Extreme heat kills hundreds of Arizonans each year. But some groups are at much higher risk than others – that includes residents of manufactured homes. A member of the Deer Valley Unified School District board is under fire for giving a Nazi salute following a dispute with the board president during a public meeting on Tuesday night. The town of Superior has forged a $20-million dollar water deal with the mining company Resolution Copper. Plus the latest tribal natural resources, business, metro Phoenix and politics news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I'm Tiara Vian and here are this week's stories you don't want to miss.
TIARA VIAN: This is the podcast that's designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of May 25, 2026. Extreme heat kills hundreds of Arizonans each year, but some groups are at much higher risk than others. That includes residents of manufactured homes. Katherine Davis-Young reports on one effort to help.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: It's a sunny Saturday morning at a North Phoenix mobile home park for residents 55 and older. In the park's community center, a group of volunteers have gathered for an event hosted by the American Red Cross.
VOLUNTEER: All right, well welcome everyone, thank you so much for being here today. This is our last—
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: After a brief orientation, they put on red vests with the words "disaster relief" across the back. The Red Cross often provides assistance after fires, floods or hurricanes, but in this case they're here to respond to heat, says Edgar Olivo, CEO for the organization's Arizona and New Mexico branch.
EDGAR OLIVO: You're not thinking of it as a disaster, you're just thinking as a really hot day, it's just a dry heat. Those are the comments that we tend to hear.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Summers in Arizona have always been hot, but studies show human-caused climate change is driving longer and more extreme heat seasons. The last two years have been Phoenix's hottest on record, and Olivo says as far as the Red Cross is concerned, extreme heat qualifies as a disaster. Heat kills more Americans annually than any other weather-related event, and some populations face disproportionate risk, especially lower-income people and older adults.
EDGAR OLIVO: Senior citizens are exposed to a lot of the risks that come with extreme heat, especially if they're on medication, if they live in isolation, if they don't know where to go should there be a power outage or some kind of emergency.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: But it's not just age or health conditions that raise someone's risk. Their housing can increase their odds of heat illness or death too. That's why the Red Cross for a few years now has been working with the City of Phoenix and other partners to organize these door-knocking campaigns, which target lower-income neighborhoods and mobile home communities like this one.
VOLUNTEER: Hi, it's Red Cross! We just want to make sure you stay hydrated, check on a neighbor and know that there's cooling centers near you.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Mobile homes and RVs make up only about 5% of housing in Maricopa County. But in recent years a disproportionate number of indoor heat-related deaths in the county have occurred in these types of homes, nearly 25%.
MARK KIER: These manufactured housing residents have really fallen through the cracks.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Mark Kier is with the University of Arizona's School of Geography, Development and Environment. He says newer manufactured homes are typically well insulated, but there was no federal oversight of this type of housing before 1976.
MARK KIER: And often times those units did not have very much insulation, their electrical systems were not sufficient to properly power an adequate air conditioning system.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: The Urban Institute estimates there are tens of thousands of those pre-1976 units still in use in Arizona. And Kier says even if residents want to upgrade older units, they often can't get the financing they'd need to do so.
MARK KIER: Most manufactured housing is not titled as real estate, it's titled as personal property and it's very difficult to get money to make investments in it.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: On top of that, mobile home parks tend to have little shade and a lot of hard heat-absorbing surfaces that make the environment even hotter.
MARK KIER: Which means that even if you have adequate air conditioning, it's going to be a greater financial burden for you to keep that home cool.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: And many of these residents pay for electricity through their park, so they're not direct customers of utility companies. Kier says that can make them ineligible for some forms of energy assistance. He says manufactured homes are an essential affordable housing option, but policies are making these homes more vulnerable to climate threats.
MARK KIER: And the people that suffer are the residents.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: For now the Red Cross and partners just want Arizona's manufactured home residents to be more aware of their risks. Back at the Red Cross event, volunteers are passing out packets with information about how to recognize heat stroke, where the nearest cooling centers are, and other resources for coping with heat. It's just after 10 a.m. and it's already above 90 degrees. When volunteers knock on Joyce Cravens's door, she says her home is getting hot.
