Category: State News

PHOENIX (AP) – Arizona is channeling $40 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding toward tutoring students falling behind in school, the state superintendent said Tuesday. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced at a news conference that free tutoring will be available for students who failed to pass proficiency tests in reading, writing and math. The tutoring program, however, will be given on a first-come, first-served basis. Only students between first and eighth grades at public and charter schools will be eligible. Parents can request it through the Arizona Department of Education website. “I have one obsession in life. My…

GRAND CANYON, Ariz.—On September 9 at approximately 1:55 p.m., the Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center received an emergency call of a hiker in distress on the North Kaibab Trail approximately one mile south of Cottonwood Campground. Soon thereafter the hiker became unresponsive and bystanders initiated CPR.  National Park Service (NPS) search and rescue personnel responded to the call via helicopter. Given the location, specialized helicopter maneuvers were employed to allow rangers to assume care of the hiker, initiating advance life support efforts.  Attempts to resuscitate the hiker were unsuccessful. The victim has been identified as 55-year-old, Ranjith Varma of Manassas, Virginia who was hiking from the South…

PHOENIX (AP) – The Arizona Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court’s conclusion that abortion doctors can`t be prosecuted under a pre-statehood law that bans the procedure in nearly all cases. The high court decided on Tuesday that it would review the Arizona Court of Appeals ruling that said doctors couldn’t be charged for performing abortions in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy because other Arizona laws passed over the years allow them to perform the procedure. Abortions are currently allowed in Arizona in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy under a 2022 law. Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, the…

The National Park Service will renew efforts to rid an area of the Colorado River in northern Arizona of invasive fish by killing them with a chemical treatment, the agency said Friday. A substance lethal to fish but approved by federal environmental regulators called rotenone will be disseminated starting Aug. 26. It’s the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle to keep non-native smallmouth bass and green sunfish at bay below the Glen Canyon Dam and to protect a threatened native fish, the humpback chub. The treatment will require a weekend closure of the Colorado River slough, a cobble bar area…