter Daniel McCarthy said Wednesday that he will run against McSally, a first-term senator appointed to.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a Clean Water Act permit for the proposed Rosemont Mine site in southern Arizona, the latest development in more than a decade of legal challenges from tribes and environmental groups. The Aug. 23 decision by the Corps followed a July 31 court ruling that found the.

WASHINGTON – Officials called a $20 million grant for suicide prevention programs in state schools an important first step to deal with a growing problem, even as they said much more needs to be done. The Arizona Board of Education on Monday approved a $20 million plan to hire additional counselors, social workers or school.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has long complained about the Flores agreement, a 1997 court ruling that severely limits the amount of time that migrant children can be detained by the government. In theory, getting rid of the decades-old policy that the administration calls an immigration law “loophole” that incentivizes border crossing and forces family.

Updated Thursday at 5 p.m. PHOENIX – Three extensions of the Valley Metro light rail system will move forward after voters rejected Proposition 105, which would have halted the expansion. With 185,852 votes tallied, unofficial returns showed Prop 105 trailing 63% to 37%. Phoenix voters on Tuesday also shot down Proposition 106, which would have.

WASHINGTON – On any given day in the past year, about six people have stopped by the U.S. Naval Academy visitor’s center to ask about John McCain’s gravesite, where they have left everything from flowers to flags to miniature liquor bottles. The mementos are just one way the longtime Arizona Republican senator has been remembered.

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court Monday upheld a lower court’s finding that Colorado City had been run as an extension of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, violating nonmembers’ rights in the process. The Justice Department successfully sued the Arizona town for civil rights violations after finding that local utilities.

PHOENIX – A preschooler reportedly takes a doll from a dollar store. Police surround her parents’ vehicle in a sun-soaked parking lot, guns drawn. One officer threatens, with an expletive, to shoot. A head is slammed against a police car; legs are kicked apart. Onlookers videotape the scene, murmuring disapproval. A video goes viral. Changes.

BONDURANT, Wyo. – Marlene “Lanie” Beebe stood in a pair of slippers, surrounded by scorched trees. A long gravel road led to rubble: shards of pottery, doll heads and a blackened metal chair. That’s where her neighbor, Nikki Cowley, said she found Beebe one day, among the remnants of 20 years in her home. The.

SHINGLETOWN, Calif. – Unless it’s Sunday, Kelly Loew is steering her rusty-red Jeep down the same mail route in Shingletown, as she has six days a week for the last seven years. But she delivers less mail these days as California’s persistent wildfires drive residents away. Last year, California experienced its deadliest and most destructive.

OSO, Wash. — Katrina. Sandy. Harvey. Maria. Each was a disaster of shattering magnitude, battering America’s shores over the past two decades. But between these pivotal storms lie hundreds of smaller disasters that garner a fraction of the national attention and the billions of federal dollars that accompany them. A News21 analysis of Federal Emergency.

PHOENIX – While the debate around laws that would allow clean needle exchange programs to operate legally in Arizona continues, one organization continues working in a legal gray area to help stop the spread of disease. Shot in the Dark is a nonprofit that provides drug users with clean needles, educational materials, treatment referrals and.

PHOENIX – Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren lashed out at the Trump administration’s immigration policies Thursday night, telling a town hall crowd of 3,500 that “while Donald Trump may be willing to look the other way, President Warren will not.” The Massachusetts senator took the stage at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe to the music.

WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee pushed through a Republican-backed asylum reform bill on a party-line vote Thursday over the strident objections of Democrats, who were blocked from offering amendments to it. The Secure and Protect Act of 2019 would force migrants to apply for asylum at new facilities outside the U.S., increase the number.

PHOENIX – The city has launched its “giving meters” program, repurposing four downtown parking meters to help those who are experiencing homelessness. The four meters, which have been decorated by local artists, accept donations by coin or credit card to benefit PHX C.A.R.E.S., the city’s homelessness outreach program, which sends trained teams into the community.

WASHINGTON – A House panel grilled administration officials Thursday over migrant family separations and conditions at border detention facilities, but the hearing produced more partisan sparks than answers. Both sides at the House Judiciary Committee hearing said the situation at the border has reached crisis levels – but they agreed on little else. Republicans accused.

WASHINGTON – Five years after the Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix made national headlines for falsifying records about patient wait times, agency officials told House lawmakers Wednesday that the system has seen a “tremendous transformation.” Dr. Teresa Boyd of the Veterans Health Administration said wait-times are down nationwide, in many cases better than times in.

WASHINGTON – Arizona is one of the 43 states that could be affected by a Trump administration proposal to tighten restrictions on access to food stamps for people receiving other financial assistance. The Department of Agriculture said the rule, to be released Wednesday for public comment, would close a “loophole” in current policy that makes.

PHOENIX – Tourism continues to expand in Arizona, a boon for jobs, development and tax revenue, but the growth presents challenges to preserving the natural beauty drawing visitors to the state. “It just really appears that there is a problem as far as people management,” said Alicyn Gitlin of the Sierra Club. “But it’s a.

PHOENIX – The National Park Service wants to enhance telecommunications services within developed areas of Grand Canyon National Park, but it has to make sure the improvements don’t detract from the natural experience that draws millions of visitors each year. Public comment now is being sought on the proposal, which is based on operational needs.

PHOENIX – The press release that went out on July 6, 1969, began: “The United States will launch a three-man spacecraft toward the Moon on July 16 with the goal of landing two astronaut explorers on the lunar surface four days later.” That astronomical task, which was stated in the plainest of terms, would be.

WASHINGTON – If there was any question that Arizona’s 2020 Senate race would be one of the nation’s hottest, it was answered this week with an emphatic “yes” when second-quarter Federal Election Commission reports were released. Republican incumbent Sen. Martha McSally and her likely Democratic challenger, Mark Kelly, reported raising a total of just under.

PHOENIX – The Police Department is training more first-responders to use a nasal spray that can counter the effects of an opioid overdose, and it hopes to have nearly half of the force’s sworn officers trained by the end of next month. Although Narcan – a nasal-spray form of naloxone – is used by other.

WASHINGTON – Four Arizona Democrats had previously called for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, but an impeachment inquiry vote this week took a surprising turn when just two of those four voted for it. Phoenix Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton, who had both called for impeachment, joined 330 other lawmakers who voted.

WASHINGTON – Democratic lawmakers beat back a series of Republican amendments Wednesday before advancing bills to restrict mining around the Grand Canyon and on tribal lands in Arizona and New Mexico. In a sometimes emotional meeting, the House Natural Resources Committee gave preliminary approval to bills banning mining on 1 million acres around the Grand.

WASHINGTON – The House Tuesday condemned President Donald Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred” in response to the president’s tweets that progressive congresswomen should “go back” to the countries they originally came from. The 240-187 vote came despite near-unanimous opposition by Republicans, many of whom had been silent on the.

WASHINGTON – With deportation sweeps expected to start in major cities this weekend and footage of migrant families held in what critics call “deplorable” conditions at the border, immigration rhetoric heated up Friday on Capitol Hill. Hispanic Caucus members blasted planned roundups this weekend by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, telling of frightened families and children.

