KJZZ's Sun Up is a weekday morning podcast giving you the Arizona news you need to start your day. It is the biggest stories of the day from KJZZ News.
Transcript
Phil Latzman: This is KJZZ’s Sun Up. It is your daily news update from here in Phoenix, in podcast form. On our state and region, I’m Phil Latzman. We bring you this as a daily digest of the news events here in Arizona as reported by our KJZZ news team. It is Monday, the 27th of April. Welcome to a fresh week. Hope you had a terrific weekend. It was nice weather, temperatures a little bit below normal. Let's kick off the week with a check of the news.
Well, the city of Tempe will hold its final public meeting tonight to get input on a controversial park ordinance. Bridget Dowd has details.
Bridget Dowd: The ordinance that was approved in July and rescinded in September would have required a special permit of varying cost for any event with 30 or more people on public property, including city parks. Some aid groups that use parks for food distribution were worried the change would unfairly target unhoused people and those that serve them. The city is reworking the original ordinance, and some community members are unhappy with the decision to do so instead of creating a new code from scratch. Some residents are concerned that the language of the ordinance might encourage arbitrary enforcement and unequal standards, and possibly create free speech issues. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: A new wave of sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department targets 23 individuals and entities it says are connected to the Sinaloa cartel. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has more.
Nina Kravinsky: The newly sanctioned people and businesses span two continents and include an India-based chemical supplier and Guatemala-based import-export business. The Treasury Department claims these nearly two dozen individuals and entities support the vast drug production and smuggling network operated by the Sinaloa cartel. Last year, the Trump administration designated that group and several other Mexico-based drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. The recent sanctions follow a State Department action to restrict visas for 75 people it identifies as family, friends, or associates of members of the Sinaloa cartel. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
Phil Latzman: An organization called RUMBA is working to address urban heat in Phoenix. Their campaign, Resilient Phoenix, conducted research on the Maryvale community. Ignacio Ventura tells us more.
Ignacio Ventura: The team gathered input from over 300 residents over nine months to learn more about the heat and how it affects their way of living. They found that 67 percent of residents reported dehydration, overheating, or worsened health, and 70 percent considered moving out of the area because of the extreme heat. RUMBA co-founder Luis Ávila says they hope to create a system to alleviate the effects of extreme weather.
Luis Ávila: The Resilient Phoenix report in this first phase has as an objective to build a civic infrastructure that is needed in Maryvale to create a cooler and more connected Maryvale.
Ignacio Ventura: The group identified heat-proof public spaces, resilient corridors, and shaded parking as being wanted by residents. The Resilient Phoenix report is expected to be released next month. Ignacio Ventura, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: Well, the asphalt that makes up our roads is a great material for cars to drive on, but ASU researchers have contributed to a study that shows emissions from asphalt can be very bad for human health. Greg Hahne has more.
Greg Hahne: Asphalt can release volatile organic compounds which worsen air quality. They can cause dizziness and trouble breathing and result in lung cancer. Off-gassing from asphalt has not been studied as much as other vehicle-based emissions.
Ellie Fini: The air quality modeling are underestimating the air pollution, especially at the city level and street level.
Greg Hahne: ASU professor and co-author Elli Fini says asphalt emissions can be particularly bad in Arizona due to the heat, and those particles can stay in the atmosphere.
Ellie Fini: Even though roads and bridges and infrastructure have been designed to be safe, we as the community can make sure they are also healthy.
Greg Hahne: Fini co-authored another study showing algae-based materials can significantly reduce asphalt emissions. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: Well, Governor Katie Hobbs recently announced new grant funding for childcare. Lilly Roseburrough has more on that.
Lilly Roseburrough: In a partnership between the governor and the Department of Economic Security, $3 million in grant awards will be distributed across the state for affordable out-of-school childcare. DES Director Michael Wisehart says the initiative aims to help working families access childcare support.
Michael Wisehart: Childcare is an extreme burden on families, and we need as many individuals able to work productively while their children are being developed intellectually, stimulated in social classrooms, and engaged in quality settings.
Lilly Roseburrough: Wisehart says this initiative will also introduce a new childcare provider search tool that helps parents find care that fits their specific situation. Lilly Roseburrough, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: The Western Maricopa Education Center, known as West-MEC, has unveiled what it says is the nation’s first and only K-through-12 advanced manufacturing cleanroom. As Bridget Dowd reports from KJZZ’s education desk, the district built it to help fill a need in the semiconductor industry.
