The Show for April 30, 2026: Domestic violence hotline shuts down, nonprofit funding and more

The Safe DVS hotline has been a lifeline for victims of domestic violence in the Valley, but now it's shutting down. Shelters say it will make it harder for them to get people out of dangerous situations. Plus, how economic uncertainty is affecting Arizona nonprofits and the people they serve.

Transcript

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I'm Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here's today's episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It's The Show on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I'm Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger. Coming up, we meet the local ultra-runner who just completed a nearly 250-mile loop around the county.

MARK BRODIE: And Phoenix is floated as a potential relocation city for a Major League Soccer team.

LAUREN GILGER: But first, the SafeDVS hotline has for years served as a crucial lifeline for victims of domestic violence in Maricopa County. But now it's shutting down. It will officially go dark on May 15, according to the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, who most recently runs the hotline. They said in a statement the hotline's funding dried up with the American Rescue Plan Act funds from the federal government, and they can't afford to keep it running. While victims could always directly call a domestic violence shelter to get help, the SafeDVS hotline was a centralized access point for people who needed it. It is a blow to shelters in the Valley who will lose this access point for victims. Tanner Swanson with domestic violence shelter A New Leaf is on the line now to tell us more about the impact. Good morning, Tanner.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Tanner.

TANNER SWANSON: Good morning, great to be with you.

LAUREN GILGER: Thank you for coming on. So first, just tell us exactly how this kind of — this particular hotline works. It was sort of an access point for lots of shelters, right?

TANNER SWANSON: Of course. So when a survivor needed help, they had a central hotline that they could call and get connected to services anywhere within Maricopa County. And that's pretty powerful because shelters, some of them might be full, it might be difficult to access some different services.

Here, they could call a single hotline and get access to any of those services across the county without having to make multiple calls, which can be really difficult for a survivor.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. I always thought that was kind of the case when it came to domestic violence victims in particular. Like it can be hard for them to get to the point to have the courage to reach out to find help in the first place, right?

TANNER SWANSON: It can. And any little extra step in the way that stops them from accessing those services is huge. And not only that, but puts them more in danger. The most dangerous time for a survivor of domestic violence is when they decide to leave or seek help. And so that — that's a major concern for us as this hotline goes dark.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So tell us about the reaction there at A New Leaf. You run several shelters around the Valley.

Without this hotline, are you expecting to get calls? Are you already getting calls?

TANNER SWANSON: We do expect to get calls and we already have gotten them and they're going everywhere because these people are desperate for help. We're getting calls at our donation center, our administrative office, and at our shelters.

And the hard part with that is when you have a hotline, you have someone there to answer the call 24/7, right? All of that call burden is being shifted over to the shelters and the programs now. And so you're having people answer the phone who might not necessarily be trained to, you know, answer these questions of people who are in active crisis. And not only that, but there might not be someone available to answer that phone at that time, which can be a deterrent to survivors.

And our goal is just to make sure as best as we can as service providers to survivors, to make sure that they can access services.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So someone calls and you don't have the staff for them to — to answer that call to try to help that person, you might lose them.

TANNER SWANSON: Yep. Yep.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you have the staff to answer calls like that? Are you prepared for this?

TANNER SWANSON: We simply don't yet. You know, we're working absolutely as hard as we can. We're coordinating with all the other service providers in the county, and we're talking to some government agencies to figure out what a better answer might be. But right, now that's the situation.

LAUREN GILGER: What are the other options someone has, Tanner, who might be in a domestic violence situation who needs help? Like there are other hotlines they can call. They can call shelters directly like yours if they can get a hold of someone. But are there other resources available?

TANNER SWANSON: Of course. We always tell people to call the national hotline [800-799-7233] if they need someone to talk to. That's a great place to start. And if they do need shelter or services, they can go to atenewleaf.org. We have services all across the Valley, and they can also go to arizonasurvivors.org, where there is a listing of services across the county as well.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you about the broader picture here. This hotline, as I mentioned, is going dark because that kind of pandemic-era funding, pandemic-era funding, excuse me, is running out, which is the case for a lot of, I think, nonprofit services and social safety net kind of services around the country.

What's the status of funding for organizations like yours? Are you facing similar problems?

TANNER SWANSON: We are. And I think we've seen domestic violence organizations across the state, Tucson, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Mesa. We've seen all of them get hit by not only ARPA funds expiring, but federal funding cut changes to the Violence Against Women Act, the Victims of Crime Act.

A lot of core revenue that used to help support these programs and make sure survivors had safety in our communities are either changing, under threat of changing, or they have changed. And it's created a lot of challenges for agencies.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So where can you turn if you need more funding? What are you looking at in terms of other options? You have to keep running, I'm sure, but that's — sounds like it's going to get harder.

TANNER SWANSON: It is. And, you know, the reality that we're dealing with is we're looking to the community. We don't have a whole lot of optimism about, you know, government revenue coming through to help survivors of domestic violence.