PHOENIX – Arizona’s 7th Congressional District is the most dangerous district for pedestrians in the U.S., according to a new report by a coalition that advocates for safe streets. From 2008 to 2017, 344 pedestrians were killed in the district, which includes downtown Phoenix, south Phoenix and parts of Glendale and Tolleson, the report by.

WASHINGTON – There is no question that James McKinney murdered Christine Mertens and James McClain in two separate botched burglaries in the Phoenix area in 1991. But should he be put to death for it? That’s the question the Supreme Court will consider this fall, and experts say its ruling in McKinney’s case could affect.

PHOENIX – For some metro Phoenix residents, the steady drumbeat of Fourth of July fireworks will be replaced with the high-pitched whine of electric motors as hundreds of drones take to the sky. For the second Fourth in a row, Carefree is sponsoring a swarm of drones bearing LED lights in lieu of a more.

PHOENIX – The City of Goodyear was faced with a difficult decision: publicly disagree with the state’s governor, or potentially lose out on 500 new jobs for its community. The outrage that had consumed the nation surrounding Nike’s pulling of what some perceived as an offensive shoe had reached the quiet suburb, and Mayor Georgia.

PHOENIX – The Police Department continued its rollout of body-worn cameras Wednesday, issuing the devices to about a dozen officers in the Cactus Park Precinct in north Phoenix. The department’s goal of providing body cams to 2,000 first responders by Aug. 12 now is almost halfway completed, authorities said. At the rollout, Sgt. Kevin Johnson.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday that his administration is “absolutely moving forward” with a push to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, just hours after the Census Bureau said it would not do so. The apparent reversal was dismissed by advocates as a “scare tactic” by the president aimed at keeping.

PHOENIX – Phoenix will take steps to collect and analyze data on police performance, the City Council decided Tuesday. As it works to bolster public accountability, the council also is considering a survey to measure public attitudes toward police and a civilian oversight board. A data-tracking system could work as an early-detection for police conduct,.

Updated at 5:30 p.m. PHOENIX – The dozens of protesters gathered outside the office of Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton’s office on Tuesday said they have seen enough of how officials treat migrants at detention centers. “It is a humanitarian crisis,” protester Hannah Pynn said. “And when children are crying out for their mothers and they’re.

WASHINGTON – Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, don’t often find themselves on the same side of an issue. But they were among the 102 House members who voted against an emergency border funding bill Thursday, a vote that scrambled the nearly party-line vote of just two days earlier on a Democrat-backed.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court handed a temporary victory Thursday to opponents of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, saying the government will have to go back and make a better case in lower courts if it wants to include the question. That could be difficult for the Census Bureau, which had said that.

WASHINGTON – Arizona representatives split down party lines Tuesday as the House approved $4.5 billion in emergency border funding, setting up a showdown with the Senate which passed its own version of the measure Wednesday. The votes come as federal officials say they could be just days away from running out of money to handle.

PHOENIX – Attorneys with Jeff Anderson & Associates released a report Wednesday containing the names, photos and information of 109 clergy accused of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Phoenix. “It is time for transparency, and it is time for disclosure,” said Jeff Anderson, whose law firm advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse. “The.

PHOENIX – Months after glitches at the polls led to long waits for voters, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved a $6.1 million contract to update the vote-counting system and establish an executive position they said will smooth future balloting. “One’s right to vote is sacrosanct,” Supervisor Steve Chucri said. “I think.

PHOENIX – Demonstrators rallied Wednesday outside City Hall and later addressed the City Council to show support for police in the wake of recent outrage over a viral video of a controversial police stop for suspected shoplifting. “It’s our turn,” organizer Nohl Rosen said Wednesday. “There is a war on police in this country. We.

WASHINGTON – Tribal members, environmentalists and lawmakers told a House panel Tuesday that including uranium on a list of “critical minerals” opens the door to expedited mining that will put tribal lands and national parks at risk. They were responding to a Trump administration announcement earlier this month that directed the government to locate uranium.

PHOENIX – The State of Arizona Acupuncture Board of Examiners has entered the fight against opioid abuse, approving chemical dependency programs for a form of acupuncture that involves the outer ear. Supporters say auricular acupuncture helps people break free of addiction, but a skeptic says there’s zero evidence acupuncture relieves any condition. “I don’t think.

WASHINGTON – Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords joined Democratic congressional leaders Thursday to demand that the Senate allow a vote on a bill that toughens background checks for gun purchasers. It is the third time this year that Giffords – who was severely injured in a 2011 shooting in Tucson – has been to Capitol.

WASHINGTON – The head of the Arizona National Guard defended the use of military troops on the border Thursday, saying their support puts more Border Patrol officers on the front lines – what one official called “badges back to the border.” “We support Customs and Border Protection by moving agents around, helping them with humanitarian.

PHOENIX – Environmentalists gathered Tuesday outside Sen. Martha McSally’s office to demand she support legislation requiring the U.S. to honor the Paris climate accord, from which the Trump administration intends to withdraw. “We’re sending a message to Senator McSally that we would like her to act on climate,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra.

PHOENIX – One by one, members of the community stepped up to the microphone at the City Council meeting, some trembling and angry. They gave voice to their experiences, talking of police encounters that didn’t end well. They asked for accountability, such as increased use of body cameras, better training, vetting of recruits and an.

PHOENIX – A community meeting intended to quell the bubbling anger over a viral video involving two Phoenix police officers grew contentious Tuesday night but ended with a promise: “We can do better.” Mayor Kate Gallego concluded the nearly three-hour meeting with a short statement, telling the hundreds who remained at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church.

WASHINGTON – A Coconino County official urged lawmakers Tuesday to “make sure the federal government meets its responsibility” of maintaining national parks, which face almost $12 billion in needed upkeep – $313.8 million in the Grand Canyon alone. Coconino County Supervisor Liz Archuleta told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that local officials have.

PHOENIX – President Donald Trump’s pledge to have federal authorities remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the country beginning next week set off a flurry of warnings from immigration advocates to prepare families for possible deportation. U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona said Tuesday that 2 million may face deportation, a move he supports. Trump.

PHOENIX – A Phoenix couple held at police gunpoint after their 4-year-old daughter allegedly shoplifted from a dollar store said Monday the city hasn’t done enough to make up for the terrifying incident, despite apologies by the mayor and chief of police. Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper spoke publicly after announcing last week they plan.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, said he expects “full vindication” after the House Ethics Committee’s request for documents involving four-year-old allegations of a hostile workplace in his congressional office. The request this month makes Grijalva the second Arizona lawmaker being looked at by the committee. The panel has been investigating claims for more than.

PHOENIX – Arizona scrapes along the bottom of the nation in children’s well-being, ranking 46th in 2019 Kids Count data released Monday. Lack of affordable housing emerged as a pressure point. Arizona dropped one place from last year in the annual report on states. But child advocates often have called out Arizona for low rankings.

