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: Greetings. This is KJZZ's Sun Up, your daily news update from here in Phoenix on our station and region. I'm Phil Latzman, your host for this podcast, a daily digest of Arizona news as reported by the KJZZ news team. It is Tuesday, June 2, and hope the week's off to a good start. June is certainly off to a predictably warm start here in the Valley and around the state. Let's keep it going with a check of the news.
The National Weather Service does report this has been Phoenix's hottest spring on record. Katherine Davis-Young has the gory details.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Meteorologists define spring as March, April and May, and the average temperature for those three months in Phoenix was more than 6 degrees above normal. The shift was most dramatic in March, when an unprecedented heat wave pushed temperatures almost 20 degrees above normal on some days.
The unseasonably hot conditions contributed to at least three deaths in Maricopa County, and 67 possible heat-related deaths are under investigation. That's more than double the number under investigation at this point last year.
Long-range forecasts show the Valley is likely to see more above-normal heat heading into summer. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: A new report shows Arizona's utility costs are rising even faster than the national average. Mark Wolfe leads the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which released the report. He told KJZZ's The Show families will need more electricity to cool their homes this summer, and he says families are already stretched thin by inflation and high gas prices.
MARK WOLFE: Most of the people that our state programs help are families with low incomes. Now we're hearing from middle-income families who are saying that they're struggling to pay their electric bill. And for us that's new, we really haven't seen that before.
PHIL LATZMAN: The report estimates Arizonans will pay more than $1,000 to cool their homes this summer compared to about $930 last year.
Attorney General Kris Mayes has blocked state utility regulators from repealing renewable energy standards. As Greg Hahne reports, the Arizona Corporation Commission says the AG's action is illegal.
GREG HAHNE: When the Arizona Corporation Commission votes to enact a new rule, it gets sent to the AG's office for review. If the AG disapproves of a rule, it gets sent back to the Commission. In a letter to the Commission, Mayes said the utility regulators did not follow rulemaking procedures set out in law.
The Commission denies it violated the rulemaking process and said Mayes was essentially vetoing their decision. The Commission voted to authorize legal counsel to explore next steps. It's not clear what those next steps will be as the Commission discussed possible action in executive session late last week. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, it's frequently been reported about 40 million people in the West rely on the Colorado River. But as Chris Clements reports in Flagstaff, some researchers are disputing the accuracy of that figure.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: Michael Cohen is with the Pacific Institute, a water policy think tank. Out of the 40 million people thought to be using Colorado River water, he says 7 million people in Southern California don't have the plumbing to access it.
MICHAEL COHEN: It's still defined, but it's just kind of the conventional fallback.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: The bigger the number, Cohen says, the more political power for the states and cities relying on the water. He thinks the total number of Americans using Colorado River water is likely around 35 million. It would be useful to know exactly how many people use it, he says, because —
MICHAEL COHEN: If we don't measure it, then it's harder to manage it.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: And it's not just the number of Americans using the river's water. He says there's fuzziness around how much water is used each year and how many acres of farmland are irrigated with it. I'm Chris Clements in Flagstaff.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, June is Pride Month, but the organization that produces Arizona's largest LGBTQ+ cultural celebration has filed for bankruptcy. Matthew Casey has that.
MATTHEW CASEY: The history of Phoenix Pride goes back to a 1981 gay rights march through downtown to the state Capitol. Now court records show that the nonprofit corporation has between $0 and $50,000 in its coffers. And Phoenix Pride also has around $430,000 in debt.
Most of the total is folded into a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Pride Group LLC, which allegedly has not been paid for providing certain event management services during the Phoenix Pride festival last October. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: An Arizona resident has died from hantavirus in Mohave County. Here's Katherine Davis-Young once more with that.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: The death in Mohave County was linked to a strain of hantavirus called the Sin Nombre virus. That's different from the Andes strain that led to recent deaths on a cruise ship in the South Atlantic. A key difference between the two strains is that the Sin Nombre virus found in the Southwest is not known for person-to-person transmission.
