Pima County has banned the use of drones in county parks. Here's the press release:

Unmanned aerial vehicles – more commonly known as drones — may be on lots of folks’ holiday wish lists, but Pima County Natural Resources, Parks & Recreation is asking you to leave them at home if you’re planning to visit one of the county’s urban or open space parks.

Under Pima County Park Rule 1.120, radio-controlled (RC) aircraft have been prohibited outside designated areas for many years, mostly due to safety and noise complaints. Those complaints have increased with the growing popularity of drones, Baldwin said. Drones are a type of RC aircraft, said Kerry Baldwin, Natural Resources division manager.

“We’ve heard that individuals have been flying drones at very low elevations over the heads of other park users and at park-based events,” Baldwin said. “One group was flying multiple drones over the overlook at Gates Pass when the afternoon sunset crowd had gathered, with little regard to any potential safety issues or the loud and shrill sound generated by the small aircraft engines.”

Baldwin said his office is getting numerous noise complaints from patrons of the quieter, natural resource parks such as Tucson Mountain Park and Agua Caliente Park.

“We also have reports of individuals using drones in ways that harasses wildlife, which is a violation of state and federal law,” Baldwin said.

Larger natural resource agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park System have similar restrictions on recreational drone use. In fact, a federal law that went into effect Dec. 21 requires drones be registered with the Federal Aviation Administration Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) registry. Baldwin emphasized, though, that drones would still be banned at parks whether they are registered or not.

Drone users are responsible for keeping up with the many changing rules and regulations governing drone usage. Baldwin recommends new drone owners find locations to fly that are not in conflict with other people, are on private lands or at an established radio-controlled aircraft flying facility.

Like the old song says:

"We're in the money,
We're in the money;
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!"

Last month, the state brought in $84.4 million more in revenue than it expected. That's after an equally unexpected $66.1 million extra in October. Add them together and you get a $150.5 million windfall over two months. Wow.

It's time for Governor Ducey to hold a press conference. I suggest he wear a Santa hat on his head and a big grin on his face. If he's into theatrics, he can have a goodie bag slung over his shoulder as well. His opening statement: "I have a Christmas gift for all the children of Arizona. I'm committing any unexpected revenue the state receives to furthering their educations. If there are any Scrooges in the legislature who disagree with me [pulls a candy-cane shaped pen out of his pocket], I'm telling them right now, I will use this pen to veto any budget that doesn't include a sizable funding hike for education."

That pronouncement, I'm sure, will make Ducey feel so good, he'll decide to forego tax breaks for his rich buddies and devote his energies to bringing Arizona up from the per student spending cellar—that's where the lumps of coal we've been handing out to our children for too many years are stored—and into the cozy family room filled with warmth and good cheer, where every adult loves every child and wants nothing more than to make their present and future days brighter.

It's such a lovely holiday dream, so in keeping with the spirit of giving. I expect to be jarred awake soon, but for now, I'm cherishing the moment.

Tucson, you’ve got a new place to get lunch and late night eats off Fourth Avenue. That’s because the Latin It Up Sandwich Shop (344 N. Fourth Ave.) is now open and cranking out tastes of Central and South America.

Sandwiched between Che’s Lounge and late night chain poutine restaurant U.S. Fries, Latin It Up certainly to add some new flavor to that Fourth Avenue block. On the inside, the décor offers bold and bright colors, with ambient jazz piped over the sound system.

Before you enter, though, you’ll notice that Latin It Up claims to be Tucson’s home of the Cuban sandwich. Anyone familiar with the popular Floridian sandwich will definitely be excited to hear that this is true. El Cubano ($8.95) hits you with a pickley punch, creamy mayo, spicy mustard and pork two ways: as sliced ham and as pulled pork. Although I would’ve preferred my bread be toasted longer, the sandwich was easily the best iteration of this classic that I’ve had in town. All sandwiches at Latin It Up are served with your choice of plantain, yucca, BBQ, sweet potato or plain chips.

Other Latin It Up offerings include Chicharron, Roast Beef, Rio Chicken and Pollo Cilantro, along with three vegetarian options, salads, two soups, smoothies, empanadas and papas rellenas. The last of which is like a Peruvian potato croquette filled with ground beef and sliced olives.

To wash it all down, the Chicha Morada, or purple corn drink, is a sweet blend of juices and spices that’s as unexpected as it is refreshing. The small restaurant also offers milkshakes, flan and arroz con leche (rice pudding) for dessert.

Latin It Up Sandwich Shop is open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. until midnight.