WASHINGTON – Gov. Doug Ducey touted Arizona’s first-in-the-nation universal licensing recognition law at the White House Thursday to a receptive audience of governors and the president, who were there to talk about workforce mobility. Ducey, sitting to President Donald Trump’s immediate left at a large table in the Cabinet Room, said the state’s universal licensing.

PHOENIX – Undocumented immigration from Mexico has dropped so significantly over a decade that Mexicans no longer make up the majority of those living in the U.S. illegally, according to a Pew Research Center report. Mexicans make up less than half the total undocumented immigrant population for the first time in more than half a.

WASHINGTON – A Pima County supervisor told lawmakers Wednesday that a plan to limit the so-called Waters of the United States rule would end up eliminating clean-water protections for “rivers like the Santa Cruz, the Salt, the Gila.” Pima Supervisor Richard Elias told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that states like Arizona need.

SACATON – More than four in five Native American women will experience violence in their lifetime, according to one federal study. In another report, Arizona ranked third in missing indigenous women and girls. Those statistics are part of the reason federal officials met Tuesday with tribal leaders in Sacaton on the Gila River Indian Community..

PHOENIX – The trial of No More Deaths volunteer Scott Warren ended Tuesday without a verdict. Warren faced 20 years behind bars on charges of conspiring to transport and harbor two undocumented immigrants he encountered in the desert of southern Arizona last year. Judge Raner C. Collins of the U.S. District Court in Tucson declared.

PHOENIX – A national outbreak of hepatitis A, which can cause nausea, jaundice and, in rare cases, kill, is sweeping through the state, Arizona health officials reported. Two people have died of the liver disease in Arizona. Since November, 353 cases have been reported, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Nearly 90 of.

PHOENIX – The more than 500,000 military veterans in Arizona now have greater access to health care options beyond those available from the Department of Veterans Affairs. A nationwide program that took effect Thursday expands the circumstances under which veterans can access care outside the VA system. “It’s going to allow veterans to access the.

WASHINGTON – The number of migrants apprehended at the southern border surged to 144,278 in May, bringing the total for the first eight months of fiscal 2019 to 676,315, already more than any full year in the last decade. More than 20,000 of those apprehensions were in Arizona, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,.

PHOENIX – Federal judges are weighing whether the U.S. can be held legally responsible for failing to protect future generations from climate change. That’s at the heart of Juliana v. United States, in which 21 young people from around the country claim they have a constitutional right to be protected from man-made climate change. In.

WASHINGTON – Tribal and environmental officials urged House lawmakers Wednesday to protect sacred land and natural resources by supporting a permanent ban on mining on just over 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon. The “Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act” would prohibit all mining in the affected area, but supporters were focused on the uranium.

WASHINGTON – The House voted mostly on party lines Tuesday to approve a bill that would protect millions of “Dreamers” from deportation and give them a pathway to citizenship, a bill Republicans said would only lead to more illegal immigration. Just seven Republicans crossed the aisle to vote for the bill, which passed Tuesday evening.

TUCSON – The trial of No More Deaths volunteer Scott Warren began Wednesday with the prosecutor asserting that federal authorities are not targeting humanitarian aid along the border with Mexico. “No More Deaths is not on trial,” Nathaniel Walters told the jury. “Scott Warren is.” In his opening statement, however, defense attorney Gregory Kuykendall said.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers did not appear to be swayed Wednesday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s careful recap of his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, with both Democrats and Republicans digging in to previous positions. Mueller’s 9-minute statement at the Justice Department said his two-year investigation found “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere”.

PHOENIX – Arizona’s $11.8 billion budget for fiscal 2020, which was passed late Monday only after Republican lawmakers demanded changes to child sex-abuse laws, includes money for schools, infrastructure and health care. But other measures, including one that would have funded pregnancy crisis centers, were left out. The main source of the last-minute conflict was.

WASHINGTON – New Census Bureau figures show that per-pupil spending in Arizona’s public schools was fourth-lowest in the nation in 2017, hampering the state’s efforts in recent years to improve education funding. The report this week said Arizona spent $8,003 per student in fiscal 2017, well below the national average of $12,200 that year and.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump this week approved a disaster declaration for the Navajo Nation in the wake of a February storm that dumped snow on the reservation, isolating some communities and leading to flooding. The declaration, signed Wednesday, is the first step in a process that will let the tribal government seek Federal Emergency.

WASHINGTON – Buckeye posted the fastest growth rate among cities in the nation last year, while Phoenix held the top spot for the size of its overall growth, according to new numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, released Thursday, said Buckeye added 5,813 residents, an increase of 8.5% in just a year, while.

PHOENIX – Clay Hollinshed found himself sleeping under the stars in a community park near Grand Canyon University in west Phoenix this past winter. But he wasn’t afraid. “I felt free,” he said, beaming ear to ear, his curly hair peeking out from inside the white bandana attempting to hold it in place. He had.

ELOY – Sit. Down. Wait. More than a dozen inmates at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy spend their days working with former racing greyhounds to understand these commands. They’re part of a unique program that allows the inmates at the private prison to rehabilitate and train the canines and prepare the dogs to go home.

MESA – A cacophony of voices speaking in Spanish, interspersed with laughter, fills a classroom at Rhodes Junior High School. Some students speak halting English, but on occasion they attempt to translate for students who don’t speak any. As the students try to type short paragraphs describing a time when they experienced conflicting emotions, several.

PHOENIX – Every January, volunteers fan out across Maricopa County to conduct the Point-in-Time homeless count in hopes of learning about challenges faced by people who lack shelter. But this year, a new question was added to the survey: “How many pets did you have sleeping with you last night?” Shanate Smith, a coordinator for.

WASHINGTON – Students will soon be flocking to summer internships, but those headed to Capitol Hill could see something interns there haven’t seen in decades – a little pay for the long hours and high costs of living in Washington. A budget bill funding fiscal 2019 operations for a number of agencies, including Congress, set.

WASHINGTON – The federal government promised college students in 2007 that if they took their degrees and went into a public service profession, they could apply to have whatever student loan debts they still had after 10 years forgiven. So far, the reality has been somewhat different. When the first 29,000 applications were filed with.

WASHINGTON — On a typical day in Arizona this year, more than 3 million robocalls were made to phone numbers in the state, an increase of more than 1.4 million a day from just a year earlier. Despite efforts to block the calls, most of which are illegal, the calls keep coming. And the Federal.

WASHINGTON – Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio vowed Monday to continue the fight to clear his name of a criminal contempt of court conviction, after the Supreme Court rejected his challenge of an appeals court ruling. “The battle continues, I am not surrendering,” Arpaio said Monday after the high court, without comment, refused to.

WASHINGTON – A divided federal appeals court Friday ruled that a class-action lawsuit over the state’s care of foster children can proceed against the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the state’s Medicaid agency. The suit was filed in 2015 on behalf of 10 children who said that state policies threatened their access to medical.

PHOENIX – Wildlife advocates say animals like the jaguar are at risk if President Donald Trump builds his planned border wall, with one group this week denouncing the administration’s Jaguar Recovery Plan calling it “inadequate.” “This so-called recovery plan won’t do anything to help the jaguar, so the threats to its survival and recovery will.

