Haley Smilow expects to graduate in May 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in sports journalism. Smilow, who is currently covering sports in Phoenix, is also interning with the Diamondbacks and has previously interned at the Phoenix Magazine, AZTV and Phoenix Rising.
CHANDLER – Roch Cholowsky is Arizona’s No. 1 high school baseball player in the class of 2023 and No. 12 in the country. His mentality is to continue to win games, have fun and help lead Hamilton High to a second straight state championship.
PHOENIX – A May report from Arizona's Common Sense Institute showed that 6.4% of the state’s total economy comes from the sports and tourism sector. With the Super Bowl and many other major sporting events in town in 2023, Arizona saw plenty of positive economic benefits.
TEMPE – The Arizona Coyotes celebrated Cesar Chavez two days early in an effort to further integrate itself into Arizona’s Hispanic community. The team, which is the NHL’s first with a Latino CEO and president, volunteered at four different sites in Tempe.
PHOENIX – Many years ago, the Phoenix Ramblers brought Arizona its first state championship in 1940. Now that team is mostly forgotten to history. Superstars Billie Harris and Dot Wilkinson, through the words of Lynn Ames, explain why the Ramblers’ journey is so important to the Valley, to softball history and to women’s sporting history.
MESA – Red Sox minor leaguer Rio Gomez, the son of former ESPN reporter Pedro Gomez, returned to Arizona to pitch for Team Colombia in preparation of the World Baseball Classic.
PHOENIX – Food can be one of the highlights for many who visit spring training games. Many stadiums, including Hohokam, Camelback Ranch, American Family Fields and Salt River Fields, are all serving up new offerings this year while also keeping the classics on the menu.
PHOENIX – For the first time in over a decade, basketball has returned to Yavapai Community College in Prescott. Although both the men’s and women's teams posted losing records, the programs are hopeful for the future and happy to have basketball back on campus.
MESA – Perry High School fielded two teams in the 6A state championships in soccer on Saturday, but Xavier Prep High School stood in the way of a sweep.
PHOENIX – ASU men’s swimming & diving team has had an impressive season capped by Léon Marchand’s standout performances, a 7-1 record and a No. 1 ranking. Now the Sun Devils seek to carry their momentum into the Pac-12 Championships in early March.
CHANDLER – Hamilton High School has turned into a powerhouse for baseball and a place for top talent to develop. This year, the team is looking to add a ninth state championship and sixth since 2014 led by four players ranked among the top 10 of the Arizona class of 2023.
GOODYEAR - With the 5A high school basketball playoffs underway, the Amundsen name will appear often. Father, son and daughter are all part of the Millennium program.
PHOENIX – Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club in Arizona is home to many Olympic medalists and World Champions, and according to coach Mark Perry, resources and elite talents are the reasons why.
WASHINGTON – After a year in which the Valley saw the nation's highest inflation rate for metro areas, experts say consumers can expect inflation to ease in 2023 - but warn that it's not going away entirely.
WASHINGTON - Challenge is a part of sports, but the challenges don't usually include being able to freely communicate with teammates and coaches. For deaf Arizona athletes on hearing teams back home, all that changed when they started competing for Gallaudet University.
WASHINGTON – Voters said no to a plan that would have added one-tenth of a penny to the state sales tax to benefit rural fire districts, but firefighters warn that the need - and the threat to public safety - have not gone away.
WASHINGTON - The state's longtime teacher shortage is well-known, but personnel officers said in a recent report that they have openings they cannot fill for everything from nurses to custodial employees, secretaries and administrators.
WASHINGTON - Arizona Court of Appeals judges quizzed attorneys Wednesday as they tried to figure out how, or if, they can square competing abortion laws that could restrict or outright criminalize abortions in the state.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday grappled with how strictly the federal government must enforce immigration policy, and whether states should have a say in how that policy is enforced.
WASHINGTON - Consumers will face "historically high" prices for their Thanksgiving meal ingredients this year, with experts urging them to plan ahead, look for deals and be ready to substitute traditional foods for something cheaper.