And so we're saying if you can get involved, if you can donate or volunteer, you know, visit atenewleaf.org or go to arizonasurvivors.org and see if you can help because that's our best solution right now, even though we're working on other answers with some of our partners in government.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you lastly, Tanner, before I let you go, about what you want someone who is in a situation like this, who might be in a domestic violence situation right now, hears that this hotline's not around or calls it and just gets that voicemail in a couple months or in a month or so when this shuts down.

What do you want them to do? What do you want them to know?

TANNER SWANSON: Stay persistent, stay safe, and seek out services. It's difficult, it can be scary, and it can be discouraging sometimes when you don't get through immediately. But the resources here in Arizona are funded, they are available, and we are here to help any survivor of domestic violence.

LAUREN GILGER: So the resources are there if you need them, but it just might be harder to — to get to them at this moment.

TANNER SWANSON: Yep. Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we'll leave it there. Tanner Swanson with domestic violence shelter A New Leaf joining us. Tanner, thank you very much for coming on the show. I appreciate you taking the time.

TANNER SWANSON: Of course, thank you so much.

MARK BRODIE: Phoenix officials this week got an update on the city’s water future, including Colorado River supplies and coming up with new water sources. And part of that future is a mutual aid program of sorts in which Phoenix and other cities and agencies can share water.

With me now to talk about this is KJZZ’s Alex Hager, who was at the meeting. Good afternoon — morning, Alex. Getting ahead of myself here.

ALEX HAGER: All good. Good morning, Mark. Good to be here.

MARK BRODIE: So top line, like what does the water situation for Phoenix look like right now?

ALEX HAGER: Well, across the West, we are seeing cities, farms, businesses looking at the possibility of cutbacks because the Colorado River is shrinking and we do not have a new plan to allocate its water accordingly. So there’s a lot of uncertainty in the air and that is definitely the case for Phoenix.

Phoenix gets a significant portion of its water from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project. It’s a big canal you’ve probably driven past on the interstate. And the amount of water that is delivered through that canal, it could go down significantly. And cities across the Valley are looking at how to adapt accordingly.

The city of Phoenix specifically is better positioned than some of them because it has a fairly diverse water portfolio. All around the Valley, cities have a different level of dependency on the Colorado River. The rest of their water might come from groundwater or from the Salt River.

And the amount that cities are prepared to weather potential cuts that are coming from the Colorado River is based on how diverse the rest of their portfolio is. And in the case of Phoenix, it’s fairly diverse.

MARK BRODIE: So does that mean then it’s relatively speaking, anyway, better able to sort of weather whatever potential cuts on the Colorado River might be coming?

ALEX HAGER: That seems to be the case, yes.

MARK BRODIE: So you had reported on this program, this sort of mutual aid program that Phoenix is setting up here. How exactly would this work?

ALEX HAGER: This is really interesting. For what it’s worth, we don’t know a ton of the details yet, but it is designed to be a program where cities that are in a pinch and need more water in a hurry can go to get it.

It is being designed by Phoenix and Tucson, and we’re going to learn more details as it develops, but so far it consists of three big parts and this is what they outlined at that city council meeting the other day.

The first part is an emergency reserve of water. So if a city is running out of water in a hurry and needs to just patch it up while they work on a longer-term solution, there will be kind of a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency bank that they might be able to access.

There will also be something of an exchange program, where willing buyers of water and willing sellers of water can go to make that deal happen. Right now, a lot of times these relationships between a city and someone else who can sell them water — whether it’s another city or a mining company or maybe a farming district — they have to kind of approach each other one-to-one.

But the idea here is they’re creating a centralized place where you can be someone who has enough water that they might be able to sell some off and go and say, “Hey, I’m willing to take offers,” and you can be a city that needs more water and go and look and see who’s offering.

MARK BRODIE: Almost like an eBay for water kind of situation.

ALEX HAGER: In some senses, yes. There’s also a third component of this new potential program that is being called a sandbox for water ideas. I think the designers of this program framed it as they want cities to talk more amongst one another to work on more innovative ways to save water and extend the supplies they already have.

MARK BRODIE: Is it interesting in any way that there are sort of willing sellers of water at a time when there’s so much conversation about everyone sort of trying to gather up and sort of hoard everything they can possibly get?

ALEX HAGER: I think that’s a really interesting point, Mark. Cities that have water are certainly defensive of it, but they also recognize that their neighbors running out of water could bring them reputational damage.

So one thing that comes up a lot is what happened in 2023 with Rio Verde Foothills. It’s the small unincorporated community near Scottsdale. Their taps ran dry, and it launched a raft of national headlines and negative attention on the Valley.

City water leaders tell me that what happened in Rio Verde Foothills is a major outlier. That couldn’t happen in most parts of the Valley. Towns where you are plugged into the city water system are completely different. But because of what happened in that small community, there was a lot of negative attention brought to Phoenix and its neighbors.

And so they want to prevent that from happening again to prevent the negative attention from coming to this area. Prevent the negative attention that might stop people from moving here or investing their money here. So they are more willing to share water with their neighbors to protect against those negative outcomes.

