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, 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 reported by our KJZZ news team. It’s Thursday, August 27th, Friday-adjacent as we head towards the weekend. Let’s check in with the news.
License plate readers made by the company Flock have now been turned off in Tempe and Chandler, and officials in Cave Creek say they’ve terminated the town’s contract with the tech company. Matthew Casey has the latest on the cancellations.
MATTHEW CASEY: Tempe officials recently quit sharing data collected from the Flock system and said they would seek a new vendor for license plate readers. Now all Flock cameras in the city have been turned off, and Tempe officials say they will not seek another company to replace the system.
In Cave Creek, officials say all Flock cameras were removed after one was stolen. Town officials also say they ended the company’s contract after realizing local rules for protecting privacy won’t apply to a network designed to allow data sharing by police agencies. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes signed on to a lawsuit with 24 other states on Wednesday, challenging new Post Office rules for mail-in voting. The rules, which are based on an executive order by President Trump, would require states to follow a uniform style for ballots envelopes and give voter data to the Post Office. Mayes says those last-minute changes will create chaos in Arizona, where most voters use mail-in ballots.
KRIS MAYES: And it could harm the millions of Republicans, Democrats and independents who choose voting by mail as they exercise their constitutional right to vote.
PHIL LATZMAN: Mayes says county election officials across the state are already preparing ballots ahead of the early voting period, which starts in October.
Pinal County supervisors rejected plans to build the La Osa Energy Center last night. The development outside Eloy was among the largest proposed data centers in Arizona. Taylor Griffith has details.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The development would have included 11 data center buildings, a utility-scale natural gas plant and battery storage systems equivalent to the energy demands of an entire city. Pinal County supervisors voted it down even after developers proposed an 80% reduction in the scale of the project, self-imposed limits on water use and a commitment to shoulder all of the energy costs. Only Supervisor Stephen Miller was in support of the project. He says he sees the board’s denial as an infringement on land property rights.
STEPHEN MILLER: I really truly believe that all the negativity on these data centers is stemmed from our adversaries around the world. Um, we need ’em.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The county says it received over 280 letters in opposition, including one from the city of Eloy’s mayor, Andrew Sutton, who recently reversed his support for the project. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Tohono O’odham Nation says the Trump administration is sending Border Patrol agents to their tribal lands where contractors are preparing to erect a border wall. The tribe says a Border Patrol SWAT team and other personnel entered the Tohono O’odham Nation this week, and from the Fronteras Desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznick has more.
ALISA REZNICK: The tribe says masked, armed federal agents guarded wall contractors as they drilled and did other pre-construction work. The news comes just one day after tribal leaders and Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva gathered in the border town of Ajo to call for a stop to the wall project on tribal lands and sacred sites.
Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose told reporters the tribe allows construction work on other border projects, like a forward operating base and surveillance towers, but wall contractors haven’t been approved.
VERLON JOSE: Our Tohono O’odham police, our rangers, have been stopping contractors. If they didn’t have the necessary permits, they were letting them know, “You are trespassing. Please leave the Nation.”
ALISA REZNICK: The tribe says a vehicle blockade set up by Customs and Border Protection is now preventing tribal police from issuing trespassing citations and removing contractors. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
PHIL LATZMAN: Gov. Katie Hobbs and her opponent, Congressman Andy Biggs, sparred at a public safety forum this week over his response to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. From the politics desk, Camryn Sanchez has more.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Hobbs condemned Biggs for supporting, quote, “J6ers,” and accused him of standing outside a D.C. jail with other supporters when President Trump issued pardons in 2025. Biggs denies that.
ANDY BIGGS: That is an absolute lie. It is a fabrication. It’s about as nutty as I’ve heard from her this campaign.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: An NBC News affiliate in Washington, D.C. reported live on the day of the pardons that Biggs was at the scene outside the jail. Biggs said Tuesday that he never made comment on whether the pardons should be issued, but posts from his account on X show him asking Trump to pardon the rioters. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Three long-shot Arizona candidates are facing allegations they falsified records in order to obtain millions of dollars in public funding for their campaigns. Also from our politics team, Wayne Schutsky has that.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The Citizens Clean Elections Commission provides public dollars to candidates who agree to abide by rules like foregoing large contributions from PACs and corporations. To obtain funding, candidates must first collect a specific number of $5 qualifying contributions.
