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: Hey, feliz viernes, amigos. This is KJZZ's Sun Up, your daily news update from here in Phoenix on our state and region. And good day to you. I'm Phil Latzman, and this podcast, brought to you as a digest of Arizona news, is reported by our KJZZ news team. Yeah, we've made it to Friday. It's uh, August the 28th. Glad you're here with us. And here we go with the check of the news.
Well, the Maricopa County Attorney says she is assigning one of her most experienced teams of prosecutors to a case against two former Phoenix police officers. Matthew Casey has the latest.
MATTHEW CASEY: A man and a woman pulled over by Antonio Felix and Luis Vazquez Jr. claimed they were beaten and tased. The officers were recently fired, arrested, and charged with crimes such as kidnapping and assault. At a news conference, County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said the case says nothing about the Phoenix Police Department as a whole.
RACHEL MITCHELL: This case is about the conduct of these individual former officers. It is not a reflection on the countless men and women who uphold their oaths and put their lives on the line every day to keep our community safe.
MATTHEW CASEY: A federal civil rights review of Phoenix Police released two years ago said the department had a "force-first" culture. The report was retracted last year by the Trump administration. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the chairman of a Native American tribe along the Arizona-Mexico border says his office is assessing its options after armed federal agents entered tribal land with border wall contractors earlier this week. From the Fronteras Desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznick has the latest on that.
ALISA REZNICK: The Tohono O'odham Nation spans 62 miles of the border and has tribal members on both sides. The Trump administration plans to build a wall there for the first time. Tribal police have been escorting construction workers off the reservation using a trespassing law, but this week, contractors entered and stayed, guarded by Border Patrol and other federal personnel. Footage provided by the tribe shows heavy machinery being used to dig a borehole for soil sampling. Tohono O'odham Chairman Verlon Jose says the action breaches tribal sovereignty.
VERLON JOSE: If I were to go into Washington, D.C., or any other federal establishment and do exactly what they're doing to us here, they would not stand for it.
ALISA REZNICK: A federal judge denied the tribe's request to stop construction earlier this month. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club wants to remove two of the state's top utility regulators from an ongoing APS rate case over comments they've made disparaging the far-right interest group. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky has that.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Arizona Public Service is asking the Corporation Commission to raise rates by as much as 14%. The Free Enterprise Club is one of several outside groups that has intervened in the case to argue against the rate increase. And the group now wants Commissioners Nick Myers and Kevin Thompson booted off the case. It argues public comments criticizing the club mean Myers and Thompson won't fairly weigh evidence it presented. That includes claims Myers made to KJZZ, accusing Free Enterprise of offering to help him circumvent campaign finance laws years ago, allegations the club denies. Both Myers and Thompson said they have no plans to recuse themselves. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the Trump administration is pursuing a new push in oil and gas drilling on public lands, including here in Arizona. A new report explores the environmental risks that could come from that, and Greg Hahne has more.
GREG HAHNE: About 80,000 acres north of the Grand Canyon could be sold later this year for oil and gas drilling as part of the Trump administration's focus on fossil fuels to achieve, quote, "energy dominance." The new report comes from environmental groups Rocky Mountain Wild and the Center for Western Priorities. It says the lands included in the Arizona proposal contain biological resources and have cultural importance to tribal nations and Indigenous communities. The possible sale comes as the federal government is trying to roll back public comment periods on oil and gas leasing. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, that extreme heat warning — sound familiar? It remains in effect in the Phoenix area through Saturday evening, and Phoenix has had more than 40 heat warning days so far in 2026. That's the most to date for a single year. David Hondula directs Phoenix's Office of Heat Response and Mitigation. He says even though the warnings have been frequent, they should still be taken seriously.
DAVID HONDULA: It's been a a long summer and we've been hearing messages over and over about being mindful of how our own bodies are doing, checking in on on others, but now's really a time to double down on that messaging, on that vigilance.
PHIL LATZMAN: More than 100 heat-related deaths have been confirmed so far this year in Maricopa County, with many more still to come.
Candidates for Arizona's 7th Congressional District agree they don't want data centers without more guardrails, as one of the state's most controversial data center proposals, Project Blue, is planned there. Republican Daniel Butierrez Sr. is challenging incumbent Democrat Adelita Grijalva. Butierrez said in a Wednesday debate that data centers should build water treatment facilities before they begin operations.
