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.
KJZZ's Sun Up Transcript for May 12, 2026
PHIL LATZMAN: Hey, this is KJZZ’s Sun Up. It is your daily news update from here in Phoenix on our state and region. I'm Phil Latzman, and good day to you. We bring you this podcast as a digest of Arizona news as reported by our KJZZ news team.
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It is Tuesday, the 12th of May. Thanks for being here today. Plenty going on around the state, and let's check in with the news.
Well, the Jones Fire burning in Wickenburg has grown to nearly 90 acres. The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management says firefighters have stopped its forward progress while interior areas do continue to burn. Some evacuations were ordered yesterday, and the Red Cross opened a shelter at Wickenburg High School. A portion of U.S. 60 that had been closed has now reopened, though, between Wickenburg and Morristown.
An extreme heat warning is in effect through tonight here in the Phoenix area. Katherine Davis-Young has more on the unseasonably hot temperatures.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: The average high this time of year is 93 degrees. This heat wave will likely push temperatures about 14 degrees higher than that to 107 or higher. Those temperatures are more typical for late June or July. The research organization Climate Central ranks this May weather event at the highest end of its climate shift index scale, meaning human-caused carbon pollution is playing a large role in this extreme heat. We've already had 13 days in the triple digits this spring, starting with Phoenix's earliest 100-degree day ever back in mid-March. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Water projections for the Colorado River this summer are getting worse. Scott Franz has more on the latest federal forecast.
SCOTT FRANZ: Lake Powell, the upper basin’s biggest reservoir, is now on track to get just 13% of its normal water supply this summer. That would be a record low. Cody Moser is a hydrologist for the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. He says the lack of snowpack and higher than normal temperatures are continuing to drop the forecast.
CODY MOSER: We did see a cool down and a wetter April, but it pales in comparison to this five, six-month stretch of just record warm and dry weather that we’ve seen.
SCOTT FRANZ: Moser says the Yampa River in Northwest Colorado is on track to deliver less than a third of its normal water supply into the basin.
PHIL LATZMAN: That’s Scott Franz reporting.
A northern Arizona Republican has filed a lawsuit to force Attorney General Kris Mayes to take steps to remove Navajo County Recorder David Marshall from office. And Mayes’ office says she’s preparing to do just that. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky has more.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Marshall resigned from the Arizona Legislature in April after the Navajo County Board of Supervisors picked him to fill a vacancy in the recorder’s office. But in a lawsuit, fellow Republican Susanne Hudspeth argues Marshall is not eligible for the job because the state constitution says lawmakers can’t hold most other elected offices during the term for which they were elected.
Hudspeth’s lawyer Timothy La Sota says that means Marshall can’t serve in another office until the next Legislature takes over in January. But La Sota says only the Attorney General can file a legal challenge to remove Marshall from office, which is why Hudspeth is asking a judge to force Mayes to take action.
TIMOTHY LA SOTA: She’s known about this since, well, middle — early to middle April when it first happened, and she’s just completely AWOL.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: But a spokesman for Mayes says her office is preparing to file that legal challenge. Marshall’s attorney told Mayes she is misinterpreting state law. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: President Trump has nominated Kari Lake as the new ambassador to Jamaica, the White House announced yesterday. Also from our politics team, Camryn Sanchez has details on that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Lake ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022 and for one of Arizona's Senate seats in 2024, both times with Trump's endorsement. She perpetuated unfounded claims of election fraud and refused to concede her 2022 loss.
When Trump was reelected, he appointed her as an advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, overseeing the international broadcaster Voice of America. Lake attempted to dismantle the Voice of America and fired more than 1,000 employees. But in March, a federal judge ruled that Lake was acting unlawfully as the organization's leader and restored the employees to their roles.
Lake thanked Trump for her nomination on Monday and said on social media that Jamaica is a country she knows very well. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, there are less than three weeks left to submit comments on a draft of the new Phoenix Police Department policy on the use of canines. KJZZ's Matthew Casey has details.