Bridget Dowd: A cleanroom is a highly controlled environment that minimizes airborne contaminants like dust and regulates temperature and air pressure to support sensitive production processes. West-MEC, a public career and technical education school district, is bringing that experience to its students. Superintendent Scott Spurgeon says about three years ago, he sat down with the chief human resources officer at TSMC.
Scott Spurgeon: So for every engineer that TSMC hires, you got three to four technicians that are needed to support that position. So we had a conversation about what could West-MEC do to provide workforce in the semiconductor industry.
Bridget Dowd: That partnership produced the school’s advanced manufacturing program, which prepares students to work in that field. Students like Shawn Cravalho.
Shawn Cravalho: This is the first cleanroom available to high schoolers in the country, so we get to learn skills, very unique skills here, that kind of separate us from everybody else.
Bridget Dowd: He says his dream job is to work in a cleanroom at TSMC. The school expects to eventually turn out about 250 technicians per year. The first class of advanced manufacturing students will graduate in May of 2027. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: The city of Chandler recently passed an ordinance to prohibit food or drink tampering. Violations could lead to prosecution, including a class one misdemeanor. Council member OD Harris says the ordinance complements state law, which already makes intentional drink spiking a felony.
OD Harris: Well, this particular ordinance addresses attempt. That's the keyword in this. So if you attempt to do this, um, that's the one thing that the state law does not have. It only talks about the execution of it.
Phil Latzman: The ordinance goes into effect on May 24 in Chandler. Well, when we think about autism spectrum disorder, we often think of children. But ASD isn't new; it was formally recognized in 1980, which means those who received a diagnosis then are now middle-aged. Kathy Ritchie talked to an expert who's looking at a link between autism and Alzheimer's disease.
Kathy Ritchie: Blair Braden is an associate professor in the College of Health Solutions at ASU. She's also the director of the Autism and Brain Aging Laboratory. Her job is to study aging outcomes in that population.
Blair Braden: It's not a big study in terms of sample size because it's really hard to find these middle-aged and older autistic adults. You know, most of them, the autism diagnosis didn't exist when they were kids.
Kathy Ritchie: Braden says of the 200 study participants between the ages of 40 and 65, half have ASD, the other half don't.
Blair Braden: From a cognitive perspective, we see that some of our older autistic adults are experiencing memory decline at a faster rate than their non-autistic counterparts are.
Kathy Ritchie: Braden says there's lots of factors at play, from genetics to life experiences that can put a person at risk. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
Phil Latzman: The Chandler Unified School District's new safety and security advisory committee met for the first time last week. It comes after a student was hit by a car outside of a high school and later died from his injuries. At a recent governing board meeting, Superintendent Frank Narducci said members are looking at student pedestrian traffic patterns around Chandler High School.
Frank Narducci: Identifying existing challenges and recommending possible feasible solutions, and they had a well-attended meeting and will be having another meeting next week where solutions will be looked into as well.
Phil Latzman: Students currently have the option to leave campus during lunch periods. The student who died was hit while crossing the street outside of a marked crosswalk during lunch. And the U.S. Postal Service plans to introduce a collection of Forever stamps featuring photographs of Route 66. The stamps will be issued at the National Postal Forum in Phoenix next month to commemorate the highway's centennial. The Route 66 stamps are available for pre-order on the USPS website.
Sports: Basketball on the brink of elimination. Suns try to avoid a sweep at the hands of the defending champion Thunder tonight in Phoenix. After losing on Saturday, the home team down three-nothing in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series — not looking good. Tip-off 6:30 p.m. at Mortgage Matchup Center.
Baseball: Diamondbacks rallied to beat the Padres 12–7, split the two-game series played in Mexico City yesterday. Tim Tawa’s grand slam highlighted a six-run seventh inning. Ildemaro Vargas homered to extend his hit streak to 23 games as Arizona battled back from five runs down in the seventh inning and which included that slam by Tawa. Vargas’s hit streak dates back to last season, the longest in the majors since 2024. D-backs hit the road, they begin a series in Milwaukee tomorrow.
And that does it for this edition of KJZZ Sun Up on this Monday, April 27. I’m Phil Latzman. Have a wonderful day and we are back at you tomorrow to do it again. Talk to you then.