DANIEL BUTIERREZ SR.: Data centers are going to use too much water. I don't think they're going to bring the jobs. I don't think it's going to balance out and be OK for us unless they bring the water first. If they bring the water first, yes, they'll create jobs. It'd be great.
PHIL LATZMAN: Grijalva agreed the data centers use too much water. In the long run, she says the jobs that data centers bring in don't outweigh the amount of jobs that AI would replace.
The Arizona Clean Elections Commission greenlit further investigation into three candidates based on evidence they didn't actually qualify for millions in public funding awarded to their campaigns. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky has the latest on this.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: To receive public funding from the commission, candidates first collect a specific number of $5 qualifying donations. Green Party candidates Rissa Lombardo and Dwayne Collier and Republican Scott Neely all qualified for funding. But Clean Elections Director Thomas Collins says there is evidence they did not collect those qualifying contributions. He says many donations reported by the three campaigns came from the same people, some of whom have no history donating to political campaigns, and pointed to media reports that some of those alleged donors denied giving money. Timothy La Sota, an attorney for Lombardo and Collier, denied the allegations.
TIMOTHY LA SOTA: This is black helicopter material. I mean, this is a a really far-fetched, a conspiracy theory ...
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The commission voted unanimously to direct Collins to continue the investigation and make a recommendation on whether they should claw back the money. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the state of Sonora, south of Arizona, is registering a growing number of New World screwworm cases after the U.S. reopened the border to cattle in Douglas just this week. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has more.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The state of Sonora has registered nine cases of New World screwworm since the first appearance of the flesh-eating parasite in the state last week. The cases come as the U.S. reopens the border to cattle at the Agua Prieta-Douglas border crossing into Arizona. Live cattle imports restarted there on Monday after more than a yearlong borderwide ban to protect the U.S. from the parasite. The new cases in Sonora are toward the south of the state, more than 200 miles from the Douglas crossing. Authorities on both sides of the border this week stressed heightened protocols for cattle imported from Mexico, including ramped-up treatments and inspections. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the Surprise Police Department has cleared an officer suspected of misusing Flock's camera data. As Jill Ryan reports, the department says the abnormal activity detected during a recent audit was due to a technical error.
JILL RYAN: Surprise police say the officer did not violate department policy, but instead a technical anomaly made it appear as though the officer repeatedly searched for the same vehicle using data collected from automated license plate readers. Following the initial audit that led to the investigation, the department said it notified Flock it was canceling its contract and requested removal of the cameras. Now the city says moving forward, it will, quote, "evaluate various public safety technologies, which may include ALPRs." Jill Ryan, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Arizona along with a handful of other states for allowing Dreamers to pay in-state college tuition. Here's Camryn Sanchez with that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Arizona voters passed Prop. 308 in 2022. It allows non-citizen students to pay in-state college tuition if they've gone to an Arizona school for a minimum of two years and graduated from an Arizona high school. The DOJ said in a statement that providing financial aid and in-state tuition to, quote, "illegal aliens" unconstitutionally discriminates against U.S. citizens who don't have the same opportunity. Aliento, the group that pushed Prop. 308, encouraged Dreamers to continue pursuing higher education in Arizona, predicting the lawsuit will fail. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports, baseball, a setback for the Diamondbacks, who lost the opener of their series in San Francisco to the Giants last night, 6 to 1. Gabriel Moreno produced Arizona's only run, a solo homer in the fourth. The D-backs fall a game and a half behind the Padres for the final wild card spot, and they'll play the second of four against the Giants tonight.
Basketball, the Mercury continue to fade. They lost their fourth straight game last night. They fell at home again to the Washington Mystics, 80-73. The lone bright spot: Kahleah Copper led Phoenix with 35 points, became the fastest player in franchise history to score 2,000 points. Phoenix now 13 and 26, out of the postseason race, hosting the Toronto Tempo at home tomorrow.
And that'll do it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast this Friday, Aug. 28. I'm Phil Latzman. Enjoy the weekend. We're back at you on Monday. Talk to you then.
