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. It is 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 news from here in Arizona as reported by our KJZZ news team. It’s Friday, we made it, September the 18th the date. Glad you’re here, and here comes the news.
Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl has died at the age of 84 of a neurological disease. He was suffering from dementia. After serving Arizona in the U.S. House for nearly a decade, Kyl was elected to the Senate back in 1994. He served there until 2013 and was an influential lawmaker on tax policy and water issues. He briefly returned to the Senate in 2018 to replace the late Senator John McCain. That same year, Kyl told KJZZ that he was concerned about the extreme partisanship that was taking hold in Washington.
JON KYL: One can say that there’s a lack of leadership. In the past, leaders were able to overcome some of the more base instincts of the pure partisans. Today, it’s more difficult.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Kyl family will announce memorial details at a later date.
In other news today, Arizona data centers say the facilities are more water efficient than people are being led to believe. As Taylor Griffith reports, an ASU water expert agrees with them.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: At an event hosted by the Arizona Data Center Alliance, companies touted improvements they’re making to reduce water use in data center cooling. An SRP official said the utility is looking to limit its water use in energy generation as well, while preparing to meet more demands. Sarah Porter is the director of ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.
SARAH PORTER: While we’ve heard of those disastrous examples in other states where a data center’s moved in and when someone finally dug into it, they found out that a data center was truly using much more water than anyone expected, I haven’t seen instances of that in Arizona.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: She says most data centers are located in the state’s active management areas, or AMAs, where groundwater is closely regulated, and that it’s important to keep an eye on development in rural areas. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Like Phoenix, which just recorded its second-hottest summer on record, much of the West has just experienced a summer for the ages. Researchers blame the strengthening El Niño pattern, higher-than-average ocean temperatures and ongoing human-caused climate warming. Neighboring New Mexico, Utah and Colorado all logged their hottest summers ever. Marc Alessi is a climate scientist with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. He says this summer’s records are part of a broader warming trend.
MARC ALESSI: These events that should be uncommon, or almost never happen, are happening and becoming more frequent and intense.
PHIL LATZMAN: He says that extreme heat can dry out soils and vegetation faster, worsening drought and increasing wildfire risk.
After KJZZ reported that the state agency responsible for verifying Arizonans’ eligibility for food assistance was dropping millions of calls, state officials say they have improved their ability to process SNAP benefits and applications by phone. Also from the politics team, Camryn Sanchez has that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Records obtained by KJZZ showed most calls the Department of Economic Security receives to confirm SNAP eligibility were abandoned, dropped or otherwise incomplete. At the same time, DES reported itself at fault for dropping more than 3 million calls from Arizonans, some trying to recertify or apply for food stamps. That was as of March. State officials now say they’ve since launched a public-private partnership to expand capacity at its call center. And agency data shows that SNAP enrollment has risen since July after steep declines year over year, more than in any other state. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Avondale City Council adopted an ordinance this week that will create a domestic partnership registry, meaning unmarried couples can now have their relationship officially recognized. According to city documents, the main purpose is to provide non-married couples with the ability to be recognized as a formal couple for healthcare-related uses.
Less than a month after a deadly flash flood swept through sections of the Grand Canyon, a second flood moved through the area Wednesday with all the rain. Kathy Ritchie has more.
KATHY RITCHIE: There were no injuries reported, and crews that were working in the area were able to reach safety before the flood moved through. The flood damaged the temporary water infrastructure that’s being constructed as part of the Grand Canyon’s ongoing recovery. It had been under construction to help restore water service following damage to the Transcanyon Waterline that delivers water to the South Rim. On Thursday, the body of the third missing hiker from the Aug. 29 flash flood was identified as 53-year-old Timothy Allen Smith. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: It has now been nearly a year since devastating floods hit the small city of Globe, killing three people and causing an estimated $96 million in damages. FEMA has, though, denied multiple requests for recovery funds. Globe Mayor Al Gameros spoke with KJZZ’s The Show about how the city is handling those costs.
