• Former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has been nominated by Donald Trump to be the next U.S. ambassador to Serbia.
• Brnovich, who is of Serbian descent, previously served two terms as Arizona’s top prosecutor.
• Trump endorsed Brnovich’s opponent in the 2022 Arizona GOP Senate primary after Brnovich refused to support Trump’s claims of election fraud.

Former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich was nominated by President Donald Trump as the next U.S. ambassador to Serbia.

Brnovich served two terms as the state’s top prosecutor and is of an ethnic background from the southeastern European region that is now Serbia.

Trump announced the nomination March 28 on his social media platform.

“I am pleased to announce that Mark Brnovich will be our next United States Ambassador to Serbia…. As the son of refugees who fled communism, Mark will be a strong advocate for Freedom, and always put AMERICA FIRST. Congratulations Mark!” Trump said in the Truth Social post.

Brnovich ran for one of Arizona’s U.S. Senate seats in 2022, which he lost in the Republican primary to Blake Masters.

The U.S. Senate needs to confirm his nomination.

Here’s what we know about Brnovich and his connections to Serbia.

Brnovich comes from a Serbs background

In a 2022 interview with the Serbian Times, while Brnovich was still campaigning for Senate, he discussed his cultural background and the family he still had in Serbia and Montenegro.

“I’m very proud of my cultural background and was fortunate to grow up speaking another language,” Brnovich said.

While his parents immigrated to the U.S., Brnovich said his family came from the Podgorica region near the capital of Montenegro, a country that shares a border with Serbia, both formerly part of Yugoslavia, which was broken up in 1992.

He mentioned he has relatives that still live in the region and that his family tried to make yearly visits, with a trip a recent as 2021 to Montenegro.

Brnovich credits his wife, Susan, a U.S. District of Arizona judge, for embracing his cultural roots.

Brnovich and his wife had two daughters together, Milena and Sofija, and lived in Phoenix.

Brnovich’s time as attorney general, failed U.S. Senate race

Brnovich was elected twice to serve as Arizona attorney general, a position he held from 2015 until 2023.

Brnovich won the statewide office twice but got little traction during his 2022 U.S. Senate campaign after Trump publicly pressured him to legitimize Trump’s false claims that Arizona’s 2020 election was “rigged.”

At a July 2021 rally in Phoenix, Trump pressured Brnovich to use the Arizona Senate’s review of Maricopa County ballots to lend credence to his false claims of a stolen election. With Trump’s endorsement in the race hanging in the balance, his words took on even greater weight.

“We have to hold these people accountable,” Trump said at the time. “Hopefully — and I say this, and I have confidence in it — hopefully, your attorney general, Mark Brnovich … will take this incredible information given by these incredible warriors and patriots, and he’s going to take it and he’s going to do what everybody knows needs to be done.”

Brnovich’s office opened an investigation after the ballot review ended in September 2021, but didn’t bring any major cases stemming from the probe.

His staff spent 10,000 hours working on a report that found virtually all claims of error and malfeasance were unfounded, the Washington Post later reported.

Brnovich ignored those findings and instead released an initial investigative report in April 2022 that cited “serious vulnerabilities” and “questions” about the election but didn’t claim widespread fraud.

Trump and Brnovich had a previously testy relationship

Two months later, Trump endorsed Brnovich’s GOP rival Masters in the Republican Senate primary and blasted Brnovich.

Brnovich appeared repeatedly on Fox News but otherwise ran a low-profile campaign.

The day before the 2022 primary, Brnovich publicly wrote that his office had only found one instance of a ballot turned in for someone who had already died out of 282 allegedly identified by the state Senate’s ballot review.

Trump accused Brnovich of not supporting “clean and fair elections, or law and order.”

“Mark Brnovich is such a disappointment to me,” Trump said. 

The Arizona Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen contributed to this article.

Reach reporter Rey Covarrubias Jr. at rcovarrubias@gannett.com. Follow him on X, Threads and Bluesky @ReyCJrAZ.

PEACH SPRINGS, AZ (AZFamily) — Hualapai Nation Police say they’ve arrested two illegal immigrants suspected of being involved in train robberies after they were led on an overnight chase along an Northern Arizona highway.

According to authorities, officers conducted a traffic stop around 2:40 a.m. Thursday on a maroon Chevy Tahoe that had been linked to the robberies. Once police pulled the vehicle over, eight people had run away, and the driver, identified as a man from Mexico, was detained. During the stop, police said they located evidence of stolen property, Nike shoes, near the vehicle.

Investigators say then, a white Toyota 4Runner was pulled over near mile marker 95 on Route 66, near Hackberry, for failing to yield to emergency vehicles. During that stop, a sergeant and patrol officer approached the SUV and reportedly saw signs of criminal activity and more evidence of being linked to the train robberies.

The sergeant asked the driver to step out of the vehicle, and while she initially complied, police said she got back on the wheel, hit the patrol officer, and then sped away. That officer wasn’t hurt, but it prompted Hualapai Nation officers to initiate a pursuit.

