Category Archives: Arizona

Trump ally wins Republican primary for Arizona governor, setting up race against Katie Hobbs

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The victory for Andy Biggs, who was a central figure in the effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat, sets up a high-stakes contest in the battleground state

Arizona voters on Tuesday chose their nominees for governor, Congress and other top offices, setting up a fall campaign that will test whether Republicans can reverse some of the Trump-era losses they suffered in a premier battleground state.

Andy Biggs, the hard-right congressman endorsed by Donald Trump, easily won the Republican nomination to challenge the incumbent Democrat, governor Katie Hobbs.

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Arizona teen hailed for helping save woman with dementia wandering in 103F heat

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Fire crew in Gilbert to honor Royal Cothrun, 14, for helping elderly woman who became disoriented amid heatwave

An Arizona fire department is formally honoring a 14-year-old boy who recently helped save an elderly woman with dementia after she wandered miles off course amid potentially lethal temperatures, saying the teenager demonstrated “heroism … quick thinking and compassion”.

Royal Cothrun was riding his bicycle in June in the town of Gilbert when he encountered Theresa Morgan as she struggled to walk through 103F (39.4C) heat with a grocery bag dangling off one arm and a purse on the other, according to authorities as well as reporting by the local news outlet KNXV.

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Arizona toddler declared dead after near-drowning was alive for hours in ‘cold room’, records say

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Officers say they saw signs of life multiple times, and after hospital treated the child, he was taken to hospital’s morgue

A toddler who was declared dead after being discovered in a backyard pool in February was actually alive and found hours later in a room that serves as the hospital morgue, recently released police records show.

Two Gilbert police officers saw possible signs of life multiple times, but the child was still taken to the hospital’s “cold room” after being treated by staff, according to the documents.

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Polygamous sect leader guilty of abuse after girls found in trailer on highway

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Self-proclaimed prophet Samuel Bateman already serving 50-year prison sentence over child sexual abuse

A polygamous sect leader already serving a 50-year federal prison sentence for orchestrating sex involving children was convicted Friday on state child abuse charges after girls were found in an unventilated trailer he was hauling through Arizona.

Someone alerted authorities about the trailer in 2022 after seeing small fingers reaching through gaps in the doors. Police stopped Samuel Bateman’s vehicle as he was driving through Flagstaff and found three girls inside, who were ages 11 to 14 at the time. The trailer was enclosed with a makeshift toilet, a sofa and camping chairs.

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Ransom note about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance says she died, according to reports

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Note reportedly said kidnappers her didn’t mean to kill mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, but she died shortly after her disappearance

A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie – the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie – said the 84-year-old had died, CNN and other news organizations are reporting, citing law enforcement sources.

Some media outlets had previously reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case in the days after Guthrie’s disappearance in early February from her home in the foothills just outside Tucson, Arizona.

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Arizona lake closes indefinitely to visitors after all of its fish die

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Wildlife department says drought conditions and water released from dam led to ‘major fish kill’ at San Carlos Lake

Arizona officials have indefinitely closed a popular lake to visitors after its entire population of fish died recently.

The recreation and wildlife department that maintains San Carlos Lake said in a Facebook statement on Friday that drought conditions as well as water released from a dam there “resulted in a major fish kill affecting approximately 100% of the fish population”.

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’He’s mentally unstable’: Iranian American in Congress condemns Trump’s war and pushes for his removal

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Democratic representative Yassamin Ansari says the war has only more deeply entrenched the Iranian regime

Donald Trump is an “evil human being” who “wants to be an emperor” and should be removed from office over the war in Iran, Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian American member of the US Congress, has told the Guardian.

Ansari, the daughter of Iranian immigrants who decades ago fled the regime, spoke out after the president threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilisation before backing down and announcing an uncertain two-week ceasefire.

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Arizona woman who went missing ‘without a trace’ 32 years ago found alive

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Christina Marie Plante was reported missing in May of 1994 from Star Valley when she was just 13 years old

A woman in Arizona who went missing 32 years ago, when she was just 13 years old, has been found alive, authorities said this week.

Christina Marie Plante was reported missing in May of 1994 from Star Valley, Arizona, after she “vanished without a trace from her community”, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Gila county sheriff’s office.

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Savannah Guthrie fears her fame could be reason for mother’s disappearance

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Today show host calls 84-year-old mother’s disappearance ‘unbearable’ in first interview since possible kidnapping

Savannah Guthrie says she fears her own fame could have been the reason for her mother Nancy’s disappearance, which she has called “unbearable” in her first interview since the possible kidnapping.

Guthrie, a main co-anchor of the NBC News morning show Today, discussed the possible reasons for the disappearance of Nancy, who is 84 years old and was reported missing on 1 February from her home near Tucson, Arizona, in an interview with Guthrie’s colleague Hoda Kotb.

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‘The threat is here’: searing US heatwave bad news for wildfire season and water supply

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Experts say brutal temperatures in west threaten to melt sparse snowpack – and warn hot, dry conditions here to stay

A stunning heatwave that shattered records in the US west is threatening to rapidly melt the sparse snowpack and ramp up wildfire risks in the seasons ahead.

March has already been historically hot, but the early onset of summer weather across the region may be here to stay. There’s little reprieve in forecasts, which show more heat records may fall this spring.

