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.
PHIL LATZMAN: This is KJZZ's Sun Up, your daily news update from here in Phoenix on our state, our news. I'm Phil Latzman, your host for this podcast daily digest. Arizona news as reported by our KJZZ news team. Hey, happy Monday to you. Welcome to a fresh work week. Hope you had a nice weekend, stayed cool and shaded and hydrated out there. We're in the midst of a very long heat warning. Aug. 24 is the date, and here comes the news. Two former Phoenix police officers are facing multiple charges after allegedly conducting a violent off-the-books traffic stop. As KJZZ's Jill Ryan reports, the police union representing the officers says they do support their firing.
JILL RYAN: The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association response comes after an arraignment over the weekend of former officers Luis Vasquez Jr. and Antonio Felix. In a court video obtained by ABC15, prosecutor Tom Van Dorn says the defendants used their authority as police officers to cause harm to the victims.
TOM VAN DORN: These offenses were committed by on-duty police officers in a fully marked Phoenix police Tahoe using the indicia of their lawful authority to affect an unlawful detention with no lawful basis, according to the investigators. They used extreme and unjustified violence against these victims.
JILL RYAN: According to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Vasquez is now out on bond release. Felix remains in custody. Jill Ryan, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Data centers create more heat waste than any other development. Just one facility can emit more heat than all of Phoenix's downtown core. That's according to a new ASU study on data centers' heat impacts. Taylor Griffith has more on that.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Anytime energy is used in a building, it creates heat that must be expelled. This is what's known as urban heat waste. David Sailor, director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at ASU, says until now, urban climate researchers were less concerned with energy-related heat waste because cities weren't producing much. For example, he says the entire city of Phoenix generates about 10 to 20 watts of heat emissions per square meter. For a large-scale data center:
DAVID SAILOR: The total anthropogenic waste heat is more on the order of 2,000 to 6,000 watts per square meter, so several orders of magnitude larger than what we see at the city-scale average.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Continued testing by Sailor's team shows the higher volumes of heat waste are what's pushing average temperatures 1 to 2 degrees hotter within a quarter mile of large-scale data centers. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: A new poll finds the majority of Arizonans are concerned about police misusing data captured by Flock cameras. The poll from the progressive non-profit NextGen America shows while 51% of residents believe the automatic license plate readers do help police, 82% are concerned about misuse. Gregg Pekau, founder of NextGen America, says those 82% of respondents would also like to see independent audits.
GREGG PEKAU: They know that their movements are being tracked, that there's errors within the data, and ultimately that the government agencies are not truly in control of the data.
PHIL LATZMAN: The survey results show Republicans are split on whether ICE should have access to data from Flock cameras, while Democrats and Independents are opposed to it. Youngtown, Arizona, is a town of about 7,000 residents wedged between Surprise and Glendale. They have 40 Flock cameras installed, and their mayor, Michael Lavault, is defending them. He says he sees no reason to cut ties with the system, which he says has been overwhelmingly successful at stopping auto theft and other crimes.
MICHAEL LAVAULT: My position is, let's fix the abuse, make sure it doesn't happen again, and, you know, move on with the system that's working very well.
PHIL LATZMAN: Four Arizona cities are investigating potential misuse of their Flock systems by police staff. A human rights group tracking ICE flights says it's seeing an uptick in the number of third-country removal flights. That's a Trump-era process where immigrants are flown from the U.S. to a country other than their own. From the Fronteras Desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznick has more.
ALISA REZNICK: Human Rights First produces monthly reports showing all kinds of ICE deportation flights. It says several third-country removal flights were documented over a 24-hour period, including one to Liberia, marking the first time the U.S. has used a new bilateral agreement with the African nation. Savi Arvey with Human Rights First says many on board had been granted withholding of removal orders by a judge in the U.S. That's a form of protection that prevents someone from being sent to their home country.
SAVI ARVEY: They've already met a very high threshold, a higher threshold than asylum, due to the likelihood of persecution or torture in their countries of origin.
ALISA REZNICK: Arvey's group tracked a plane from Louisiana to Liberia, then to Equatorial Guinea, to Cameroon. She says people previously sent to Equatorial Guinea have been sent back to their home countries once they arrive. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Bureau of Land Management wants to drastically cut the amount of time people have to comment on new oil and gas projects, even when those projects are underneath someone's own land. For the Mountain West News Bureau, Teal Davis has more.
