Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton told a Washington audience Wednesday that the recession forced the city to reinvent itself, sparking major improvements in higher education, transportation and other areas in its “innovation-based” economy. Read more»

Arizona homes trailed the nation in both their access to high-speed Internet and their computer ownership, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. Read more»

The number of homeless children in Arizona fell slightly last year to 62,616, according to a new report, but that still ranked the state among the worst in the nation for homeless kids. The state ranked 45th among states on an overall score card of youth homelessness factors. Read more»

Education Secretary Arne Duncan cited Arizona State University as a school that is 'raising the bar' on teacher education, as he unveiled a plan to strengthen teacher training, The new rules will undergo a 60-day comment and could take effect by the middle of 2015. Read more»

While the number of foreign students enrolled in U.S. colleges rose 8 percent in the last year, schools in Arizona more than kept pace, with international enrollment growing by 16 percent. Arizona's 15,442 foreign students ranked it 18th among states. Read more» 1

Eight days after she joined other mothers fasting for immigration reform, former Arizona resident Alejandra Sanchez broke her fast as the president unveiled his own plans on immigration reform. But while the fast is over, the hunger strikers said the fight for reform is not. Read more»

Health care navigators in Arizona said they learned a lot in the bumpy rollout of Obamacare and are ready to apply those lessons when open enrollment kicked off again Saturday. They say they are more language-ready and better able to reach out to underserved communities. Read more»

Arizona Rep. Ron Barber and Sen. John McCain joined lawmakers and soldiers urging the Pentagon to drop plans to retire the A-10. Retiring the jet would be "a travesty," said one, adding that only "our Father in heaven" is better at protecting troops and scattering enemies. Read more»

In Arizona, school districts look overseas to fill chronic vacancies that educators say are aggravated by lingering budget cuts. Read more» 1

Arizona was sixth in the nation on a national ranking of states for the quality of their after-school programs. The state's ranking was boosted by the relatively high number of low-income students in such programs and the near total support of the programs by parents surveyed. Read more»

The state's per-pupil spending fell 17.5 percent since 2008, a decline that trailed only Oklahoma and Alabama. Advocates said the cuts show up in the form of larger classes, fewer teachers and more. Read more»

Arizona saw the number of kids in its foster care system rise significantly from 2002-2012, a time when most other states were posting sharp drops in their foster care rolls, according to new federal data. Advocates said the numbers are more evidence of a state foster care system in crisis, one that has been “overworked and overwhelmed” as budgets have been cut. Read more»

The court rejected Eric Michael Clark's argument that lawyers did not push his claims of mental incompetence aggressively enough. Clark, who thought aliens had invaded Flagstaff at the time of the 2000 shooting, needed years of treatment before he was able to stand trial. Read more»

Peoria was ranked second and Scottsdale, Chandler and Gilbert all finished in the top 10. Organizations for people with disabilities credited everything from the weather to a long history of advocacy to modern infrastructure for the strong showing by Arizona cities. Read more»

Arizona’s poor are among the most overtaxed in the nation relative to the state’s wealthier taxpayers, a new survey says. Advocates point to the state's reliance on sales and excise taxes as the reason, but one noted that Arizona still has a relatively low tax burden overall. Read more»