JOYCE CRAVENS: It's like a tin can.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: She points to the bedroom window where there's one small air conditioner mounted. It's the only AC she has and it doesn't cool the whole home. Her plan for the summer is just to stick close to it.
JOYCE CRAVENS: Just back there, in the one room that has the window air conditioner.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: The volunteers pass along their information packet.
VOLUNTEER: There are a lot of programs out there that are available to help with expenses.
JOYCE CRAVENS: Wonderful.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: They suggest she reach out to the city to see if she qualifies for home repair rebates or other assistance.
VOLUNTEER: Enjoy the summer!
JOYCE CRAVENS: Yep, yep, we'll be together.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: She thanks them and the volunteers head off to knock on more doors. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In politics news. Since Republicans in Congress approved new requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program last summer, states across the country have seen reductions in the number of residents receiving food stamps. Arizona is an outlier. Year over year, the Department of Economic Security, the state agency responsible for administering SNAP in Arizona, has removed over half of Arizona's food stamp recipients. As Camryn Sanchez reports, former SNAP beneficiaries cut from the program say the state is making it impossible to prove they're still eligible.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: The SNAP changes mainly consist of new work standards and require applicants to provide more information to prove their eligibility, and to provide that information more frequently. The Trump administration says those changes were necessary to eliminate waste and fraud. Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs blames the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress for so many Arizonans losing benefits.
KATIE HOBBS: There have been several federal cuts that have impacted DES directly and a lot of these benefit programs directly. So whatever the reason is that a lot of people are losing benefits, it's squarely on cuts at the federal level.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: But according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research institute, the cuts to SNAP beneficiaries in Arizona are disproportionately higher to those in other states. Nearly 500,000 Arizonans who received SNAP benefits a year ago are no longer beneficiaries of the food stamps program. That's roughly a 55% cut. The next closest state, Virginia, saw a 15% reduction. The SNAP program in Arizona is administered by the State Department of Economic Security. Hobbs has acknowledged the state's face challenges adapting to new federal requirements, but says DES isn't to blame.
KATIE HOBBS: I can't speak to why our rate is disproportionate to other states, but if you look at kind of the projections that we presented when HR 1 was first passed, what we're seeing is in line with the number of people we thought would lose benefits.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: But people waiting in line at St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix on a Monday morning in April all say the issues at DES run deeper. They say it's harder to apply because DES is now requiring applicants to complete phone interviews to prove eligibility, but it's nearly impossible to get someone from DES to answer those calls. And if an applicant can't complete their interview, their benefits are cut and they have to reapply again. Adamari Olivas was waiting in line at St. Mary's with her partner Esteban Ramos. She said daily calls to DES routinely went unanswered, and by the time she did hear back from the department, the paperwork required to prove eligibility for food stamps had expired. Olivas says she's been trapped in this loop since October.
ADAMARI OLIVAS: Before, the first time we did it, I was able to activate it in person and now I'm not able to activate it in person. We have to call and we call and call and they never answer. So that's the biggest issue.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Monise Soto was also in line with her family.
MONISE SOTO: Yeah, I don't have a job right now, so that's why I'm applying and I'm needing it, I have kids and I'm still pending and it's been taking for more than 60 days.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Arizonan after Arizonan in line at the food bank say without SNAP, it's harder to put food on the table.
UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT 1: You got no other choice to come here sometimes to get something to put on the table.
UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT 2: Yeah, it has made things harder, we just budget more, you know, we can't— we just limit ourselves on what we can get.
UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT 3: Like right now we've been having really, really bad hard time, like hard time you know, trying to buy food.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Michael Wisehart, the director of DES, told KJZZ the agency isn't purposefully denying benefits to eligible Arizonans.