MARK BRODIE: They don’t want headlines in national outlets saying, “Hey, Phoenix is running out of water” or “Arizona city runs out of water,” something like that? And as you say, it’s worth it to them to maybe give up or sell some of their water to make sure that doesn’t happen.

ALEX HAGER: That seems to be the case.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. Phoenix has been for a while working on sort of a reclaimed wastewater program. Did we get an update on—on where that’s at?

ALEX HAGER: It seems to be coming along in a way that, you know, will make reclaimed water and recycled wastewater a big part of Phoenix’s water portfolio going forward. We’re definitely a few years out from it coming online, but the idea is that for Phoenix and and some other large cities around the region, in addition to trying to make sure — well, basically with water supplies coming in getting smaller, they want to make more out of the water that they already have.

So they are taking the technology that can turn sewage basically into drinking water, completely safely, and spending millions and millions of dollars to make it part of the water system. So when I talk about a diverse portfolio, making sure that if the Colorado River allocation gets smaller there is something else to back that up, this kind of wastewater treatment is going to be a part of that backup.

MARK BRODIE: Well and Alex, and you’ve reported on this and we’ve talked about it on The Show, that there it seems like there are two sort of challenges that Phoenix and other entities that are trying to do this deal are facing. One, the technical, like how do you physically do it? And second, sort of the—the ick factor, right? The public perception of trying to convince residents that it’s OK to drink reclaimed wastewater.

ALEX HAGER: Yeah, and it looks right now like they are trying to start, you know, a pretty significant campaign to get that messaging out there. You know, the science backs it up. This is safe to drink. it is a technology that is being used in other parts of the world, in other parts of the country. The science all checks out.

But a big part of making sure that this is successful is that people around Phoenix know that and believe it. One of the things they told me when I toured their advanced water purification plant was some of the first people in this city to be plugged into that system will be some of the top executives, some of the top decision-makers at the Phoenix Water Department who live near that treatment plant.

MARK BRODIE: Ha, interesting. OK. Lots more to come on this. That is KJZZ’s Alex Hager. Alex, thanks a lot.

ALEX HAGER: Thank you, Mark.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It's The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger. Coming up, through AI, the creation of explicit images of underage kids has become commonplace.

JESSICA GROSE: I've heard from, you know, a handful of parents who said I'm going through this right now with my daughter at her high school.

LAUREN GILGER: We'll hear about the deepfakes targeting teens.

MARK BRODIE: But first, there are concerns about the state of Arizona's current and future economy. New numbers show the state has about $200 million less to spend than it did in January, meaning the new budget could see some cuts. At the same time, gas prices continue to be well above the national average, and new data show Arizona has one of the highest drops in the federal food assistance program known as SNAP in the country. With all of that and more going on, we wanted to check in with the nonprofit sector. So we called on Carla Vargas Jasa, President and CEO of Valley of the Sun United Way. She joins me.

And Carla, it seems like there are a lot of different kinds of needs out there right now. What are you seeing in terms of what those needs are?

MARK BRODIE: And Carla, it seems like there are a lot of different kinds of needs right now. What are you seeing, in terms of what the needs are?

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Well, so we’re seeing exactly that, and we as Valley of the Sun United Way have been focused on the greatest needs our community identified about four years ago now in the areas of housing and homelessness, workforce development, education and health. And all those issues are still critical, and we’re seeing the needs rising in them even more so.

Especially over this past now year and a half with the change in administration that took place, which has had a real significant impact on a lot of policies that have also impacted federal funding and investments in the social safety net throughout the country, but also very strongly felt here in Arizona and in Maricopa County, is making things even tougher.

Nonprofit organizations are seeing significant funding that is no longer available to them, that’s actually been retracted that they had been counting on. Just amongst the family of organizations that we work with, which is about 100, about $115 million of federal funding is no longer there. It’s just evaporated essentially.

And with organizations that do have federal funding, we’re seeing, they’re seeing that the payments aren’t coming at the right timing, they’re just facing continued uncertainty. And in terms of the overall community needs, I mean, we’ve seen evictions in Maricopa County be at an all-time high this past year. The first quarter of 2026 is showing it’s going to pace a lot higher this year.

We’re also seeing, coverage that people may have had, with SNAP in order to receive food benefits has been significantly reduced. The last thing that we saw as of January, was at about 33% of Arizona residents who had SNAP previously, no longer have SNAP. And we’re actually seeing that trend tick up potentially to almost 50%. And so these are all concerns, that we’re seeing.

Another main concern that we’re seeing here in our community, is that with increased immigration enforcement throughout the country, that is being, that is the case here in Arizona as well.

And we’re seeing and we’re hearing from nonprofit partners a lot of declining attendance rates, either within afterschool programming, within nonprofit organizations or at school, and are needing to really think about how they can deliver services in a completely unique and interesting way.

And in fact, some of them have even shared with us that they feel like they’re back in COVID time all over again.

