Residents of Yarnell said Monday that they were never really depending on help from the federal government, and vowed to continue rebuilding their community after a request for disaster aid was rejected Friday. Read more»

Arizona lawmakers invoked the memory of the 19 fallen Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters at a congressional hearing Thursday where they urged bureaucrats to improve forest management to prevent such fires in the future. Read more»

It’s one thing to claim that you can work across the congressional aisle in the spirit of bipartisanship. It’s quite another to sweat with members of the other party. But that’s what congressional women were doing on Wednesday as Republicans and Democrats joined forces to play women journalists in a charity softball game on a steamy Washington night. (with video) Read more»

Arizona will no longer have to get prior federal government approval for state voting changes, after the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a key component of the Voting Rights Act. A sharply divided court said the part of the law that required nine states, including Arizona, to get advance permission for voting changes had outlived its need and that it unconstitutionally singled out some states for harsher treatment than others. Read more» 1

Executives from American Airlines and US Airways appeared Wednesday before a Senate subcommittee, at least the third time this year they have been called to testify on the proposed merger of their two airlines. Read more»

Immigration advocates released a study of Latino banking habits Tuesday that they said supports the case for a pathway to citizenship, which they said in turn opens the door to greater economic prosperity for all. Read more» 1

Christopher O’Connor made it further than he ever thought he would in the National Spelling Bee, but the Tucson seventh-grader knew it was all over the minute he heard his first word Thursday. Pultaceous. Read more»

Tucson seventh-grader Christopher O’Connor did not think he would make it past the state competition, much less hear his name called as a semifinalist in the National Spelling Bee. “It felt surreal,” Christopher, 13, said Wednesday after advancing past the preliminary rounds of the competition in the Washington suburbs. Read more»

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D- Tucson, knows there are benefits to be had from a U.S.-Mexico relationship, but fears the possibilities have been endangered by the hostility that has become part of the immigration debate. “The border lines went from a unique American landscape of people, history, and land itself, to a threat … to something to be feared,” he said. “Making that transition has affected the border tremendously.” Read more» 1