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Arizona charges Kalshi, alleging illegal gambling with election bets

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Kalshi calls Arizona’s case ‘paper-thin’ and says the platform should not be overseen by ‘inconsistent state laws’

Arizona’s attorney general on Tuesday filed criminal charges against Kalshi, accusing the prediction markets platform of operating an illegal gambling business in the state and unlawfully allowing people to place bets on elections.

The charges filed by Kris Mayes, the Arizona attorney general, marked the first time a state has pursued a criminal case against Kalshi, which has been at the center of an escalating battle over the ability of state gaming regulators to police prediction markets operators.

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States sue Trump administration over changes to vaccine recommendations for children

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States call move an illegal threat to public health and argue CDC puts children’s lives at risk with new guidance

More than a dozen states, including California, sued the Trump administration over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.

The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”

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Former Phoenix news anchor sentenced to 10 years for $63m fraud in Covid relief scheme

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Stephanie Hockridge and her husband falsified details to obtain PPP loans guaranteed by US small business agency

A former Phoenix news anchor has been sentenced to 10 years after being found guilty of participating in a fraudulent $63m Covid-19 relief scheme alongside her husband.

Stephanie Hockridge’s sentence on Friday came after a jury convicted her in June. Meanwhile, her husband, Nathan Reis, pleaded guilty in August.

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Tip on GoFundMe leads to arrest of suspect in deadly 2017 Arizona stabbing

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Message sent to fundraising site led investigators to man accused of stabbing Evin Paulos about 30 times

A tip sent to an online fundraising campaign recently allowed investigators to jail the prime suspect in a deadly 2017 stabbing in Arizona – a case which otherwise appeared as if it might not yield any arrests, according to authorities.

The remarkable chain of events, which began with a tip to a page on the GoFundMe platform in September, led to the 15 October arrest in Mexico of Michael Anthony Arredondo, who is accused of stabbing Evin Paulos about 30 times and killing him while the two were traveling together.

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University of Arizona becomes seventh US college to reject Trump’s ‘compact’

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Administration has pushed nine universities to sign a deal that seeks to make changes in line with conservative ideas

The University of Arizona has become the seventh US university to reject a Trump administration proposal that would grant schools funding priority if they agreed to support the administration’s conservative agenda.

The decision follows the administration’s push for nine universities to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which seeks to make sweeping changes to campus culture, hiring and admissions practices and foreign student enrollment. Demands from the Trump administration’s 10-point compact include reforms to the way race or ethnicity are used in admission and hiring practices, as well as a commitment to strict definitions of gender, among others.

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Arizona sheriff’s office misused millions set aside to remedy racial profiling

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Report reveals Maricopa county spent huge sums on items not connected to court-ordered overhaul of agency

The sheriff’s office for metro Phoenix spent millions of dollars budgeted for compliance costs in a racial profiling case over Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns on things that had little or nothing to do with a court-ordered overhaul of the agency, according to an expert’s report.

The report released on Wednesday criticized the use of compliance money by the Maricopa county sheriff’s office to fund personnel costs and tasks, either in part or in full, that are not connected to the overhaul.

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Three dead in Arizona flooding as the Carolinas brace for possible hurricane

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Flooding overwhelms town of Globe as North Carolina governor declares an emergency ahead of storm

At least three people died and others were believed missing after flooding in a rural community in Arizona, officials said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, crews spent Saturday making preparations for an unnamed weather system that is forecast to approach that state’s coast as a hurricane early next week.

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Donations for Turning Point USA pour in after founder Charlie Kirk’s death

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Fundraising efforts ramp up to open new chapters of influential far-right group as Kirk’s widow takes over as CEO

The powerful fundraising operation that rightwing activist Charlie Kirk led to build the influential college group Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is receiving a wave of support from large donors and Donald Trump allies since his murder, which suggests the group will remain a major force on the American right, campaign finance experts and consultants say.

New backing and appeals for help to sustain TPUSA have come from, among others, Lynn Friess, the widow of mega-donor Foster Friess, who was Kirk’s first major backer when he formed his campus-focused Republican group in 2012 at the age of 18. Friess pledged $1m to TPUSA days after the 31-year-old’s killing.

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Man armed with gun and knife arrested at Charlie Kirk memorial service venue

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US Secret Service in Phoenix says man said he was law enforcement and there to provide private security

A man armed with a gun and a knife was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly pretended to be a member of law enforcement outside State Farm Stadium near Phoenix a day before Charlie Kirk’s planned memorial service at that venue.

On Saturday, the Arizona department of public safety said that 42-year-old Joshua Runkles was charged with carrying a weapon into a prohibited place and impersonating a police officer.

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New ‘golden triangle’ of fentanyl and guns spans US-Mexico border

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Report links Arizona-Sonora smuggling to rising homicide and overdose deaths in both countries

A new “golden triangle” of fentanyl and gun trafficking between Mexico and the US ties together the homicide and overdose crises of the two countries, according to a a new study.

The triangle spans Baja California, Sinaloa and Sonora – the three states where almost all fentanyl seizures in Mexico take place – and connects to Arizona through a quieter part of the US-Mexico border that has become a hotspot for trafficking in both directions.

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