MARK BRODIE: Really. How quickly do you see sort of what’s going on in the community show up at your doorstep? Like when SNAP benefits go away, food stamp benefits go away, like how quickly do you find that people are coming and saying, hey, we need some help?

When gas prices go up, how quickly do you see people say, hey, we’re really struggling here, we need some help?

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Yeah, so we really try and be proactive so people don’t have to come to us first to tell us about it. And so as Valley of the Sun United Way, you know, we serve Maricopa County, there’s 11 others of us throughout the state of Arizona, but we at Valley of the Sun United Way, we’ve really deliberately made sure that we bring our nonprofit partners together in conversation at least twice a year and over this past year it’s been even more frequent.

We, we see it real-time because we try and deliberately stay in touch with our nonprofit partners and I mean, because of that, we as Valley of the Sun United Way actually took a good hard look at who we were and how we responded to community needs based on what we heard from our nonprofit partners and changed our model to actually be able to more nimbly respond with special grants to, for example, food provider organizations and really using our voice to educate the broader community about what the needs are and how private philanthropy really needs to step in right now.

MARK BRODIE: What are you seeing in terms of philanthropy? I mean, I would imagine that, you know, with inflation and gas prices and, you know, a lot of folks are kind of concerned about where the economy is and where it might be headed. I would think that might have an impact on how much folks are willing and able to give.

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Yeah, so in terms of philanthropic giving, time still will tell, right? So I mean, we know on a national level, the Giving USA report that comes out every year on philanthropic giving showed last year that giving had increased between ’24 and ’25. Of course, now, like the majority of the turmoil that’s happened between ’25 and ’26. And so time will tell.

We are seeing that there’s a real concern with I think the broader philanthropic community about what to do right now, right? Corporations are concerned, as are philanthropists, that they cannot necessarily fill the gaps that the public sector is leaving. But the fact is, the public sector has left gaps.

And so we do need to step in to do something because the impact of people not having enough gas to be able to take their kids to school or, you know, not being able to stay home when their kids are sick are, have ripple effects on every aspect of our community, including people who don’t have needs, including, you know, businesses and their employees who may be struggling.

MARK BRODIE: When you look at some of the recent sort of economic shocks and, and times of need, things like, you know, the Great Recession or COVID, how do those compare to what we’re seeing now in terms of how people are doing and what they need and how much they need and, and maybe how they’re feeling about things?

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know that we can compare them just yet. I mean, what I will say is that just the overall environment I think makes it feel scarier for people in need, for the nonprofit leaders who are trying to, you know, respond to the need, and for donors just generally. So I don’t know that we’ve had as uncertain as a time. I mean, certainly, you know, a pandemic and, you know, prior like, you know, history, history that we faced as a community, but I mean, what’s important is and what I think is our superpower as United Way is that, you know, we really have the ability to have a bird’s eye view of all the issues and needs in a community and can help to bring the right people together to meet those needs. And I think also, like, when people are asked they will step up.

MARK BRODIE: When you talk to folks who do what you do, either in other parts of the state or even other nonprofits here in the Valley, or, or folks, you know, with nonprofits or even other chapters of the United Way elsewhere, you know, outside of Arizona, do you hear kind of similar things to what you’re dealing with here?

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Yes, we certainly do. I mean, every United Way throughout the country is trying to determine like how they can best shift what they’re doing in order to meet the most important needs. They’ll vary depending on the community, but they’re all trying to do something in this regard.

I think though, like some of the issues, some of the need is actually exacerbated here in Arizona. I think that we have a statistic in which we are the 12th least affordable county in the country in which to live. You know, we’re also of the belief that the reduction of SNAP benefits to Arizonans is probably one of the highest in the country and, you know, we’re also, I think more than others, have a real significant current and future concern related to the approach to immigration enforcement, how that impacts kids, how that impacts families, etc.

MARK BRODIE: So maybe everybody’s seeing some concerning trends and, and numbers and everything, but maybe a little bit, a little bit bigger here in Maricopa County.

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Yeah, and I will also share that, you know, we have a grant process every year where we have open opportunities for nonprofit organizations to submit their grant applications and we just closed that open process, and we’ve had the most applications this year than we ever have had and we had the most dollars requested. And this is with us even having capped dollar amounts that people could request.

And so the need is real and in terms of what we’re seeing like on the ground as United Way in terms of applications that we’ve received but also we’re definitely seeing some concerning trends impacting Arizona residents in a much more significant way than in other parts of the country.

MARK BRODIE: Alright, Carla, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

CARLA VARGAS JASA: Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Carla Vargas Jasa is president and CEO of Valley of the Sun United Way.

LAUREN GILGER: Sarah June is an ultra runner as well as a running coach and she just completed something pretty incredible: A 247-mile ultra run on the Maricopa Trail. You heard that correctly: A 247-mile run.

With her completion of the trail run, she set what’s called the Fastest Known Time, or FKT, on the trail.

She spoke to The Show recently to talk more about it and said she actually didn’t start running until after college and got hooked fast.

