KJZZ's Sun Up is a weekday morning news 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: Hey, greetings! 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. Welcome to Wednesday, it's the second day of September, as we glide over the midweek hump. Here is a check of the news. Two people killed in flash floods at the Grand Canyon over the weekend have been identified as 43-year-old John Justy and 42-year-old Brent Rosenkranz. A third man, 53-year-old Timothy Smith, is still missing. Incident Commander Dave Black says the search is ongoing.
DAVE BLACK: We are absolutely holding out hope that that person is still alive. We have — we have done a lot of air reconnaissance from helicopters and have not found any survivors as of yet.
PHIL LATZMAN: The three men had ties to Granbury, Texas. Their families said they planned several days of hiking, camping, fishing, and exploring together. Meanwhile, Grand Canyon experts say the flash floods there are common, but this deadly incident was unusual because of where the rain fell. Alex Hager reports.
ALEX HAGER: Laura Crossey, a scientist at the University of New Mexico, has seen a lot of floods while studying the canyon's geology since the late '90s. But, she says, these monsoon rains swept through a wildfire burn scar and went through an area with human infrastructure.
LAURA CROSSEY: That's not normally what you get in a flood in Grand Canyon. You normally have, you know, trees and maybe, you know, you know, rocks and mud and sand and so forth, but you don't usually have pieces of bridges and things like that.
ALEX HAGER: But even the huge amount of dirt and debris might not change the river too much. Experienced rafters say new rapids often form because of floods like this, and they just have to learn to navigate new obstacles. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In a contentious debate aired on Arizona PBS Monday night, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and his Republican challenger sparred over whether Arizona's elections were safe and secure. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky was listening in.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Fontes said Arizona's elections are safe and secure. Republican Representative Alexander Kolodin repeatedly refused to answer the same question, instead saying public confidence in elections has never been lower. Fontes blamed that on people like Kolodin, who was among the attorneys who signed onto lawsuits challenging the results of President Trump's 2020 loss based on unproven election fraud claims.
ADRIAN FONTES: You were one of the folks who was the architect of the big lie here in Arizona. You're the one who has caused the misinformation and distrust. You're like the arsonist who causes the fire and then says you're going to come in and cure things.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Kolodin accused Fontes of undermining voter confidence. In one case, Kolodin sought a court order forcing Fontes to turn over records he is required to have by law about maintaining voter rolls. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: An ASU professor wants to sue the Arizona Board of Regents over a training course about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but first, he'll need the Arizona Supreme Court to rule he has the right to make his case. Also from the politics team, here's Camryn Sanchez with that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Owen Anderson argues ASU violated an anti-DEI state law by forcing him to undergo training he claims had a negative and discriminatory narrative against white people like himself. But the state Court of Appeals ruled last year the law in question doesn't explicitly give employees like Anderson the right to sue their employer. In this case, that's the Arizona Board of Regents. Goldwater Attorney Jon Riches says the ruling undermines state law.
JON RICHES: If the lower court's decision is allowed to stand, then so many laws, including this one, would just be a nullity. They would be totally unenforceable.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Attorneys for ABOR are asking justices to uphold the lower court ruling. ABOR also disputes that the training Anderson took issue with was mandatory. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona business leaders are in Taiwan this week for a trip focused on semiconductor development. As Greg Hahne tells us, the delegation's visit comes about a month after Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC announced its $265 billion investment in the state.
GREG HAHNE: The visit is led by the Arizona Commerce Authority and includes representatives from the state's universities and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In a statement, Commerce Authority President Sandra Watson said Arizona's long-standing partnership with Taiwan is one of the most important around the world. The delegation will be attending one of the largest global semiconductor conventions. They are also scheduled to visit the American Institute in Taiwan, a nonprofit made to represent U.S. interests on the island. It's the Commerce Authority's third visit to Taiwan this year. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, it's now been a month since the Trump administration severed a more than $150 million contract with aid organizations representing unaccompanied children in immigration court. From the Fronteras Desk, Alisa Reznick reports the federal program has been around now for almost two decades.
ALISA REZNICK: But on July 31, the contract to do that work came to an end. Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu is with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which represents around 600 children in Arizona. She says without government funding, they can't take on new cases.