PHOENIX – Arizona this week became the 48th state to ban drivers from using hand-held cellphones behind the wheel. The law states that in a moving car, the driver is not allowed to operate a cellphone, including to write, send or read any text-based communication. Drivers also aren’t allowed to hold or support a mobile.

PHOENIX – Darby Cline sat on pastel-blue and white blankets spread on the lawn of the Arizona Capitol, bouncing her 4-month-old, Zaliyah Jewell-Borquez, and stretching the infant’s legs. She breastfed her daughter openly, chatting with another woman who sat close by with her child. That’s how it should be done, Cline said. “Apparently, it’s a.

PHOENIX – More than 20 years ago, employees of the Maricopa Association of Governments made projections for ridership numbers for downtown Phoenix’s newest project, the light rail system. Eric Anderson, who’s now executive director for the association, known as MAG, was among those employees who didn’t expect Phoenix would become the fifth largest city in.

WASHINGTON – A new report says Latinos are on track to be the largest minority voting group in 2020, when an estimated 32 million will be eligible to vote. The Latino Vote Project, a collaboration of several advocacy groups, said Thursday that the influence of those voters was already felt in 2018, with “no question”.

PHOENIX – The Arizona Senate voted 18-12 against making lemonade the official drink of the state of Arizona. Some lawmakers voted no because they said there are more important bills to decide. The Legislature is behind schedule and still needs to pass a budget. Other lawmakers took time to debate drinks they said better represent.

WASHINGTON – A border encounter between U.S. and Mexican soldiers earlier this month became a political issue Wednesday when President Donald Trump picked up the incident and threatened to send armed soldiers to the border in response. Trump was reacting to an April 13 incident when a handful of soldiers encountered each other south of.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Wednesday that it will waive dozens of environmental, health and other laws to clear the way for construction on about 58 miles of border barriers, including 12 miles of fencing near Yuma. The move was quickly attacked by lawmakers and environmental activists, who accused the administration of.

WASHINGTON – Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted said he was honored to be a featured speaker Tuesday at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast because it gave him a chance to “speak to the Catholics, especially the leaders all across the United States.” And when he spoke, he spoke directly: Olmsted told a packed hotel conference room.

PHOENIX – The road from Washington to St. Petersburg apparently passes through Arizona – at least the cyber-road does. That’s according to the long-awaited Mueller report on the two-year investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Buried in the 448-page report is a little more than a page that said Russian intelligence.

PHOENIX – Police officials on Friday said a growing number of 911 calls involving people with mental health issues has led to a spike in officer-involved shootings. Mayor Kate Gallego, pointing to a National Police Foundation report on the use of deadly force, called for an increase in mental health services to better serve the.

PHOENIX – Arizona lawmakers looked at the same 448-page Mueller report Thursday and saw two different things, with two very different reactions depending on which side of the aisle they are on. If there was one common thread, it was that nobody’s mind appeared to be changed by the report. The state’s Republicans saw a.

WASHINGTON – The House Ethics Committee on Wednesday released details of its probe of Rep. David Schweikert, R-Fountain Hills, that began last year finding “substantial reason to believe” he may have approved improper office expenditures and campaign contributions. Under committee rules, the original report of the Office of Congressional Ethics had to be released because.

PHOENIX – The Phoenix Police Department is the largest law enforcement agency in Arizona whose officers don’t carry the opioid overdose-reversal drug Narcan, a nasal spray form of naloxone. Officers at other area police departments, including Avondale, Glendale, Goodyear, Mesa, Scottsdale and Surprise, have access to Narcan and are allowed to administer the drug. In.

PHOENIX – Arizona small business owners are fighting for sales tax equality with online retailers, similar to 39 other states trying to collect taxes on goods that consumers buy online. But experts said Arizona’s tax system complicates the situation. A bill in the Legislature would require online retailers who do not have a physical facility.

TEMPE – Officials and experts are exploring a vexing question about the revolving bars of the criminal justice system: How can we stop people from ending back in prison? Arizona has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the country, according to speakers at an Arizona Town Hall earlier this month. The Arizona Department of Corrections.

WASHINGTON – Frontline border officials told a Senate committee Tuesday that the crisis at the southern border is real and that “something has to change” to combat the growing number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. The testimony came as Customs and Border Protection released new numbers that showed apprehensions at the southern border.

WASHINGTON – Two weeks after water officials told Congress there was urgent need to approve the Colorado River drought contingency plan, the House and Senate both passed a plan Monday and sent it to the president’s desk. If signed by President Donald Trump as expected, it would be the culmination of years of negotiations between.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump may have backed off his threat to close the border, but business leaders said Monday there is a very real slowdown in crossings after the redeployment of Customs and Border Protection officers. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week ordered 750 CBP officers pulled from ports and sent to assist.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – In a different year, Sen. Martha McSally might not have been on a stage at the U.S. Naval Academy telling college officials that they need to step up and do their part to end sexual assaults on their campuses. That was before this year, when the Arizona Republican shared a secret she.

BUCKEYE – A communitywide campaign to promote seat belt safety among young people, spearheaded by Verrado High School senior Ambar Silverio, could lead to a state law requiring back seat passengers to buckle up. “It’s really hard to pass a bill, and a bill can die for a lot of reasons,” said Erin Eisen, who.

WASHINGTON – To Kit Danley, the solution to the border crisis requires more than just politics: It requires that Americans “choose love instead of fear, and long to see Jesus in the faces of the most vulnerable” who show up at the border. Danley, president of Neighborhood Ministries in Phoenix, made the comments during a.

WASHINGTON – Gov. Doug Ducey gave conditional support Wednesday to a “short as possible” border shutdown, then shifted the blame to Congress which he said has been playing politics with the border issue. Ducey’s comments came after a brief meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump, who threatened last week to close the.

PHOENIX – More than a year has passed since state legislative leaders promised a code of conduct for its members, but the House Ethics Committee still has not produced a code or a policy on sexual harassment. Democratic lawmakers held a press conference Wednesday to urge Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, to fulfill.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump repeated threats Monday to deal with a surge of migrants by closing the U.S.- Mexico border, a move that has been called a potential “economic catastrophe” for Arizona. The threat came late last week, as Customs and Border Protection said it had 12,000 immigrants in custody – double what it.

PHOENIX – Sen. Martha McSally reiterated her support for stronger border security at a closed-door roundtable meeting Monday but stopped short of supporting President Donald Trump’s threats to shut down the southern border if Mexico doesn’t stop migrants from entering the United States. She also called on Congress to close “loopholes” that she said have.

PHOENIX – Arizona lawmakers could allow employers to slash the minimum wage for young part-time workers to as low as $7.25 an hour, a measure that drew a contentious crowd of supporters and opponents to a Senate committee hearing Thursday. The Commerce Committee approved House Bill 2523, sending the measure to the full Senate and.

WASHINGTON – Two days after courts removed the last hurdle to a Trump administration ban on transgender military service, the House voted 238-185 Thursday to condemn the ban – but not block it. Arizona lawmakers split along party lines, like most of the House, with Democrats supporting the resolution and Republicans backing the ban, which.

