EDS: Cronkite School journalists profiled candidates for Phoenix City Council and the Maricopa County sheriff race. You can find all the profiles here.
By Carlos Rene Castro
Special for Cronkite News
By Brianna Chappie
Cronkite News
MESA – God, conservative values, immigration and Donald Trump.
Those were the main talking points at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Mesa on Wednesday, where former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, made his second appearance in Arizona after attending a Tucson rally earlier in the day.
Continue reading “JD Vance visits Arizona’s 2 largest metro areas in bid for Hispanic voters”
EDS: Cronkite School journalists profiled candidates for Phoenix City Council and the Maricopa County sheriff race. You can find all the profiles here.
By Emily Holshouser
Special for Cronkite News
Cronkite School journalists profiled candidates for Phoenix City Council and the Maricopa County sheriff race.
By Shi Bradley
Cronkite News
Jane Jepson remembers when her son, Nick, first came back home in 2017. He was working as a bellman, traveling across the country, from Alaska to Virginia.
“He was so excited,” Jepson recalled fondly. “He looked so handsome and so strong and in such good shape.”
However, a few weeks later, Jepson received strange phone calls from Nick.
By Amelia Monroe and Mia Osmonbekov
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – As Hurricane Milton slams into Florida, and North Carolina residents dig out from Hurricane Helene, Republicans are pushing claims – widely debunked – that federal disaster aid has been depleted because of illegal immigration.
“FEMA, among a whole bunch of other federal agencies, has been using your tax dollars that are supposed to help you as American citizens,” said U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, during a campaign stop Tuesday in Phoenix on behalf of former President Donald Trump. “They use that money helping illegals here that they brought into America.”
By Miguel Ambriz
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – In the rematch between first-term U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Tucson, and former state Sen Kirsten Engel, D-Tucson, immigration and abortion rights are forefront issues.
Both call the other extreme, even as each claims to be a centrist eager to work with people across the aisle.
“Rep. Ciscomani and I agree that Congress has been run by extremists,” Engel said during a fiery 55-minute debate Tuesday night. “Where we disagree – I believe Mr. Ciscomani is part of that dysfunction. He has sided with extremists.”
Ciscomani portrayed his challenger as out of touch on kitchen-table issues and public safety.
By Jalen Woody
Cronkite News
SACATON – In the heart of Sacaton, located south of Phoenix, the Gila River Indian Community received nearly $6 million in funds from the Biden administration in 2023 to create a renewable energy plan involving the construction of solar panels over the Casa Blanca Canal.
Funding came from the Inflation Reduction Act, part of Biden’s Investing In America agenda, which aimed to combat the effects of climate change with new projects to conserve energy, according to the Department of the Interior. The project aims to cover 2,782 feet of the canal and requires approximately 2,556 solar panels.
By Zev Black
Cronkite News
TEMPE – As incidents of antisemitism continue to surge across the United States, new data from the Anti-Defamation league shows staggering numbers with college campuses emerging as a focal point.
Jewish students report feeling increasingly unsafe and facing harassment, vandalism and hateful rhetoric in both physical and online spaces. While some students at Arizona State University believe that the administration has done a good job with ensuring safety on campus, concerns remain.
Continue reading “1 year after Hamas attack, antisemitism remains problem on college campuses”
By Hayden Larkin
Cronkite News
PHOENIX – Monday, Oct. 7, marks the final deadline for Arizona voter registration. Volunteers and state officials across the political spectrum are attempting to engage citizens for the November election.
This election is a tight one, where both presidential candidates are fighting to win battleground states like Arizona.Polls show both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris effectively tied in many of the key states, meaning both campaigns are vying for votes to clinch a victory. Continue reading “Groups target potential Arizona voters on last day to register for 2024 election”
EDS: Clients who used the Cronkite News story slugged LA Olympics Transportation, which moved Thursday, Oct. 3, under a LOS ANGELES dateline, are asked to run the following correction. The errors occurred in grafs 2, 13 and 21 of the original. A corrected version of the story has been posted here.
LOS ANGELES – An Oct. 3 Cronkite News story about Southern California transportation upgrades misspelled the last name of one of the subjects quoted. Sam Morrissey is vice president of transportation for LA28, the 2028 Olympic Games’ organizing committee.
By Patrick Holleron
Cronkite News
TEMPE – Since June of 2021, the wrongdoings of former Arizona State and current Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce and his staff have plagued the institution’s football program. Now, years later, the full extent of Pierce and his staff’s misconduct have been revealed.
Unethical paid expenses for recruits, prohibited visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, visits to gentlemen’s clubs with recruits’ parents, and trips to shooting ranges with recruits are only a fraction of the many violations the NCAA discovered in their investigation, according to the NCAA’s public infractions decision released today.
