Some officials who embrace voter fraud theories held out despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count earlier this month
Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused on Monday to certify the results of the 2022 midterm election, despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count from earlier this month.
Some officials who have embraced voter fraud theories held out, defying a state deadline and setting the stage for a legal battle.
Continue reading...Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says
Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.
A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.
Continue reading...Melody Jennings of Clean Elections USA teamed up with True the Vote for project that echos Trump’s false claims about 2020
A far-right group run by a Christian pastor has sparked a legal firestorm by spearheading a drive to aggressively monitor drop-box voting for fraud in Arizona and other states, in an echo of Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election results were rigged.
Melody Jennings, who runs Clean Elections USA, has teamed up with the conservative group True the Vote, which has a track record for making debunked charges of voting fraud. Together they are promoting a project to hunt for alleged drop-box fraud, which Jennings boasted in multiple interviews on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room and the MG Show, a conspiratorial QAnon program.
Continue reading...Norma Thornton, 78, files lawsuit against Bullhead City in north-west Arizona over law about food-sharing events in public park
A woman who was arrested for feeding homeless people in north-west Arizona is suing over a local ordinance that regulates food-sharing events in public parks, accusing the authorities of criminalizing kindness.
Norma Thornton, 78, became the first person arrested under Bullhead City’s ordinance in March for distributing prepared food from a van at Bullhead community park. Her lawyer said the lawsuit filed this week is part of a nationwide effort to let people feed those in need.
Continue reading...A second world war-era boat, half emerged B-29 plane and five other bodies have so far been found in the receding waters
Yet another set of human remains was pulled from the shallows of Lake Mead this week, marking the sixth time this year the receding water levels uncovered bodies from the past.
The National Park Service confirmed on Wednesday that a human bone discovered by a diver directed a park dive team to an area where the skeletal remains were found.
Continue reading...Maricopa county’s 359 heat-associated fatalities this year outpace 339 deaths confirmed in 2021, figures show
This summer was the deadliest on record for heat-related deathsin Arizona’s largest county, with public health statistics this week confirming 359 such deaths just days before the end of the six-month heat season.
The jump comes amid a growing homelessness crisis in the area and raises questions about how to better protect vulnerable people in the desert south-west as temperatures soar.
Continue reading...Opponents fear the measure might result in increased ballot counting time and identity fraud
A measure on Arizona’s ballot in November could require more stringent voter identification, both at the polls and via mail-in ballots – the primary way people in the state vote.
Opponents of Proposition 309 warn it could disenfranchise voters, making them susceptible to identity fraud and taking longer to count ballots. But the measure has the backing of Arizona GOP heavyweights and the state party itself, and it comes on the heels of nonstop, unfounded claims of 2020 election fraud by Republicans here.
Continue reading...Complaints detail ballot drop box monitors filming, following and calling voters ‘mules’ in reference to conspiracy film
A voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”.
The voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office.
Continue reading...Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen, refuses three times to answer when pressed on CNN
The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to say whether she would accept the results of the election if she loses in November.
Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor, has made denying the 2020 election results that her preferred candidate Donald Trump lost a pillar of her campaign. She has said she wouldn’t have certified the 2020 vote that the former president lost – and which the Democratic victor Joe Biden won in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes, saying the election was “corrupt, rotten”.
Continue reading...With 22 days hitting 110F or higher, suspected heat deaths in the Arizona capital topped 450
Extreme heat contributed to as many as 450 deaths in the Phoenix area this summer, in what could be the deadliest year on record for the desert city in Arizona.
The medical examiner for Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, has so far confirmed 284 heat-related deaths, while investigations into 169 more suspected heat fatalities are ongoing. The highest number of deaths – and emergency hospital visits – coincided with the hottest days and nights.
Continue reading...The solution by Camelback Family Planning ensures patients can access pills and treatment without breaking the law
A Phoenix abortion clinic has come up with a way for patients who can end their pregnancy using a pill to get the medication quickly without running afoul of a resurrected Arizona law that bans most abortions.
Under the arrangement that began on Monday, patients will have an ultrasound in Arizona, get a prescription through a tele-health appointment with a California doctor and then have it mailed to a post office in a California border town for pickup, all for free.
Continue reading...Several clinics halt procedure as dual measures, including 19th-century ban with no exception for rape or incest, take effect
Almost all abortions became illegal in Arizona on Saturday, after a new law banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy took effect and a judge lifted an almost 50-year-old injunction that blocked a near-total ban on abortions from being enforced in the state.
Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima county’s superior court released a ruling on Friday that allowed the enforcement of the decades-old ban, a day before a new law that would ban most procedures after 15 weeks was scheduled to take effect, reported the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Ruling brings back law blocked for nearly 50 years, and means clinics offering the procedure would face criminal charges
Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning that clinics statewide will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.
The judge lifted a decades-old injunction that blocked enforcement of the law on the books since before Arizona became a state. The only exemption to the ban is if the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
Continue reading...Incident followed reports of armed man being seen and comes in wake of criticism of handling of Uvalde shooting
Police fired a stun gun at two Arizona parents as they tried to force their way into a school that police had locked down after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus.
The parents were arrested, along with one other, as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser stun gun to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody.
Continue reading...The Biden administration agreed to pause plans that would have destroyed a 51-year-old oceanfront park
The Biden administration has agreed to pause plans for a double border wall that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolizes friendship between the United States and Mexico.
Chris Magnus, the US Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said he wanted to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated in 1971.
Continue reading...Former president and his one-time wingman appear at rival events – and it’s all to play for as the US midterms approach
Eddie Palazuelos drove 200 miles and lined up for five hours under the baking sun to to see Donald Trump at a campaign event for candidates he is backing in the forthcoming Arizona Republican primaries.
It’s the fifth Trump rally the 27-year-old has attended since the former president lost the White House in 2020 – because Palazuelos vehemently believes the election was stolen. Any judge or lawmaker who concludes otherwise is “willfully ignorant”, he said, referring to the dozens of lawsuits and recounts nationwide which ruled out fraud.
Continue reading...Violators of the new law, which includes exceptions for traffic stops, will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jail
A new law in Arizona bans people from taking close-range recordings of police, ostensibly to prevent them getting dangerously close to potentially violent encounters, though some critics have described it as a threat to the first amendment.
The new law prohibits anyone within 8ft of law enforcement officers from recording police activity. Violators will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jail, though only after ignoring a verbal warning.
Continue reading...The Higgins landing craft, once 185ft below the surface, is now halfway out of the water as drought deepens
A sunken boat dating back to the second world war is the latest object to emerge from a shrinking reservoir that straddles Nevada and Arizona.
The Higgins landing craft that has long been 185ft (56 meters) below the surface is now nearly halfway out of the water at Lake Mead.
Continue reading...Use of teargas and arrests by police and targeting by anti-abortion activists disrupts demonstrations in multiple states
Fears over police violence and attacks by anti-abortion activists have been growing following a wave of incidents at demonstrations against the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which upheld the constitutional right to an abortion.
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered at protests objecting to the ruling. The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful but some have seen incidents of police violence – including attacks on protesters – and an incident of a car driving dangerously through marchers.
Continue reading...Crews battled the gusty winds as the Pipeline fire exploded to more than 24,000 acres by Tuesday morning
Fueled by gusty winds through drought-stricken remote terrain, wildfires burning north of Flagstaff, Arizona, exploded in size on Monday, with officials estimating more than 24,000 acres (9,700 hectares) had been blackened by Tuesday morning.
Fire crews battling the blaze have faced intense conditions that have caused extreme fire behavior and sent enormous smoke plumes swirling into the sky.
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