Attention last minute Christmas shoppers: local gift cards are awesome. There are quite a few local businesses we think you should support this holiday season, but here's something in particular:

Fox Restaurants is offering a gift card deal for the holidays: buy $100 in gift cards and get a $20 bonus card. Redeemable at Wildflower, Blanco, North and Zinburger, the gift cards are the ideal gift for any food lover in your life. Purchase your cards online, or at any Fox Restaurant. 

But wait, there's more!

FRC is giving away a $50 gift card (redeemable at any of their restaurants) to one of our readers. Want that person to be you? Enter here and we'll give you a call on Wednesday if you win!

I've been following the fortunes of K12 Inc., the for-profit, publicly traded, online school corporation, since 2008 when I broke the story that it had been outsourcing student essays to an essay-grading company in India without informing the parents. (K12 Inc. said it stopped the practice soon after the story broke). The corporation is the poster child for everything wrong with the for-profit education model where profits, rather than education, drive the enterprise. For awhile, K12 Inc. was flying high despite its reputation for low student achievement and high student turnover. That all changed in the middle of 2013 after the stock peaked at 36. As you can see from the chart at the top of the post, it's taken a bumpy downhill ride since them. Current stock price is in the nine dollar range.

Local angle: K12 Inc. operates Arizona Virtual Academy (AZVA) which has about 4,600 students statewide.

You never know, the stock prices could reverse themselves and head upwards again—which, after all, is the primary purpose of any publicly traded corporation—but I doubt it. K12 Inc. is facing a whole lot of obstacles, all of which help tamp down investor confidence.

A recent study concludes that online charter schools in general, K12 Inc. included, are doing a lousy job of educating their students. Three research institutions participated in the study, including CREDO out of Stanford University, which tends to be pro-privatization and whose last comparison of charter and district schools had charters coming out a little ahead. (In its previous study, district schools came out a little ahead.) The academic growth of online school students is so low that, according to CREDO, it's as if students missed half a year's learning in reading and a whole year's learning in math compared to district schools. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Online schools like those run by K12 Inc. amount to home schooling with benefits. If you have motivated students whose parents keep them on task, they'll learn from the parent-assisted curriculum. But because of the need to keep student numbers growing in the face of one-third of the students leaving every year, K12 Inc. actively recruits students who are unsuited for education that comes to them through a computer in their homes. Yet those students are encouraged to stay enrolled because, like other charter schools (and district schools as well), online charters get money from the state on a per student basis. Lose students, lose money.

Tucson's chapter of the United States Bartender's Guild held their annual bar awards on Sunday, Dec. 20. Of the 12 categories, Tough Luck Club/Reilly Craft Pizza and Che's Lounge tied for the top with three wins each.

Here is the full list of the 2015 winners:

Bartender of the Year:
Winner: Keith Caywood – Hotel Congress

Best Cocktail Bartender:
Winner: Erick Bornmann – Sidecar 

High-Volume Bartender:
Winner: Donovan White. – Che’s Lounge.

Neighborhood Bartender:
Winner: Nicole Dybel – Che’s Lounge

Rookie of the Year:
Winner: Robert Gillies – Tough Luck Club

Bar of the Year:
Winner: Club Congress

Cocktail Bar of the Year:
Winner: Tough Luck Club

Restaurant Bar of the Year:
Winner: Reilly Craft Pizza + Drink

Neighborhood Bar of the Year:
Winner: Che’s Lounge

College Bar of the Year:
Winner: Frog & Firkin

Beer & Win Bar of the Year:
Winner: Tap & Bottle

Local Product of the Year:
Winner: Dragoon Brewing, “IPA”

The winners for the USBG Tucson Bar Awards are selected by an industry vote. For more information on the Tucson chapter of the USBG, visit the organization's Facebook page.

This is part two of a journal I’m keeping during my month working at a refugee camp in Greece. Part one, covering my last night in the US and two days in Athens, is here.


Dec. 9: It’s go time. After a series of subways and flights, I’m on the island of Lesvoz, the epicenter of refugee arrivals.

Now what?

I’d previously arranged to work in Molyvos, a town in the north of the island that desperately needed help a month ago. Since that time, thing have calmed down in Molyvos. Several senior members of the Greek government visited the camp in Molyvos before I came, leading to a pause in boats coming from Turkey. The Turkish coast guard is now patrolling the area near Molyvos at night, causing the smugglers to take boats further south. The city of Mytilene has now become the new major landing point. I decided to hold off on Molyvos for the time being and give Mytilene a shot.