SARAH JUNE: A 5K led to a 10K, 10K led to a half-marathon, marathon, and you extrapolate out from there.

LAUREN GILGER: But most people stop maybe at a half- or a full marathon. You did not. What is ultra running exactly?

SARAH JUNE: Ultra running is anything longer than a marathon.

LAUREN GILGER: Simple as that. And how long is the longest race that you've run?

SARAH JUNE: An organized race, 100-miler. That was in, yeah, that was in October of last year.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, that's the longest race, but you've run much further distances than that with this "Fastest Known Time" thing, which are sort of unofficial races, right?

SARAH JUNE: Yes, unofficial races. It's kind of like a world record in a sense. It's like the fastest known time on a certain route or course.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK, so let's talk about the Maricopa Trail. First of all, describe it for us. It sort of loops the entire Valley. How long is it?

SARAH JUNE: It's a total of 315 miles with some offshoots. But the loop that connects the entire thing, the big circumference, is 247 miles.

LAUREN GILGER: And that's how long you just ran?

SARAH JUNE: Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: My goodness. OK, so why the Maricopa Trail? Was this like a bucket list item? Was it the mystique of doing this trail?

SARAH JUNE: A little bit of both. Like I've known about this trail for a few years and I was just biding my time until I thought I was ready for it. And Burrito League came up, and I did a lot of miles in January because of Burrito League, and it was — it was time.

LAUREN GILGER: We have to talk about Burrito League at least briefly, although this could be its own conversation entirely. Talk a little bit about how many miles you ran up and down Mill Avenue in January.

SARAH JUNE: I ran 807 miles.

LAUREN GILGER: And why is it called Burrito League?

SARAH JUNE: It was originally, for the last couple years, Strava and Chipotle put on a challenge of however many, segments you can get, the person who runs the most gets free burritos for a year.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh wow, OK. Not Chipotle anymore, but you still get burritos?

SARAH JUNE: Yeah, local businesses. So local businesses donate the burrito.

LAUREN GILGER: Yes. OK, so one was organized on Mill Avenue and you spent an inordinate amount of time running up and down Mill Avenue, 800 miles in a month. So that kind of gave you a sense, it sounds like, of what you could do.

SARAH JUNE: Yeah, yeah. I was running faster on that last day than I was in the first week. So I was just — my fitness was getting stronger, I was getting stronger, I was durable, and I was going to take that fitness and put it somewhere else.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so talk about the logistics of setting up an ultra run like this, a 247-mile loop. I mean, do you sleep? Do you eat? How do you make that happen?

SARAH JUNE: Yeah, so it's time-based, right? So you can strategize as much as you want of like: How much am I going to sleep? How much am I going to eat? How often am I going to see my support vehicle that's following me around?

So yeah, I just wanted anything between like 7- and 15-mile sections depending on the terrain and the access from the street, basically. I didn't leave the trail, so I had — I had a lot of support coming in. So they'd bring cheeseburgers and they'd bring smoothies and coffee and all the things. So that was really nice.

And I slept in the vehicle. So every once in a while I would take a 30-minute nap, or I would take a two-hour rest, especially during the heat of the day when it was hot, you know, get out of the sun, cool down, sleep for two to three hours and then get back out and going.

LAUREN GILGER: Did you have a full night's sleep in any of this?

SARAH JUNE: No.

LAUREN GILGER: My goodness. OK, so what does that do to the body? Like you're a running coach as well, you know a lot about the physicality of something like this. What did it feel like?

SARAH JUNE: Oh, that's a great question. I think it was more mentally hard than it was physically hard. I mean, there were times where my legs are tired, but it's more of like a mental game than it is a physical one.

LAUREN GILGER: You set the fastest known time on this trail. What was it? How long did it take you?

SARAH JUNE: Took me three days and 12 hours, 17 minutes.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow, I really thought that was going to be a longer amount of time. How long did you sleep when you got home afterward?

SARAH JUNE: It was hard to sleep. Like your body is just like — your legs hurt, your whole body hurts, that sleep doesn't come easy. You have hot sweats at night, you're not sleeping through the night. That first night was rough, like there's not much sleep that happened. But the following night, slept like a baby.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, OK. So you broke it up into sections, you stopped and napped here and there, you ate, it sounds like, a ton of food along the way to try to even keep your body going. What were the hardest moments?

SARAH JUNE: Oh man. So there were some steep sections north of Cave Creek, there was some really steep up and down, and the trail wasn't as maintained in that area, so it was a lot of trying to find the trail.

I had pacers with me, so pacers as in friends that are running with me to help keep me going and — and show me the way so I didn't have to do the navigating. And even they were having trouble finding the trail. So that was the most challenging part, was late at night, it was cold, couldn't find the trail, tired.

LAUREN GILGER: I have heard that ultra runners sometimes just like disconnect from the moment and almost hallucinate as they go. Did that happen to you?

SARAH JUNE: Actually, no.

LAUREN GILGER: Were you expecting it?

