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
ANNOUNCER: KJZZ's Sun Up is supported by Banner Health, Arizona's largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. Bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforAZ.
PHIL LATZMAN: 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, your host for this podcast, a daily digest of Arizona news, as compiled and reported by our KJZZ news team. It is Tuesday, the 9th of June in the year 2026. Hope the week's off to a good start for you, and let's keep it going with a check of the news in this latest update.
Well, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heep says County Attorney Rachel Mitchell and the Board of Supervisors are stopping his office from taking control of equipment that belongs to the recorder, but county budget documents tell a different story. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Heep says law enforcement showed up at a staff member's house and informed him he is under investigation for allegedly trying to steal envelope scanners. The supervisors say the issue stems from security footage in March during a local Tempe election showing the recorder's staff wheeling the scanners out of the county's central processing facility into an unmarked vehicle.
Heep claims the equipment belongs to the recorder's office, but county budget documents show they were purchased with money from the elections department, which is run by the supervisors. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office confirmed Mitchell appointed outside counsel to determine whether criminal activity occurred. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Telehealth abortion services are expanding in Arizona. Katherine Davis-Young has details on that.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Prescribing abortion medications via telehealth was previously banned by a state law, but a court ruling in February voided that and several other abortion regulations in Arizona. Now, a telehealth company called Hey Jane will expand its services to the state. Dr. Amy Potter with Hey Jane says virtual visits and medication by mail will broaden access to abortion, especially in rural areas.
DR. AMY POTTER: Twelve of the state's 15 counties have no in-person abortion clinic, which forces many patients to have to travel long distances and sometimes wait days or even weeks to be able to access care.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Telehealth is increasingly common for abortion. More than a quarter of U.S. abortions were provided virtually in 2025. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The USDA has now put out recommendations to ranchers in Arizona after multiple cases of a deadly, flesh-eating parasite was found in cattle in Texas. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Sonora, Nina Kravinsky has more.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The New World screwworm is back in the United States, which officially eradicated the parasite in the 1960s. The fly larvae can burrow into the flesh of warm-blooded animals and now threaten the United States' cattle supply, which is already at record lows.
No cases of the parasite have been reported in Arizona, but the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service has put out guidance for ranchers in the state to protect against it. The suggestions include monitoring the feral swine population, which is highly susceptible to New World screwworm, as well as cleaning out brush and disposing of animal carcasses to not attract flies. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona lawmakers are preparing to vote on a state budget plan this week, but the spending plan will not include the renewal of a funding source for K-12 public schools. Also from our politics team, here's Camryn Sanchez with that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: The legislature must pass a state budget ahead of a June 30th deadline to avoid a government shutdown. Gov. Katie Hobbs and legislative Democrats wanted the budget to include an extension of Proposition 123, a voter-approved measure to boost education funding with revenue from the state land trust.
But Republicans disagreed on how much funding to pull from the trust and how to spend it. Republicans also argue it's irresponsible to account for Prop 123 funding when it's uncertain whether voters would approve it at the ballot in November. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: State legislators are considering a bill that would bar Arizona's rural communities, everywhere but Maricopa and Pima counties, from using zoning laws or land-use restrictions to prohibit companies from building small modular nuclear reactors. Taylor Griffith has more on that.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The bill's Republican supporters see small nuclear reactors as a means to power data centers, and with that energy, bring the economic windfall of those new developments to rural areas. But Republican Representative Walt Blackman said he's against his GOP colleagues telling rural Arizona what it can and cannot do.
WALT BLACKMAN: As Republicans, we are supposed to be for local control. And, I've been seeing a lot of bills from so-called Republicans that do the opposite. And this is one of those bills.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The bill includes a 300-megawatt limit on the amount of energy the reactors can generate and restricts them from being built within 3 miles from the nearest municipal area. The bill awaits a vote in the Arizona House. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona ranks 40th among US states in an annual report on childhood well-being. Lisa Lawson is the CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which releases the Kids Count Data Book. She says education rankings are what keeps Arizona's overall scores so low. The state's fourth-grade reading proficiency rate was among the worst in the US this year.
LISA LAWSON: Fourth-grade reading matters because before that, you're learning to read; after that, you're reading to learn. So if young people aren't reading on grade level, they're really going to struggle beyond that in school.
PHIL LATZMAN: Lawson notes Arizona has seen improvement in some areas. This year's report showed fewer Arizona children in poverty than in previous years.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit homeowner associations from banning certain dog breeds based on breed size or weight. Kathy Ritchie has more details on that.
KATHY RITCHIE: The legislation is awaiting a roll-call vote in the House. The issue goes beyond allowing people to have the kinds of dogs they want. Sam Richard, a lobbyist with Humane Worlds for Animals, says they've seen an uptick in the number of abandonments due to housing issues.
SAM RICHARD: What we are looking for is ways in policy to encourage pet owners to stay united with their pets in every conceivable way.
KATHY RITCHIE: Republicans in both chambers have supported the measure, with the exception of Republican Jake Hoffman, who chairs the Senate Government Committee. He refused to hear original versions of the bill, but didn't explain why. Now some lawmakers are trying to circumvent Hoffman by attaching the pet measure to a different bill number. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: A bill introduced by Democrats at the state legislature that never got a hearing would have established a groundwater rights buyback program. The proposal mirrored a Nevada program that lets the state buy groundwater rights and retire them for good, saving water.
Laurel Saito is the Nevada water strategy director for The Nature Conservancy. She told KJZZ the show it took a pilot project to convince lawmakers.
LAUREL SAITO: We had more demand for that program than we had funds available. We could use that to demonstrate to the legislature that there is interest in this, we can successfully retire groundwater rights, and this could be a useful tool going forward.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Nevada pilot program used Biden-era moneys to retire 20,000 acre-feet of groundwater.
PHIL LATZMAN: US Customs and Border Protection says there could be delays this summer and into the fall at the San Luis Port of Entry into Arizona from Mexico. From our bureau in Hermosillo, Sonora, here's Nina Kravinsky once again.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The San Luis Port of Entry from Sonora, Mexico, is on the western edge of the Arizona-Mexico border, southwest of the city of Yuma. CBP says construction on the port will begin June 20th and is expected to last four to five months. They say construction will include installing equipment and enhancing infrastructure.
CBP says vehicle processing will continue, but travelers could experience delays. The US imports around a billion dollars' worth of goods each year through Arizona's westernmost border crossing. That includes hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of fresh produce annually. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
PHIL LATZMAN: And a man with developmental disabilities was found dead inside of a vehicle outside a Mesa in-home care facility. Here's Kathy Ritchie once more with that.
KATHY RITCHIE: The Mesa Police Department confirmed 36-year-old Lorenzo Lopez was found inside a vehicle on Thursday at ITC Personal In-Home Care facility, which also goes by the name Pathways for Life. Jon Meyers is the executive director of the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council.
JON MEYERS: Every provider organization is required to have basically a set of checks and balances, a series of protocols that they go through to ensure that every member is accounted for.
KATHY RITCHIE: A company spokesperson with Pathways for Life told KJZZ they are cooperating with authorities and the investigation that's underway. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports, baseball Diamondbacks had the Monday off as they travel east to begin a series against the Marlins in Miami this evening. Arizona's lost seven of 10; they're seven and a half back of the Dodgers, tied with the Padres for second place in the National League West.
Basketball, the Mercury try to make it three wins in a row tonight. They'll play the Valkyries in San Francisco. Phoenix, four and eight on the season.
And that does it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast, on this Tuesday, June the 9th. I'm Phil Latzman. Thanks for being here, and we'll do it all again tomorrow. Talk to you then.