MICHAEL WISEHART: It is more challenging to get through the system than it used to be.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: But are you cutting people who are eligible?
MICHAEL WISEHART: We, if we know they're eligible, we are making them eligible for the program. There are no people— everybody who works at DES, it's a really hard job and if you don't believe that it's a really hard job, go to a local office.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Wisehart says DES is underfunded and understaffed and they don't have the capacity to get to all SNAP cases in a timely manner and implement federal changes. He says it's created a backlog of applicants waiting on services. Democrats warn the future could be even more challenging for DES. Republican lawmakers are proposing 5% cuts to most state agencies including the state's social safety net. Arizona food banks say there's only so much they can do to feed families who have lost SNAP benefits. Terry Shoemaker is the Executive Vice President of the Arizona Food Bank Network.
TERRY SHOEMAKER: To have worked in hunger relief for so long and see things not get better but actually get significantly worse is heartbreaking, and I hope that we can work together to find a better path so that people have enough to eat. Because without enough to eat, it's kind of hard to do anything else.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Shoemaker says for every meal a food bank can provide, SNAP has a history of providing about five, leaving a gap. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the stories you don't want to miss podcast. Thanks for listening.
UNNAMED HOST: Rio Salado College in partnership with ASU and Penn State University is offering a free 12-week semiconductor manufacturing training. The next session begins August 24th. More information at riosalado.edu/veterantraining.
TIARA VIAN: In business news, Waymo is suspending freeway trips in the United States, including Phoenix. Connor Greenwall reports.
CONNOR GREENWALL: According to Reuters, Waymo says it paused freeway operations to update software to improve performance around construction and flood zones. The company says surface street operations remain unaffected. The announcement comes as Waymo announces a suspension of service in Atlanta after an unoccupied robotaxi stopped in floodwater last week. In November 2025, Waymo announced they would begin operations on freeways including in the Phoenix area. Waymo did not provide a timeline for when freeway service will resume, but says it expects to resume these routes soon. Connor Greenwall, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In water news. The town of Superior has forged a $20 million water deal with the mining company Resolution Copper. Alex Hager reports it's designed to boost flows and habitat in the Queen Creek watershed.
ALEX HAGER: The deal would put new water in Queen Creek which is usually just a dry wash. The water would come from a few sources including groundwater that would be treated and cleaned before entering the creek. Superior Mayor Mila Besich says the agreement came after years of studies and negotiations.
MILA BESICH: These are not small commitments. These investments will help ensure that our creek, our environment, our community and Superior's outdoor recreation economy can continue to thrive for generations to come.
ALEX HAGER: Resolution Copper is in the process of opening up a massive new mine near Superior. The project around Oak Flat has raised concerns that mining work could place a big strain on groundwater in the area. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In tribal natural resources. A tribe from the Four Corners region has inked a historic deal with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum advancing the Trump administration's domestic energy agenda. Gabriel Pietrorazio has more.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: The Southern Ute Indian Tribe in Southwest Colorado has entered the first ever TERA, or Tribal Energy Resource Agreement. This allows the nearly 1,500 member tribe to handle its own business without obtaining express permission from the Interior Department. Councilman Andrew Gallegos testified before Congress last month.
ANDREW GALLEGOS: Having the tribe regulate and be the one that oversees all of our compliance, it makes us more sovereign as a tribe and the economic value that it brings is the health and welfare of our membership.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That will include the leasing of energy projects and issuing of right-of-ways on the 700,000-acre reservation near Durango. Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In education news. A member of the Deer Valley Unified School District board is under fire for giving a Nazi salute following a dispute with a board president during a public meeting on Tuesday night. Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Kimberly Fisher was arguing with board president Paul Carver over the date and time of an upcoming meeting. After Carver moved to adjourn the meeting and end the discussion, Fisher raised her right arm into the Seig Heil salute and mimicked a Nazi chant.
