Mythili Gubbi

This is a slight increase over previous years. The numbers are fairly fluid, but average around 10 percent. There are about 131 Mexican wolves in the country, of which 64 are in Arizona. The rest are in New Mexico, the only state where these wolves live.

Once a teenager in the foster system turns 18, they cannot be adopted as a child and the family adopting them is no longer eligible for subsidies. Out of almost 14,000 youths in the Arizona foster system, almost 6 percent are over 18.

According to the U.S. Census data, Maricopa County grew by 81,000 people in 2018 — the top figure in the nation. That’s the highest growth in the country, and double that of Clark County, Nevada, which was second on the list.

Criminal records have long disqualified Arizona residents from obtaining an occupational license or working for the state of Arizona. House Bill 2660, which is passing through the Legislature, would loosen those restrictions.

Peoria will get its first circulator bus service on April 22, 2019. After free neighborhood circulators in cities like Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe, the next city to get on that bus is Peoria.

It is Sexually Transmitted Disease Awareness Month and Arizona has a higher rate of syphilis than the national average. Gila County has the highest rate of new syphilis cases in Arizona.

A 384-acre fire broke out about 20 miles west of Wittmann in Painted Wagon. The fire was reported Monday morning and crews have contained 30 percent of it so far.

It’s the end of the nesting season for the bald eagles at Lake Pleasant, and no eaglets came from a nest that had been a successful breeding location in the past.

In Arizona, full-time females working year-round on average make 85 cents for every dollar a full-time male worker makes, which amounts to roughly a $7,000 annual difference. This dollar to cent ratio, however, is five cents smaller than the national wage gap of 80 cents to the dollar.

Hundreds of antlers, taxidermy mounts of animals, hides and more will be auctioned at the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Expo in Phoenix this weekend. Game and Fish collects the items through seizures by law enforcement, donations, and discoveries in the wild, then auctions them off to generate more revenue.