Arizona
Larry Fitzgerald Deserves Arizona Cardinals Statue
Tom Brady is getting a statue of himself outside Gillette Stadium after his marvelous career with the New England Patriots. It’s always a fun sight to see for fans of a franchise who get to see their favorite players and team legends become immortalized forever.
Several amazing players and other football figures have earned such an honor across every team in the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens have a statue of both Ray Lewis and Johnny Unitas, the latter of whom won a Super Bowl with the then Baltimore Colts.
Speaking of the Colts, Peyton Manning has his for the Indianapolis version of the franchise.
Dan Marino has a monument for the Miami Dolphins. Jim Brown with the Cleveland Browns. Tom Landry with the Dallas Cowboys. Vince Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers. You get the idea.
An honor of such prestige does not and should not be handed out lightly. As insane as this may sound, not every Hall of Fame player for a franchise deserves a statue. I’m sorry, but I’m not wrong.
But it does beg the question of who is worthy of an honor like that. And although you would imagine the list to be massive, it isn’t and shouldn’t be.
NFL.com’s Adam Rank made a short-list of five players who are worthy of such an honor.
There were a few names omitted that I believe were snubbed (none more so than Drew Brees for the New Orleans Saints), but there was one player who deserves a statue as much, if not more, than any other player on this list.
Larry Fitzgerald.
We can start with this question: Does Larry Fitzgerald deserve a statue for the Arizona Cardinals? If your answer isn’t a resounding “YES!” then I’m afraid you are a bozo, at best.
Fitzgerald has been the face of the Cardinals since their move to the desert and even with the franchise’s previous stints in Chicago and St. Louis, he remains one of the biggest figureheads in its storied history.
The future Pro Football Hall of Famer, pending his eligibility becoming official, defined a franchise for nearly 20 years. During that time, he saw peaks and valleys, high and lows, and some of the Cardinals’ best and worst seasons.
And yet, he never wavered and never requested a trade. He just went to work every Sunday and put together one of the greatest career’s a wide receiver has ever assembled.
Rank made his argument:
“I wrestled with this one, because the Cardinals have a great tribute to Pat Tillman outside of State Farm Stadium, which really raises the bar high in terms of who else should enter such company. But Fitzgerald absolutely delivered. A class act both on and off the field during his 17-year career with the Cardinals, he finished with the second-most receiving yards in NFL history (17,492, behind only Jerry Rice), earned 11 Pro Bowl selections and won the 2016 Walter Payton Man of the Year award. This Cardinals icon is very deserving of such an honor.”
The Pat Tillman statue is special and beyond precious in a seemingly endless amount of ways, and that’s all that needs to be said there for the American hero.
But as far as Fitzgerald goes, he is worthy of such an honor. His career is a remarkable one full of greatness even in forgettable and even horrific seasons. When #11 was on the field, Cardinals fans tuned in to watch — he was the saving grace for a franchise that struggled to give the fans what they wanted most.
The accolades and numbers speak for themselves, but there is simply one reason Fitzgerald deserves to be immortalized, and it has nothing to do with his on the field production.
Fitzgerald should be given a statue in his honor is for the way he conducted himself.
As we mentioned, Fitzgerald stuck it out with one franchise his entire career — which is a rarity in sports including the NFL. Not only that, but he spent 17 seasons — almost two decades — with one franchise. Not even guys who are receiving or have statues like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning can say that!
It makes Fitzgerald one of one.
And in that timeframe, he never complained. In fact, he always embraced the team and certainly the fans who were loyal to him more than the franchise at different points in time. His big smile was always something that gave even the most depressed Cardinals fan hope of getting a win that day.
Speaking of which, he did that several, several times. Perhaps that was never more evident than when the playoffs rolled around. Arizona didn’t make many trips in Fitzgerald’s 17 seasons with just four appearances in that time and nine games played. But man did he make an impact in those games.
The 2008 postseason run to the Super Bowl was incredible by itself with playoff records for yards (546) and touchdowns (7) in a single run. No one will ever forget his 64-yard touchdown reception in the Super Bowl that dropped the jaws of everyone watching.
We also won’t forget his heroics in the 2015 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers including a 75-yard scamper in overtime before taking a shovel pass into the endzone for the win.
I’m not exaggerating — I’m getting chills just writing this.