WASHINGTON - A federal court said it will take another look at claims that the proposed Resolution Copper mine should be delayed because it sits on land sacred to the Apache and would violate their religious rights by destroying Oak Flat.
WASHINGTON - Arizona election officials said Thursday there were still more than 600,000 ballots to be counted from Tuesday's elections, but insisted they are still on schedule to complete the count in the next few days. Even if that schedule is not as fast as some would like.
WASHINGTON - Over the course of three hours Wednesday, the Supreme Court grappled with whether a law meant to keep Indigenous children with Native American families should be overturned as racist and unconstitutional, as critics charge.
WASHINGTON - A Tucson woman was one of three people arrested Wednesday after they disrupted a Supreme Court hearing with a protest over the court's decision to reverse its 1973 ruling that had recognized a right to an abortion.
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court justices challenged Arizona's claim Tuesday that a death row inmate should not get a chance to appeal his sentence, based on what one justice called a "Kafkaesque" ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON - The only thing scarier than ghosts, ghouls and goblins this Halloween may be higher prices for candy, costumes and pumpkins: Inflation has driven up prices for all three. Americans are expected to spend a record $10.6 billion on Halloween this year.
Bryan Jeffries does not think one-tenth of one penny is too much to ask for the benefit of fire districts across Arizona "that are in a complete crisis." It's why president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, is hoping for passage of Proposition 310, to raise the state sales tax from 5.6% to 5.7% for the next 20 years to help fund the 144 fire districts in the state.
WASHINGTON - Students from across the country rallied outside the White House Monday to demand that President Joe Biden deliver on a campaign promise to release prisoners convicted of marijuana possession.
WASHINGTON - Supporters of Proposition 310 don't think an added tenth-of-a-penny sales tax is too much to ask to help fire districts across Arizona "that are in a complete crisis." But critics say the bill is too broad, making everyone pay for the problems of a few rural districts.
WASHINGTON - Clinics across Arizona have largely resumed offering abortions after a court last week blocked a ruling that briefly outlawed the procedure, but providers said they are taking abortion's future in the state day by day.
WASHINGTON - Whatever their position on abortion rights, the county attorneys who would be responsible for enforcing Arizona abortion law say they will do their best to follow it. But they're not all sure what the law currently is, after conflicting measures were approved,
WASHINGTON - Planned Parenthood Arizona said it will appeal a Pima County judge's ruling that restored a territorial-era law that criminalized abortion in the state, a ruling that has effectively shuttered abortion services in Arizona.
WASHINGTON – A Pima County judge ruled Friday that a near-total ban on abortions in Arizona is back in effect, after she lifted a 50-year-old injunction that became moot after the U.S. Supreme Court this summer reversed its Roe v. Wade decision.
WASHINGTON – Federal officials announced the release Thursday of $32.5 million for pedestrian improvements along Flagstaff's Downtown Mile, the largest portion of what one official said will be biggest transit investment in the city in years.
WASHINGTON - More than 600 yards and four touchdowns as an ASU receiver were not enough to get Curtis Hodges' name called on NFL draft day. So Hodges did what he always does - he got to work. That work landed him a spot on the Washington Commanders roster.
PHOENIX – The British community in Arizona is small but closely connected, according to David Wimberley, owner of George & Dragon. Wimberley, a British migrant, was at home when a friend called with the news: Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday. She was 96.
WASHINGTON - School districts across Arizona are dealing with their own math problem: How to economically deliver lunches and breakfasts for schoolchildren when inflation has driven up the cost of food by more than 10% over the last year.
WASHINGTON - Planned Parenthood Arizona began offering abortions again at its Tucson facility this week, joining a handful of clinics in the state that resumed the service two months after the Supreme Court's June decision that revoked the right to an abortion.
WASHINGTON - When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, it left Arizona officials, advocates and physicians with 120 years of conflicting abortion laws to untangle. Two months later, things are still tangled, with no answers expected for at least a month.