Green Party candidates Reesa Lombardo and Duane Collier, and Republican Scott Neely, qualified for Clean Elections funding this year. But Clean Elections Director Thomas Collins says there’s evidence they didn’t actually collect those qualifying donations. That includes the fact that a substantial number of donors who were listed by all three candidates have no past history of making political contributions, and six of those alleged donors told the Arizona Mirror they never gave money to the candidates. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Some education news now: The Tucson Unified School District plans to hold roundtables in September to gather public input on potential school closures. The district’s governing board approved the community engagement plan on Tuesday. Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said he wants a packed house for these meetings that will be held next month.
GABRIEL TRUJILLO: We want childcare, we want food, and there better be no less than 100 people at every session. That this has to be massively publicized. We have to recruit people.
PHIL LATZMAN: Trujillo said the list of schools up for closure won’t be released until October and November after the district hears from the public.
The Trump administration is proposing to drastically increase H-1B visa fees to over $100,000. As Greg Hahne reports, industry experts warn that could hinder the U.S.’s ability to onshore semiconductor manufacturing, including here in Arizona.
GREG HAHNE: H-1B visas are widely used in the semiconductor industry, including companies like Intel and TSMC. Ellis, an immigration law firm, estimates TSMC’s Arizona branch has sought over 300 H-1Bs since launching in 2020. But Steve Zylstra with the Arizona Technology Council says the increase in fees could impact the whole industry, not just TSMC here in the state.
STEVE ZYLSTRA: Making it more difficult and more expensive to bring talent here to the United States that has very specialized capabilities is not good for the industry and not good for our economy.
GREG HAHNE: Zylstra says the proposal also comes at a time when Amkor is building the first U.S.-based advanced semiconductor packaging facility in Arizona. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The leader of a polygamous group has been sentenced on three counts of child abuse stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Flagstaff. Adrian Skabelund has more.
ADRIAN SKABELUND: This week, a judge sentenced Samuel Bateman to 24 years on top of the 50 years he’s already serving in federal prison. During a traffic stop in 2022, Flagstaff police discovered three girls between the ages of 11 to 14 held without seatbelts or ventilation in a trailer he was towing. He was previously sentenced to 50 years in federal prison on separate charges related to coercing girls as young as nine to perform sex acts and conspiracy to kidnap children. Bateman is the self-proclaimed prophet of a sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the Arizona Strip.
PHIL LATZMAN: That’s Adrian Skabelund reporting from Flagstaff.
An Arizona firefighter died this week from a medical emergency in the midst of suppressing a 15,000-acre blaze burning near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The U.S. Wildland Fire Service identified the victim as 62-year-old San Carlos Apache Randy Lupe. The agency says it’s aiding farmers, coworkers, and loved ones as the Frijoles Fire continues to burn.
In sports, baseball: Eduardo Rodriguez did it again. He struck out nine batters in seven innings, gave up just two hits. Jordan Lawlar homered as the Diamondbacks shut out the Cubs 2-0 yesterday at Chase Field. They take two of three in the series. D-backs stay a game behind the Padres for the final National League wild card spot. They’ll hit the road tonight to begin a four-game weekend series in San Francisco against the Giants.
Basketball: The Mercury finish a two-game home series against the Washington Mystics tonight trying to snap a three-game losing streak. Now out of playoff contention, Phoenix bought out the contract of veteran DeWanna Bonner earlier this week. She’ll reportedly join the Atlanta Dream for the remainder of the season.
In football: As they gear up for the NFL regular season, the Cardinals have left the Valley’s triple-digit heat for some relief in Wisconsin for joint practices this week with the Packers ahead of their final preseason game in Green Bay tomorrow on Friday. That’ll be a family affair as Cards new head coach Mike LaFleur takes on older brother Matt LaFleur’s Packers.
And while the game itself is meaningless, most starters expected to rest, the Cardinals will use it to narrow down their final roster spots in preparation for their regular season opener Sept. 13 in L.A. against the Chargers.
Hey, that’ll do it for this edition of KJZZ’s Sun Up, Arizona’s morning news podcast on this Thursday, August the 27th. I’m Phil Latzman. Enjoy the rest of the day, stay cool and hydrated out there, and we’ll do it again tomorrow. Talk to you then.