SARAH JUNE: Yes. Honestly, yes I was. I was like: OK, when are the hallucinations going to happen? But I think the hallucinations didn't happen because of how much food I was actually eating. I was trying to eat as many calories as I possibly could get in and still continue to run. But one trick that I like is just being as present as possible, trying to not disconnect from the moment.

So just being super present in the moment I think helps me, because I know I can take one more step and then one more step. So I don't necessarily disconnect, I just know I can take another step and I can keep going that way.

LAUREN GILGER: Did you have a moment where you thought, maybe I can't take another step?

SARAH JUNE: Yes.

LAUREN GILGER: When did it happen?

SARAH JUNE: I was — it was in the middle of the night, it was just coming out of a really hard section, one of that section I just told you about up in Cave Creek, and I woke up and I told one of my crew members, one of my friends that was helping, I was like: I don't want to keep going.

And he just blank stare, like frightened stare at me, and I said: But I am. And he's like: Oh, OK, good.

LAUREN GILGER: A lot's going into this, you can't back out now kind of moment. PK, OK So you didn't back out, you finished the race. Were there moments that were really beautiful or revelatory for you?

SARAH JUNE: Oh yeah. There were a few times that I cried and I was just so happy. One of the last climbs coming up over Windgate Pass overlooking, you know, where Gateway Trailhead is and just seeing the — it was at night and it was the last big climb and I just saw the city lit up, glittering.

It was just — I told my pacer, I told my friend, and I was like: Hey, we're going to stop here and we're just going to hang out for like five minutes and just take in the moment because this is pretty darn incredible, what we just did.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. What did it feel like to finish it?

SARAH JUNE: Oh man. I think it was a quarter mile out and I just was bawling. My tear — I just — tears were streaming down my face. Along the way there's Maricopa signs, like Maricopa Trail signs. And every — every time I'd go by one I'd be like: Hello, friend.

And so I — the last — very last one I put my hand on it and I just had a moment where it was just like: Wow, I just did this thing and I wish it wasn't ending.

LAUREN GILGER: You wished it wasn't ending?

SARAH JUNE: Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: What does that say about it for you?

SARAH JUNE: It's — it's my calling. Like I am — there's more — there's more to unpack.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So let's talk about that calling and like why you think you do this. Because I mean, I am sure that lots of people have said to you: You are crazy. Like why would you ever put yourself through this? Why would you spend so much time and resources to do something like this? What's the point, the goal to you?

SARAH JUNE: I think you can learn a lot about yourself through fitness, through running, through ultra running, that you can apply to everyday life. The struggles that you have during an ultra marathon can be applied to the struggles that we have as humans. And I think that's the beautiful thing about ultra running.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I remember having a yoga teacher once who said if you can not yell at me during this two-minute plank, then you can not yell at someone in traffic tomorrow.

SARAH JUNE: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. If I can get through this, I can get through anything in life.

LAUREN GILGER: Sarah June, trail runner, ultra runner, running and strength coach with June Coaching joining us. Sarah, thank you so much. Congratulations and good luck on the next one.

SARAH JUNE: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: The future of the Major League Soccer team in Vancouver could have implications for soccer fans here in the Valley. A committee of MLS owners has met to talk about what might be next for the Vancouver Whitecaps, and that could include the possibility of moving the franchise. And if that happens, Phoenix seems to be one of the potential destinations. Phoenix Rising play in the USL Championship, a tier below MLS, but the club's owners have been trying for years to move up. With me now to talk more about all of this is Paul Tenorio, senior writer at The Athletic. Paul, good morning.

PAUL TENORIO: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So what’s going on with the Whitecaps? Why are they potentially leaving British Columbia?

PAUL TENORIO: Well, the Whitecaps don’t have control of the stadium in which they play, BC Place. It’s controlled by the province. And as such, they don’t have access to many of the revenue streams that come from gameday experiences.

So the Whitecaps right now rank at or near the bottom of MLS in ticket revenue, in sponsorship revenue. They can’t sell the naming rights to the stadium. All of these areas that are critical for Major League Soccer teams, which — unlike some of the other American professional leagues — doesn’t rely on media revenue as its main driver of revenue but rather those gameday revenues.

And so it’s become quite a complex business problem for the Whitecaps, and without a stadium deal in the future and with the terms of the lease remaining even somewhat similar to what they are today in Vancouver, they just don’t see it as a viable path forward for the Whitecaps, especially as the cost of business in MLS will continue to rise.

MARK BRODIE: And am I right that this is also happening sort of in parallel with a potential sale of the team?

PAUL TENORIO: That’s correct. The Whitecaps owners put the team up for sale — the Kerfoot family especially, the main owner of the team, the majority owner of the team, was looking to divest from the team. And they have had meetings with more than 100 prospective owners or people that wanted to at least investigate the potential purchase of the club, and no bids came out of those 100 meetings with owners that would have kept the team locally.