PHOENIX – The case of two Phoenix police officers who were hospitalized this week after accidentally being exposed to a white powder comes as police departments are training officers and changing their policies on how to handle suspicious substances. The unidentified officers were hospitalized Tuesday for a suspected fentanyl exposure, according to media reports. One.

WASHINGTON – The director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources told a Senate panel Wednesday there is an “urgent need” to authorize a multistate drought contingency plan for the Colorado River basin. Tom Buschatzke was one of several state and federal officials pressing Congress on the plan, years in the making, that is designed.

PHOENIX – News of a budget proposal that calls for eliminating funding for the Special Olympics concerns some in Arizona who could be impacted by the cut. “That’s asinine,” said Patrick Becker, the exceptional-student services director for Agua Fria Union High School District. “You’re saying we should only survive off of donations. But that’s not.

WASHINGTON – The “Green New Deal” faced its first test vote in the Senate Tuesday and a renewed round of criticism from Republicans, who called the expansive environmental bill a “Soviet-style takeover” of the economy. That was the description used by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott, during a Western Caucus news conference where lawmakers said the.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall continued to inch forward this week, as the Democrat-controlled House failed Tuesday to block the border emergency declaration that let the Pentagon approve $1 billion in wall work Monday. The Defense Department said it was tapping a counterdrug activities fund to let the Army Corps of Engineers.

PHOENIX – Lemonade is one step closer to becoming Arizona’s state drink. The Senate Government Committee voted 6-1 to move House Bill 2692, with only Sen. Juan Mendez voting against it. The bill now goes to the Senate Rules Committee and, if passed, the full Senate. Four senators jokingly proposed amendments to change the state.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers’ reactions to the report on the Mueller investigation were much like the summary itself – open to interpretation depending on which side of the aisle was talking and far from the last word on the topic. While Democrats demanded that the full report be made public, most Republicans echoed President Donald.

PHOENIX – Arizona Republicans say Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election was a “witch hunt” that exonerates President Donald Trump, but one legal expert who has written a book about prosecuting presidents cautioned that it’s premature for the president to declare victory. All sides agreed, however, that the full.

PHOENIX – Arizona’s growth continues to surge, with a 2019 census report estimating it was the fourth fastest growing state last year. The report, which estimates Maricopa County had reached more than 4 million people by 2016, said population growth in five Western states has surpassed other regions for seven decades. The growth of the.

GLENDALE – Sen. Martha McSally announced this week that the Department of Defense has agreed to establish a task force to combat sexual assault in the military. Thursday at Luke Air Force Base, she introduced some of the task force’s goals, including improving responses to sexual assault, especially the way they’re investigated and prosecuted. The.

WASHINGTON – It’s no secret that President Donald Trump is not a fan of the late Sen. John McCain, but instead of weakening the McCain fan club the president’s latest string of attacks may be having the opposite effect. Republican senators have come forward to defend their former colleague, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has.

PHOENIX – A bill that would move up the date of the Arizona primary election passed through the House Elections Committee on a party line vote Tuesday afternoon. Senate Bill 1154 would change the date of the primary elections from the 10th Tuesday before a general election to the first Tuesday in August. The bill.

SAFFORD – When Mayor Jason Kouts came home from work Jan. 23, 2018, his life was forever changed. But that change has awakened the entire town to the reality of addiction. Kouts’ wife of nearly three decades, Maria, was in the kitchen that afternoon. Their son, Josiah, 25, had missed work and been upstairs in.

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon has identified $150 million for military construction projects in Arizona that could be tapped to fund a border wall, with a $30 million project at Fort Huachuca the likeliest target in the state. The Arizona projects were part of $12.9 billion in projects nationwide from which the Defense Department said it.

WASHINGTON – Phoenix mom Claudia Faudoa joined dozens of activists Monday who called the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to relax standards on power plant emissions, like mercury, an “attack on American children.” “I’ve traveled all the way from Arizona this morning to tell you that my children are the most precious resource I have,” Faudoa.

TEMPE – United, they mourned, coming together in Arizona in a vigil to show that love triumphs over hate. Muslims. Jews. Christians. Lawmakers and civil rights activists. Hours after 50 people were gunned down and dozens were injured in a terrorist attack at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week, Arizonans spoke of overcoming hate.

WASHINGTON – Backed by sheriffs and members of “angel families,” including three from Arizona, President Donald Trump on Friday vetoed a bill that would have blocked his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border. “I knew this day would come, you know, that he would do something that proves to all of us.

WASHINGTON – A House committee voted Wednesday to rescind the law that lets the secretary of Homeland Security waive regulations that get in the way of a border wall, a move critics say is used increasingly by the Trump administration. The 17-12 vote by the House Homeland Security Committee split along party lines, with Democrats.

PHOENIX – Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment marched 38 miles over three days in support of making Arizona the last state needed to ratify the sweeping change to the Constitution. But on Wednesday, their efforts fell short in the Senate, and the ratification effort in Arizona appears to be dead. Advocates argue that the.

PHOENIX – Kate Gallego became the second woman to be elected Phoenix mayor, handily defeating her former City Council colleague Daniel Valenzuela. Gallego, who was leading the runoff by 24,000 votes Wednesday afternoon, thanked cheering supporters in downtown Phoenix at her watch party Tuesday night. Margaret T. Hance was Phoenix’s first female mayor, elected to.

WASHINGTON – House Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday that would provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 2 million immigrants protected under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, Temporary Protected Status and other programs. The Dream and Promise Act, which would also apply to recipients of Deferred Enforced Departure status, would give DACA recipients conditional.

WASHINGTON – A University of Arizona law professor cautioned members of a Senate panel Tuesday against rushing into data privacy laws that could wind up hurting consumers. Jane Bambauer said she was “delighted” to see lawmakers considering federal laws on data privacy, but said they should not follow laws in California and the European Union.

WASHINGTON – A Trump administration plan to limit public assistance for legal immigrants simply “passes the buck down to cities who are going to have to figure out how to pay” for the lost benefits, local officials were told Monday. At a National League of Cities conference, a panel of officials from around the country.

PHOENIX – Eight months after the race began and four months after the general election triggered a runnoff, the voters will decide which former City Council member – Kate Gallego or Daniel Valenzuela – will be the next mayor of the fifth largest city in the country. Gallego campaigned on fiscal responsibility and addressing such.

PHOENIX – In the wake of several behavior scandals, the Arizona Legislature pledged last session to adopt a code of conduct in order to hold members more accountable for their actions in office. Nearly a year later, that code doesn’t exist. Republican leaders say it’s still in the works, but is it? “The House Ethics.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., revealed Wednesday that she was raped by a superior officer while in the Air Force but was too “ashamed and confused” to report it at the time. McSally, at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on sexual assault in the military, praised the victims who came to testify but.

