Emily Sacia expects to graduate in December 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Sacia, who has reported for North Central News, Downtown Devil and AZ Big Media, also works as an editorial assistant for ASU Thrive. She is working in the D.C. news bureau.
WASHINGTON - The economic upheaval of the pandemic did little to slow the amount of money sent home to Mexico by workers in Arizona, with those payments growing faster in 2020 than at any point the past nine years, bank data shows.
WASHINGTON - Kayla Jean Mueller's parents told a federal judge Friday that "there's not a day, barely an hour" when they don't think of their daughter, who was kidnapped in Syria and held hostage by ISIS for 18 months before being killed in 2015.
WASHINGTON - The Cochise County sheriff told a House hearing on human trafficking Wednesday that border-related crimes are at an “all-time high,” and would only get worse without comprehensive immigration reform.
WASHINGTON - Federal officials say they are in uncharted territory with their plan to sharply cut releases from Lake Powell, as they scramble to find ways to protect water supplies and power generation by propping up lake levels that have fallen to historic lows.
WASHINGTON - Arizona's unemployment rate fell to 3.3% in March, one of 17 states where the White House said joblessness reached "historic lows." It was lower than the national rate and the lowest in Arizona in a half-century, according to data released Friday.
WASHINGTON - Commercial truckers were coping with longer-than-normal delays at the Nogales border crossing Thursday, as trucks trying to escape a logjam at the Texas border headed west to Arizona instead.
WASHINGTON - Federal officials threw a lifeline this week to as many as 500,000 Arizonans, just days before they were in danger of losing the Medicaid coverage they got under a COVID-19 public health emergency, which was extended Tuesday for another 90 days.
WASHINGTON - When President Joe Biden said businesses have a "patriotic obligation" to protect their networks from likely Russian cyberattacks, Arizona cybersecurity officials agreed with a nod - and a shrug. They were already on high alert and had seen an uptick in attacks.
WASHINGTON - Arizona's senators joined their fellow Democrats and a handful of Republicans Thursday to confirm the historic appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court by a 53-47 vote.
WASHINGTON - The Arizona Supreme Court set May 11 as the execution date for Clarence Dixon, a rapist and murderer who would become the first inmate put to death in Arizona since a badly botched lethal injection in 2014.
WASHINGTON - For immigration advocates, the end to Title 42 couldn’t come soon enough, but critics warned this week that it's coming too soon and will "open the floodgates" to migrants at the southern border.
WASHINGTON - The Biden administration will stop using the pandemic-era Title 42 policy to turn people away at the border effective May 23, as COVID-19 cases decline and officials insist they are prepared to handle a potential migrant surge.
WASHINGTON - It took less than a day for opponents to file multiple court challenges to a new Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to vote, a measure almost identical to one rejected by the Supreme Court in 2013.
Arizonans hoping for a break this spring from the drought gripping the state will be disappointed, with climatologists calling for minor to exceptional drought conditions, what one calls the state's "new normal."
WASHINGTON - Arizona's senators urged the White House this week to keep a controversial border control policy in place unless the administration is prepared to handle the surge in migrants that would come from lifting Title 42.
WASHINGTON - An Arizona man was sentenced Thursday to 36 months of probation and will have to spend 90 days in a halfway house for his part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
WASHINGTON - Arizona drivers who take advantage of the first-in-the-nation virtual license with Apple Wallet will still need to have their current physical license when they buy a drink, get pulled over or any number of other uses, state officials said.
WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers praised the "bravery" of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and most backed his calls to Congress Wednesday for increased military and humanitarian aid to his war-torn country, but they balked at his demand for a no-fly zone.
The wage gap that had been narrowing between men and women stalled in 2019, according to new numbers from the Census Bureau, and advocates fear the situation will only get worse when pandemic-era data is released.
WASHINGTON - Arizona Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, dropped her bid for Congress Friday, after failing to get a "promised" endorsement from former President Donald Trump - and days after criticizing another Trump-backed candidate on the Senate floor.
WASHINGTON - The director of Arizona's Department of Homeland Security told a panel of lawmakers Wednesday that the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “remain in Mexico” policy for immigrants, is helping to keep Arizonans safe.
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday in a speech that toggled between plans for tackling domestic challenges and reasserting U.S. international leadership.
WASHINGTON - Arizona is set to receive at least $315 million for improvements to three ports of entry along the Mexican border, money that officials say is badly needed to ease cross-border trade while improving border security.
WASHINGTON – Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the Supreme Court Wednesday that it would set a “dangerous precedent” if it let the Biden administration drop an immigration policy and refused to let the states step in to defend it.
WASHINGTON - The committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed Arizona GOP leader Kelli Ward and Rep. Mark Finchem for "information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election."
WASHINGTON - Wages rose 5.3% in the Phoenix metro area last year, but prices rose almost twice as fast, with rising fuel and food prices eroding workers' buying power despite a surging economy.
WASHINGTON - Rep. David Schweikert, R-Fountain Hills, has agreed to pay $125,000 to the Federal Election Commission for misuse of campaign funds, including charges that funds went to personal use of campaign staffers.
WASHINGTON - Arizona stands to get up to $76.5 million over the next five years to develop electric vehicle charging stations along interstate corridors, in hopes of increasing EV ownership by reducing range anxiety for drivers.
WASHINGTON - With violent crime rates rising in Arizona and the nation, lawmakers and police groups met on Capitol Hill to push for a bill that would allocate $100 million a year for 10 years to support police agencies and increase assistance to victims and their families.
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court said a Navajo man who held his girlfriend while he assaulted her cannot also be convicted of kidnapping, saying such an expansion of kidnapping would lead to a "steroidal version" of assault laws.
WASHINGTON - Arizona Democratic Party Chair Raquel Terán says Democrats don't have the numbers to stop GOP election reform bills, so she called on an unlikely source for help: Republicans. Terán said it will take help from across the aisle to block the most-extreme bills.
WASHINGTON - Native American advocates welcomed the announcement Wednesday that Washington's pro football team will now be called the Commanders, ending a yearslong fight to get rid of a name many deemed racist.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court is expected to weaken or reverse its Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling this year, but advocates on both sides of the issue in Arizona are not waiting for the court to act, with bills already filed that mirror the laws the high court is considering.
WASHINGTON - Arizonans were among the thousands in Washington for the 49th March for Life, an annual anti-abortion rally that could be closer than ever to its goal of having the Supreme Court overturn a 1973 ruling that recognized a right to an abortion.
WASHINGTON - Despite a positive COVID-19 test, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Tucson, still cast votes in Congress by proxy Thursday while quarantined. But state Rep. Kelli Butler, D-Scottsdale, does not have that option, after the Legislature reverted to pre-pandemic rules this session.
WASHINGTON - Mayors of Tucson and Mesa agreed Wednesday that immigration reform is needed to address the current situation at the border, but they are not confident it can get done in the current fractured political climate.
WASHINGTON - Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, took to the Senate floor Thursday to say she will not vote to do away with the filibuster, likely dooming the voting rights measures she said she supports.
WASHINGTON – Consumer prices rose by an average of 7% in U.S. cities last year, the steepest rise in decades, and they grew even faster in the Phoenix metro area, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
