Arizona baseball had won five of its last seven games, which included three road wins, entering Friday evening’s matchup with Kansas State.
Arizona
Preparing Arizona houses for wildfires can save them. Here’s why and what to do
Senate hearings examine response to increasing wildfire threat
Wildfire mitigation and disaster recovery were at the top of the agenda as the U.S. Fire Administration and the Department of Homeland Security testified in front of lawmakers on how to properly respond to the increasing threat.
Scripps News
Arizona home insurance costs are soaring, and a growing number of homeowners near wildfire risk areas can’t even get insurance.
Wildfires are a big driver behind the state’s growing home insurance problems.
The Southern California fires make it clear wildfires are no longer seasonal, and the devastated area’s losses likely mean higher rates for Arizona property owners.
Wildfires aren’t just a rural problem. Metro Phoenix has had its share. In 2005, the Cave Creek Complex Fire that started in north Scottsdale burned 243,950 acres.
Many homeowners in both rural and urban areas can do more to protect their homes and communities from fire.
“Fire mitigation is key for protecting homes,” said Lori Munn, deputy director of insurance in the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions, which formed the Resiliency and Mitigation Council to address wildfire damage prevention, home insurance problems and high costs.
Pricey home insurance, frustrated homeowners
Arizona led the nation for the biggest increase in home insurance costs between 2019 and mid-2024, according to one survey.
The Resiliency and Mitigation Council is working on getting updated information on average policy costs.
Mark Perkins’ insurance premium on his Phoenix house near South Mountain skyrocketed more than 200% from $2,500 to $7,600 last year.
“They (the insurer) said there was a 35% increase in rates across the board in Arizona, and the rest was due to perceived increase in fire risk,” he said.
He said the “desert there is pretty sparse” near his house.
Perkins switched insurers and kept his costs close to what they had been the previous year.
Insurers aren’t supposed to pass costs from natural disasters outside Arizona to Arizona homeowners.
“We don’t allow insurers to use losses on a hurricane in Florida to raise rates in Arizona,” said Tom Zuppan, property insurance analyst at the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions.
But that’s hard to regulate.
Cigarettes and campfires: 7 ways you can accidentally start a wildfire
Wildfires devastate ecosystems and communities alike and can be ignited unintentionally. Here are 7 ways you can accidentally start a wildfire.
The Republic
Homeowners jumping through ‘a lot of hoops’ for lower insurance rates
Since 1990, the number of Arizona houses in Wildland Urban Interface areas, known as WUIs, has more than doubled.
Those areas, where development and vacant land meet, are at high risk for wildfire, said Bill Boyd, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.
He said fire mitigation efforts are key to addressing Arizona’s home insurance problems.
New River homeowner Mark Dorsey recently “jumped through a lot of hoops” to get his insurance renewed.
He had to provide distances from his home to fire stations and hydrants, and photos of all sides of the house after cutting a lot of brush and trees to create a “buffer zone.”
“It was pretty nerve-wracking,” Dorsey said.
Some Maui and Southern California homeowners, who protected their homes with the right building materials and cleaned up weeds and other vegetation, were able to save their houses.
In the 2013 deadly Yarnell Hill Fire near Prescott, 60 homes with brush cleared around them survived while more than 500 others were destroyed. Arizona began funding wildfire mitigation work after that fire that killed 19 firefighters.
What homeowners can do to mitigate wildfire risks
Some insurers may be more willing to cover houses if the owners try to reduce wildfire risks, say insurance experts.
There’s no data yet on how effective mitigation work is in lowering rates or retaining a policy, but the Mitigation Council is also working on getting that.
Insurance and fire experts say mitigation efforts are important not just for individual property owners. Communities should work together on mitigation, they say, because embers move quickly from home to home, driving wildfires like the ones in the Los Angeles area.
Several groups and government agencies offer mitigation guidance, including Firewise USA, FEMA, the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes and local fire departments.
Kate Stillwell, co-founder of the app Firebreak Risk, which identifies homeowners’ biggest wildfire risks and provides solutions, said mitigation work can be overwhelming for property owners and expensive.
She said DYI mitigation work costing $200 or less that homeowners can do on weekends is the most popular.
Fire mitigation strategies homeowners can undertake include:
- Keep yards clear of flammable debris.
- Move firewood away from structures.
- Build with fire-resistant material, including composite, clay, metal, brick and concrete.
- Limit flammable plants and trees within 100 feet of the home, which is considered the standard space needed to defend from a wildfire.
- Trim branches that overhang a home, porch or deck.
- Get dual-paned, tempered glass windows.
- Remove flammable materials from carports.
- Keep roofs and gutters free of leaves and pine needles.
But mitigation is tough for some homeowners to maintain, and it doesn’t always help get a property insured or lower rates.
Randy Scott owns a Pinetop home and said a lot of trees near his community were cut down in efforts to stop or slow fires.
Despite those efforts, he said his community’s insurance policy wasn’t renewed in 2023. To get insurance, the annual premium quadrupled from $50,000 to $200,000. The new policy also provides less coverage.
“The previous insurer said it wasn’t renewing because of our wildfire rating,” said Scott, who is president of his community’s homeowner association. “It’s hard to have to tell residents they can’t grill on their patios or store their fireplace logs outside.”
Reach the reporter at catherine.reagor@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8040. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @CatherineReagor.
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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