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 non-profit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, non-profit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: This is KJZZ's Sun Up, your daily news update from Phoenix, the state, and the region. Good morning, I'm Bruce Drummond. Phil is away. This podcast is a daily digest of Arizona news as reported by the KJZZ news team. It's Friday, you made it, you're here. It's the 24th day of July. There's lots going on, so let's get right to it.
With nearly all votes counted across the state, it appears Arizona Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers has lost his reelection bid to state lawmaker Ralph Heap, who bested Myers in the GOP primary. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Myers ran on a slate with fellow Republican Commissioner Kevin Thompson for two open seats on the Corporation Commission, Arizona's top utility regulatory body. They faced a challenge from Heap and former lawmaker David Marshall, who later dropped out of the race, which was backed by the Legislature's far-right Freedom Caucus. Thompson will advance to the general election after securing the most votes in the three-way race. But, according to the Secretary of State's Office, Myers trails Heap by about 15,000 votes with 100% of precincts reporting from Arizona's 15 counties. Thompson and Heap will face Democrats Clara Pratt and Jonathan Hill in the November general election. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Trump-backed candidates, many who've spent the past six years sowing doubts about Arizona's elections, won key statewide and congressional races in the state on Tuesday. Former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, himself a Republican, told MSNOW that could doom the party's chances in November.
STEPHEN RICHER: This is a party base that is still in the raptures, the throes of election denialism, and that they'll follow Donald Trump to the end of the earth. Unfortunately for them, that hasn't translated to great success in a general election.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Richer says this week's outcome is similar to the 2022 midterms, when Republican primary voters nominated election deniers for key statewide offices who lost to Democrats in the fall.
Despite President Trump's near-record low approval rating, Democrats only boast a slim advantage over Republicans heading into the midterm elections. A recent Washington Post poll gives Democrats a 3-point lead, far less than the 10-point margin they boasted during the 2018 midterms during Trump's first term in office. Political consultant Chuck Coughlin chalks that up to voters' exhaustion with candidates running against something and not for something.
CHUCK COUGHLIN: There's nothing there to really excite the electorate or excite constituencies about what to vote for.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Coughlin said Republicans too should be worried about their own disillusioned voters declining to participate in the midterms.
State and federal officials are trying to figure out why over 900 early ballots were not delivered to Navajo County voters ahead of the July 21st primary election. Here is Wayne Schutsky once more.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: New Navajo County Recorder David Marshall informed the Board of Supervisors about the issue at a July 14 meeting. Marshall blamed the United States Postal Service for the incident, saying the ballots were returned to the county as undeliverable, which typically means a voter's mailing address is not correct. But he said the recorder's office ran the addresses through verification systems before sending them.
DAVID MARSHALL: So the addresses, 99% of them are accurate according to our system, but we don't understand why it's not — they're not reaching their homes.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The Postal Service is investigating the incident, and the Arizona Attorney General's office says it is asking for more information to determine whether a full investigation is necessary. Marshall told the county supervisors his office sent out letters to the affected households, but it's unclear how many of those voters were able to cast a ballot by other means, such as showing up on Election Day. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: A case asking whether the Trump administration can build a border wall across tribal land in Arizona appeared in court for the first time this week. From the Fronteras Desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznik reports some 230 miles of the Arizona border was lined with a steel-bollard wall during the first Trump administration.
ALISA REZNIK: But the roughly 60-mile-long stretch of border inside the Tohono O'odham Nation was not included. Now, the administration wants to build another border wall along vast stretches of public land and inside the tribal nation. The tribe filed suit this year to try and stop it. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, whose district includes the Tohono O'odham Nation, says the plan risks destroying important cultural sites.
ADELITA GRIJALVA: This administration is willing and continuously violating tribal sovereignty and threatening all of these culturally and environmentally significant lands.