Still unsure of where I will sleep or work, I decide to spend the day sorting clothes at a warehouse. This is a huge need on the island, as everybody dreams of coming and heroically helping refugees off of boats, but nobody dreams of heroically sorting shoes. I hailed a taxi in front of the airport and asked him to take me to the warehouse in town.

“Refugees?” he asks me.

“Yes, I’m going to the warehouse for refugees, where there are clothes,” I replied.

“You go to work for refugees, I will take you there?”

I tried to explain using the most basic English I could think of… “Yes, at the building with boxes, food, and clothing. The warehouse.”

“OK, we go to warehouse.”

Five minutes later, we were at Pikpa, which is definitely not a warehouse. Pikpa was formerly a summer camp for children with special needs, though it was abandoned and later became a refugee camp. It is now populated by at-risk families or refugees with special health conditions (i.e. pregnancy) that made them a poor fit for the general population at other refugee camps.

Whether you're looking for hand-crafted jewelry, Hopi katsinas or Zuni fetishes, Bahti Indian Arts is the place to shop. In business for more than six decades, Bahti is located at 4330 N. Campbell Ave in St. Philip's Plaza. Or check them out online.

As a doctor points out in Concussion, the NFL basically owns a day of the week in America, so taking it on is a fool’s errand. Dr. Bennet Omalu did take on the NFL, refusing to back away from his research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease he was the first to diagnose, and the role football played in CTE-afflicted brains he examined from players who died far too young.

As a presentation of the facts, Concussion more or less gets it right. But the facts aren’t the story here. The NFL’s denial of CTE and the charade of its “we take head injuries seriously” stance are, but those don’t see much time in the film. Still, Will Smith is sensational as Omalu and it raises awareness about one of the many dark sides of football.

If only it wanted to make a change instead.

House Speaker Paul Ryan managed to avoid a government shutdown and a rebellion in his own ranks with a $1.1 trillion spending plan and $662 billion tax-cut package that passed Congress today on a 316-113 vote.

For details of what's in the plan, you can check out this New York Times report.

The Arizona congressional delegation split on their votes. Voting in favor were Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-CD1), Martha McSally (R-CD2) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-CD9). Voting against were Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-CD1), David Schweikert (R- CD6), Matt Salmon (R-CD5), Paul Gosar (R-CD4), Trent Franks (R-CD8), and Ruben Gallego (D-CD7).

In the Senate, the legislation passed on a 65-33 vote. Both of Arizona's Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, voted against the package.

McSally said the legislation was "far from perfect" but she supported it nonetheless, citing funding for the A-10 Warthog and EC0130H, among other benefits. Her statement:

While far from perfect, today’s bipartisan legislation benefits Southern Arizona in many ways. I’ve been a leading voice to stop the dangerous cuts to our depleted military. This agreement does just that. After I fought hard to protect the A-10 and EC-130H, this bill provides full funding for both aircraft as well as my amendment to prevent the retirement of any EC-130H next year. It includes an additional $241 million for three critical missiles produced at Raytheon in Tucson, keeping their lines running and protecting good-paying Southern Arizona jobs. The bill also contains funding for construction at DM and Fort Huachuca, including $18.2 million for personnel recovery training missions conducted in Southern Arizona and $3.9 million to renovate the Joint Interoperability Test Command buildings.”

In addition, today’s legislation prioritizes protecting our homeland. The bill contains provisions to strengthen the Visa Waiver Program, a recommendation made by my colleagues and me on the bipartisan foreign fighter task force. It increases funding for Customs and Border Protection operations and focuses funds for the FBI to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities. While these are important steps, we still have work to do to address all our security vulnerabilities, and I’ll continue to work to pass more solutions to make Americans safer.

Kirkpatrick's statement:

It was refreshing to vote for an omnibus bill that includes smart investments in jobs, education, transportation and infrastructure. And this bill is especially good for Arizona, with increases for wildfire grants programs, national parks, Pell Grants, Head Start, Impact Aid and much more. Instead of the usual shutdown threats and brinksmanship, Congress worked together on this compromise bill, and while it isn’t perfect, it deserved to pass with overwhelming support. As I’ve often said, bipartisanship is the way to get things done. In 2016, I hope Congress will chart a similar path — one that is paved with more results than rancor.

Flake was succinct in explaining his vote against the spending package:

I voted against the omnibus because it adds to our growing debt, fails to address wasteful spending, and is full of the same tired giveaways we’ve seen over the years, 

McCain explained his vote against the legislation: