Arizona had some of the nation’s most frequent reports of lasers pointed at aircraft in 2024, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said lasers posed a severe danger to pilots, passengers, and everyone above a flight path.

The FAA received 550 reports from pilots in Arizona skies who were struck by a laser, which put Arizona sixth on a list of the states with the most reports of laser-related incidents.

At the top of the list in 2024 was California, with 1,489 reports, followed by Texas with 1,463, Florida with 810, Tennessee with 649, and Illinois with 662.

Nationwide, there were nearly 13,000 laser strikes reported by pilots in the U.S., a 3% decrease from last year but which the FAA said still remained too high.

The number in Arizona was also down, but only slightly, with 558 laser incidents reported by pilots in 2023.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, the state’s busiest airport, handles hundreds of flights daily over the Phoenix area, home to approximately 5 million people.

“Lasers can incapacitate pilots, many of whom are flying airplanes with hundreds of passengers,” the FAA said in an announcement.

Since the FAA began tracking laser incidents in 2010, 328 pilots have sustained injuries from laser strikes. Pilots hit by a laser often experience temporary vision disruptions, including glare, afterimages, or blind spots.

The FAA said people who shine lasers at aircraft face FAA fines of up to $11,000 per violation and up to $30,800 for multiple laser incidents, and that violators can also face federal criminal penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, as well as state and local penalties.

In 2019, a man from Mesa was arrested on suspicion of aiming a laser pointer at a Mesa police helicopter.

In 2016, a man was arrested and accused of pointing a laser at several aircraft at different Valley airports, including Sky Harbor.

The agency has asked pilots to report laser incidents to a dedicated online webpage.

What we know: Sky Harbor airport had 10 near-crashes in the past decade

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

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Take a drive down any dirt road in any forest, near any mountain range in Arizona, and you are likely to see a beautiful, natural view.

But, there are also minerals in these lands, and the new Interior Secretary has made it clear: He wants more mining, drilling and chopping.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said, “In North Dakota, we created a prosperous economy by sustainably developing our natural resources.” One of his first acts as Secretary was to sign orders to “encourage energy exploration and production on federal lands and waters.” Now, even some national monuments that had been off-limits are open for review by the mining and energy sectors.

Arizona’s Family spoke with Taylor McKinnon from the Center for Biological Diversity about the impact this could have on Arizona’s public land. When asked why it is problematic to open these spaces back up for review he said all of these lands were designated as protected for a reason.

“Each of these places was protected in the first place because there are values, cultural sites, important habitats, and iconic landscapes that people like to visit that weren’t compatible with energy development,” McKinnon said.

He says the energy and mining industries leave the landscape scarred forever. “Once an area is mined, it’ll never be the same again.”

Arizona’s backcountry faces rising threat from growing outdoor tourism trends

McKinnon and other public lands advocates believe Arizona is a target because it has so much federal land. Nearly 40% of the state is owned by the federal government.

From the Grand Canyon to the Sonoran Desert, these spaces draw tourists from across the country—tourists that spend billions of dollars every year in our hotels and restaurants. Which ultimately has a huge impact on the state of Arizona.

Dozens of people gathered in front of the State Capitol to urge lawmakers to protect public spaces from mining, development and private ownership. The group held signs with sayings such as, “Public lands in public hands.” They say this fight is too important for them to stay quiet.

Tina Mollica who was at the rally said, “As soon as the executive order went out that they were firing the park rangers, I was infuriated.”

The people rallying in front of the capitol are hoping that, in the end, public support for enjoying nature outweighs the support for exploiting nature’s resources.

“I want my grandchildren and their children to enjoy some of the things we’ve been able to enjoy,” another attendee Mary Marmor said.

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• 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.