PHOENIX — An Arizona lawmaker announced on the state Senate floor Monday that she plans to have an abortion after learning that her pregnancy is not viable.
Arizona
Arizona lawmaker says she plans to have an abortion after learning her pregnancy isn't viable
Burch said that she found out a few weeks ago that “against all odds,” she was pregnant. The mother of two living children from west Mesa who is running for reelection said she has had “a rough journey” with fertility. She experienced her first miscarriage 13 years ago, was pregnant many times and terminated a nonviable pregnancy as she campaigned for her senate seat two years ago, she said.
Now, Burch said that her current pregnancy is not progressing and not viable and she has made an appointment to terminate.
“I don’t think people should have to justify their abortions,” Burch said. “But I’m choosing to talk about why I made this decision because I want us to be able to have meaningful conversations about the reality of how the work that we do in this body impacts people in the real world.”
Burch said the state’s laws have “interfered” with her decision. Arizona law required an “invasive” transvaginal ultrasound that her doctor didn’t order and she was then read “factually false” information required by the law about alternatives, she said.
“I’m a perfect example of why this relationship should be between patients and providers,” not state lawmakers, Burch said. “My experiences in this space both as a provider and as a patient have led me to believe that this legislature has failed the people of Arizona.”
Burch called on the legislature to pass laws that make sure every Arizonan has the opportunity to make decisions that are right for them. She also said she hopes voters have a chance to weigh in on abortion on the November ballot.
A signature drive is underway to add a constitutional right to abortion in Arizona. Under the measure, the state would not be able to ban abortion until the fetus is viable, which is around 28 weeks, with later abortions allowed to protect a woman’s physical or mental health. Supporters must gather nearly 384,000 valid signatures by July 4. Current law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Arizona
Arizona crews assist efforts to extinguish raging wildfires in California
PHOENIX – It’s been all hands on deck battling the southern California wildfires.
The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management has been called to help and their task force members are speaking on the tragedy they have seen just one state over.
Arizona task forces give ‘everything we had’
Why you should care:
As you can imagine, this is an extremely tough assignment.
Long days and a lot of smoke.
Battalion Chief Rich Jones spoke about some of the hardest parts of the job.
What they’re saying:
“So current situation is we’re on day 19,” he said. “We were a part of the initial attack group that handled the Eaton Fire. We were there for 12 days giving the folks of Altadena everything we had.”
Jones was there from the beginning and he’s leading one of the eight Arizona task forces sent to California.
Jones says the most difficult part wasn’t the manual labor.
“There’s thousands of folks that lost everything and so emotionally, it’s hard to detach and stay focused on your job and continue to produce the production and quality you need with that much emotion. That was definitely the hardest part. Our heartstrings were pulled left and right out here,” he said.
By the numbers:
He is one of 150 Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management personnel supporting California.
Most crews are staged to pick up any initial starts.
One task force is currently assigned to the Palisades Fire and the eighth task force was sent early this morning.
“The exposure that we get battling (fires) all across the Pacific Northwest and all over the world is beneficial to our citizens of Arizona,” said Jones. We may not deal with the complexity of the wildland urban interface here, but coming here and grabbing that exposure helps us to be more alert and more prepared for what we have at home.”
What’s next:
Home is where his task force is headed early next week after an exhausting, yet rewarding 21 days.
“I’m looking forward to getting home. It’s been a long 21 days and I miss my family. You know, these are precious scraps of time that we trade away from our family for the wildland community to be here because there’s not a lot of us, but we do rally and come together when it’s needed the most,” he said.
Jones says his task force will have a mandatory two days of rest after their 21st day and it’s possible they could pull another 21-day shift in California, if needed.
Arizona
Arizona picked 3rd in Big 12 preseason softball poll
The Big 12 coaches are high on the Arizona Wildcats. The conference released its preseason poll on Friday with UA projected to finish third in a strong league. Outfielders Dakota Kennedy and Regan Shockey were selected to the preseason all-conference team.