But again, these are things that Cardinals fans will hold dearly forever — and they should. Fitzgerald gave a fan base that has known little success something to watch and enjoy. When the stakes were at their highest, he showed up. It was special
And that’s what makes Fitzgerald so special. He provided an endless amount of cheering, smiling, tears, laughter, and joy across 272 total games played. Even people who weren’t fans of the Cardinals knew who Fitzgerald was.
Not just that, they knew how great he was. Some may have owned his jersey simply because it was Larry-freaking-Fitzgerald.
He was, is, and always will be the face of the Arizona Cardinals and will be forever beloved by all who got to witness him. Perhaps it’s even more than that.
Maybe, just maybe, Larry Fitzgerald is the face of Arizona sports — professional, collegiate, amateur, or any other category — entirely.
Should he get a statue from the Arizona Cardinals? You better believe it, and you better believe that not a single player on Rank’s list or nearly any other deserves it the way that Fitzgerald does.
He’s more than a player… he is Arizona sports.
A NASA mission to rescue its Swift Observatory from the brink has relied on Arizona, with Flagstaff’s Katalyst Aerospace supplying the spacecraft due to reach orbit and boost the telescope’s orbit.
Arizona plays a central role in a daring NASA mission: It will soon attempt to stave off the death of one of its space telescopes in danger of falling back to Earth.
The Swift Observatory has been scanning the cosmos for more than two decades while orbiting Earth. But in recent years, NASA has noticed that the crucial satellite has been unexpectedly getting lower and lower – putting it in danger of burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Now, the U.S. space agency is on the cusp of mounting a rescue mission later in June – the likes of which has never before been attempted – that stunningly came together in less than a year.
The daring venture has recently reached the final stages, with the spacecraft that will fly in orbit – manufactured by an Arizona aerospace company – being mated with the rocket and the aircraft that will deploy it to orbit. If all goes to plan, the mission will soon send the spacecraft on a trajectory to intercept NASA’s telescope and reverse its decaying orbit by boosting it to a higher altitude, extending the observatory’s life.
Here’s what to know about the mission, and Arizona’s integral role in ensuring everything came together to save the observatory in time.
What is the Swift Observatory?
Launched in 2004, NASA’s Swift Observatory has spent more than two decades orbiting Earth while studying a variety of cosmic phenomena. The satellite’s primary objective, though, is to observe gamma-ray bursts – events triggered by the catastrophic deaths of massive stars and considered to be the most powerful types of explosions in the universe.
The satellite is equipped with three multiwavelength telescopes that are able to collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light.
Swift space telescope falls faster to Earth than expected
NASA to mount rescue mission for vital space telescope named Swift
NASA and commercial partners will launch a spacecraft in June to boost Swift Observatory’s orbit, staving off its destruction and extending its life.
The Swift Observatory is in a region of space known as low-Earth orbit nearer to the atmosphere, which is also where the International Space Station resides.
All spacecraft in that region can expect to fall to lower altitudes if they don’t have propulsion systems to counteract atmospheric drag and maintain their orbits. But the Swift Observatory has fallen faster than NASA has anticipated because of increased solar storms since fall 2024.
NASA plans mission to rescue Swift
NASA could allow the Swift Observatory to fall back to Earth, where it would harmlessly burn up as it careened into the atmosphere.
Instead, the space agency is planning a mission to rescue the telescope and extend its mission for several more years.
A successful mission would mark the first time that a commercial robotic spacecraft captured a government satellite that – unlike other spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope – was never meant to be serviced in space. The unprecedented venture, NASA leaders say, would also test a new capability that could be used on other missions while negating the need to spend even more money to replace the observatory.
To accomplish the risky feat, NASA will need a spacecraft designed to capture and raise the orbit of the Swift Observatory, and a rocket to launch it into space, according to the agency. In the meantime, mission teams on the ground are keeping Swift at least 185 miles above Earth, where the boost mission has the best chance of success, NASA said.
Arizona aerospace company races to develop rescue spacecraft
The spacecraft that will attempt to rescue the Swift Observatory was developed by Katalyst Space, an aerospace company based in Flagstaff, Arizona, which was awarded the $30 million contract in September 2025.
With less than a year to help NASA mount a rescue mission, Katalyst developed the LINK robotic servicing spacecraft intended to latch onto a space telescope that was never meant to be captured.
Because Swift has no docking ports or grappling fixtures to grab onto, Katalyst built LINK with a custom robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure. The process is meant to mitigate the chance of any sensitive instruments being damaged, Katalyst said in a press release.
Why such a quick turnaround? Because Swift is falling – and falling fast.
