• Slug: BC-CNS-CN2Go Weekly Update. Runtime 9:17.
• Downloadable audio here. (Note: Some web browsers may not support media download)

[Music bed under] 

CN2Go Host: This is Cronkite News 2 Go. I’m your host, Kiersten Edgett.

[Music fade in/under]

HOST: On today’s show we talk about the results of Tuesday’s election, how two local outrigger canoe teams keep the ocean-based sport alive in the middle of the desert, and what the future of horse racing could look like in Arizona. Continue reading “CN2Go Weekly Update: El Mirage says no to $41.5 million bond, Hawaii in the desert and hopeful for horses”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Dominican Evictions,3780 words.
• 18 photos, graphic available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Caitlin Thompson
Cronkite Borderlands Project

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Red letters painted on the wall of the concrete house indicated its fate. In this neighborhood in the capital city, marks like this are a sign that a home will soon be reduced to rubble, often within hours of its inhabitants’ eviction. That moment came for this house, and the family that lived in it, on a clear day in March.

The two-story house – yellow walls on the top floor, orange on the bottom – belonged to Ana Maria Cruz Mejia. She has lived in the house since she was 3. She is now in her 40s. The home had seen all the twists and turns of her life. She ran a business on the ground floor, selling consignment clothes, hence the mannequin propped up against the wall.

“It is my whole life, really,” she said. “All my memories are here, my children were born here, my grandchildren. My father died here — in other words a whole life. They say a person makes the place…” Continue reading “As Santo Domingo develops, vulnerable people are left behind”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Court Watchers,820 words.
• 7 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Reagan Priest
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – In a small hearing room in the State Courts Building, a few individuals in black shirts sat in the three rows of chairs in the back. For the six hearings in April Sponsel’s disciplinary trial, these court watchers with Mass Liberation Arizona attended with notepads and pens, observing and taking notes.

Sponsel, a former prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, is facing a two-year suspension of her law license for her involvement in charging Black Lives Matter protesters as gang members in 2020, according to ABC15. Mass Lib has been following the case since the protesters were charged, and Matt Aguilar, a lead organizer for the group, said it’s important for members to follow it to the end. Continue reading “Arizona activists work to hold the criminal justice system accountable through court watching”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Gowan Migration,700 words.
• 3 photos, video story photo available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Adrienne Washington
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – In all the time he’s lived near the border, Arizona Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, said he has never seen an immigration crisis as bad as the one he’s seeing now.

“It’s the highest incursion we’ve had since I’ve lived down there,” said Gowan, who has lived in Cochise County for 30 years.

That was the message that Gowan and a handful of local officials and activists from across the country hoped to deliver to members of Congress while in Washington this week. As Terrell County, Texas, Sheriff Thad Cleveland said, it’s not just a problem for border states. Continue reading “Gowan, other officials come to Washington to plead for border action”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Outrigger Connections. 500 words.
• 10 photos available (thumbnails and captions below).
• Audio story, video story available.

By Kevinjonah Paguio
Cronkite News

TEMPE – A piece of Hawaiian culture has transplanted itself into Arizona, a state not known for its aquatic sports and activities. Na Leo ’O Ke Kai (Na Leo) and Team Arizona (TAZ) outrigger canoe clubs are two Arizona organizations that provide an outlet for Hawaiian culture and sport to thrive.

Hawaiian outrigger canoeing is a sport where six people paddle a narrow, 40-foot canoe and compete in distance and sprint races. They assume different roles: Some are in charge of setting the pace, others are the powerhouses, while the person in the stern steers and gives commands.

“I kind of think of it like cogs in a clock,” Ryan Udarbe, president of Na Leo, said. “Everybody has to move at the same time, in exactly the same speed, or else you’re going to throw everything off.”

Continue reading “‘Perpetuating the Hawaiian culture’: Outrigger canoe teams bring sport, community to Arizona”

• Slug: BC-CNS-School Grades,820 words.
• File photo available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Adrienne Washington
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – The number of schools getting an F on the state’s annual report card has fallen sharply, going from 49 in 2019 to 24 this year, but the number of failing alternative schools rose over the same period.

Seven alternative schools, which serve the state’s most at-risk students, got a grade of F on the state’s annual A-F School Letter Grades report, up from four in 2019.