The pursuit lasted about 80 miles and finished near the Arizona-California state line, where the suspects’ vehicle reportedly lost control in a construction zone and crashed into a guardrail, causing the driver to be thrown out of the car.

The driver was taken to a hospital in Mohave Valley for treatment before she and the passenger, identified only as a man, were booked into the Mohave County jail for the crime. Police say both of them were in the U.S. illegally and that charges include unlawful flight and aggravated assault on an officer.

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Arizona volleyball hosted its spring volleyball tournament on Saturday, Mar. 22 in McKale Center. It was the first chance to get a look at most of the team that will compete with the Wildcats next season.

Arizona faced UTEP, GCU, and Western New Mexico in the first of three tournaments they will play this spring. The Wildcats play ASU in Tempe on Mar. 29. They go to San Diego on Apr. 5, then follow that with a return trip to UTEP on Apr. 12.

The Wildcats want to take a step forward after winning the NIVC last year. Spring tournaments w

On choosing tournaments and opponents

Different sports and coaches have different philosophies about opponents in their off-season scrimmages. Some don’t like to play teams they usually play in the regular season. That’s not the mindset of Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs.

“I wanted to play teams who made the tournament last year in a non-threatening environment,” she said.

That means teams like ASU and UTEP. The Sun Devils have been one of the best stories in the sport the last two seasons, making a complete turnaround under JJ Van Niel. They have made two straight trips to the NCAA Tournament after being a stranger to late fall play for years.

UTEP is on a similar rise, albeit one that stretches longer. The Miners started their turnaround in the pandemic-shortened season in the spring of 2021. A 5-21 record in 2018 was 13-15 in 2019 then 10-7 in 2020-21. The 2021 fall season marked their first year with 20 or more wins since 2005. They’ve had at least 20 wins in two of three seasons since and at least 17 wins in each of the past four years.

The Miners showed that they have the potential to be that kind of team again in 2025. They also showed where Arizona needs to improve, with Stubbs noting that UTEP controlled the serve and pass game in their scrimmage.

On the other hand, having at least one team that isn’t your equal can be helpful, too. Stubbs had the opportunity to play freshmen Chloe Giehtbrock and Maya Flemister against Western New Mexico. Giehtbrock will redshirt this season. Flemister is adapting to the speed of the game.

On fostering volleyball IQ

The spring tournaments also provide an opportunity for young players to learn the game beyond their own positions. During timeouts, Stubbs picked players to talk to the group about what they were seeing in the games. Two players were given the chance without advance warning.

Stubbs said that most of them talk about the game only as it pertains to their own contributions. She was trying to get them to see the entire game.

On roster needs

It’s unlikely that the roster that plays this spring is the final roster that will play this fall. There is still need for a middle blocker and at least one more pin. There have been no losses to the portal so far, but current members of the team could still enter.

The Wildcats lost fifth-year pin Jaelyn Hodge after last year. Middle blockers Kiari Robey and Alayna Johnson also exhausted their eligibility. Defensive specialist Ava Tortorello and opposite Amanda DeWitt played their last game in college last fall, as well. As of now, the seniors are the only roster losses.

The team should get its other main pieces back, though. Setters Avery Scoggins and Ana Heath, outside hitters Jordan Wilson and Carlie Cisneros, middle blocker Journey Tucker, and liberos Haven Wray and Brenna Ginder were all critical in Arizona’s turnaround and NIVC title last year. There is every indication that those players will be back in cardinal and navy in the fall.

What happens on the right side, which Hodge patrolled last season, might be the biggest question. As far as the current roster goes, the frontrunner is probably Sydney Vanek. Vanek didn’t get a lot of playing time last season, but the two-sport athlete has considerable potential and athleticism. She’s not alone at opp, though.

Heath also played the position during the spring tournament. She played in a 6-2 as a setter and was occasionally listed as a pin on recruiting sites during her prep days. She also got some run at opposite her freshman season under former head coach Dave Rubio. Stubbs said last year that she would like to find more ways to use Heath, and this might be one of them.

The other primary option is freshman Renee Jones. Jones reclassified from the 2024 class, spending two years in the new volleyball program at IMG Academy.

Jones comes from a very athletic family with a great deal of volleyball success. Her older sister was a record-setting middle blocker at Maryland. Her twin was a freshman on the Pitt Panthers’ Final Four team this past season. She is trying to make her mark on the other end of the country.

Arizona needs experience and offense at middle blocker. Tucker will be a junior and she made a huge jump last season, but she’s more of a blocker than an offensive threat. She was a latecomer to the sport, so some of her skills are still in the development stage. She was working on the slide a bit during the spring scrimmages, but it’s a timing issue that may not come together quickly.

Adrianna Bridges got very little time on the court last year as a freshman. She appears to have more offensive variety than Tucker, but she’s extremely inexperienced and has a very slight frame.

The only other option on the current roster is Flemister. It’s a huge adjustment for freshmen to come into college and jump right in, especially if Arizona wants to take another step forward this season.