MATTHEW CASEY: The U.S. Justice Department found in 2024 that Phoenix police failed to exercise reasonable control over canines. The report was later clawed back by the Trump administration, but city officials said reforms would continue.
Now, a draft policy says officers should call a supervisor for approval before sending a dog to separate a suspect from a threat, such as a gun. Officers would also have to write detailed reports whenever a dog is used and photograph injuries. May 31 is the deadline to comment. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is criticizing what he calls a lack of strategy in the war with Iran as well as the depleted stockpile of U.S. weaponry. On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Kelly said it would take years to replenish.
MARK KELLY: This president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, and because of that, we've expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe.
PHIL LATZMAN: Kelly also called the Trump administration's defense budget request of $1.5 trillion, quote, "outrageous" and nearly equal to the total amount the rest of the world spends on defense.
Some of the largest utilities in the West are entering a new system that allows them to share energy. The idea, called a market, has potential to prevent power outages and lower costs for ratepayers. The Mountain West News Bureau's Kaleb Roedel has more.
KALEB ROEDEL: The new system is called the Extended Day Ahead Market. It builds on a real-time trading system that’s been operating since 2014 and has saved customers across the West billions of dollars. Now, the goal is to move that coordination a day earlier. Brian Turner with the advocacy group Advanced Energy United says that can help utilities respond more efficiently when demand spikes.
BRIAN TURNER: When you have a day to plan, you know where the wind is going to be blowing, you know where the sun is going to be shining, and you can turn up and down your other generation — the coal plants or the gas plants.
KALEB ROEDEL: Supporters say the market can make it easier to move renewable power like solar and wind across the region. Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming’s largest utility, is among the first participants, with more expected to join. For the Mountain West News Bureau, I’m Kaleb Roedel.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona home prices have fallen about 3% over the past year, but a new report from the Common Sense Institute shows the drop hasn't been enough to improve housing affordability in the state. Zachary Milne is one of the report's authors.
ZACHARY MILNE: We still have a pretty significant housing shortfall. We're not quite building enough to—to really close that shortfall in any meaningful period, and as a result, we're still seeing elevated housing prices.
PHIL LATZMAN: The report says the number of construction permits issued in the state last year fell to the lowest point since 2019, and it says the state is nearly 56,000 units short of immediate demand.
Arizona Republicans grilled Gov. Katie Hobbs's pick to lead the state National Guard on Monday. The State Senate is tasked with approving the governor's agency heads. Adjutant General John Conley is interim leader of the State Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. GOP Sen. Jake Hoffman opposes vaccine mandates. He questioned why Conley did not advise the former DEMA leader to go against the Department of Defense when it implemented COVID vaccine mandates back in 2021.
JAKE HOFFMAN: Thankfully, a Republican Congress came in and forced the DOD to rescind that regulation, but it was on its face an unconstitutional overstep.
PHIL LATZMAN: In response, Conley noted that the order wasn't rescinded until 2023 and that he wasn't leading the state agency at the time. Ultimately, the panel voted to recommend Conley's confirmation by the full Senate.
In sports, baseball: Michael Soroka allowed just three singles over six and a third scoreless innings. Geraldo Perdomo drove in the game's only run in the first inning as the Diamondbacks blanked the Rangers 1-0 last night in Texas. Soroka improved to 5-2; Paul Sewald pitched the ninth for his ninth save. Dbacks pitchers have allowed just two runs the past three games. They'll try to get the bats going, though, this evening in the second of three in Arlington.
And basketball: The Mercury make their home debut tonight; they'll host the Minnesota Lynx. Merc off to a one-and-one start after splitting two games on the road this past weekend — a win in Las Vegas and a loss in San Francisco.
And that will do it for this edition of KJZZ Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast on this Tuesday, May 12. I'm Phil Latzman. Don't forget to give if you listen to this podcast; we need your support. Go to kjzz.org and have a great day.
