Tucson Politics

  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack highlighed more than $600 million in recent financing to support renewable energy in rural Arizona, including $83.5 million to Trico Electric Cooperative to expand battery storage and increase the reliability of electricity for residents on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation.

  Former president Donald Trump told a Tucson crowd Thursday that undocumented immigrants and refugees were "raping and sodomizing" American women, and "walking off with pets." "We are being conquered and occupied by a foreign element," said the Republican candidate.

  The mother of two underage girls married to religious leader Samuel Rappylee Bateman testified Wednesday in the trial of two Arizona men accused of aiding and participating in Bateman’s child sex abuse ring.

  LGBTQ+ voting rights advocates are raising concerns over Arizona’s strict voter ID laws that were reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court last month. The reason? The law inadvertently makes it harder for transgender people to vote.

  Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes wants Attorney General Kris Mayes to provide elections officials guidance on how Arizona can enforce part of a voter registration law that the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed to go into effect, even as another court weighs its constitutionality.

  States have imposed a wide range of abortion rules since the Supreme Court ended constitutional protection more than two years ago,and voters in Arizona and nine other states will decide whether to move in that direction in November..

  Facing a fiscal deadline in just over two weeks, House Republicans on Wednesday abandoned plans to vote on a budget patch that would have kept the government funded into the new year after support for the plan cratered.

  Arizona may be the next state to implement a ban on cell phones in classrooms, but parents and teachers say they have doubts about whether legislation is the solution.

  Election deniers are now putting energy into grassroots organizing, a quieter version of the loud-and-proud campaigning led by former President Donald Trump that occurred in the movement’s nascent days.

  Backdropped by the eponymous cacti at Saguaro National Park East, a Biden administration official said this week that Arizona will receive $10 million in funding to help mitigate wildfires.

  With the election less than two months away, control of the presidency and both national legislative bodies rests on a veritable knife's edge - here are five key House races to watch in November, all rated as "toss-ups."

  Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and 19 other Western governors are prodding Congress to move more urgently to address a wildfire crisis that has grown worse in recent years.

  A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday sided with a group of transgender Arizona student athletes and confirmed a federal ruling that will for now allow student athletes to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity rather than biological sex.

  On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, former Arizonan Robert Sebold — a volunteer firefighter and EMT — watched the attacks on the World Trade Center on TV and knew he had to do something. The former soldier packed up his gear, put on his firefighter turnout clothes, then boarded a bus and headed for Ground Zero.

  Across Arizona and the country, flags are being flown at half-staff on Sept. 11, to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and honor the nearly 3,000 innocent men and women who lost their lives.

  "Steve Spain's posting of signs that make reckless use of terms such as 'bankrupt' and 'deficit' in an attempt to fool voters and demean the county he seeks to serve is irresponsible." — Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott

  In what ought to be a headline in The Onion but is instead a clear reminder of the deplorable state of political discourse from MAGA world, the Arizona Republican Party has launched a billboard campaign declaring that only the GOP opposes eating kittens - but it’s all hogwash.

  Flagstaff Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers made headlines last week for celebrating the victory of far-right parties in Germany by posting lyrics from the country’s national anthem that were banned because they are a rallying cry for the Nazis.

  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will make a campaign appearance in Tucson on Thursday, speaking at the 2,200-seat Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.

  Bold zoning changes are being proposed for the Tucson City Council's consideration. Plus, a sales tax election looms in March, Sahuarita takes up prayer and more from local government meetings around Tucson.

  Arizona Public Media debuted a new Friday roundtable program that's airing on TV and radio and streaming online.

  State Senator Brian Fernandez and his Republican challenger Michelle Altherr clashed over education spending, water use, housing and immigration policy during a debate Thursday moderated by Tucson Sentinel reporter Jim Nintzel.

  This summer was the hottest on record globally, making it even more likely that 2024 will surpass last year as the warmest year ever measured, and states in the Southwest baked in heat waves, with Phoenix surpassing 110 degrees 55 times this summer, tying a record set just last year.

  "Securing our border is too serious of a problem for ill-conceived political stunts, which I believe Prop. 314 to clearly be." — former Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier

  The CEOs of both Kroger and Albertsons testified in an Oregon federal court at the midpoint of a three-week hearing on the Federal Trade Commission's attempt to block a proposed merger between the grocery store chains.