And so they’re under a bit of a time crunch here, and the owners have stated they want to sell the team to somebody who would keep it in Vancouver, but Major League Soccer is kind of looking at its own watch and saying, "Listen, we’re running out of time here. This team is for sale, the business structure doesn’t look right, the stadium deal is not viable for where this league is going. And hey, we might have some interested investors that are in other markets that would be willing to pay and do have potential stadium deals in place.”

MARK BRODIE: So what is the feeling within MLS ownership and the other owners in terms of whether they would like to keep a team in this market or if it’s a realistic possibility that the Whitecaps could be on the move?

PAUL TENORIO: Well, I think it’s tough to say. The ownership group in Major League Soccer is so diverse across the 30 different markets. All of them have invested at different times in the league’s history, their investment horizons are completely different, their ties to the history of the league are completely different.

And so we have to acknowledge there’s kind of two sides to this, right? The first is the history. The Whitecaps franchise has existed in Vancouver since well before it was in Major League Soccer. It goes back to the 1970s in the NASL.

But there are these kind of business realities for Major League Soccer as well. And the owners of the league would benefit from a relocation because MLS is going to charge a relocation fee if it were to move the team out of Vancouver. So there’s almost this weird financial incentive, albeit not a large one, to move out of Vancouver and into another market if the deal is right.

But I do think the owners are keenly aware of what makes the soccer league special, which is the fans and the atmosphere that is completely different from what people can get at other sports like the NBA and NHL and NFL.

And when you move out of a market that’s shown such support — I mean 27,000 people were at the Whitecaps game last weekend; they had more than 45,000-50,000 for games last season; they’re one of the best teams in the league — you know, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get that support in every single market that you go to. And so there has to be this balance between the culture and the importance of fans and building a history to the league at the same time that there are these financial realities as well.

MARK BRODIE: So you have reported that if the Whitecaps were to move, that two potential landing spots could be either Las Vegas or Phoenix. Phoenix has obviously been sort of in the conversation for an MLS expansion team for several expansion cycles now, but they’ve never brought a team here. What does it look like in terms of if one or one of those is a maybe more attractive location for MLS from the league’s perspective right now?

PAUL TENORIO: Well, I think right now Las Vegas is the leader in the clubhouse. I think that’s because there is an interested party who is willing to put an offer down, and I think there is, you know, considerable interest in the Las Vegas market, and there has been for Major League Soccer’s part going back to the early 2010s, when there was a group led by Wes Edens who wanted to bring a team to Vegas; after that it was Bill Foley, the owner of the Golden Knights, that wanted to bring a team to Vegas.

So Major League Soccer has been looking at that market for a very long time, and that market is evolving rapidly, right? They gained an NFL team, looks like a baseball team is coming, there’s an NHL team there, WNBA. So this is becoming a sports destination.

Really though, this is going to boil down to who is the ownership group, how much money are they willing to put forward, how much are they willing to pay for the Whitecaps, how much are they willing to pay for a relocation fee, and what does the stadium situation look like? That is a critical part of this equation. So if Vegas looks like it has all of those things lined up, I think it does rank above.

However, to your point, there have been discussions with Phoenix in the past. There have been groups that have been interested in bringing a team to Phoenix, not just the Phoenix Rising group but other investment groups who have been known in Major League Soccer or have had discussions about bringing an expansion team to Phoenix. So I think that Phoenix is in a very strong position.

And certainly I also want to point out that this Whitecaps sale is not the only MLS team up for sale, and I think it also starts to open up discussions about what the next phase of the league looks like and whether they start talking expansion again.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, lots more to come on this, I suspect. That is Paul Tenorio, senior writer at the Athletic. Paul, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

PAUL TENORIO: Thanks so much for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, I'm Mark Brodie. This is The Show on KJZZ 91.5.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger. Coming up, three Jane Does in Tennessee are suing Elon Musk's xAI after someone used Grok to generate sexually explicit images of them. And to do it, they used real clothed photos of the girls. It's a case that highlights a growing problem with the growth of AI. Anyone can take a regular photo of a teenage girl or anyone at her homecoming dance or posing with her friends and turn it into child pornography essentially. And it's happening a lot. New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose recently wrote about this and I spoke with her more about the problem, potential solutions, and this class action lawsuit out of Tennessee.

JESSICA GROSE: I was interested in the lawsuit because it took a bit of a novel approach to get around something called Section 230. Uh, Section 230 is a law that was written in the ‘90s. It's a federal law and it basically says internet companies are not responsible for anything that individual users post on their platform. So this lawsuit is arguing that AI is co-creating images with the posters. Those images would not exist without AI, which is owned in this case by Grok. And so Section 230 cannot apply to these circumstances. And it's working its way through the system. I don't know if, you know, judges or juries are going to agree with this approach, but I thought it was really smart because, you know, I'm just a layperson, but in my mind, AI is co-creating these images. Um, they are not real. These young women did not take nude pictures of themselves. They were simply existing in the world. They were going to the beach, they were appearing in a yearbook.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So a girl today can post something on social media or even just be in a yearbook picture doing something normal, clothed, by the way, and these chatbots, these AI images are turning those into nude photos. It sounds like in this case there were 18 underage girls that the perpetrator had allegedly posted nude photos of to—to Discord.