PHOENIX – Arianna Dodde gave birth to her third child, Adrian, in August. Three days later, bleeding internally from a torn uterus, she had a heart attack and died. She was 23. Dodde had a healthy pregnancy, nothing out of the routine. As her stepmother, Leticia Garcia, said, “I don’t think people think anything is.

WASHINGTON – Tayler Tucker said a Trump administration plan to prohibit funding of family planning clinics that provide abortions will have a “huge impact” on the ability of Planned Parenthood Arizona to continue its work. But she’s just as certain when asked if the organization plans to back down in the face of the funding.

SELLS – One day they were there and the next they weren’t. No one talked about the Native women and girls who simply disappeared. April Ignacio knew they existed. She did not forget. How many were there? Nearly three years ago, she started a quest to help others recount how many of her Native sisters.

WASHINGTON – Capt. Jennifer Peace loved the time she spent stationed at Fort Huachuca with her family, even though she was living in fear. “There was always that discomfort that someone might find out that I was trans,” Peace said recently. “I loved Sierra Vista and Bisbee and being there, but I was just more.

PHOENIX – Mayoral candidates Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela grew heated over what constitutes leadership on public-safety issues and pension reform, and they disagreed sharply on renovations to the Suns arena during one of their final debates before the March 12 runoff. Over the 30-minute debate Wednesday night, Valenzuela touted his efforts to lift a.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers voted along party lines Wednesday as Democrats pushed one of their top priorities through the House, advancing a bill to strengthen background checks on gun transfers. The Bipartisan Background Check Act of 2019 was just barely bipartisan, with five Republicans among the 233 co-sponsors and only eight GOP votes in the.

PHOENIX – Alzheimer’s advocates are asking lawmakers to require dementia training for health care professionals, first responders, caregivers and others involved with people diagnosed with dementia. Senate Bill 1357 would create a coalition of Arizona lawmakers, representatives of nonprofits dealing with dementia and state government officials to recommend training policy and standards, the bill says..

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers split down party lines Tuesday as the House voted 245-182 to terminate President Donald Trump’s declaration of national emergency at the southern border. Trump said the declaration is needed so he can shift $6.7 billion, most of it from the Defense Department, toward construction of a border wall after Congress budgeted.

WASHINGTON – Former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords rallied House lawmakers Tuesday to support a bill that would expand the requirement for background checks on private gun sales. Giffords, the victim of a 2011 shooting that still makes it hard for her to walk and speak, was surrounded by other survivors, and by members of.

PHOENIX – Former astronaut Mark Kelly’s launch event for his U.S. Senate bid drew several hundred Democratic supporters, a curious Republican and even a candidate for Phoenix mayor Sunday. Kelly stuck with the space theme, calling his campaign a “mission for Arizona.” “If we don’t get our act together, Arizona is going to have more.

WASHINGTON – Compared to the tons of marijuana and the thousands of pounds of heroin that are confiscated at the border in a given year, the couple hundred pounds of fentanyl that were seized in Nogales recently may seem trivial. Don’t tell that to Erica Curry of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Phoenix office. “In Arizona.

PHOENIX – When Gov. Doug Ducey released his multimillion dollar budget proposal last week, he included $56 million in subsidies for day care, saying it would make such care more affordable for low-income families and expand its reach to about 29,000 children. “We’re going to move from the back of the pack to right in.

WASHINGTON – The top agriculture officials from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. reiterated the importance of North American trade and cooperation Thursday in their first joint meeting since a replacement deal for NAFTA was announced. The meeting of U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Canadian Minister of Agriculture Lawrence MacAulay and Mexican Agriculture Secretary Víctor Villalobos.

WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration wants to take a closer look at the ingredients and labeling for sunscreens, hoping to update regulations that the commissioner said have not been changed “in literally decades.” Among the proposed changes FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb outlined Thursday are limits on the upper end of SPF ratings –.

PHOENIX – The deep divisions over abortion in Arizona re-emerged Wednesday in a political free-for-all at a legislative hearing for House Bill 2696, which would have repealed a law requiring doctors to attempt to save the lives of fetuses born alive during an abortion. The clash started when Democrat Rep. Raquel Terán, the bill’s sponsor,.

PHOENIX – The Arizona Senate is considering a measure that would prohibit early voters from dropping off their mail-in ballots on Election Day, a move advocates say would simplify elections and opponents say would hamper voter rights. The change would mean Arizonans who receive an early ballot would have to mail it before Election Day.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers vowed to fight the loss of any funding at Luke Air Force Base, where up to $40 million in construction projects could be tapped for border wall funding under President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration. Pentagon officials have not said where they plan to get the $3.6 billion the president wants.

WASHINGTON – Hundreds gathered outside the White House Monday to protest President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, a move the protesters called a “massive abuse of presidential power.” “Stop the fake emergency. Defund the deportation force,” said Cristina Jiménez, co-founder of United We Dream and one of the event’s.

TUCSON – A transgender University of Arizona professor has sued the state over financial access to surgery his doctor said is medically necessary. Russell Toomey last month filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson on behalf of state employees and their dependents. The suit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Friday to fast-track a case challenging whether the Census Bureau can ask people their citizenship status, a move that advocates and local government officials fear will suppress immigrant participation. The Justice Department in 2017 had asked for the change that it said will provide important data that will help.

PHOENIX – President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Friday to redistribute government funds to build his long-sought after wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but some legal experts question whether it’s constitutional. “So we’re going to be signing today, and registering, national emergency and it’s a great thing to do, because we have an.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers’ reaction to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national border security emergency Friday split along party lines, with Democrats blasting the move as “fear-mongering” that sets “a dangerous precedent.” But Republicans praised the president for taking action they said is needed to “protect American lives.” Trump’s declaration came just hours after.

WASHINGTON – Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was one of just three Democrats who crossed party lines Thursday and voted to confirm William Barr as attorney general, despite critics’ concerns that Barr might interfere with probes of the Trump administration. The Democrats were not the difference for Barr, who was confirmed with a nine-vote margin, and.

PHOENIX – On a cold December day, a man asked his wife if he could drop off a birthday present for their son. Despite an order of protection against him, she relented and agreed to see him. Instead of arriving at their Phoenix home with a gift, he brought a gun. Nearly three decades after.

WASHINGTON – After months of gridlock, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill that permanently authorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that has sent almost $240 million to Arizona for parks and open space projects. The fund was the biggest part of a sweeping 698-page public lands package that includes everything from local.

WASHINGTON – Jessica Rubio remembers it all “happened super fast.” Her brother was standing outside their Phoenix apartment at 5 p.m. when ICE agents arrested him. By 3 a.m. the next day, he had been deported back to Mexico, ending six years of living in the U.S. That was 2011, one year before the Deferred.

Arizona offers more than 60 specialty license plates, according to ADOT. The state sold 495,617 specialty license plates during fiscal year 2018. Every plate cost $25, and is an additional $25 to renew annually. For every specialty plate bought or renewed, $17 goes towards charity. To create a new plate, a state lawmaker must introduce.

SURPRISE – A $20 bill. A rubber ducky. And grease – lots of grease. Money, toys and food byproducts clog wastewater systems in Surprise and other cities, costing time, wasting taxpayer dollars and frustrating workers dealing with the errors people flush down the drain, city leaders said. “We see everything – feminine products, we see.