The Sin Nombre virus is carried by deer mice and most cases stem from contact with rodents or rodent droppings. Arizona averages about three hantavirus cases per year, according to the State Health Department. Although cases are rare, health officials urge Arizonans to take precautions around rodents. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Indian Health Service plans to close its Tucson area office as the federal agency tries to revamp its organizational structure. The office gives technical support to healthcare facilities on the Tohono O'odham reservation. It also offers education, prevention, and referral services at the Tucson Indian Center. Verlon Jose is chairman of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
VERLON JOSE: They're trying to plan this to be more efficiently, and they're telling us that there is going to be no budget cuts and so forth. But you know, how could you put the price on a person's health?
PHIL LATZMAN: Under the agency's plan, the Tucson office's functions would be folded into the Phoenix office. Jose says tribes are still in the dark about how that would affect healthcare day-to-day.
The National Park Service has published 35,000 public comments submitted in response to a Trump administration request to report negative signage about Americans, past or living. The comments were submitted through QR codes, including nearly 7,000 from park sites in the Mountain West. Gerry James is with the environmental non-profit Sierra Club. He says the responses reveal widespread opposition to the Trump administration's efforts to change signs.
GERRY JAMES: I think that's what they really wanted from this, like let's kind of just make these sites commemorative places, not highlighting the true history. And a lot of folks called that out.
PHIL LATZMAN: In Arizona, a visitor to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site said they opposed the QR code effort, while a visitor to the Grand Canyon National Park used the opportunity to say the park needed more money and staff for facility maintenance.
Arizona's Attorney General Kris Mayes is suing nine health insurance providers, accusing them of colluding with an AI technology platform to drive down payments to doctors while inflating costs for some patients. From the Politics Desk, Wayne Schutsky sorts it out.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Mayes accused MultiPlan, a third-party billing company, of helping insurers drive down payments for out-of-market medical care on PPO health insurance plans. Mayes said MultiPlan would run information provided by the insurance companies through its own algorithm to determine the lowest possible payment a medical provider would accept. MultiPlan would then recommend below-market payments to medical providers, and those payment amounts were then fed back into the algorithm to further justify low rates in the future.
KRIS MAYES: Insurers would point to MultiPlan, MultiPlan would point to insurers, and in a coordinated effort, they would pressure providers — doctors, nurses, and hospitals — into accepting that low offer.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Mayes alleged the scheme violates Arizona's antitrust and consumer protection laws. MultiPlan denied the allegations. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The San Carlos Apache council has hired a forensic accounting firm to conduct an audit following recent allegations of embezzlement by the tribe's own staffers. Gabriel Pietrorazio has more.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Four employees, including the tribe's secretary, have all been placed on paid administrative leave pending this review. The staffers have been accused of cashing fraudulent checks using the tribe's funeral assistance fund by creating hundreds of fake names for spouses or siblings, who are not enrolled.
The team responsible for overseeing the burial expense program paid out nearly $470,000 within the last six months alone. The tribe says it remains committed to ensuring that all funds are accurately accounted for. Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports news, Larry Fitzgerald Sr. has died. He was a longtime Minnesota sports journalist who spent more than 40 years in the Twin Cities on the radio and in the newspaper. He also happened to be the father of Cardinals legend Larry Fitzgerald Jr., who was the first reporter to cover his own son in a Super Bowl. His family announced his passing with no cause of death given Larry Fitzgerald Sr. was 71. Larry Jr. will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August.
Baseball, Diamondbacks trying to gain ground on the Dodgers and off to a good start. Ketel Marte launched a two-run homer; Nolan Arenado and Tommy Troy hit solo shots. D-backs rallied for a 4-1 win over LA last night in Phoenix, their first win over the Dodgers, their division rivals, this season. The second of four this evening at Chase Field.
Basketball, the misery though continues for the Mercury, who lost their sixth straight game last night, returning home for a 111-77 blowout loss to the Minnesota Lynx. Never close as the Merc continue their slump, they drop to 2-8 on the season. They're back on the road playing the Seattle Storm tomorrow.
And that does it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast on this Tuesday, June 2. I'm Phil Latzman. Have a great day, and we'll do it again tomorrow.