According to Katalyst, the satellite has a 50% chance of making an uncontrolled reentry by mid-2026 without intervention, with those odds increasing to 90% by the end of 2026.
Northrop Grumman to launch LINK spacecraft
LINK will hitch a ride to space with a rocket manufactured by Northrop Grumman, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense company. At about 55 feet tall, Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL is classified as a small-lift rocket regarded as the world’s first privately developed orbital launch vehicle.
In mid-June, LINK was securely encapsulated in a payload fairing inside the Pegasus XL rocket at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, according to Katalyst.
The Pegasus XL was also attached around the same time to the belly of Northrop Grumman’s Stargazer aircraft tasked with deploying the rocket, NASA said in a press release. The Stargazer aircraft then took off June 18 from Wallops bound for the Marshall Islands, where the mission is due to commence.
When, where is launch?
The Pegasus XL rocket is due to launch later in June from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, located in the South Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Philippines, according to NASA.
Rather than get the rocket off the ground vertically on a launch pad, Northrop Grumman deploys an air-launch strategy to send the Pegasus to space. The approach will require the company’s Stargazer L-1011 aircraft to take off and climb to approximately 40,000 feet over the ocean, where Pegasus will be released.
After several seconds in free-fall, the Pegasus XL will then ignite the first of its three-stage rocket motors, delivering LINK into orbit in about 10 minutes, according to Northrop Grumman.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Arizona is launching a statewide task force aimed at cracking down on cargo theft.
CargoNet estimates $725 million was lost in cargo thefts nationwide in 2025. Arizona is among the states where cargo theft happens most often.
Cargo thefts rise in Arizona
State Sen. Kevin Payne was the sponsor of Senate Bill 1452, which created the Cargo Theft Task Force and was signed into law by Gov. Katie Hobbs on Monday.
“There’s a lot of cargo theft going on,” Payne said.
The bill creates a statewide cargo theft task force made up of six investigators, legal staff, and any law enforcement designated by the Attorney General’s office. The task force will investigate cargo theft and track new criminal trends.
“I don’t think that people thought it was as serious as it actually is,” Payne said.
Scott Cornell, chief risk officer for SPG Cargo and Logistics and chair of the Transported Asset Protection Association, said he has investigated cargo theft for three decades and that cases have become harder to solve lately
“These large, sophisticated international crime rings have taken over cargo theft in the United States, and they pull the strings from a dozen or two dozen different countries,” Cornell said.
Cornell said addressing cargo theft directly through a specialized task force at the state level could have more impact.
“I think when you address it directly, like Arizona is with a cargo theft task force, you’re bound to have much more impact than a state that doesn’t have that specialization,” he said.
In Arizona, expensive shoes, watches and electronics are among the items stolen from semitrucks and trains in the last couple of years.
“We pay for it,” Cornell said. “The cost is absolutely going to be passed on to the consumer. There’s no question about it.”
Payne said the goal of the task force is to reduce cargo theft in Arizona.
“I sure would like to eliminate a lot of it,” Payne said. “You know, cut it down a lot. Make it to where it’s not profitable for them to do this so they’ll stop.”
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is in charge of establishing the task force. In a statement, the AG’s office says Attorney General Kris Mayes looks forward to continuing the ongoing work to combat retail theft and cargo theft through this task force, and it will coordinate efforts with law enforcement statewide.
The task force’s first report is due to the governor, Senate president and House speaker by July 1, 2027.
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Arizona
Arizona man convicted for role in bringing cocaine to Cincinnati, other US locations for over 5 years
CINCINNATI — An Arizona man has been found guilty of supplying dozens of kilograms of cocaine to multiple U.S. locations, including Cincinnati, bi-weekly for more than five years.
Tucson resident Cesar Cervantes, 52, was convicted of participating in drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracies in a jury trial after the government seized more than 160 kilograms of cocaine, three kilograms of fentanyl and $1.4 million in cash from him.
According to court documents, Cervantes would use a network to deliver drugs that originated in Mexico to multiple locations across the country, including designated couriers in Cincinnati, between at least July 2018 and August 2023. Officials said he would supply between 25 and 50 kilograms biweekly to his coconspirators.
Cervantes would then use money launderers to funnel money back to Mexico. In one instance, court documents said he had coconspirators deliver around $300,000 to two separate money launderers — one based in China and another in Colombia.
The jury found Cervantes guilty on all counts for his role in the conspiracies following a trial before U.S. District Judge Matthew W. McFarland in the Southern District of Ohio. He faces at least 10 years and up to life in prison.
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