Huge grocery chains and ubiquitous dollar stores are limiting some rural and urban communities’ access to healthy food at the same time they bankrupt the farmers who produce it. Read more»

Arizona claimed qualified immunity as a child sex abuse victim argued for partial summary judgment in a negligence suit against the state over its placement of foster children in the care of former civilian army leader David Frodsham and leaving him there despite numerous complaints. Read more»

Conservative activists Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips used the conspiracy-peddling nonprofit True the Vote to enrich themselves, with the group making loans to founder Engelbrecht and issuing contracts to director Phillips that may have violated state and federal law. Read more»

Eating disorders are on the rise in the U.S.,and while attention still centers on women, who are most likely to suffer from eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia, research, diagnosis and treatment lags for men, LGBTQ individuals and Latina and Black women. Read more»

Hearing-impaired residents will now have better access to the Tucson City Council, as a new on-screen captioning system will provide more accurate real-time transcriptions of what elected leaders and others say during meetings. Read more»

Tucson City Manager Mike Ortega makes it plain that the city's budget does not short-change climate relief. All told it reaches up to $80.5 million. Plus, more in local government meetings this week. Read more»

A 9th Circuit panel heard arguments over whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must once again rewrite its recovery plan for the endangered Mexican wolf, as conservationists argued the new plan didn’t include site-specific management data and is too similar to the old one. Read more»

Arizona Gov. Hobbs has racked up more than 100 vetoes, rejecting Republican-backed bills that criminalized homelessness, banned ranked-choice voting, and a bill that created penalties for filming sexually explicit acts on school property - but also threatened educators with prison. Read more»

Republican Arizona Sen. Jake Hoffman is urging the Arizona governor to sign a bill that would end the “practice of filming pornography in K-12 schools,” something that is currently not allowed or encouraged at public schools in the state. Read more»

Arizona Republican state Sen. Janae Shamp proudly displays a flag tied to Christian nationalism and other extremist movements on her desk at the Arizona Senate, and says she embraced the symbol for its historical meaning and doesn’t care that “fringe groups” have adopted it. Read more»

Abortion is set to be a major issue in 2024’s most competitive Senate races, but abortion rights groups could stay on the sidelines in Arizona after a party switch by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, whose seat is up next year. Read more»

After relying on retail-grade printers to print hundreds of thousands of ballots on the spot and then experiencing a countywide Election Day breakdown, Maricopa County is planning on spending millions to buy much larger, high-performance printers for each of its 2024 polling places. Read more»

While Arizona wrestles with the future of its water, state Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against dozens of companies — including manufacturing giant 3M and the defense contractor Raytheon — for producing products containing PFAS or forever chemicals, causing "widespread" groundwater pollution. Read more»

For two days, unionized reporters at the Arizona Republic and 24 other newsrooms and across the country will walk off the job in order to send a message to parent company Gannett about unfair working conditions. Read more»

Arizona State University announced ambitious plans to open a medical school focused on medical engineering and technology as part of a new “ASU Health” initiative that addresses the state’s long-term health needs. Read more»