Arizona baseball had won five of its last seven games, which included three road wins, entering Friday evening’s matchup with Kansas State.
Arizona
Arizona legislators call for more transparency, improved safety in assisted living
Arizona has joined a growing list of states where governments are calling for more transparency from assisted living communities through legislation following local media reports questioning resident safety in the setting.
HB 2653, introduced last week in the Arizona Legislature, would require assisted living communities to report resident injuries to the Arizona Department of Health Services and to families, allow cameras in common areas and in resident rooms, and forbid communities from hiring employees who have a history of abuse, neglect or exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
Arizona LeadingAge CEO Jaime L. Roberts said that she supports legislation aimed at safeguarding the well-being of older adults but that she has concerns about HB 2653, which drew inspiration from prior legislation that permitted the monitoring of facilities serving people living with intellectual disabilities.
Roberts proposed a “thoughtful reconsideration” of several provisions in the bill to “strike a balance between ensuring safety and preserving the privacy and autonomy of assisted living residents.”
She said that it is “crucial” to acknowledge the “distinctive nature” of assisted living communitie that are homes for older adults.
“Residents and their families choose these environments for their residential feel, steering away from institutional settings,” Roberts told McKnight’s Senior Living. “Many of these seniors actively engage in the community, exercising their right to vote, and may only require minimal assistance. It is paramount to recognize and respect the right to privacy for seniors, their visitors and the dedicated staff within these facilities.”
A provision of the bill allowing residents or families to install electronic monitoring devices in rooms raises concerns about the potential effect on the privacy of roommates, visitors, other residents and staff members, Arizona Health Care Association Executive Director David Voepel said.
As of 2021, at least nine states had laws mandating that assisted living communities accommodate resident requests to install electronic monitoring equipment in their rooms: Connecticut, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Utah. New Jersey also has a “Safe Care Cam” program that loans micro-surveillance equipment to healthcare consumers, including families of assisted living and nursing home residents.
Overall, Voepel said, his organization is open to more transparency.
“The camera legislation doesn’t go near far enough legislatively to protect residents and roommate privacy and leaves too much to the rules process,” he told McKnight’s Senior Living. “If we’re going to do something, we should have comprehensive language that takes the guesswork out of the rules process.”
He said other states have good language in place that is working, including Iowa, which is considering a law for nursing homes.
Roberts also addressed requirements for reporting any serious injury, medical issue or fall by a resident.
“While we understand the importance of such reporting, it’s worth noting that assisted living facilities and skilled nursing facilities are already subject to similar obligations,” she said. “The interpretation of terms like ‘fall’ could introduce complexities, making compliance potentially burdensome.”
Voepel addressed a requirement under the bill mandating that employers verify that employees or potential employees are not on the Adult Protective Services registry for past incidents of elder abuse.
The Arizona Health Care Association shares best practices with its members, including those related to looking up potential employees on the APS list, and will continue to work with the governor’s office and the bill’s sponsors to suggest changes, he said.
The Arizona Assisted Living Homes Association, which represents 1,585 smaller residential assisted living home locations, raised concerns about how the proposed legislation may impact current licensees and the privacy of individual residents.
“We recognize that the proposed legislation introduces requirements that are intended to help protect residents, and AALHA applauds that goal, but it should be balanced with the interests of small business owners,” AALHA President Annette Quinata, MSG, told McKnight’s Senior Living. “Owners of facilities licensed for 10 or fewer residents do not have access to the same level of resources as large centers, and already have to comply with extensive regulations in order to operate a licensed assisted living home.”
The Alzheimer’s Association Arizona chapter also put forth a proposal to address memory care minimum training standards, which is something the AALHA supports, as approximately 15% of older Arizona residents have Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia diagnoses.
“A large majority of residential assisted living homes are licensed for directed care services,” Quinata said. “As an organization, we are in support of additional training for managers and employees. More training is important as it helps to prevent abuse and neglect.”
Push for more regulation
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) also announced during her recent State of the State address her plan to advocate for a package of bills to ensure that long-term care facilities “cannot hide or erase their violation history,” increase fines, standardize inspections, and establish standardized credentials for Alzheimer’s, dementia and memory care.
The focus on long-term care, including assisted living, comes after several high-profile death and abuse cases were highlighted in the Arizona Republic’s investigative series “The Bitter End,” which chronicled resident injuries, care issues and sexual assaults in assisted living communities and nursing homes.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) raised the issue of safety and transparency concerns at Arizona assisted living communities during a US Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing last week that focused on safety, staffing and pricing in assisted living. Kelly also mentioned the Arizona Republic series and the “horrifying” stories it shared.
The national Alzheimer’s Association submitted comments for the record of the hearing, calling for federal involvement to increase the dementia care workforce and training in assisted living, and it also urged the Aging Committee to take steps to support states in implementing and improving dementia training for direct care and other workers in assisted living communities.
AARP Arizona Director of Advocacy Brendon Blake said that his organization planned to push for enhanced regulation of assisted living communities and nursing homes in the state. He said that the organization will advocate for increased fines and measures to ensure that staff members are trained, that substandard care is reported and that medication administration is improved.
