Arizona
Arizona softball picks up two more wins ahead of showdown against Texas
It was an exciting second day of the Hillenbrand Invitational. It started with No. 18 Stanford defeating No. 1 Texas on a neutral field in the afternoon and ended with two lopsided victories for the hometown team in the evening.
The No. 13 Arizona Wildcats (14-1) defeated UC Davis 7-0 in their first game. They followed up with a 10-0 defeat of Colorado State in five innings.
Arizona got strong pitching performances from Aissa Silva and Saya Swain, neither of whom have started much this season. Silva was making just her second start of her junior year. Swain was making the first of her fifth year and just the second since her junior season at Iowa State.
Silva faced just three batters in the second and fourth innings. She faced four in the first, third, and fifth. She had two baserunners in the fifth and sixth innings. A double play ended the danger in the fifth. She got a strike out and a grounder to end it in the sixth.
It was Silva’s longest outing of the season. She said that she likes that the pitchers don’t have to throw as many innings this year, but there are also advantages to going longer early in the season.
“I felt good, definitely to get the endurance up just a little bit,” Silva said.
Arizona was very opportunistic on offense in both games. The extra-base hits started to come in the second game, but that wasn’t the case in the opener. They were able to manufacture runs anyway.
“Finding ways,” Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe said. “Finding ways to score, finding ways to win. I thought we had a lot of people with great days today. A lot of people letting the game come to them and just chipping away. I mean, any way we can. I think our speed helps us when we’re aggressive and we get passed balls, but those are two good teams, and we’re going to get everybody’s A game. So it was good to just see them figure out a way to score.”
The Wildcats didn’t hit the cover off the ball, but they took advantage of the free bases and extra outs provided by UC Davis pitching. Only one of their eight hits went for extra bases.
That lone extra-base hit came in Arizona’s first at-bat. Kaiah Altmeyer led off with a double, extending her hitting streak to 14 games. Altmeyer had a hit in every game this season until the second game of the doubleheader.
A bunt single by Regan Shockey put runners on the corners with no outs. Then the wildness started.
Sydney Stewart loaded them up on the first hit-by-pitch. A one-out wild pitch moved everyone up and pushed Altmeyer across for the first run of the night. That’s all the Wildcats could manage off the bases-loaded with no outs situation.
Arizona was more productive in the third. Altmeyer led off again, getting on with a walk. A fielder’s choice that didn’t record an out put two on. This time, Stewart got the hit and drove in two.
Another hit-by-pitch and an error loaded the bases with no outs again. Paige Dimler’s groundout pushed across the fourth run of the game. Jenna Sniffen followed with a single to score two more and give Arizona a 6-0 lead.
Altmeyer led off for the third time in four innings in Arizona’s next offensive half. She reached for the third time. Shockey’s single put the Wildcats’ leadoff hitter in scoring position with no outs for the third time, but Arizona couldn’t push any more runs across.
The Wildcats got close to the run rule in the fifth. They once again loaded the bases with no outs. Logan Cole knocked in one with a sacrifice fly, but Arizona squandered another prime scoring opportunity.
The Wildcats got the leadoff on base again in the bottom of the sixth with an opportunity to get the run-rule victory. They couldn’t move the runner past first, though.
Sarah Wright came in for Silva in the top of the seventh. The freshman gave up a leadoff single but Biehl started a superb double play behind her to wipe away the danger. Wright ended it on a groundout to first.
“Tayler’s a Golden Glove, literally a Golden Glove,” Silva said. “She saves our life a lot. And Regan out there in center field.”
Silva scattered five hits in six innings and walked one. She struck out five. It improved her record to 3-0 on the season and lowered her ERA by more than one point to 1.47.
Swain took the circle to start the game against Colorado State.
“I love her presence and just the way she goes about her business,” Lowe said. “Very, very direct, to the point, business-like approach and she goes to work. And we wanted to try her in an opening role and see what that looked like.”
It took a bit for Swain to settle in during her first start of the season. She had some issues with illegal pitches and hit a batter in the opening inning.
“He said I was doing a little step forward,” Swain said. “I just moved my foot back and stayed that way.”
She shook it off.
“I just try not to let the umpires get in my head,” Swain said.
The senior had just three baserunners in four innings, giving up one hit, one walk, and the hit-by-pitch. She struck out three. It improved Swain’s record to 2-0 and lowered her ERA to 0.94.
Meanwhile, the offense got hot early. Again, the Wildcats manufactured offense. They used walks, errors, hit batters, sacrifices, and groundouts to get on base and advance runners, jumping out to a 3-0 advantage after one.
The team loaded the bases without an out in the third. It took two walks and a fielder’s choice that didn’t result in an out.
Dimler had extended her hitting streak to eight games in the early contest against UC Davis. Her two-RBI single in the third against the Rams made it nine games. She scored Arizona’s third run of the frame when Biehl reached on an error.
The Wildcats put the trim on a run-rule victory in the bottom of the fourth. A single and another error by Colorado State put two on ahead of Miranda Stoddard.
Stoddard had an amazing run last week but teams have been very careful with her in the first three games. It’s tough to keep a hitter of her caliber from coming through eventually, though. Her three-run homer put the Wildcats up 9-0.
Sniffen’s double to right-center pushed across the 10th run. Arizona needed three outs to end the day and prepare for No. 1 Texas.
Ryan Maddox entered the game to wrap things up in the circle. She gave up a walk and a single, but the Rams couldn’t make a dent in the lead.
Arizona now faces a Texas team that was controlled by No. 18 Stanford on Friday afternoon. The Cardinal never trailed, showing the offensive prowess they had previously demonstrated against lesser teams. This was against the No. 1 team in the country, though.
“It doesn’t make a difference,” Lowe said about facing the Longhorns the day after the loss. “They’re a very good team, a very well-coached team. They pitch the ball well, hit the ball well. So we have to come out and play our game and really set the tone from the beginning, I think is very important, and then consistently have that throughout an entire game.”
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The two Republicans running for Arizona attorney general faced each other Thursday in a debate that devolved into insults and name-calling.
State Senate President Warren Petersen is running against military attorney Rodney Glassman in the Republican primary. The debate turned chaotic as the candidates clashed.
“Are you asking the questions, Steve?” Petersen said.
The moderator attempted to regain control. “Gentlemen, we’re going to reset,” he said.
Candidates clash over experience
The debate was the last before early voting begins next month. In between the name-calling, the two candidates argued over their resumes.
Glassman said Petersen does not have the legal experience for the job.
“Warren is just full of information, you can call them lies. He received his law license in December 2023, 28 months ago. He has never filed a lawsuit as a lawyer. He has never prosecuted a criminal as a lawyer,” Glassman said.
Petersen has had a law license for less than three years. He said he worked on cases in Scottsdale while earning his degree. Petersen said his experience as the current state Senate president also counts.
“I have done more in three years than Rodney Glassman will even get done in his life because he’s a trust fund baby who’s just looking for a place. He’s been running for 15 years and he’s lost six elections in a row,” Petersen said.
History of campaigns
Glassman has not won an elected office since he served as a Democrat on the Tucson City Council in 2007. Glassman is an Air Force attorney with 17 years of experience.
Democratic strategist Matt Grodsky said the real winner was the incumbent, Kris Mayes.
“I thought it was entertaining television. I’m glad Arizona got to see up close why these two individuals should be nowhere near the AG’s office,” Grodsky said.
Voting in the primary begins June 24.
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The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
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