Tucson Politics

  Arizona Sen. Justine Wadsack, a local Republican, will have an extra day to prepare for her October trial on a criminal speeding charge after the judge assigned to the case recused herself.

  Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will visit the Southern Arizona border town of Douglas on Friday to deliver what's being billed as a "major speech" on tougher border security measures.

  The Tucson City Council didn't vote on an ordinance that would make it illegal to camp in washes at a meeting Wednesday. The item was pulled from the agenda "at the request of staff because it was not ready to be put before the mayor and council for their action," officials said.

  Voters will have a chance on Thursday night to hear arguments for and against a proposition that would dramatically change Arizona’s election system. Plus more local political events this week.

  Tablets that claim to consist, in part, of the leaf of a plant called kratom often have higher concentrations of the active ingredient than one can get from the plant alone, but the pills are pills easily available, and enforcement and testing of these products seems to exist in a gray area.

  Officials at the Tucson International Airport will be required to determine the extent of a plume of "forever chemicals" that have leached into the ground over the past decades, under a Superfund agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said Wednesday.

  A small number of lower-profile state legislative races in districts around the country could shift partisan control of legislative chambers in several key swing states next year, potentially allowing state lawmakers to reshape how elections are run.

  A planned solar-powered cobalt processing facility will break ground next year in Yuma County, one of two dozen projects underway in Arizona catalyzed by the Inflation Reduction Act, legislation championed by Democrats and criticized by Republicans as a waste of taxpayer money.

  The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon Society are accusing federal agencies of allowing livestock grazing that has put the northern Mexican garter snake at risk.

  A California congressman who wanted to know why the U.S. Department of Defense lobbied Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs to veto a bill aimed at spurring “starter home” construction has finally gotten some answers, but he still isn’t satisfied.

  Longtime environmental leader Carolyn Campbell is stepping down from her gig as executive director of the Coaltion for Sonoran Desert Protection

  Federal prosecutors indicted a U.S. citizen after a vehicle carrying seven migrants flipped over on Ruby Road near Arivaca, Ariz. One woman died, and others were taken to the hospital. Residents of the rural area question the high-speed pursuit that preceded the crash.

  Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has provided guidance to the state’s county recorders on how to handle a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that changed the state’s voter registration law just 10 weeks before the election.

  A new TUSD parental leave policy would reflect other school districts' effort to retain workers, Vail's "Beyond Textbooks" plan to bring in upwards of $1 million, and more from government meetings around Tucson.

  After uranium ore was transferred across the Navajo Nation in July with little warning, tribal leaders started looking for ways to address the issue that would best benefit their people and community. The solution: strengthen tribal law.

  Two more witnesses in a federal child sex abuse trial surrounding a polygamist religious sect said defendant LaDell Bistline Jr. pressured them into marrying the man who sexually abused them for three years while they were children.

  Voters can learn about the steps election officials are taking new steps this year to avoid trouble at the polls at a forum on Saturday in Tucson.

  The Tucson City Council is set to vote next Wednesday on an ordinance that would make it illegal to sleep in city washes and watercourses, with city officials citing monsoon floods and fires to push a ban on homeless camps in those areas.

  Flagstaff Republican State Sen. Wendy Rogers appears to have violated Arizona’s version of the Hatch Act, which bars the use of government resources for campaign activity, after she published a letter on official Senate letterhead endorsing a candidate for Cottonwood City Council.

  A judge in Maricopa County ruled that state officials violated open meeting law when it approved the value of a right-of-way for the Copper World mine project, located about 30 miles southeast of Tucson in the Santa Rita Mountains.

  The sports betting industry has seen steady growth throughout its time as a legal venture in Arizona, and as football season begins, sports betting is back and bigger than ever before.

  A Maricopa County Superior Court judge said that a ballot proposition 140 - to end partisan primaries in Arizona - will have votes cast for it counted after all, though opponents of the ballot measure will appeal the matter to the state Supreme Court.

  "The city of Tucson has made a pattern of wasting resources and taxpayer money on expensive, inefficient, and dangerous responses to homelessness, instead of creating and funding actual models of care that would help houseless folks, neighbors, local businesses and our communities."

  Voters will have a chance to hear pro and con arguments regarding Prop. 314 in a live-streamed video debate Thursday night.

  The Arizona Department of Education is scrambling to urge schools to tap millions of dollars earmarked to help homeless students before the funds expire at the end of the month.