ROXANA AVILA-CIMPEANU: What we've seen since spring of this year is an increase in the number of hearings that children have to go to and an acceleration of the cases to get to that deportation point.
ALISA REZNICK: Last month, Avila-Cimpeanu said a 1-year-old boy appeared in Phoenix immigration court alone, without a lawyer. The Trump administration has awarded a six-month, no-bid contract to Our Rescue, a Utah-based group headed by a former ICE officer, though it's not clear whether they'll provide direct representation. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
PHIL LATZMAN: An ASU hockey player who collapsed during an outdoor workout nearly two weeks ago is still hospitalized and may never recover, his family's attorney says. Katherine Davis-Young has the latest.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Twenty-one-year-old Matthew Mayhew was new to the team and had been in Arizona less than a week before the first day of coach-led training, according to his attorney, Robert Carey. An extreme heat warning was in effect that day, and Carey says players were participating in a military-style outdoor workout with limited water or rest breaks when Mayhew became unresponsive.
ROBERT CAREY: It's just contrary to everything anyone with any sense or any training in this area would ever do. And that's what caused this. Matthew was in perfectly good health.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Carey is calling for an independent investigation into the situation. ASU says it does have safety policies in place for sports practices in extreme heat and says it is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the workout. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The state of Sonora's cattle ranchers union says the newly opened crossing point for livestock exported into Arizona has once again temporarily closed. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has the latest on that.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Sonora's Ranchers Union President Juan Ochoa Valenzuela says his organization is working to fix an equipment issue on the Mexican side of the border and is halting cattle exports until it's resolved.
JUAN OCHOA VALENZUELA: [IN SPANISH] Este es un problema estrictamente técnico que se ocasionó ...
NINA KRAVINSKY: "This is a strictly technical problem," says Ochoa Valenzuela. He expects the border to reopen within three days. The temporary closure comes after last week's reopening of the border crossing point for cattle in Douglas, Arizona, the first to reopen along the whole U.S.-Mexico border. The border has been shut to live cattle imports since last year to protect against the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that's been spreading in Mexico and reached Texas earlier this summer. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the Trump administration has just greenlighted a plan that could let the Navajo Nation dig up more than a half-billion tons of coal by extending the life of a New Mexico mine over the next century until the year 2136. Gabriel Pietrorazio has details.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: The Interior Department says denying this permit would be at odds with Trump's "unleashing American energy" agenda. It could also destabilize the Navajo Nation economy. The tribally owned Navajo Transitional Energy Company fuels the aging Four Corners Power Plant. That lease is set to expire in 2041, but the Feds note the next coal buyer is unknown. The Feds argue those financial factors outweigh a slew of environmental and other harms posed by the expansion, including the relocation of nearby families. Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Arizona Chamber of Commerce says those calling for a ban on data centers should be willing to give up any and all modern conveniences. Yesterday, the chamber announced a fake Arizona offline pledge that challenges staunch data center opponents to commit to avoiding social media, online banking, and more. Here's Courtney Coolidge, the chamber's executive vice president.
COURTNEY COOLIDGE: It's no question that we're in political season and data centers don't poll well, and so it's politically expedient to be anti-data center right now, but I would just be skeptical of the extreme approaches on both sides.
PHIL LATZMAN: The chamber says the solution to water and energy concerns cannot be to stop building data centers because that would ignore their importance to the state's economy. And sports, baseball: Diamondbacks slipping a little bit, another setback for them as they drop their third in a row, losing to the red-hot Phillies last night in Phoenix, 7-1. Bryce Harper reached base five times, had four singles for the Phils, who never trailed. They won their sixth straight. D-backs ace Eduardo Rodríguez took the loss. Arizona missed a chance to gain on the Padres; they lost, but they're still a half-game behind San Diego for the National League's final wild-card spot. The D-backs try to avoid the sweep in the series finale with the Phillies this afternoon at Chase Field. And that will do it for this Wednesday edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast on this September the 2nd. I'm Phil Latzman, have a great day as we go over the hump, and we'll do this again tomorrow on Thursday. See you then.