PAUL CARVER: Anyway, is there a motion to adjourn or are we just going to do this for a while? Is there a second? I'll second it. All those in favor?
KIMBERLY FISHER: Heil, Heil!
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: In a video posted after the meeting, Fisher said she was criticizing Carver for acting like a dictator. The Deer Valley Teachers Union called on Fisher to resign, saying anyone who uses a Nazi salute is unfit for office. Democratic State Representative Stephanie Simacek, who also serves on the board, called on her fellow members to censure Fisher. In a statement, the district said it doesn't condone the comments. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the stories you don't want to miss podcast. In fronteras news. In an effort to reduce the number of encounters between wild animals and humans in certain areas of the Grand Canyon South Rim, the National Park has deployed Blue, a herding dog with the Conservation Canine Pilot Program. Jill Ryan has details.
JILL RYAN: For the next three years, South Rim visitors may see the Catahoula Leopard Dog herding and strategically barking at bighorn sheep and elk in developed areas. Park staff say the Grand Canyon wildlife is increasingly getting too comfortable around humans, which can cause traffic and safety issues. And non-lethal management tools like paintball guns or making loud noises have had mixed results. So, while leashed, Blue will work alongside park staff to help reduce human-animal conflicts. South Rim visitors are asked to never approach, feed, haze or attempt to move wildlife. Jill Ryan, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And finally from KJZZ's original production, The Show. An ASU professor's philosophy camp gives high schoolers space to dive into big questions. Here's co-host Mark Brodie.
MARK BRODIE: With school out for the summer, there are all kinds of options for kids to go to camp. There's sleepaway camp as well as day camps with activities ranging from sports to cooking to technology to the arts. But my next guest has an option many parents may not have thought of: philosophy camp. Angela Rodriguez is Assistant Director for the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU, and a PhD student in the philosophy department studying technology addiction. She's also the founder of The Dialectic, which started in 2022. She says kids come from all over the country to the camp hosted at ASU, and when she stopped by the studio earlier I asked how she describes the program.
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I mean, so the way that there's a whole community of people who do what they call philosophy for children. Um, and the way that they describe the, um, kind of environment is that it's a community of inquiry. Um, so really the thing that we're doing is we're getting together to kind of investigate topics, investigate questions, and the, the kind of highlight is that we don't give them any answers. Um, and so really it's up to this kind of group of students to decide what they're going to take away from the week that we spend together.
MARK BRODIE: So you set sort of a topic or a— an issue that is to be discussed and debated and you just kind of let them take it from there?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, well we design activities. Um, we don't give them total free rein. Um, so, you know, that's— people need a little bit of guidance. Um, but no, most of the things that we try to do are we give them really short things to read to kind of spark thoughts, um, activities, debates, we've done scavenger hunts, um, just, yeah, like different kind of skits, things that they can do just to kind of get the ball rolling and then, yeah, we set a topic every year, um, and then the whole week we are together from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. investigating things related to that topic.
MARK BRODIE: Okay, so I want to get to the topic for this year's edition in just a moment, but I've got to ask because, you know, stereotypically, you know, summer camp for kids is, you know, you're swimming in the lake and you're playing sports and you're doing arts and crafts and all that kind of stuff. It's not so much philosophy. Is the stereotype I guess maybe wrong to some degree?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: No, I think the stereotype's right, and I should say I'm all on board for people that want to swim in the lake and play sports and do arts. I love doing all of those things. Um, the reason to kind of run this alternative kind of camp, this philosophy summer camp, is for kids that the, the thing that they really want is something that they haven't been able to experience kind of throughout the rest of the year, which is, um, you know, at school it's kind of like, I'm going to give you information, you're going to digest that information, you're going to give that information back to me. And so it's really a different kind of environment for them to, like, be asked to think for themselves and be asked to solve problems and talk to their peers and work through disagreements. Um, and it's— I think the kids that are drawn to our camp are a particular sort of person, um, who are really interested in engaging with the world on kind of a deeper level where you question your assumptions.