TEAL DAVIS: It's called split estate, and it's a division of land that's common in some rural communities. Ranchers own the topsoil, while the BLM owns mineral rights underground. Jim Magagna with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association says the BLM's proposal to cut public comment periods from 90 days to just 10 severely limits landowners' say in what happens under their feet.
JIM MAGAGNA: With the proposal as it's out there today, if you're a rancher or landowner, I think you should be concerned.
TEAL DAVIS: The change may reduce project timelines for oil and gas companies. It may give ranchers less say on leases. Public comment for the proposal ends on August 24th.
PHIL LATZMAN: That's Teal Davis reporting. The Bureau of Reclamation says the integrity of a bridge burned by wildfire in the farming community of Cibola is still intact, and the agency plans to seek funding to replace the collapsed span. La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin is from Cibola and says the bridge collapse affects farmers, who now have to travel 15 miles out of the way to access fields on the opposite side of the Colorado River.
HOLLY IRWIN: So with the bridge being burnt out, you know, now they would have to take their equipment up and around, you know, probably literally up to up to the Farmers Bridge and kind of cut over to the other side to go down.
PHIL LATZMAN: It was the second bridge there to be rendered unusable by wildfire in as many years. Since the Trump administration scaled down the size of two national monuments in Utah, companies are already vying to file more than half a dozen mining claims. Environmental groups say that set a dangerous precedent. The Mountain West News Bureau's Yvette Fernandez has more on that.
YVETTE FERNANDEZ: In July, the Trump administration cut Bears Ears National Monument to less than 9% of its previous size and Grand Staircase-Escalante to less than 10%.
STEVE BLOCH: These are two of the crown jewels of America's system of federal public lands.
YVETTE FERNANDEZ: Steve Bloch with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance says there's already been at least seven applications to mine the millions of acres that were previously part of the monuments. And while the claims can't technically be accepted until Sept. 11, Bloch says the trajectory is clear. The Trump administration says the unique landscape and rock formations do not make them, quote, "objects of historic or scientific interest," but these lands do contain several critical minerals the White House says are essential for the nation's economy.
PHIL LATZMAN: That's Yvette Fernandez reporting. Pima County supervisors will vote this week to accept more than $830,000 in federal grants to make improvements at the county-owned airport in Ajo. Airport Manager Anna Steiner says the facility has been neglected, and that she's been applying for grant funding to bring the airfield up to modern standards since arriving there in 2023.
ANNA STEINER: There's a lot of possibility for the airport, but it is remote and it has not been maintained, so it's lost a lot of its luster and usability.
PHIL LATZMAN: Steiner says the electrical upgrades pave the way for future potential improvements like a weather station and a fuel farm. Located on a quiet street in Phoenix's Melrose District is the Chinese Senior Center. And as Kathy Ritchie reports, the center opened its doors roughly 40 years ago and offers a mix of programming in both Mandarin and Cantonese.
KATHY RITCHIE: Jianhau Feng came to Arizona almost 30 years ago. She's a longtime member here and one of three volunteers who helps lead the Cantonese singing group, which was started around the same time.
JIANHAU FENG: She mentioned the benefit for, you know, the singing, it will help senior remain active, and also reduce stress.
KATHY RITCHIE: Besides the physical and psychological benefits of gathering together twice a week to sing, Feng says the music serves as a thread connecting those who live here now to home.
JIANHAU FENG: By singing those old song that like Cantonese song that help them to memorize, to like connect back to their hometown, like they're away like 1,000 miles from from their hometown.
KATHY RITCHIE: The group performs in public periodically. Sometimes the songs are more festive; other times, more traditional. There's also a Mandarin singing group as well as a Cantonese dance and opera group. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports, baseball: Ildemaro Vargas hit a go-ahead two-run triple in a decisive four-run seventh as the Diamondbacks rallied for a 5-3 win over the Reds yesterday at Chase Field to win the series and keep pace in the National League Wild Card race. The D-backs remain two games behind the Padres for the final NL Wild Card spot. They'll continue the homestand with a visit from the Chicago Cubs in the first of three this evening in Phoenix. And that'll do it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast this Monday, Aug. 24. I'm Phil Latzman. Thanks for joining us, and we will do it again tomorrow. Stay cool, hydrated, and shaded, and see you then.
