Arizona Treasurer Doug Ducey announced today that he had wrangled Jon Kyl, who stepped down from the Senate after three terms representing Arizona, into leading a group of policy advisors who are helping him with his exploratory committee for next year's governor's race.

Ducey's press release can be read after the jump, but we are hearing a lot of Republicans call him the front runner in the crowded GOP field. (It became more crowded earlier this month when attorney Christine Jones, former counsel for GoDaddy.com, announced she was moving forward with a campaign.

Shane Wikfors of Sonoran Alliance has a breakdown on the 2014 gubernatorial race here. He sees Ducey and Mesa Mayor Scott Smith as the top-tier candidates:

Assessing the first tier of candidates, both Ducey and Smith are extremely formidable candidates with perhaps the best consulting firms/teams in Arizona running their campaigns. I like to refer to this race as a battle between the House of Noble and the House of Coughlin.

DC London is run by former Chief of Staff to Congressman John Shadegg, Sean Noble — one of the most disciplined, organized and well-connected consultants in the business. House of Coughlin is run by Governor Brewer’s closest advisor and strategist, Chuck Coughlin who founded and oversees Arizona’s HighGround firm. As noted, Noble and Coughlin are two of the best Republican consultants in the state of Arizona. Both their firms are ready to lock horns in the governor’s race with teams that will make the Republican primary battle very exciting to watch.

Both Doug Ducey and Scott Smith are also strong leaders in their respective arenas. They know how to campaign effectively and are very good with audiences. They also have the capacity to bring a lot of money to the table for their teams. On the GOP spectrum, Ducey draws out support from the grassroots while Smith tends to identify with the establishment.

At the present, Ducey’s assertiveness for this race has been a little below the radar while Smith’s team has been actively taking advantage of opportunities to boost the mayor’s profile. We saw this recently in Smith’s election as President of the US Conference of Mayors. This makes sense from Smith’s perspective since his profile is highest in the east valley and Ducey has already obtained statewide name recognition.

This race will be very tight as money, leadership style, likability and their respective teams are evenly matched.

With an amazing recruiting class coming in for this season, and likely another big one shaping up for the following year, University of Arizona men's basketball coach Sean Miller is slowly but surely getting some of us Tucsonans to forget how to spell Olson.

But Miller is doing it more than just on the recruiting trail, or on the court itself during the regular season. He's also a master tweeter, according to The Sporting News.

Miller checks it at No. 9 on the top 10 'Twitter Bunch,' as SN put it (complete with a Brady Bunch knockoff graphic that for some reason only shows the top five guys.

No. 1 on the list, not surprisingly, is uber-slick John Calipari, who has more than 1.2 million followers. He is considered 'five-star caliber,' which I guess makess him a Kardashian or something.

Miller is given credit for his diversity of tweets, including reviewing Kendrick Lamar lyrics. So, there's that.

ASU's Herb Sendek, amazingly, is considered the second-best tweeting Pac-12 hoops coach, though his 6,800 or so followers is far behind the 16,980 that Miller had as of 1 p.m. today.

If you tuned into My 92.9 this morning excited to hear what morning show host Valentine had to say, you were in for a surprise, as the station dumped the LA-based personality, replacing him with Mojo of Mojo in the Morning, a Detroit-based show formerly on Hot 98.3 (full disclosure: I worked at Clear Channel, the parent company for My 92.9 and Hot 98.3 for a few months last year, but I have zero inside information or influence over there now).

Mojo, who was on mornings for KRQ before leaving for Detroit in 2000, seems like a weird fit for My 92.9, a station that seemingly was aiming for adult females with a mix of adult contemporary hits and pop songs with the rap portions removed, but hey, if you're looking for phone scams and "second date updates," it'll be easy to flip back and forth between 92.9 and KRQ at 93.7.

Hot 98.3, now without a morning show, stuck to playing just music this morning, will be airing The Breakfast Club, Power 105.1's morning show in New York City. Again, this seems a little weird, since urban radio is generally a different animal when you switch from East to West Coast, but the show, hosted by DJ Envy, does get great interviews, from Jay Z to this morning's talk with Macklemore, so I guess that's something.

If you want to hear local personalities and music on the radio in the morning, you're out of luck at Clear Channel, with the exception of Melissa Santa Cruz on Radio Tejano.

Looks like the fate of the proposed initiative to scrap the city of Tucson's pension system and replace it with a 401(k)-style retirement plan remains up in the air.

Pima County Superior Court Judge James E. Marner ruled this morning that thousands of signatures must be tossed from the petitions, but the exact number remains unclear. Once those signatures have been stripped from the initiative, a new random batch of signatures will be sent to the Pima County Recorder's Office to determine the accuracy rate and then the Tucson City Clerk's Office will have to calculate whether there are enough to put the proposition before Tucson voters this November.

Attorney Jeff Rogers, former chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, tells The Range via email that the next steps are "complicated. Lots of signatures thrown out and back to square one for the City Clerk's Office."