ALISA REZNIK: In court this week, attorneys for the tribe argued that wall plans disregard sovereign Tohono O'odham boundaries, which can only be changed by Congress. The government argues the 60-foot stretch of land where the wall would be built is under federal control. Alisa Reznik, KJZZ News, Tucson.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Phoenix is one of four cities where a new campaign to recruit and retain public health workers is being tested. The effort is led by the National Hispanic Health Foundation, which is backed by the CDC, and will be expanded nationwide. Experts say experienced staff leave public health faster than they can be replaced, and at least 80,000 additional professionals are needed in the coming years.
Arizona's junior U.S. senator has introduced bipartisan legislation that would protect insurance companies that sell policies to marijuana businesses. Matthew Casey reports.
MATTHEW CASEY: Marijuana is federally illegal, making businesses that sell it more risky to insure. So Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego and a Republican colleague from North Dakota want to pass the CLAIM Act and give insurance companies safe harbor. Crest Insurance Vice President Mike McGee works with Arizona-based marijuana businesses. He says if the bill becomes law —
MIKE MCGEE: ... more and more carriers are going to be willing to offer coverage, and that breeds competition, and that in the end will start to make insurance premiums go down, not up.
MATTHEW CASEY: The CLAIM Act was first introduced in Congress in 2023. McGee says it has a better chance to pass now that medical marijuana was recently reclassified as a less dangerous drug. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: The severe lack of snow in the West this past winter was made much more likely by global warming and could be a sign of what's to come. The Mountain West News Bureau's Rachel Cohen reports.
RACHEL COHEN: The dismal winter wasn't just a fluke, says Adrienne Marshall, an assistant professor at Colorado School of Mines. A new study she co-authored found the low snowpack measured across the West in mid-March was about four and a half times more likely because of the warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
ADRIENNE MARSHALL: A bad snow year in the climate we're living in now is substantially worse than what we would have had in the absence of climate change.
RACHEL COHEN: The researchers estimate the amount of water missing from this year's snowpack was enough to fill Lake Mead, which supplies water to millions of people and farms across the Southwest and supports hydropower. If greenhouse gas emissions remain high, the modeling suggests snow droughts this severe could become more common. For the Mountain West News Bureau, I'm Rachel Cohen.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: SRP is planning what it calls an energy center about an hour south of Phoenix that would use a mix of solar, battery power, and natural gas. As Greg Hahne reports, the project is one example of how utilities are trying to address an unprecedented demand for power.
GREG HAHNE: SRP says it expects the Marigold Energy Center near Stanfield to harness solar power through the day, which would also charge the batteries. The natural gas component would ramp up during peak hours, like in the late afternoon and evening. As Arizona's utilities say they need to double their grid output in the coming years, they are tapping any resource they can get, whether it's renewable or fossil fuel. SRP's Director of Resource Planning Bill McClellan says this site is part of that all-of-the-above approach.
BILL MCCLELLAN: We have to be able to maintain reliability at the same time that we're moving towards, you know, more carbon-free energy.
GREG HAHNE: SRP still needs to secure some regulatory approvals for the energy center. The utility is hosting open houses next week seeking public input. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday what it calls historic sanctions on one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug cartels. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has more.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The Treasury Department says the sanctions are the largest yet against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The criminal organization is a major drug producer and smuggler, and responsible for a trail of brutal violence across Mexico after its founding more than a decade ago. The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned more than 50 individuals and businesses that they say are tied to the organization. They include the alleged new leader of the cartel, who Treasury says took control after the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or "El Mencho," its leader until he was killed earlier this year in a Mexican military operation. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: In sports, a home run and three RBIs from Tyler Locklear helped the Diamondbacks win last night in St. Louis. The game was a makeup for one canceled in June due to weather. Arizona beat the Cardinals 10-6 for their third straight win. They travel to Washington today for a weekend series against the Nationals. The first pitch is at 3:45 p.m. Arizona time.
And in basketball, the Mercury are off until next week as the WNBA plays its All-Star game in Chicago tomorrow. Phoenix's next game is against Golden State on Wednesday.
And that's it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast for Friday, July 24th. I'm Bruce Drummond. Have a great weekend, and we'll be right back here on Monday.
