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: 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. Happy Monday. Hope you had a wonderful weekend, and here we are back at you on this Sept. 21, 2026. Glad you’re here, and here comes the news.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled late last week that government entities who knowingly destroy requested public records can be held liable for violation of state law. Trenton Ashdown has more.
TRENTON ASHDOWN: The ruling also impacts public records laws in Arizona by allowing trial judges to override claims of a government agency that specific records are not subject to public disclosure. In other words, government entities in lawsuits that involve delayed, redacted, or otherwise obstructed release of public records have to prove the sensitivity of the records via an independent review by the court.
The agency may also be held liable for paying the challenger’s legal fees if the blocked records request goes to court. The ruling is a partial victory for a fired University of Arizona professor who sued the school for access to public employment records. Trenton Ashdown, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Phoenix Police Department is proposing to tackle a backlog of public records requests with more staff and higher fees. Matthew Casey has details on that.
MATTHEW CASEY: City documents say Phoenix police have roughly 40,000 pending public records requests, all of which require review and redactions. While traffic crash reports are often done in days, it can take an average of 18 months to fulfill video footage requests.
Now Phoenix police want to charge more for all commercial requests, and they want to raise the price to redact and produce certain video content. Money from those increases would be used to hire more staff to process records requests. The City Council is scheduled to consider the increases on Wednesday. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: A new plan drafted by the city of Phoenix calls for up to 1,900 high-mileage electric vehicle charging ports across the Valley. Connor Greenwall reports.
CONNOR GREENWALL: The city’s Charging Action Plan found metro Phoenix requires more high-powered charging ports by 2030 to keep pace with projected demand from high-mileage vehicles like rideshare, delivery and autonomous vehicles. The plan calls for closing gaps in the charging network, and also identifies high-volume destinations like Sky Harbor for additional capacity to act as community charging hubs. City officials say network expansion will reduce emissions and provide more reliable access for renters with limited access to chargers. The city’s draft proposal is open for public comment through Oct. 14. Connor Greenwall, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Driven by climate change and other factors, wildfires are getting faster and more severe. As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Murphy Woodhouse reports, that could have big consequences for forested ecosystems.
MURPHY WOODHOUSE: The faster a fire burns, the more severe its ecological impacts. That’s one of the findings of a new paper in the journal Science Advances. Lead author Jonathan Coop says that climate change only promises to further accelerate those fires.
JONATHAN COOP: These are the kinds of fires that set the stage for these long-term ecosystem transitions, which in some cases is a shift from a forest to something that doesn’t resemble a forest anymore.
MURPHY WOODHOUSE: To address this threat, Coop recommends a number of policy responses, including expanded use of prescribed fire, allowing wildfires to burn when it’s safe to do so, and enabling more Indigenous-led cultural burning. By reducing brush, trees and other dangerously accumulated fuels, such practices can reduce fire severity, as well as threats to lives and property.
JONATHAN COOP: We need to get a lot better at having fire.
MURPHY WOODHOUSE: And not just get better at putting them out.
PHIL LATZMAN: That is Murphy Woodhouse reporting.
Businesses contracting with public land agencies made about a billion fewer dollars last year after President Trump took office. That’s the finding from a new analysis of federal data from the consulting group Prospect Partners. Author and former federal official Bernie Kluger says the data shows a shift in how the country mitigates and suppresses wildfires. Funds are increasingly going toward fighting fire from the air instead of the ground.
BERNIE KLUGER: We’re seeing fewer of those local family businesses that were providing local expertise and knowledge, and we’re seeing more of those contracts going to a smaller number of aviation firms.
PHIL LATZMAN: Kluger says this contradicts the Trump administration’s assertion that it supports small businesses. In the Mountain West, New Mexico and Colorado saw the biggest dip, followed by Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.
Arizona typically ranks among the lowest in the country for the number of high school seniors who apply for federal student aid. But as Bridget Dowd tells us, the state has steadily been increasing that number.
BRIDGET DOWD: A few years ago, delays and technical glitches at the federal level caused a drop in completed applications nationwide. Since then, Arizona has implemented several new strategies to get students to fill out the FAFSA, setting a new goal each year and reaching it. Nick Opich is with the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s public university system. He says they started by trying to get 40% of Arizona’s high school seniors to complete it, then 48%, and this year they’re aiming for 50%.
