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.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: This is KJZZ’s Sun Up, your daily news update from Phoenix, the state, and the region. Good morning, I’m Bruce Drummond. Phil is away this week. This podcast is a daily digest of Arizona news as reported by the KJZZ news team. It’s Tuesday, Sept. 8. Hope you had a nice weekend. Let’s get the day started with a check of the news.
A new study of the Colorado River says proposed cuts to Arizona’s water supply would be unprecedented and could deal a major economic blow to the state and its neighbors. Alex Hager has more.
ALEX HAGER: The study was done by a group of independent experts, including academics and former policymakers. The federal government has proposed huge cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada. Researcher Jack Schmidt says that would force the three states to make massive reductions to water use.
JACK SCHMIDT: The economic impacts of implementing those kind of very large numbers for which there’s no historical analogy would be very serious issues.
ALEX HAGER: Schmidt, a professor at Utah State University, says those big cuts may be necessary, but they should be spread out across other states, too. The federal proposal does not force any cuts on Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: There’s growing concern that Flock automated license plate readers could be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. As a result, more Arizona communities are ending contracts with the system. But as Taylor Griffith reports, the town of Queen Creek has gone in a different direction.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Last week, Cottonwood and Payson joined nine other communities in the state in cutting ties with the company Flock over privacy concerns. Queen Creek is taking a different route. Flock cameras there will remain in use, but town officials say they are the first community in Arizona to make officer misuse of the technology illegal. Here’s Queen Creek Police Chief Randy Brice.
RANDY BRICE: We will fire somebody for those kind of things, but there’s no crime anywhere in the state of Arizona for that kind of access or misuse. And so again, the reason we’re here tonight and the wisdom of the council is to really get that fixed.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Council members last week unanimously approved an ordinance that would make the unauthorized searching or sharing of Flock data a Class 1 misdemeanor. Mayor Julia Wheatley and two other council members say ALPRs have been effective at stopping human and drug trafficking. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: The National Weather Service has issued another extreme heat warning for the Phoenix area. This one is in effect today through Thursday. Katherine Davis-Young has more.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: This week, highs up to 109 are expected, which is well above normal for early September. Lows could be in the high 80s, which would be record territory. The National Weather Service issues warnings when temperatures are hot enough to be considered dangerous for that time of year.
If you feel like there have been a lot of extreme heat warnings this year, you’re right. 2026 is on track to be the hottest year on the books in Phoenix, and by the end of this event, Phoenix will have had 47 heat warning days so far this year — just one shy of the record. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: A group of environmental nonprofits is asking policymakers to move forward with plans for saving water from the Colorado River. The Audubon Society’s Haley Paul says Arizona, California, and Nevada should finalize a deal to cut back on water use. Then, she says, Arizona lawmakers need to work together to approve it.
HALEY PAUL: Going to legislatures is no small act, and so we want to see that done, and see it bipartisan and hopefully engagement from all sides.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Paul also called on the federal government to free up money that could be used to pay some water users in exchange for using less.
COVID-19 has been on the rise in Arizona. The state confirmed nearly 1,000 cases last week. But Dr. Joel Terriquez with the Arizona Department of Health Services says that’s actually lower than average for this time of year.
JOEL TERRIQUEZ: Overall, even though we’re seeing a slight increase in the number of cases, we are not close to being at a surge or to be extremely concerned from the public health perspective.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: Respiratory viruses tend to rise in the fall and winter. Terriquez recommends Arizonans speak with their healthcare provider for guidance on annual vaccines for flu, COVID and RSV.
There’s been a surge of mining companies looking to dig for minerals in the Southwest, including near tribal communities. Chris Clements explains why so many of these companies are Canadian.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: It boils down to this: Canada has a unique tax system that allows mining companies that are exploring projects to pass their costs along to investors. John Steen, a professor at the University of British Columbia, says Canada is home to hundreds of those companies.
JOHN STEEN: They’re hearing that the regulatory regime is not as tight as it was, and they’re seeing the U.S. is an attractive place for investment and exploration.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: Take Jacana Copper, which is using a subsidiary to explore mining copper on the Navajo Nation; or Laramide Resources, which wants to mine uranium near the site of the largest release of radioactive mining material in U.S. history.
JAMES HOPKINS: The growth in uranium mining in the United States is unprecedented. It’s really something.
CHRIS CLEMENTS: James Hopkins, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, says the reason for that is due in part to the rollback of mining regulations. Hopkins says the flurry of mining projects is causing pushback from tribes who have long borne the environmental consequences of mining.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: That’s Chris Clements reporting from Flagstaff.
Mexico is investing more than $100 million to improve the highway leading from the Arizona border south to the popular beach town known as Rocky Point. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has more.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The project aims to modernize the stretch of highway between the Lukeville-Sonoyta border crossing and Puerto Peñasco, also called Rocky Point in English. Highway 8 is a popular route for Arizona tourists traveling south of the border for vacation in the Sonoran beach city.
Construction on the project to rebuild the approximately 55-mile-long highway started at a groundbreaking ceremony in Puerto Peñasco Thursday. The investment also includes an improved border crossing entrance in the Mexican border town of Sonoyta, where the highway begins, according to the city of Puerto Peñasco. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: The Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA in Phoenix will be closing its doors after nearly 75 years. A spokesperson for the Valley of the Sun YMCA says the closure is due to the aging building’s need for significant repairs and infrastructure upgrades, and that operations there were, “no longer a sustainable option.” There was not a specific timeline for when a new facility would take shape.
Two of America’s largest public school districts recently announced bans on AI. But here in Arizona, a public career and technical education district has launched a new AI program for its students. Bridget Dowd has details.
BRIDGET DOWD: West-MEC’s new Southeast campus is offering the two-year program to high school students. Students will gain skills in programming, machine learning and data science, and explore the ethical and societal impacts of emerging technologies. Sophia Taitano is a junior there. She says right now her class is learning how to organize and analyze data.
SOPHIA TAITANO: This basically just prepares us for using bigger programming languages like Python. And it’s honestly just essential because a lot of careers in the future are going to be based off on technology and AI because it’s so big in everyday life.
BRIDGET DOWD: The program offers students a pathway to several careers in AI, software development, and data science. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: During El Niño, warmer-than-usual temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean set off changes in global weather patterns. A new study co-authored by Arizona researchers shows that temperature variability in El Niño has grown more extreme since the Industrial Revolution than the previous thousand years. Diane Thompson is a UA professor and study co-author. She says the researchers used coral skeletons from the Galápagos Islands to measure ancient climate trends.
DIANE THOMPSON: This really important system that is El Niño in the Pacific is amplifying with respect to warming, and that’s going to have impacts all over the world.
BRUCE DRUMMOND: The study was published in the journal Science.
In sports, scoreless for nine innings, the Diamondbacks’ bats finally came alive in the 10th yesterday in Kansas City. Arizona scored five extra-inning runs and outlasted the Royals 5-4. It was the D-backs’ third straight win, and it kept them half a game ahead of the Padres for the final National League wild card spot. The series with the Royals continues this afternoon in Kansas City.
And that’s it for this edition of KJZZ’s Sun Up, Arizona’s morning news podcast for Tuesday, Sept. 8. I’m Bruce Drummond.