“It’s kind of the Wild West,” Blake said in a statement. “Our system is weak when it comes to punishing bad actors.”
The National Center for Assisted Living’s 2023 edition of its “Assisted Living State Regulatory Review” report noted that 20 states updated assisted living regulations, statutes and policies in the past year.
Due to significant injuries to the CB position last year which includes a shoulder surgery for Terrion Arnold, the Lions CB position scored a 6/10 need on my Lions Defensive Draft Need Rankings. Thus, an early-round selection of a young, healthy prospect like Keith Abney would not come as a surprise. He enters the draft with very low medical concern level.
Here is the excerpt from my medical report on Keith Abney:
(Ages in parentheses are at start of 2026 season and are factored into the concern level. Injury info and ages based on available public information are unverified and subject to update. Games played data courtesy of sports-reference.com.)
Keith Abney, CB (21) – Arizona State
Projected round 2-3. #43 on Jeff Risdon board Feb 19.
Concern level 0/10
There is an isolated report of a hand injury but no corroborating information. Even if the hand injury is true, that’s of minimal to no long-term concern.
His availability in his final two seasons has been perfect. Overall, Abney appears to be medically clean and is at an excellent age.
He finished college with 6 INT and 21 PBU.
For more Lions coverage, follow us on X, @TheLionsWire, and give our Facebook page a like. Follow Jimmy on X, @JimmyLiaoMD
In the first game of the series, Arizona (14-23, 5-11 Big 12) battled in a low-scoring affair but fell short in a 2-1 loss to Kansas State (24-12, 8-8 Big 12). The Wildcats from Tucson held the Wildcats from Manhattan at bay for a good majority of the night.
Given that Kansas State leads the Big 12 in conference play in batting, on-base percentage, and slugging, Arizona had a rather good performance, but it was not enough.
Owen Kramkowski pitched seven scoreless innings before allowing the first Kansas State run in the top of the eight. He finished with six strikeouts and kept the high octane Wildcats at bay.
“I thought the defense played well behind him too,” said head coach Chip Hale. “There’s a lot of ground balls, and we made plays where we were positioned in good places, and he was pitching in the eighth inning. That’s unbelievable.”
Garrett Hicks (3-1) came in to try and stop the bleeding for the Wildcats and did so by not allowing Kansas State to take the lead in the eighth. It was in the ninth when the lead was surrendered.
It took until the sixth inning but the first run was scored by Arizona. Andrew Cain singled to left field and after Maddox Mihalakis flew out, it was Beau Sylvester bringing Cain home with a triple through right center field.
Sylvester extended his hitting streak to eight games and it proved to be not enough to get Arizona to the finish line.
Kansas State tied the game at the top of the eight when back to back singles got runners on at first and third. Then a passed ball allowed the third base runner to come home.
Arizona had a chance to retake the lead in the bottom of the ninth after Cain singled to deep right field. With Sylvester back at the plate, it seemed like it was a perfect set up.
A wild pitch nearly got past Kansas State and Cain tried to take advantage of it and steal home. However, Kansas State was able to corral the pitch and get Cain out at home.
AJ Evasco started the ninth inning with a double for Kansas State and back to back fly outs eventually got him home to give Kansas State the lead and the win.
With eight players being left on base, Arizona will need to bring those runners in more often than not if they want to tie the series Saturday afternoon.
As a young team, the Wildcats have had to walk a very tight line between disappointment and dejection and will need to continue handling these losses with grace if it wants to turn a corner.
“It’s the way it goes, it’s baseball,” said Hale. “If we don’t handle it, we will come out tomorrow and won’t be ready to go, so hopefully they handle it.”
Over the last 75 years, hair shows have become a staple of Black culture in the U.S. These events celebrate textured hair through the creative, and often sculptural, styling of centuries-old techniques like braiding and barbering.
The biggest hair shows in the country take place in cities with a much larger Black population than Phoenix — like Bronner Bros. in Atlanta, which can bring in around 30,000 people semi-annually.
But as the Black community here grows and newer Arizona residents bring the culture with them, hair shows have started to pop up in town.
The fourth annual Arizona Fantasy Expo Hair Show will return Sunday in Phoenix.
Show producer Athena Ankrah attended the third annual Fantasy Expo Hair Show in Phoenix last April, and shares what she saw.
About 200 people crowd La Princesa event hall in north Phoenix on a Sunday evening in 2025. Music blasts from speakers on either side of a stage and flows into the dance floor below. There are people of all ages here. Most attendees are dressed in white, to match the all-white ball theme, but there’s no shortage of color atop models’ heads.
Lauren Jackson, 20, just graduated from a barber school in Phoenix.
We’re watching a competition between two barbers — who can shave the cleanest tapered fade the fastest — when she tells me her plans for the event she’s competing in: the loc battle.
“So I made a basketball hoop out of locs,” Jackson said.
Hair shows give local hair stylists, barbers and braiders the chance to show off their creative talents through showcases and competitions.