JESSICA GROSE: That is correct. And in the days since I published that piece, I've heard from, you know, a handful of parents who said I'm going through this right now with my daughter at her high school. So this is not something that is, you know, a rare regrettable incident that is being prosecuted. This is commonplace, unfortunately, now. Uh, and it's I actually don't know anyone who is sort of tracking how commonplace, but you know, I imagine many of the victims of this behavior, and to be clear it's not just girls, um, this happens to boys as well, many may be too humiliated to bring it forward or don't even know that it's happening. Um, because you have to be alerted to the fact that it's happening in the first place.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. These girls in this case were—were identified, their schools were named. How did in this lawsuit at least the—the victims here kind of describe the impact on their lives? You describe it as their lives were narrowed.

JESSICA GROSE: So they were completely stress and anxious, humiliated. They would go to school worrying had anyone seen the images, do they think differently of them, do people think they're real? I mean they sort of assumed that many people did think that they were real even if they were not. But it really made them paranoid, I would say. And is there a term for appropriately paranoid? Right? Because this did actually happen. Yeah. So—so paranoid sort of implies unreasonable, um, but they had a sort of reasonable paranoia after the fact that this had happened and—and just a fear that all of their peers had not only seen the images but were judging them for these images.

LAUREN GILGER: There was a case in New Mexico as well where a jury found Meta liable for kind of misleading users about their safety practices when it comes to protecting kids from, like, child predators essentially. Does this all go hand in hand in terms of what you're watching on this media company, social media company front and how it's impacting kids?

JESSICA GROSE: I do believe that more people, because that was a jury trial, so more everyday people are waking up to the fact that these social media companies are incredibly powerful and that they have more of a responsibility to keep young people safe than they have been accepting for years. And, you know, I think it's unreasonable to think nothing bad will ever happen on these platforms. But, you know, in the discovery for the trials that have been going on recently, not just with Meta but also YouTube, there's been ample evidence that these companies knew what they were doing was damaging and they did not really take much action to fix the problem because it would hurt engagement. I mean this is so skin-crawling to say out loud, but a—a Facebook whistleblower, someone who used to work for Meta, told me that, you know, if what you are going to these sites for is to look at underage girls, it will continue to serve you underage girls in suggestive pictures because it will understand that that's what you like. It's very effective at doing that. You know, I like cooking. It is very effective at serving me many, many, many recipes. Right? I'm not inside these companies, but from the people who were and have, you know, admirably come forward to talk about what it is like in there, it's pretty clear that they could be doing a lot more to prevent this kind of behavior.

LAUREN GILGER: So what would be a potential solution here from your point of view, Jessica? Like Congress has not passed any legislation to reform that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, right, that you mentioned at the beginning. And so we're seeing these cases sort of take various novel approaches. But what would fix this?

JESSICA GROSE: Well, you know, like I said, I don't think that anything is going to fix it 100%. I would like to see them basically ban all deepfake nude images of real people. I can't see a compelling reason why those should be created and posted. You can create them alone in your home. But then the second you post them, putting it of underage people, that's already illegal. You're just seeing people be prosecuted for it. Which the scale of it is so big, you cannot possibly begin to prosecute all the people who have made child sex abuse materials out of pictures using AI, right? So it's already illegal, it's just you want to stop it before it happens. Because once it's happened, the damage is already been done. Those images are out there. And so that should also apply to adults. These companies should, you know, they're always talking about their incredible capabilities and I think about it with AI all the time as it's like we can do anything and change the world and destroy the job market. But if you ask us to stop deepfake nudes, our hands are tied. That I just feel like we hear that constantly and so if their AI is so magnificently capable, could they use it to prevent this? So I would like to see the companies step up themselves. I would like to see laws preventing the dissemination of any of this, not just for young people. I would like to see a rewriting of Section 230. I am not someone who writes policy, but I would like to see that legislation hashed out in a more modern way. I mean the way the internet was, I believe, in 1996 when this was passed, um, is just a completely different universe. I don't think it will be easy to come up with legislation that I think sort of balances those needs to protect children but also protect free speech. But they've got to do something.

LAUREN GILGER: Jessica Grose, opinion writer for the New York Times joining us to talk about this. Jessica, thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate it.

JESSICA GROSE: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, that's it for today's edition of The Show. We will be back with you again tomorrow morning with much more. Mark will have your Friday NewsCap. Nothing much to talk about this week at the Capitol, right?

MARK BRODIE: No, it's been a slow week. Slow week with lawmakers there all night.

LAUREN GILGER: Just kidding, just kidding. You can sign up for The Show's weekly newsletter as well. It's called Radio Heads. You can sign up at theshow.kjzz.org. For Mark Brodie, I'm Lauren Gilger. Thanks for joining us.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show's podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.