The yearly assessment compiles students’ proficiency on standardized testing, graduation rates and other factors to derive a grade for each school. The report, released in late October, showed that five of the state’s 247 high schools got a failing grade, along with 12 of the 1,341 kindergarten through eighth grade schools in the state. Continue reading “Number of failing schools fell; alternative schools headed the other way”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Tribal Youth,440 words.
• 2 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Lux Butler
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Gabriella Nakai said she has tackled the challenges facing Indigenous communities on her own, but that being surrounded by others who share her passion makes the load a little lighter.

“Seeing all of the amazing work that all of these Native national native youth leaders are doing pushes me forward and lets me know that when I am the only Native in these spaces that I have, all these people behind me that are going to have my back,” Nakai said Monday.

She was one of two Arizona “Champions for Change” – along with Fort Apache resident Jovi Williams of the White Mountain Apache – at the third annual White House Tribal Youth Forum. It brought together 123 Indigenous teens from across the nation and other countries to share information on the issues affecting their communities today. Continue reading “Arizona teens share passions with others at White House Tribal Youth Forum”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Poll Workers,870 words.
• File photo, video story available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Renee Romo
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Local elections across Arizona on Tuesday could be a low-level test of voting systems stressed by years of threats and challenges that have left some worried about the 2024 presidential election, now less than a year away.

But elections officials said they are fairly confident – in the short and the long term – that they will be able to train and staff polling places, despite three years of what Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer refers to as the “hullabaloo” of election challenges.

“We still have a great crew of poll workers throughout most of Arizona. These are folks that have been doing it for a long time,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said last week. “In fact, I met one recently who’s been doing it for 75 years and she ain’t gonna stop.” Continue reading “Officials confident about Tuesday voting, feel good for long-term outlook”

• Slug: BC-CNS-The End of The Zone. 600 words.
• Photos, video story available.

By Jacob Snelgrove
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – The city of Phoenix has met a court-ordered Nov. 4 deadline to remove all tents and makeshift structures from the area around the Human Services Campus known as “The Zone,” and business owners in the area are hopeful.

The Zone was a sprawling encampment of over 1,000 people experiencing homelessness near downtown Phoenix, just blocks from the state Capitol.

Continue reading “Business owners hopeful as Phoenix meets deadline to clean up ‘The Zone’”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Dia de los Muertos Families,740 words.
• 5 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Kate Duffy
Cronkite News

CHANDLER — On the second night of Dia de los Muertos, just inside the otherwise empty Valley of the Sun Mortuary and Cemetery, sisters Miriam Bryant and Ana Gomez sat with 11 of their closest family members and friends around three flower-covered grave sites.

Their mother is buried there, right next to Gomez’s husband and son.

Dia de los Muertos – also known as Day of the Dead – which spanned Wednesday and Thursday, is a Mexican holiday dedicated to remembering and honoring deceased relatives and loved ones. It is believed that the spirits of those who have died are able to visit their families on these days. Continue reading “‘They come visit with their spirit’: Families pay tribute to deceased loved ones for Dia de los Muertos”

• Slug: Sports-The Sweet Spot. Runtime 14:08.
• Downloadable audio here. (Note: Some web browsers may not support media download)

[Music bed under] 

TSS HOST: This is The Sweet Spot where we take a closer look at the week’s biggest sports stories in Arizona. I’m Benjamin Yates, and welcome to the eighth episode of The Sweet Spot! Continue reading “The Sweet Spot: Diamondbacks wrap it up, Sun Devils rack one up, Horizon High goes for three”

• Slug: BC-CNS-CN2Go Weekly Update. Runtime 12:17.
• Downloadable audio here. (Note: Some web browsers may not support media download)

[Music bed under] 

CN2Go Host: This is Cronkite News 2 Go. I’m your host, Deanna Pistono.

[Music fade in/under]

CN2Go Host: On today’s show we talk about the recent attack on ASU professor David Boyles, the Diamondbacks loss and how prescribed burns in Williams, Arizona help protect the landscape from potential wildfires. Continue reading “CN2Go Weekly Update: LGBTQ+ community upset by ASU response to attack on professor”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Prescribed Burns. 1,750 words.
• 12 photos available (thumbnails and captions below).
• Audio feature available by Kiersten Edgett/Cronkite News.

By Kate Duffy
Cronkite News

WILLIAMS – It was just before 8 a.m. on a clear fall day, when trucks carrying fire crews barreled down dirt roads into Kaibab National Forest.

Shortly after, the crews began to set over 2,300 acres of the ponderosa pine ecosystem ablaze.