PHOENIX – Mayoral candidates Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela squared off Tuesday night at the Burton Barr Library, discussing such big-picture issues as public safety and the economy but clashing over light-rail expansion, homelessness and recently approved renovations to Talking Stick Resort Arena. The former City Council members, both Democrats, will face each other in.

PHOENIX – The specialty license plate “In God We Trust” has come under fire because the group behind the plate is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBTQ views. Secular Coalition for Arizona, a nonprofit that promotes the separation of church and state in government, asks on its.

WASHINGTON – Former astronaut Mark Kelly said Tuesday he will seek the Democratic nomination for Senate in 2020, jumpstarting what experts were already predicting would be one of the “most competitive” races of the year. Kelly is the first Democrat to announce a challenge to Sen. Martha McSally, a Republican who was appointed to fill.

WASHINGTON – Tribal leaders Monday called on federal lawmakers to avoid another government shutdown, saying the shutdown that ended in January was felt across Indian Country, hitting everything from housing to tribes’ efforts at economic development. “The shutdown cut particularly deep across Indian Country, disrupting access to vital services like healthcare, housing, and food distribution,.

WASHINGTON – It was almost a throw-away line in a State of the Union address focused largely on border security and partisanship, but President Donald Trump’s call last week for a ban on late-term abortions got plenty of notice from pro-life groups. “I think we were really encouraged to see the president raise the profile.

WASHINGTON – Arizona was one of seven states that met with federal officials and veterans groups in Washington this week to map out a strategy for reversing the complex problem of suicides among vets. The problem is real in Arizona, which had the sixth-highest veteran suicide rate in the nation in 2016, due in part.

WASHINGTON – The National Park Service said it will reimburse national parks, including the Grand Canyon, that were forced to dip into local maintenance funds to remain partially open during the recent five-week government shutdown. Although advocates welcomed the reimbursement, they said parks should never have been put in the position of using their own.

PHOENIX – Food banks across Arizona launched mobile services to help federal workers during the recent five-week shutdown, which taught them how to prepare for the possibility of another shutdown. Jerry Brown, spokesman for St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, said the organization distributed more than 100,000 pounds of food during three mobile drives for employees.

PHOENIX – Getting a decision on a construction permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act takes longer in Arizona than in any other Southwestern state, a new study found. And that delay can drive up costs for consumers and taxpayers, one of the authors says. Before construction can begin on almost anything –.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump used his first speech to a divided Congress Tuesday to call for unity, with a pledge to “work with you to achieve historic breakthroughs” and a plea to “govern not as two parties, but as one nation.” “The agenda I lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or.

PHOENIX – As President Donald Trump gets ready to deliver his State of the Union address in Washington, Arizonans are hoping he addresses their concerns over the recent 35-day government shutdown, which cost the economy billions of dollars. Cronkite News polled 150 people in downtown Phoenix on what topic they hoped the president includes in.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will be doing the speaking, but members of Congress will deliver their own messages at the State of the Union address Tuesday, and Arizona lawmakers were no different. Lawmakers are allowed to invite one guest to the annual speech and many use the opportunity to send subtle – or not.

PHOENIX – President Donald Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency to get a wall built on the southern U.S.-Mexico border. But experts believe there are obstacles to using that power. Cronkite News reached out to Liza Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in.

WASHINGTON – The Defense Department said it will send an additional 3,750 active-duty troops to the southern border to support Customs and Border Protection officers by stringing razor wire, helping operate mobile surveillance equipment and other support activities. The 90-day deployments will bring the number of active military on the border to 4,350, an announcement.

WASHINGTON – As a child, Brynn Tannehill knew one thing: She wanted to fly. Tannehill grew up near the Luke Air Force Base 40 years ago, back when Camelback Road was a long expanse of farmland and orange groves, and the skyline was low enough to watch F-15s hightail into the sky at the crack.

PHOENIX – Arizona is one of many states that does not protect employees from being fired, denied housing or refused service because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Arizona lawmakers have tried in at least one previous session to update the state’s non-discrimination laws to add these protections, but they failed to gain enough.

WASHINGTON – Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said a border wall would do “very little” to stop the flow of drugs, most of which come in to the U.S. through ports of entry. Estrada’s comments came after a conference call hosted by the National Immigration Forum in which political and law enforcement authorities from.

WASHINGTON – Pentagon officials told House lawmakers Tuesday that there’s nothing unusual about the 2,300 active-duty troops at the Mexican border, calling it in line with similar deployments under previous administrations. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood and Vice Adm. Michael Gilday opened their testimony to the House Armed Services Committee by saying the.

PHOENIX – Debra Hickey, who has lived with chronic pain for two decades, recently went to her medical specialist for her regular dose of 30 milligrams of oxycodone. The doctor told her she had to reduce the dosage because of state regulations to decrease the number and dosage in patients’ opioid prescriptions. Hickey, 63, of.

GRAND CANYON – Waiting for the sun to rise, visitors to Grand Canyon National Park quietly stood at Mather Point. By 7:45, sunbeams pierced the low clouds to illuminate the red rocks and the sparkling snow. Despite the partial federal government shutdown, which ended Jan. 25, for most visitors, the closure didn’t affect their experience..

PHOENIX – The needs of military veterans have changed over the past two decades, expanding from housing to such services as a simple haircut, having a cavity filled or getting medical attention for PTSD. Stand Down, a nationwide event conducted in Maricopa County for nearly 20 years, once served only about 200 people, but in.

WASHINGTON – The five-week government shutdown that ended Friday shaved as much as $11 billion off the real gross domestic product, according to a report released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office. Much of that lost activity will come back when federal workers are repaid and those numbers, while large, will not create a major.

PHOENIX – What if your car could alert police when it’s stolen? That’s just one of the benefits of having a digital license plate. Reviver Auto first started selling the plates in California, and with the Arizona Department of Transportation’s recent approval, Arizonans can now give their bumpers a high-tech message board. “Arizona is the.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers welcomed Friday’s deal to temporarily reopen the federal government after a five-week partial shutdown, but cautioned that hard work remains to be done to make the deal stick. Congress passed, and President Donald Trump said he will sign, a bill for three weeks of funding that would allow shuttered agencies to.

WASHINGTON – For the past five weeks, the government shutdown has presented an uncomfortable choice to Arizona businesses that are required to use the shuttered federal E-Verify system to check the citizenship status of new hires. Don’t hire the workers they need and wait for the government to reopen. Or roll the dice and make.

WASHINGTON – Mesa Mayor John Giles derided the Trump administration’s plan to ask people their citizenship status on the 2020 census, calling it a “just stupid” move that could cost local governments federal funding and congressional representation. Giles was part of a U.S. Conference of Mayors panel Thursday on the 2020 Census that considered whether.

PHOENIX – Supporters of “hands-free” driving hope this legislative session will finally lead to a statewide ban on distracted driving, with a Republican-led bill perhaps gaining momentum after the recent death of a police officer. Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, R-central Phoenix, introduced the proposal at a news conference Thursday, standing with the family of Salt.