The Wildcats were picked to finish behind Oklahoma State and Texas Tech in the new 11-team league. Arizona finished 37-18-1 last year and advanced to the Stillwater Super Regional where new conference mate OSU swept the Wildcats out of the postseason.
Arizona lost just one player to the transfer portal while bringing in Softball America’s 10th-ranked class. The group of five players gave the Wildcats the highest-ranked Big 12 class this season. Three of the five were rated as four-star prospects by SA. The Wildcats also added former Washington C/UT Sydney Stewart, former Oregon State infielder Kiki Escobar, and former Iowa State pitcher Saya Swain from the transfer portal.
Oklahoma State advanced to the Women’s College World Series last year then reloaded with another big haul in the transfer portal. Arizona is very familiar with one of the biggest names, former Washington pitcher Ruby Meylan.
Texas Tech looked to be in trouble when former head coach Craig Snider left for an assistant coaching position at Tennessee. It appeared to be a major blow after a promising year, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
The Red Raiders made a huge hire by taking former Louisiana-Lafayette leader Gerry Glasco. Glasco brought some talent with him, but a huge assist from a donor helped him pull off the biggest coup of the off-season.
NiJaree Canady was lured away from Stanford after taking the Cardinal deep into the WCWS the past two years. The pitcher’s price came to over $1 million, according to published reports. Her signing took the Red Raiders from a team with the potential to make incremental improvements to one that has designs on a conference title and a trip to the WCWS.
The coaches’ votes indicate a large chasm between the top four teams and the rest of the league. The point totals after Baylor take a steep drop. There is another big gap after the seventh-ranked squad, and the last two teams trail the rest of the league by a considerable margin.
- Oklahoma State Cowgirls (99 points, 9 first-place votes)
- Texas Tech Red Raiders (90 points, 2 first-place votes)
- Arizona Wildcats (81 points)
- Baylor Bears (75 points)
- BYU Cougars (54 points)
- Utah Utes (52 points)
- UCF Knights (51 points)
- Arizona State Sun Devils (36 points)
- Kansas Jayhawks (34 points)
- Iowa State Cyclones (23 points)
- Houston Cougars (10 points)
The preseason All-Big 12 team is dominated by Cowgirls. Six Oklahoma State players were honored.
Arizona was one of four teams with two players named to the team. The Wildcats were the only squad in the league whose selections were all unanimous picks by the coaches. Shockey was one of just two underclassmen to make the team.
In addition to Shockey and Kennedy, Baylor senior infielder Shaylon Govan, BYU junior Lily Owens, and TTU junior RHP Canady were voted to the team by all 11 coaches. The other selections were graduate outfielder Kelsey Hall (ASU), senior catcher/infielder Turiya Coleman (Baylor), senior outfielder Angelina Allen (ISU), senior pitcher/utility Katie Brooks (KU), outfielder Presley Limbaugh (KU), junior pitcher RyLee Crandall (OSU), graduate outfielder Megan Delgadillo (OSU), junior utility Tallen Edwards (OSU), sophomore infielder Karli Godwin (OSU), junior RPH Meylan (OSU), junior outfielder Claire Timm (OSU), junior outfielder Mihyia Davis (TTU), and senior outfielder Kaylah Nelsen (Utah).
Arizona
Creating ‘water leaders’: CAP to open a new water education center in north Phoenix
CAWCD candidates explain what’s at stake in Colorado River fight
Central Arizona Water Conservation District candidates explain the fight over the Colorado River during an Oct. 8, 2024, Arizona Republic forum.
The Republic
Arizonans will have a new opportunity to learn about their most precious resource, potentially as soon as next year.
The board of the Central Arizona Project approved a contract Jan. 9 to build a new water education center in north Phoenix. With a multipurpose space, board room and informative exhibits, the center will open the CAP, one of Arizona’s most essential pieces of public infrastructure, to the public.
The 336-mile Central Arizona Project Canal delivers water from the Colorado River on Arizona’s western border to the Phoenix and Tucson areas. The project provides water to 6 million Arizonans — roughly 80% of the state’s population — and accounts for nearly 40% of the water used in Phoenix.