AL GAMEROS: We are working with the state very closely. They have been very good with us. We are working on 75% reimbursement, so we still have to put out 25% out of our coffer in order to complete projects. But the FEMA declaration would have been huge for us.
PHIL LATZMAN: Gameros says all but one of the businesses affected by the floods have reopened.
Officials in Pima County have received a long-awaited reimbursement from FEMA for the county’s role in assisting asylum seekers legally processed into the U.S. under the Biden administration. From the Fronteras Desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznick has more.
ALISA REZNICK: For years, a program in Pima County provided meals, transportation, aid and other services to asylum seekers who’d been processed by Border Patrol and given dates to appear in immigration court. Often, they stopped in Tucson en route to their final destinations. The program was fueled by federal funding from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, a Biden-era initiative approved by Congress to reimburse local communities for humanitarian assistance they provided. But the Trump administration froze payments to the program and began taking back funds already earmarked for local efforts. Pima County was out almost $10 million for the work done in 2023 and 2024. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
PHIL LATZMAN: Gas prices, as we’ve noticed, continue to rise, including diesel gas, which has hit an all-time high. As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Yvette Fernandez reports, states across our region are seeing some of the highest prices in the nation.
YVETTE FERNANDEZ: Increasing diesel gas costs can hit the trucking and agriculture industries hard. Both have the potential to pass on those costs to consumers, for instance, at grocery stores. Doug Johnson with AAA’s Mountain West Group says the long distances between towns and cities across the region complicate the situation, even for regular gas consumers.
DOUG JOHNSON: We have more mountains, we have more geography that makes it more difficult to transport some of that oil, and it has to come by truck.
YVETTE FERNANDEZ
Nevada, Idaho, Utah and Arizona have some of the highest diesel and regular gas prices in the country, according to AAA. Yvette Fernandez, Mountain West News Bureau.
PHIL LATZMAN: The California condor is the largest flying bird in North America, and it’s been protected as an endangered species since the 1960s. Four of the birds of prey will be released into the wild this month near the Arizona-Utah border. Here’s Kathy Ritchie once again with that.
KATHY RITCHIE: These four condors were hatched and raised as part of a captive breeding program designed to bolster the wild population and increase genetic diversity. The Arizona Game and Fish Department, along with its partners, will release the condors at a public event later in September at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. As of 2022, there were roughly 116 condors in the Arizona-Utah flock. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports, baseball, the Diamondbacks, trying to hang on to fading postseason hopes, host a weekend series against the New York Yankees that starts tonight at Chase Field. A Padres win last night, though, dropped the D-backs full four games back of San Diego for the final National League wild card spot. Over the weekend, the Diamondbacks, though, will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their World Series win over the Yankees back in 2001.
In basketball, guard Shay Peddy’s 22 points off the bench led the Mercury’s rally in the fourth quarter for a 94-91 win over the Fever last night in Portland in the team’s first game back from the FIBA World Cup break. The Merc continue their road trip in Dallas tomorrow. They have, though, been eliminated from the postseason.
Football, the Cardinals try for another big upset and a 2-0 start on Sunday when they host division rival and defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. It was a successful debut for running back Jermiyah Love, who had a touchdown in last week’s opener against the Chargers, but the Cards’ star rookie says he’s got still much room for improvement.
JERMIYAH LOVE: For my first NFL game, I impacted the offense and helped out the team, pull off a dub, but I just see a lot of progress that there is to be made.
PHIL LATZMAN: The defense-dominated Seahawks have won 11 straight, including that Super Bowl run last year and an opening win against the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl rematch a week ago. Kickoff is 1:25 Sunday at State Farm Stadium.
And that will do it for this edition of KJZZ’s Sun Up, Arizona’s morning news podcast this Friday, September the 18th. I’m Phil Latzman. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll do this all again on Monday. Talk to you then.
