Reagan Priest expects to graduate in May 2024 with a master’s degree in mass communication. Priest is interning as an education reporter at The Copper Courier. Priest has also worked at The State Press, Cronkite News D.C., The Arizona Republic and Arizona PBS.
PHOENIX – Activists with Mass Liberation Arizona have attended the state’s high-profile police brutality and racial discrimination cases – including hearings for former Maricopa County Attorney’s Office prosecutor April Sponsel – to support marginalized defendants and make their presence known to attorneys and judges.
PHOENIX – As the Arizona Diamondbacks take to the home field for the World Series, the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center warns fans to be on guard for counterfeit merchandise that could be sold both in person and online. Meanwhile, retailers are preparing for even higher demand if the team wins.
PHOENIX – After a shortage of Cleaner Burning Gasoline earlier this year led to increased gas prices in Maricopa County, the Arizona Legislature held a hearing to determine whether Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration was at fault and to discuss potential alternatives to the boutique gasoline.
PHOENIX - After losing party recognition in 2019, the Arizona Green Party is collecting signatures to register as a new party and to have state and local candidates appear on the ballot in 2024.
PHOENIX – Arizona veteran groups, including members of local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, with the help of state Sen. Sonny Borrelli, called out public agencies for targeting them over bingo technological aids, but the state says that’s not the issue. Instead, the groups may be using illegal bingo gaming machines.
TEMPE – President Joe Biden invoked the spirit of the late Sen. John McCain while denouncing "MAGA extremists" as a threat to democracy, during a speech Thursday at the Tempe Arts Center.
PHOENIX – The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that a former University of Arizona student can sue the school over an assault that took place off campus, because the school knew former football player Orlando Bradford’s history of assault.
PHOENIX – Epona Rose, a transgender woman, was held in the men’s side of a jail after allegedly defending herself from an attack by men in Flagstaff, though the details of the altercation are in dispute. Activists say more needs to be done to support trans people who are arrested or incarcerated.
PHOENIX – The Arizona-Utah chapter of SAG-AFTRA held a rally in Phoenix on Sunday to support local actors, writers, and TV and film workers who are on strike. The national union has been on strike since July 14 in conjunction with the Writers’ Guild of America, which has been on strike since May 2. The strikes have stopped production on films and TV series.
PHOENIX – Concession and service worker groups at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport are speaking out about dangerous working conditions and unlivable wages. One group voted to strike and another filed an OSHA complaint.
WASHINGTON - As the nation enters a third year under the threat of COVID-19, Arizona medical examiners say they are struggling to keep up with rising caseloads driven largely by rising deaths from the virus at a time when there is a shortage in forensic pathologists.
WASHINGTON – Two years after the House allowed proxy voting as a pandemic precaution, two Arizona lawmakers remain among the House's most active proxy voters, while two others are among the stubborn minority that has never cast vote by proxy.
WASHINGTON - House members have cast more than 31,000 proxy votes during more than 700 roll calls since 2020, or about 10% of all possible votes in that time. But what started as a COVID-19 emergency measure has become a routine that some say is being abused.
WASHINGTON – White House officials said Tuesday that a potential court order delaying the end of Title 42 would only worsen the border crisis that state officials claim they are trying to prevent by seeking the order.
Border officials last month apprehended the most migrants at the southern border in at least 22 years, presenting a new challenge for the Biden administration's plan to end enforcement of Title 42 at the border just weeks from now.
WASHINGTON – The Arizona unemployment rate dropped to 3.6% in February, well below pre-pandemic levels and the lowest it has been since 2007, according to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear an Arizona death-row inmate's claim that he was wrongly denied the chance to tell jurors he would be ineligible for parole if they sentenced him to life instead of death.
WASHINGTON – Leaders of two Arizona tribes asked lawmakers Wednesday to support funding for development of critical water infrastructure and to OK a bill that would let tribal water be sold to others in the drought-stricken state.
WASHINGTON - Protesters rallied in towns across the U.S. and in Mexico on Monday, the second anniversary Title 42's invocation, to demand an end to the pandemic rule that has been used to expel 1.72 million migrants, including 310,088 at the Arizona border.
WASHINGTON – Political analysts say it's too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration's first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.
WASHINGTON - A year after passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, local officials say the COVID-19 relief measure that steered $103 billion to cities - and $1 billion to Arizona cities - gave them the funds to help businesses and towns rebound from the pandemic.
The CDC ruled this weekend that unaccompanied minors should not be turned back at the border over COVID-19 concerns, a move welcomed by advocates who say the change now needs to be extended to all immigrants.
WASHINGTON - Refugee resettlement groups in Arizona found homes for almost 1,900 Afghan refugees from the fall of Kabul in August through February, the most the agencies said they have placed in the least amount of time. And they say they are ready to place more.
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 – The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act filed by a white Texas couple that was almost denied the chance to adopt a Native American boy who was set to be placed with a Navajo family.
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 on-again, off-again fight to end the Trump-era "remain in Mexico" policy is on again, after the Supreme Court said it will review lower court rulings that have forced the Biden administration to keep the program in place, with a ruling likely by this summer.
WASHINGTON - Despite U.S. warnings that Americans should leave Ukraine in the face of a possible Russian invasion, former Arizona resident Lada Roslycky says she intends to stay put in Kyiv, calling it "too important” to leave as the country readies to defend itself.
WASHINGTON – The number of Arizonans fearing eviction has grown sharply since a pandemic moratorium ended in September, with advocates and landlords both saying rental assistance from the federal government has not reached renters fast enough.
WASHINGTON – The Sonoran desert tortoise has been denied endangered species status for a second time after a 14-year battle waged by advocates to protect the “ancient, iconic species of the desert.”
WASHINGTON - Of more than 3 million DACA applications since 2012, about 900 were referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement - still too many for advocates who said they were promised no information would be shared with enforcement agencies.
WASHINGTON – January was the first month since last summer that Arizona low-income families did not get a check under the expanded Child Tax Credit program, leaving parents scrambling for help and advocates worrying about an increase in poverty.
WASHINGTON – The University of Arizona cannot be held liable under Title IX for a football player's off-campus assault of his girlfriend, even though the university exercises "substantial control" over its athletes, a federal court said.
WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security began requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination over the weekend for essential as well as nonessential travel across the U.S.-Mexico border.
WASHINGTON - The Senate began debate Tuesday on a pair of sweeping voting-rights bills, despite a GOP filibuster likely to block any vote on the bills. But advocates, including some hunger strikers, hope to bring enough pressure to bear to eventually win passage of the bills.
WASHINGTON - Arizona reported 18,783 COVID-19 cases Wednesday, the latest in a surge of infections that experts say is stressing a state health care system that is "not well suited" to take on more cases.