Pierce, a former NFL linebacker who won a Super Bowl title in 2008 with the New York Giants, served in various positions with the ASU program from 2018-2021, including associate head coach, defensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator. Continue reading “Strip clubs and shooting ranges: NCAA document details ASU football infractions, Antonio Pierce’s role as kingpin”
By Dane Palmer
Cronkite News
TEMPE – Arizona State safety Myles Rowser was surprised during practice Thursday when he looked up at the Mountain America Stadium concourse and saw a row of cars.
He was even more surprised afterward when he learned one of the new Ford Mustang Mach-E cars was for him.
“I’m honestly super excited,” Rowser said. “This was something I didn’t even know about. They said, ‘Come upstairs and put on a jersey after practice’ and now I’m here looking at a brand new car.” Continue reading “And you get a car! And you get a car! NIL collective helps 7 ASU football players secure Mach-E Mustangs”
By Marshall Baker
Cronkite News
PHOENIX – The Indian Citizenship Act was signed into law in June 1924, granting Indigenous people born in the United States citizenship and the right to vote. Although this was 100 years ago, today Indigenous people in Arizona still face many challenges when it comes to the electoral process at the federal, state and local levels.
Despite the law, Native Americans still faced many suppression tactics. In 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned a ruling prohibiting Indigenous people from voting in the state. Even after the Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress in 1965, reinforcing Indigenous voting rights, English literacy tests were given as a requirement to vote until the 1970s.
EDS: An earlier version of this story misspelled Sam Morrissey’s last name in grafs 2, 13 and 21. The story below has been corrected, but clients who used previous versions are asked to run the correction found here.
By Emery Davis
Cronkite News
LOS ANGELES – Ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games, the City of Angels is already preparing for its turn with the torch by improving public transport in support of a “transit-first” Games.
“Public transportation will be the best option for spectators to take because it will be built into the Games plan to serve as the most reliable and efficient way to get to your destination while minimizing traffic in highly congested areas,” Sam Morrissey said in a statement. Morrissey is vice president of transportation for LA28, the Games’ organizing committee.
Additional public transportation will not only benefit spectators of the Games but also Southern California residents.
By Sienna Monea
Cronkite News
PHOENIX – As the 2024 presidential election approaches, women of color are emerging as one of the most influential voting blocs in the United States. Their growing political power is reshaping policy debates and driving grassroots activism across the country.
Arizona, a battleground state, has seen substantial change to the racial and ethnic composition of its electorate. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, Black women became the second-largest group in voter turnout in the U.S. in 2022, behind White voters and ahead of Asian American/Pacific Islander and Latino voters. In recent elections, the number of women voting exceeded the number of men. Black voters play a crucial role in several key battleground states this year.
Continue reading “Experts say women of color will massively influence the 2024 election”
By Hayden Larkin
Cronkite News
TEMPE – An often-forgotten piece of the Civil Rights Movement is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Arizona in 1964 to champion the Civil Rights Act. In honor of the 60th anniversary of this event, Arizona State University, in collaboration with the Tempe Center for the Arts, spearheaded this celebration with a keynote lecture by Bernice King, the youngest of King’s children.
She urged people to engage with her father’s strategies of nonviolence to change the minds of others.
By Jackson Sutter
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – Tucson Congressman Raúl Grijalva, diagnosed with cancer early this year and absent from the U.S. Capitol since February, says his next term will be his last.
He’s seeking a 12th term next month and on Monday, the 76-year-old Democrat told KOLD-TV in Tucson that he won’t run again after that.
By Nash Darragh
Cronkite News
DOUGLAS – Border security and stability were main themes in the gymnasium at Cochise College on Friday during a visit by Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris along with other prominent Democrats.
“I strongly supported the comprehensive border security bill written last year, as you know, by a bipartisan group of senators, including one of the most conservative members of the United States’ Congress,” Harris said. “That bill would have hired 1,500 more border agents and officers. It would have paid for 100 inspection machines to detect fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.”
By Hayden Larkin
Cronkite News
PHOENIX – In 2022, Judge Roslyn Silver ruled that Arizona was violating prisoner’s rights by not providing proper care and that health-care faults were causing preventable deaths in Arizona prisons. That case, Jensen v. Thornell, led to the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation & Reentry implementing changes to its quality of care up to bring it to constitutional standards via changes in staffing, higher quality physical care and access to mental health care.
However, the case didn’t end the issues. In 2023, the Arizona district court issued another injunction to speed up the process, ordering the state to improve its health-care staffing, bring in additional physicians and hit benchmarks laid out by the court. In 2024, though, the problems remain.