The Kendrick Prescribed Fire Project was one of the first of many prescribed burns this fall and winter throughout Arizona with the goal of protecting forest lands and surrounding communities from the threat of potential catastrophic wildfires.

Continue reading “Fighting fire with fire: How prescribed burns protect forests in northern Arizona”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Election Threats,830 words.
• Photo, video story available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Renee Romo
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Death threats, poisoned pets, disinformation campaigns, bulletproof glass in election offices and family members that keep “go bags” handy in case they have to flee the house on a moment’s notice.

Those were just some of the ongoing threats that elections officials across the country told senators they face as they prepare for elections next week and into 2024.

“As a former county recorder myself, I can attest that the pre 2020 world for election administrators is gone,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes testified Wednesday. “We don’t feel safe in our work because of the harassment and threats that are based in lies.” Continue reading “Fontes, other officials tell Senate panel of ongoing threats to elections”

EDS: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Reproductive Freedom for All Arizona in the seventh graf. The story below has been corrected, but clients who used previous versions are asked to run the correction found here.

• Slug: BC-CNS-Abortion Fair,880 words.
• 6 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Oakley Seiter
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – An Arizona health care advocacy group reached out to people at the recent Arizona State Fair to ask registered voters to sign a petition supporting a ballot initiative that would amend the Arizona Constitution to establish abortion access as a fundamental right.

One of the groups’ volunteers, Janet Hamlin, was there to talk about why she has always supported a woman’s right to choose. Continue reading “Healthcare Rising Arizona collects signatures for abortion access petition at the Arizona State Fair”

• Slug: BC-CNS-GCU Fined,820 words.
• 2 file photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Alexandria Cullen
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Grand Canyon University said it “categorically denies” charges by the U.S. Department of Education that the school willfully misled prospective students about the costs of a doctoral degree, leaving those students deeply in debt.

The comments were in response to the department’s announcement Tuesday that it will fine the school $37.7 million for lying about the costs of its doctoral programs to “more than 7,500 … students,” who wound up paying 25% more than they were told a degree would cost.

The department said it is the largest fine imposed against a school for misrepresentation. Continue reading “GCU pushes back against $37.7 million fine over claims it ‘lied’ about costs”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Downtown Changes. 550 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails and captions below).

By Jacob Snelgrove
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – Downtown has gone through significant changes since the last time the Arizona Diamondbacks were in the World Series, in 2001.

The Diamondbacks are hosting several World Series games at Chase Field this year, but in 2001 the stadium was Bank One Ballpark and just 3 years old.

In 2001, the downtown sidewalks were near-empty due to the lack of hotels, bars and restaurants in the area.

Continue reading “Downtown Phoenix has transformed since 2001, the last time the Diamondbacks hosted the World Series”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Abortion Reversal,720 words.
• File photo available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Renee Romo
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court said a group of Arizona physicians can challenge the state’s ban on abortions for genetic abnormalities, a law the doctors say could land them in jail because it is impermissibly vague.

The ruling Monday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a lower court that had dismissed the suit, saying the physicians did not have standing to sue after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion that was recognized in Roe v. Wade.

But the circuit court said the physicians can sue. It agreed that the doctors have been harmed by the law, the so-called Reason Regulations, because they are “over-complying with the laws because it is unclear what conduct falls within the laws’ grasp.” Continue reading “Physicians can challenge genetic-abnormality abortion ban, court rules”

• Slug: BC-CNS-World Series Merch. 490 words. By Reagan Priest.
• Photo available (thumbnail and caption below).
• Video available.

By Reagan Priest
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – Arizona Diamondbacks merchandise is flying off the shelves with the World Series now in the state, but fans should beware of counterfeit merch, according to government agencies.

The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center is warning fans to be wary of team merch that isn’t legitimate. The center enforces intellectual property law in the U.S. and works closely with major sports organizations to protect consumers from scams.

Continue reading “Arizona Diamondbacks World Series merch is flying off shelves, but beware of counterfeit swag”

• Slug: BC-CNS-No Mower,590 words.
• Photo available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Adrienne Washington
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Gas-powered lawn equipment in Arizona emitted 445,908 tons of carbon dioxide in 2020, the polluting equivalent of putting 98,162 cars on the road, a new report says.

The report Monday by the Arizona Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund also said gas-powered lawn mowers, blowers and trimmers contributed 985 tons of nitrogen oxides and 333 tons of fine particulate matter to the air that year, the most recent for which numbers are available. Continue reading “That green lawn may not be so green: Gas-powered mowers are heavy polluters”