WASHINGTON – Arizona continues to be rated of one of the worst states in the nation for its highway safety laws, falling among those states that are “dangerously behind in adoption of … optimal laws,” a report said Tuesday. But one state official dismissed the report by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, saying the.

PHOENIX – Brendan Mahoney was one of those lawyers gay people routinely called when they were fired from a job or refused a room because of their sexual orientation. He would explain the reality of the law in Arizona: “There are no federal protections, no state or city protections. Your best solution is to get.

PHOENIX – Thousands of people, from families pulling children in wagons to elderly women pushing walkers, celebrated community, connection and Martin Luther King Jr. in a march through the streets of downtown Phoenix on the MLK holiday. As a single drum sounded in the back of the crowd, a stream of people chatted as they.

PHOENIX – As the sounds of the traditional drumming filled the air at the Arizona State Capitol, indigenous women gathered to raise awareness of an issue specific to their community: the increase of missing and murdered women on reservations and nearby towns. “In the state of Arizona, we have had many issues and many problems.

PHOENIX – On a cool November evening in a warehouse on the edge of downtown, Vicente J. Reid moves through the crowd at an Asian film festival in a sleek black suit, crisp white shirt and silver bolo tie encrusted with turquoise stones. He greets everyone as if he has known them for years –.

WASHINGTON – The crowd was smaller and the emotions may have been less raw, but for the thousands who turned out Saturday for the Women’s March in Washington, the event was still “powerful and electrifying.” “Washington is a city where change happens, it is important that we have bodies here,” said Zoe Isaac, a Scottsdale.

WASHINGTON – After 46 years, the March for Life remains the largest pro-life rally in the country. But to former Arizona resident Cheryl Kubacz, it’s about more than abortion. “This is the largest and longest sustainable march for civil rights that is consistent year after year, after year,” said Kubacz, an Arizona State University alumna.

PHOENIX – Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday proposed a fiscal year 2020 budget that would double the rainy day fund to $1 billion, put aside $165 million to hike teacher salaries and battle drought. Here are three key areas of the proposed budget, which still needs legislative approval: 1. Ducey wants to save for a.

SCOTTSDALE – A battle over the proper way to pay an artistic tribute to an Arizona icon is brewing in Old Town. Last week, a privately-funded public mural honoring John McCain was put on hold by city leaders. The project is being reconsidered after complaints from a local business owner who insists his opposition has.

WASHINGTON – Arizona residents Miguel Valladares and Amanda Blackhorse will be in Washington this weekend to join tens of thousands of others to march for a cause. But not the same cause. And not the same march. They are among the throngs expected to pack downtown Washington for three major marches in two days, capped.

PHOENIX – After her first experience of being trafficked for sex at 18, Megan went home and scrubbed her skin so hard she began to bleed. “I was so disgusted,” she recalled. At least three times a day, for the next four years, the man she called her boyfriend would sell her for sex –.

WASHINGTON – When environmental activist Columba Sainz found out she was pregnant for the third time, she knew to stay away from foods contaminated by mercury for the health of her baby. That’s why the Phoenix mother of two found herself sitting in a Senate hearing room in Washington on Wednesday with dozens of other.

WASHINGTON – Despite a partial government shutdown, Grand Canyon National Park appears to be doing a brisk business – based on the amount of toilet paper workers are taking in to the park and the amount of trash they’re taking out. Local business officials say park workers have hauled off 106 tons of trash and.

WASHINGTON – Even though she saw six opioid overdoses in recent months, two of them fatal, Kerry Hawk Lessard closed the medical and behavioral health clinic she runs for Native Americans in Baltimore and Boston. She didn’t have a choice. When the government shut down, Native American LifeLines lost its funding. Lessard’s clinics were funded.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump repeated a promise Monday that furloughed federal workers will get back pay when the government shutdown ends, but a bill to do just that was opposed by two Republican lawmakers from Arizona. Reps. Andy Biggs of Gilbert and Paul Gosar of Prescott were among just a handful of votes against.

PHOENIX – Education funding and the looming threat of water shortages were among the key issues Gov. Doug Ducey emphasized in his State of the State address Monday afternoon. The Arizona Republican opened his speech in House chambers at the State Capitol saying, “The challenge before us is to lay the groundwork today to make.

WASHINGTON – Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead said there is an “ongoing crisis” at the border affecting all states, not just Arizona, and he called on Washington to fund a border wall to help stop it. “I think there’s misconceptions about what the wall is,” Milstead said Friday in Washington. “It’s not.

WASHINGTON – While thousands of federal workers in Arizona are going without pay this month, at least six members of the state’s congressional delegation said they will forgo their salaries during the partial government shutdown. The lawmakers said it was important to show support for workers by refusing to take their salaries for now. “I.

WASHINGTON – Eight years to the day after an attack that killed six and wounded 13, one of those victims, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was back in Washington Tuesday to tell Congress it’s time to act on gun control. “Now is the time to come together, to be responsible,” the Tucson Democrat said, her speech.

WASHINGTON – One of Vicki Christiansen’s first jobs in her career as a wildland firefighter was helping to reforest the blast zone around Mount St. Helen’s after the Washington volcano blew its top in 1980. Years later, Christiansen found herself helping commercially thin the same forests she had helped to establish 25 years earlier. “There.

WASHINGTON – In her decades fighting wildfires, Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen says the fires have gotten bigger, the deployments have gotten longer and the situation has just gotten worse overall. But there may be help on the horizon. After years of wrangling, Congress last year passed the “fire funding fix,” which will take effect.

WASHINGTON – Three months after the Trump administration cut the number of refugees the U.S. will accept to the lowest level since 1980, aid groups in Arizona say they already are feeling the effects. “What used to be a very active program has slowed down dramatically and so before, we used to have maybe a.

READING, Pa. — Even though she spent 19 months in detention after crossing the border to seek asylum in the U.S. in 2015, Karen Zelaya still was able to celebrate her son’s sixth and seventh birthdays with him. They were not the happiest of birthdays. Zelaya and her son, Steven Albanes, who are from El.

WASHINGTON – When Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema is sworn in next week, she will be the first woman to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate – a distinction that barely stands out in a Congress filled with firsts. Several states are sending their first women representatives, or gay, or Latina or African-American women to Washington next.

WASHINGTON – Democrats are gearing up for change in Washington after their surge in the midterm elections, but there’s at least one area where Republicans will still hold the upper hand – judicial nominations. Democrats will control the House come Jan. 3, but Republicans actually widened their lead in the Senate. That all but guarantees.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, may not take over the House Natural Resources Committee for another two weeks, but that doesn’t mean his potential presence as chairman isn’t already being felt. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, long a target of Grijalva, said last week that he will resign before Democrats take control of the House.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and analysts believe there will be some progress on immigration reform after the new Congress is sworn in next month – but caution that it is more likely to come in baby steps than in big leaps. Six years after a Democrat-controlled Senate passed a sweeping immigration reform bill the stalled in.