The new center will be built on a bridge over the canal, allowing visitors to appreciate the Colorado River water flowing into their communities and homes.
“Educating kids on the history of how we got where we are today is incredibly important, and this is our opportunity to do it here in Arizona,” said CAP board member Mark Taylor.
The center will include explanatory exhibits about Arizona’s water sources and the CAP’s history.
The project is expected to cost $38-45 million, which will come from the CAP’s tax-fed Extraordinary Cost Reserve Fund. The fund, with a current balance of $342 million, is designed for one-time large expenses.
‘We’re using taxpayer money’
The CAP is managed under a public entity funded through property taxes and water fees. The project is governed by an elected board with members from Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties. Board members said during their meeting that they supported efforts to cut costs on the project.
“This is a beautiful design and beautiful building, and for a number of reasons, I believe it’s necessary,” CAP board member April Pinger-Tornquist said during the meeting. “Please, every step of the way, sharpen your pencils, keep in mind we’re using taxpayer money.”
Staff have selected and pre-ordered construction materials to minimize cots, according to CAP operations director Darrin Francom.
Construction is scheduled to begin in May, and planners hope to open the center by the end of 2026. The CAP has selected national contractor Mortenson Company for the build.
The center will end almost a decade of difficulty in providing public education opportunities around the CAP, according to Bridget Schwartz-Manock, CAP’s assistant general manager for public and governmental affairs. Project officials used to provide guided tours of the control room, where operators control infrastructure across the entire project, but staff ended those tours for security reasons in 2017.
“It is the epicenter of how we operate this amazing system,” Schwartz-Manock said in an interview. “And we were bringing in Boy Scout groups and Rotary Clubs, and, you probably shouldn’t for cyber security reasons, people taking pictures of what software we use, accidentally touching buttons they shouldn’t touch, and all sorts of other security issues.”
Since then, Schwartz-Manock has had few ways to give the public hands-on experiences that help them understand their water infrastructure.
“There isn’t much,” Schwartz-Manock said.
Center will offer multiple educational points
The CAP has also continued holding public board meetings at its headquarters near Pinnacle Peak Rd and North 7th Street, causing additional security concerns. The new center will sit next to the headquarters in a separate space, allowing the public to attend board meetings and learn about their water infrastructure outside of sensitive spaces.
The building’s design, created by Tempe-based architecture firm Jones Studio, centers on the bridge over the canal.
“Spanning the canal and allowing everybody to stand above the water and really connect with it and actually feel the microclimate that’s that’s going to occur over top of the water … that’s the beating heart of the facility, connecting people with that water,” the project’s lead designer, Brian Farling, said in an interview. Farling is a principal at Jones Studio.
Guests will enter the building through a replica of a siphon, one of the massive subterranean pipes that CAP water passes through at several points in its journey through the project. On the other side of the siphon, guests will reach the board room, multipurpose room and conference room. Then, they will step out over the canal itself.
On the other side of the bridge, the educational center will include a small theater, a life-sized replica of a check gate, and a huge metal screen used to control water as it passes through the CAP system. The exhibit space is designed largely with school field trips in mind.
“We need to inspire the next generation of water professionals and water leaders,” said CAP board member Karen Cesare during the board meeting. “Kids today, who get their information from screens, need real hands-on places to go and see the real life-sized scale of things.”
For all visitors, Farling said he hopes the building reinforces the importance of water and responsible resource use in the desert. Before they reach the entrance, guests will walk past a tiered garden fed by collected rainwater from the building’s roof.
Staff hope the multipurpose space and boardroom will also provide meeting areas for Arizona’s water management community.
“We are really exploring future partnerships with other water organizations,” Schwartz-Manock said. “We hope it becomes a gathering space where all sorts of people can come and learn and discuss water.”
Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to austin.corona@arizonarepublic.com
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Sign up for AZ Climate, our weekly environment newsletter, and follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram.
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