Some stylists had been working on their entries for more than a year leading up to the Fantasy Hair Expo. But that wasn’t the case for Jackson. The event’s organizers promoted the show at Jackson’s barber school shortly before that day.
“I’m like, OK, bet! … Mind you, this was a week before the hair show,” Jackson said.
Hair shows are a Black American tradition dating back about 75 years. The creative hair styling can be so eccentric, it’s almost performance art.
Because it’s not just the hair style on display. It’s a message conveyed through clothes, and sometimes choreography. And a chance to delight in hair textures and styles that have historically been a target of discrimination.
“A lot of us are like really creative and they’re styles that you just can’t do on a daily basis. So the hair show just kind of gives you the platform to just have fun with it, you know, just be really artistic,” Aisha Wesley said.
Wesley is a cosmetologist who organized the event with fellow cosmetologist and friend LaTricia Williams.
“I definitely think that the hair show is empowering to the community because it’s like, if nobody else accepts us, we accept us, right,” Wesley said. “I’ve had clients before that have had to come back and get their hair redone because their job was like, ‘you can’t wear that.’ You know? the hair show just kind of gives that freedom …”
“I can wear whatever I wanna wear,” Williams said.
That freedom and ingenuity was on display at the show.
Now, seeing 40 inches of dollar bills sewn into the bottom of a pixie haircut would have been enough.
But the same stylist, Cherie Nelson of Majestik Handzz Beauty Demand in Mesa, put together a whole crew of models with ’90s-inspired streetwear and exuberant hair to match.
Nelson put one model in vivid bubblegum pink afro puffs, and another with huge headphones over her ears — made entirely of braids.
And for the finale: A young woman crawls on stage, covered in wigs. She’s wearing crimped wigs from head to toe. Underneath, the leather catsuit, knee-high boots and afro wreath around her face gives her a sort of Janet Jackson lioness look.
She stalks downstage, rises to her feet and pulls the lion’s mane onto her shoulders to reveal bantu knots: sleek sectioned hair twisted into knots, a protective style dating back to Zulu women in South Africa.
The crowd is loving it.
“She went from hoodie, to a lion’s mane, to a jacket, to Catwoman – how do you do that?” the host said.
Finally, it’s time for Lauren Jackson’s event — the loc battle.
It’s all about who can craft the most creative and colorful style out of locs and accessories, with extra points for technique and details.
For the uninitiated, locs aren’t always dreadlocks. The term often refers to a more structured twist or coiling of hair rather than the Rastafari-style organic loc-ing of hair.
Loc specialists — also called locticians — can build their styles ahead of time, but on competition day they only have 30 minutes to attach everything to their model’s head and make any finishing touches.
“Y’all ready? Get set! Go!” the host exclaimed.
Anna Holly drove from San Francisco the night before to compete with her mom as her hair model.
“It was about 12 hours. But it wasn’t bad,” Holly said while laughing.
Despite the time constraint, Jackson’s entry is not insignificant.
She super-glued, painted and shaped synthetic hair onto a basketball hoop with about a foot tall backboard.
“So I bought a box of those, the sandwich bags, and I’m like, ‘well, I can use this.’ At Dollar Tree, they also had a hoop already made. So I basically wrapped the whole thing with locs,” Jackson said. “Then I took some orange loc hair and I wrapped that with the rim. And then I took some silver grayish lock hair as well for the, the net to the basketball hoop.”
“It was so hard, I’m not gonna lie. I stayed up like day and night trying to figure it out between school,” Jackson said.
And it’s functional, too — she brought a teeny tiny basketball to prove it.
“Now, if Steph Curry come out of there and shoot a 3? You won!” the host said.
Another loctician, Elisha Davis, has built a sea goddess look that’s essentially a huge halo of locs sticking straight up. It’s woven with seashells. The stylist and her model have matching glittery siren makeup. The design is minimal enough that you can really see the details.
“She sells seashells by the seashore. … Aphrodite ain’t playin’!” the host said.
And Holly is installing a replica of a famous landmark on her mother’s head.
“Is that traffic on her head, y’all? … It’s the Golden Gate Bridge!” the host said to cheers from the crowd.
Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge, made entirely of hair.
“I’m like, dang, I didn’t even know that was possible, y’all! And she had cars on the bridge!” Jackson said.
Master loctitian and cosmetologist Jai Davis is this event’s judge.
“I’m looking for detail, creativity. … I like integrity more than flash. I like skill more than flash,” Davis said.
It was a tight race. But a winner and runner-up are announced.
“This one was super, super hard, we had to go all the way down to details. We had to look at edges and fresh retwists because the creativity in this competition was so cold,” Davis said. “So, because we had to go down to detail and crispy edges. … We gon’ give it to the Golden [Gate] Bridge!”
So Jackson’s basketball hoop didn’t win.
But despite that, she said, “it was so worth it. If I can go back, I would do it all over again.”
And next time, she’ll be ready.
“Oh my God, I’m gonna do so much more next year. Oh my goodness, I can not wait for next year. ‘Cause I’m gonna do so much more,” Jackson said.
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