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 is Thursday, Sept. 3. Thanks for being here. The weekend is right in focus, so let’s keep on trucking and get right to the news on this Thursday.
This has been Phoenix’s second-hottest summer on record. Katherine Davis-Young has the gory details.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Meteorologists define summer as June, July and August, and the average temperature for those three months in Phoenix was 97 degrees. That ties 2023 for the second-hottest ranking. Only the summer of 2024 was hotter.
The high summer average comes after Phoenix’s hottest spring on record and hottest winter on record. That puts 2026 on track for the hottest year-round average temperature on the books in Phoenix.
The extreme temperatures have come with health consequences. Maricopa County has confirmed 136 heat-related deaths so far this year, far outpacing last year’s count. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is now investigating three political candidates who face allegations their campaigns falsified records to obtain millions of dollars in public funding. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky has the latest on that.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Green Party candidates Risa Lombardo and Duwayne Collier and Republican Scott Neely are all under investigation by the Clean Elections Commission. The probe focuses on allegations they didn’t actually collect enough qualifying contributions to unlock public campaign dollars, following an Arizona Mirror report that six alleged donors say they never actually gave money to the campaigns.
A spokesman for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office confirmed the AG is now investigating all three candidates over the same issue. Neely, Lombardo and Collier all deny the allegations. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona’s Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego disapproves of President Trump’s decision to increase tariffs on Canada, saying both countries could face economic downturns if they enter a trade war. Gallego held a news conference in Ottawa this week where he claimed Canadian tariffs have negatively impacted Arizona’s economy. Gallego said anyone who is running as a Democrat for president in 2028 should remove the tariffs, which currently stand at 50% for some imports.
RUBEN GALLEGO: We already are seeing some of these ramifications of this. In terms of our housing shortage, we rely heavily on Canadian timber. Every time we get into these tariffs war, some of that ends up stripping into that world.
PHIL LATZMAN: Canada is Arizona’s third-largest trading partner. The Arizona Diamondbacks are deadlocked in negotiations for a new lease at their home ballpark, Chase Field in Phoenix. As Camryn Sanchez reports, hundreds of millions of tax dollars earmarked for stadium repairs are in limbo until a lease is finalized.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Diamondbacks President and CEO Derrick Hall told Axios that lease negotiations with the board overseeing the Maricopa County Stadium District have been unproductive for the past 14 months. State Sen. Mitzi Epstein is one of several new members on the board, which now includes representatives appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, as well as Phoenix and Maricopa County officials. Epstein says negotiations have been complex.
MITZI EPSTEIN: We certainly don’t want them to come back to the taxpayers in another five or 10 years and say, “Oh boo-hoo, the stadium needs more repairs, we need more money from you.” That would be terrible. So, the lease is the way that we can enforce accountability.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: A signed lease will give the Diamondbacks access to $500 million for stadium repairs and renovations over a 30-year period. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling was in Phoenix on Wednesday visiting one of the campuses of West-MEC, a public career and technical education school district. From the education desk, Bridget Dowd has details.
BRIDGET DOWD: Sonderling toured the West-MEC Southeast Campus and talked to students in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing programs. He then met with local business leaders for a roundtable. Sonderling said he was impressed by how those leaders are driving the curriculum at West-MEC to fill workforce needs.
KEITH SONDERLING: That’s what we’re really pushing in this administration. No longer do we want students to go to school and just graduate with a lot of debt and not have the skills they need for that job.
BRIDGET DOWD: West-MEC’s superintendent said their model lines up with the Trump administration’s workforce development plan to align education and training with modern economic needs. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: A doctor working for Banner Health says physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants have voted to form a labor union. And Matthew Casey tells us more.
MATTHEW CASEY: About 250 people were eligible to vote in the election. A Gilbert-based doctor who first contacted the Union of American Physicians and Dentists about representation says the motion to unionize was approved by a margin greater than 2-to-1. He and Banner Health colleagues claim they were forced to work for free by a nonprofit calling itself Arizona’s largest employer, which took in almost $16 billion in revenue last year. The next step for the union will be to negotiate a contract. An organizer has said doing so can take one or two years. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Navajo Nation Council took a major step towards protecting one of its most precious water resources. Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on the measure that formally recognizes the confluence where the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers meet as a sacred site under tribal law.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Doing so formally documents what Navajos already know: the spiritual and natural significance of where these two life-giving rivers converge. This information may be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower or dams.
ERIC STANSFIELD: When that comes forward, we can show what impairment of those resources look like.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s Eric Stansfield testifying on behalf of the tribe’s Historic Preservation Office. He likens the confluence to its council chambers.
ERIC STANSFIELD: Just the same way as, again, like the murals in this room, changing that would be an impairment to the sort of historical cultural importance of this place.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona Senate Republicans are accusing Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes of selectively releasing information in the pay-to-play investigation against Gov. Katie Hobbs. Here is Wayne Schutsky once again from our politics team.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Republicans say Mayes’ report on the investigation did not include testimony from former DCS Director Mike Faust, who accused Sunshine Residential’s owner of offering to leverage his connection to Hobbs in exchange for a rate increase. Senate Republicans released a statement from a second former DCS official backing up that account, though neither claim implicates the governor in wrongdoing. Sen. T.J. Shope says Mayes should release all interviews from the investigation to the public.
T.J. SHOPE: Arizonans deserve to see the evidence behind it, and Attorney General Mayes, we have one simple request, and that is to release the files.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Sunshine Residential denied the allegations, and the attorney general called the claims a he-said-he-said situation that could not support criminal charges. Her office says it will make the investigative files available after a legal review. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: APS says electric grid constraints have prevented the utility from committing to providing power to new data centers for the past two and a half years. Greg Hahne has more on that.
GREG HAHNE: Data centers contracted with APS have been under construction in that time, but in a statement to KJZZ, the utility said it hasn’t made commitments to serve additional data center customers since Jan. 1, 2024. The utility says that’s because they wouldn’t be able to serve the facilities during nighttime hours when solar is not an option and battery storage may be depleted.
APS has committed to serving about 4,000 megawatts worth of data centers in the coming years. The company says it will need to build out new plants with sources that can provide constant power, like natural gas or nuclear, in order to support that commitment. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports baseball, James McCann’s solo homer in the eighth inning helped the Diamondbacks cool off the Phillies 1-0 last night at Chase Field. Arizona used seven pitchers to secure the shutout and avoid a three-game sweep to snap the Phils’ six-game win streak. And with a Padres loss, the D-backs now a half game ahead of San Diego for the third and final National League wild card spot. Arizona hits the road to begin a weekend series in Houston tomorrow.
Hey, that will do it for this edition of KJZZ’s Sun Up, Arizona’s morning news podcast on this Thursday, Sept. 3. I’m Phil Latzman. Thanks so much for being here. We’ll do it again tomorrow when it is Friday, and talk to you then.