MARK BRODIE: I was curious about who, who typically attends your camps. It sounds like, you know, maybe students who aren't quite getting what they need or want in school and are looking for something maybe a little deeper. Is that fair?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, no, I think that that's the right idea is that there's, um, you know, I grew up in the military and so there's what they call stupid questions. Um, and so it's like, that's not a question about how things are going to go today or how things work in the real world, that's a question that's like somewhere out there in the universe that we're, we're not really interested in answering right now. Um, and so I think a lot of kids have these questions, you know, teenagers they're naturally curious, you know, why are we here? What are we supposed to do with our lives? What am I seeing on the news? How am I supposed to digest that information? What am I supposed to do with my friends? You know, they've got like all these questions going on and they don't often have places where they can go to have those conversations.
MARK BRODIE: So this year's theme is building better communities. What kinds of topics and issues because that could probably go a lot of different ways. What are you trying to sort of focus the conversation— what are you trying to focus the conversation on this year?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: So one of our focuses in the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics right now is we're talking a lot about civic virtues. So the ways that we can kind of come together during really divisive times, and arguably we're in a pretty divisive time right now. And so one of the focuses for the week is going to be on what we call these civic virtues, which are things like empathy, humility, open-mindedness, um, civility, giving people the benefit of the doubt. And so what these practices not only can add to our relationships with other people but what they can add to our own lives. Um, and so, you know, we've all had the experience of one day learning that we were wrong about something that we were really sure about. And so kind of reflecting on those experiences and realizing that like I might actually be wrong about a lot more things that I think I'm really right about, um, is one of the ways that we kind of cultivate humility and work with the people around us. Um, and so that's one of the things that we'll be talking about this summer is kind of the civic virtues, but also, you know, our information is sorted through algorithms and given to us by people who do not have our best interest at heart. And so how should we interact with the kind of information that's delivered to us and the epistemic bubbles that we're all sorted into, the echo chambers that we're all sorted into.
MARK BRODIE: What is it like hearing high school students talk about some of these issues?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: It is— I am always impressed by how much our students have thought about these issues.
MARK BRODIE: Like before they get to camp?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Before they get to the camp. Um, because this is, I mean, if you would have, you know, 10 years ago run a program like this, most students would have, I would say, a lot less contact with the things that are happening outside of their immediate surroundings. But now most high school students, they have this magic box in their pocket that tells them everything that's happening in the world and there's all this stuff going on on social media and they're just in this kind of swamp of information. And so they've often thought really deeply about these things even before they get to us. The thing that we provide is a way for them to kind of pick apart those issues into pieces that they can actually wrestle with instead of these really overwhelming things that are kind of coming at them.
MARK BRODIE: Like things that maybe they can relate to or that are specifically relevant to their lives as part of a larger issue.
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, absolutely. So I mean— our different— so some of the programs that we've run in the past have kind of taken on, you know, kind of timely issues. Um, and so when, you know, smartphones were becoming really ubiquitous and we were coming out of the pandemic, um, we ran a program on technology and its effects on well-being. Um, and so all of these students had been stuck at home alone in their rooms on their phones and they had thought a lot about that relationship, about their relationship with their phone. Um, and so, you know, when they get to us, that gives us the opportunity to talk about things like who designed your phone? What goals did they have in mind when they designed your phone? What kinds of things are you doing on your phone? What kinds of things could you be doing if you weren't on your phone? What's the opportunity cost here? And so we take that kind of big overwhelming issue, which is I'm stuck alone in my room on my phone and break it down into these smaller pieces that we can digest and have conversations about.
MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Angela Rodriguez, Assistant Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU and founder of The Dialectic, which will be taking place at the beginning of June. Angela, thanks so much, I appreciate it.
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Thanks for having me.
TIARA VIAN: This has been the stories you don't want to miss podcast, made possible in part by the Catena Foundation and Basis Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I'm Tiara Vian, this is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more, online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