We'll have more reaction as we get it and more details in this week's print edition. In the meantime, here's Marner's ruling, if you want to have your attorneys look it over: RULING_Parker_v._COT__C20134029.pdf

UPDATED: Lisa Hauser, attorney for the Committee for Sustainable Retirement, sends along this statement on Judge Marner's ruling:

It appears that the number of signatures disqualified by the Court will fall short of what the Plaintiffs needed to remove the initiative from the ballot—even if a new random sample is conducted. We are pleased that most of Plaintiffs allegations about unqualified circulators were rejected by the Court. Even so, it also appears that some of the findings made against the Committee were erroneous and that the number of disqualified signatures should be much lower. We are discussing our options with counsel.

New Zealand 12th grader Lorde has jumped from releasing her debut EP in March to topping the Billboard Alternative chart this month (the first woman to do so since Tracy Bonham did with "Mother Mother" in 1996, which says a lot about the gender makeup of alternative music) and now her song "Royals" has even made it over to more mainstream formats (I heard it on My 92.9 over the weekend). Her full-length album is scheduled to come out at the end of September, but in the meantime, here's a remix of her hit by Toronto R&B nihilists The Weeknd that either is a) better than the original or b) just seems fresher and thus, more interesting. Either way, it's worth a listen.

It's definitely not a pleasant watch, but the Dead in the Desert documentary by Austin Counts and Devlin Houser is now on YouTube.

From Hope Miller's article on the documentary's release party:

Dead in the Desert documents how Pima County medical investigators attempted to identify and repatriate the bodies of two migrants found in June 2011—one in Arivaca, and the other on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

The film also shows how migrants prepare to cross the Arizona-Sonora border, offers a snapshot of a northern Mexican town that depends on migrants, and highlights a humanitarian-aid group that provides water stations for migrants crossing the desert.

• From Get Air Tucson's Facebook page

I blame myself more than anything, but somehow I managed to miss entirely that A TRAMPOLINE PARK OPENED OVER THE WEEKEND. Get Air Tucson is located at 330 S. Toole Ave, near to Rocks and Ropes and Premises Park, and features, well, a bunch of trampolines, apparently of competition quality, which might be more information than I need to know. There's a dodgeball arena! More trampolines!

It's $11 an hour to bounce around and $6 for each additional hour. Of course, they offer birthday party packages and such. Remarkably, they're open from 10 am daily, until 10 pm Monday through Friday, and midnight Saturday and Sunday. Trampolines!

Willie Nelson played a full set of what his fans wanted to hear at AVA last Wednesday, but not a minute more. Although he could have been days singing through his catalog of favorites, there was no encore. Still, the fans heard plenty to keep them happy. He even made time for covers of other country rebels, and he made it a family affair by duetting with his daughter Amy Lee Nelson for the two set closers. Photographer C.E. Elliott reports some memorable performances:



Stardust

Georgia on My Mind

Blue Skies

All of Me

On the Sunny Side of the Street

Funny How Time Slips Away

Crazy

Night Life

Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground

I'll Be Seeing You

Whiskey River

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

Shotgun Willie

On the Road Again

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die 



Just hold on a little longer and , the way laws are going, everyone will be able to salute you with an appropriate smoke.

Expectations — at least on the local level — were high for Arizona football this year after Rich Rodriguez's initial Wildcat team went a surprising 8-5 last season.

The college coaches (or, rather, their sports information directors) didn't share those lofty thoughts when the USA Today preseason Top 25 poll came out two weeks ago, as Arizona was only among the 'others receiving votes' category and were basically ranked 42nd overall.

Seems like the national media is just as meh on the UA, as the preseason Associated Press poll has our hometown squad ... among the others receiving votes. But this time, it was for a TIE FOR 39TH PLACE with Cincinnati and North Carolina.

So, there's that.

For the record, the Pac-12 Conference is well represented in the poll, as Oregon is No. 3, Stanford is No. 4, UCLA is No. 21, USC is No. 24 and - in what can only be described as a pity ranking - Dan Gibson alma mater Oregon State was picked 25th.

Like all such before-the-season rankings, they're essentially meaningless because they cannot factor in yet-to-occur events such as injuries, suspensions of uber-douchey Heisman winners who aren't satisfied just cashing the trust fund baby checks and other such season speed bumps.

Undoubtedly, though, at least one member of the local mainstream media — probably the TV guy in the ill-fitting station logo polo — will ask RichRod about being 'spurned' by the polls following tonight's UA scrimmage that likely won't be a scrimmage because RichRod is sandbagging the heck out of this team based on his comments to this point.

The Humane Society of Southern Arizona presents Buster, a 9-month-old great dane/lab/pit mix.
Reference no: 753068

No Buster in your life? You don’t know what you’re missing! This goofy love sponge is the world’s greatest sidekick! Buster loves to trot right next to you, collect as many toys as he can in his mouth and visit dog-friendly places around town. This absolute favorite is a special guest in staff offices at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, where he attends meetings and takes naps under everyone’s desks. Still very much a puppy, Buster can be a little mouthy during playtime and needs to go to a family with older children. He’s gotten along beautifully with several dogs but should meet any canine members of your household to make sure they hit it off. Buster is transforming into a total gentleman thanks to Canine College, where he's learned to keep all four on the floor and always flaunt his impeccable manners. If you could give this big, brilliant boy plenty of guidance and attention, please ask to meet bodacious Buster today at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.

*** As with most dogs at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, Buster has a waived adoption fee through August!
HSSA is located at 3450 N. Kelvin Blvd. Call 327-6088 for info.