NICK OPICH: By filling out the FAFSA, a student is 84% more likely to immediately enroll in some form of higher education after high school than if they don’t. From students in the lowest socioeconomic quartile, that number jumps to 127%.
BRIDGET DOWD: Last year, the state ranked fourth in the country for year-over-year improvement. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Phoenix Sky Harbor was ranked as one of the top airports in North America for passenger satisfaction. Connor Greenwall is back with that story.
CONNOR GREENWALL: J.D. Power ranked Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport as the third-best mega airport for passenger satisfaction in its 2026 North American Airport Satisfaction Study. A mega airport is defined as serving more than 33 million passengers per year. Sky Harbor comes in just behind Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County and Minneapolis-Saint Paul International, which ranks as the top airport for the third consecutive year. The study is based on nearly 25,000 passenger surveys from the U.S. and Canada, and looked at several factors, including construction projects, clear signage, and passenger experience. Connor Greenwall, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Arizona’s third-largest city is undergoing a reputational facelift to increase its regional profile and differentiate itself among the Phoenix metro. Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman says the city’s marketing is outdated.
MARK FREEMAN: We have sports, entertainment, businesses, a strong workforce. So there’s all these reasons that Mesa is moving forward. That’s what we’re doing on our rebranding. We haven’t really done a deep-down dive on that for quite a few years, so it was time to refresh that.
PHIL LATZMAN: Mesa’s new economic strategic plan includes initiatives for national media outreach and revitalized district branding.
Volunteers in Phoenix over the weekend gave free vehicle inspections to help identify brake, taillight or license plate light issues. The human rights group Puente, whose work serves immigrant communities, says their concern with traffic stops for minor vehicle infractions is that it might lead to targeted immigration enforcement. Judith Coronel helped organize the event.
JUDITH CORONEL: We have just Puente volunteers who come to like food bank and different events and they say, “I know how to change a lightbulb, I can help you,” and they just show up for us. So we are so grateful. Without them and the community, we really couldn't do anything like this.
PHIL LATZMAN: Coronel says events like this show how communities show up for one another and keep each other safe.
In other news, 60 models walked the runway this past weekend as part of Mesa and Chandler’s Adaptive Recreation programs. Trenton Ashdown returns with details on that.
TRENTON ASHDOWN: Adaptive Recreation holds social classes, field trips and events for people with disabilities 6 and up. The fashion show has been a tradition between the Chandler and Mesa programs in one way or another for over 20 years. Adaptive Recreation coordinator Erika Hansen says the event is a culmination of six weeks of rehearsal.
ERIKA HANSEN: So each participant came to what’s called a workshop. Every workshop, we were practicing their runway struts, we were teaching them how to be confident, we were working on how to compliment each other as friends.
TRENTON ASHDOWN: Megan Sylvester has walked in the show for several years.
MEGAN SYLVESTER: I just got done my hair and makeup. It’s my favorite thing to do for the fashion show.
TRENTON ASHDOWN: Megan donned a black and gold dress for this year’s Old Hollywood-inspired Golden Gala theme. Trenton Ashdown, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: In sports, football: the Cardinals hung tough with the champs for a while, but the Seahawks dominated late on their way to a 31-7 blowout in Arizona’s home opener yesterday in Glendale. Tied at 7 at halftime before Seattle poured it on in the second half with 24 unanswered points.
Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had three touchdown catches. Cards quarterback Jacoby Brissett, an early touchdown pass, but no more — and says hats off to the defending Super Bowl champs.
JACOBY BRISSETT: It’s early in the season, you know what I mean? And we’re obviously still trying to figure out what we are as an offense, as a team, and things of that nature. The easy thing is to overreact, just like last week would have been easy to overreact to something like that. But it’s a long football season, and you just go back to work.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, it’s the Cards’ 10th straight loss to their division rivals dating back to 2022, and their eighth in a row at home dating back to last season. At 1-1, they’ll be back on the road to play the 2-0 49ers in Santa Clara this coming Sunday.
Baseball: Nolan Arenado’s fifth-inning grand slam helped the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees 8-4 yesterday to take two of three in the series. They stay alive in the postseason race, Arizona three back of the National League’s final wild-card spot with six games left entering the final week of the season. They will play in Denver, the first of three against the Rockies tomorrow.
And that does it for this Monday edition of KJZZ’s Sun Up, Arizona’s morning news podcast on this Sept. 21. I’m Phil Latzman. Have a great day. We’ll do this all again for you tomorrow. Talk to you then.
