Fox News released a poll today that showed retired astronaut and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Mark Kelly with a 17-point lead over appointed Sen. Martha McSally.

That's way outside the survey's =/- 3.5 percent margin of error.

The survey shows 56 percent of those polled prefer Kelly, while just 39 are supporting McSally, a Republican who lost a 2018 Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema but was later appointed to the Senate seat previously held by the late John McCain by Gov. Doug. Because she was appointed, McSally must face voters again this year (and whoever wins in November will have to defend the seat in 2022).

With only one recent exception, McSally has consistently trailed Kelly in polling, as a roundup at FiveThirtyEight.com shows. The polling average Real Clear Politics now puts Kelly ahead by an average of 11.3 percentage points. McSally has decried the poor numbers as "fake polls."

The Fox News poll also showed Democrat Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump in Arizona. Biden had the support of 49 percent of likely voters, while Trump had the support of 40 percent.

The Town of Marana has enjoyed strong tax revenues over the past few months despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on the larger economy.

The national GDP dropped by more than 30 percent at the beginning of the outbreak in the United States and since then, national unemployment has risen to 10.2 percent. However, Marana has reported strong revenue numbers and received additional funds from the federal CARES Act.

During the Sept. 1 council meeting, Marana Finance Director Yiannis Kalaitzidis said Marana’s hotel occupancy rate fell by about 10 percent and hotel revenues fell by about 11 percent in July compared to last year. The number of issued housing permits remains strong in Marana, with 855 single-family housing permits issued in fiscal year 2020 compared to 802 in 2019.

In April through June, restaurant and bar revenues dropped by about 20 percent, while retail revenues increased by six percent. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Marana officials anticipated a sharp drop in sales tax revenues. But revenues only took a minor dip in April and May, and came back even stronger than projections from before COVID-19 in June and July.

“However, it is still too early to determine what’s going to happen as our future really does depend very much on the federal relief funds, how effective they’re going to be and if we find a solution for the virus,” Kalaitzidis said.

The Town of Marana passed a reduced budget for fiscal year 2020-21 in anticipation of the negative financial impact of the Coronavirus. The town government slimmed their budget by deferring capital projects, delaying or freezing new hires and restricting budget capacity in certain departments.

Kalaitzidis recommends the council stay with this current budget and monitor new revenue numbers closely in order to anticipate future changes.

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HOUSTON — On an afternoon in mid-June, Analleli Solis was walking home from her brother’s house just down the street when she noticed someone she didn’t know retreating from the front door of her modest brick home.

Solis approached the woman, who handed her an envelope.

Inside was a lawsuit from Oportun Inc., a personal loan company Solis had turned to for years when she and her husband didn’t have enough cash to cover rent, fix their cars or take a vacation.

Now, the company was suing Solis to recoup some of that money, demanding $4,196.23 including fees and interest.

Solis’ shock quickly gave way to anger. Three months earlier, after she missed a few of her $130 bimonthly payments, she said she called Oportun to tell the company she had lost her jobs as a hotel housekeeper and fast food worker because of the coronavirus pandemic and needed some relief.

The 43-year-old mother of three expected the company would understand.

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Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump.

The message, printed on White House letterhead in both English and Spanish, touts the administration’s response to the coronavirus, including aid provided through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to buy fresh food and ship it to needy families.

The letter is reminiscent of Trump’s effort to put his signature on stimulus checks and send a signed letter to millions of recipients. It’s the latest example of the president blurring his official duties with his reelection campaign, most prominently by hosting Trump’s acceptance speech for the Republican nomination last week on the White House lawn.

Democratic lawmakers have gone so far as to say the USDA letter violates the federal Hatch Act. The law prohibits government officials from using their positions or taxpayer resources to engage in electioneering. Though the president himself is exempt, the ban applies to White House staff and agencies such as the USDA.

“Using a federal relief program to distribute a self-promoting letter from the President to American families just three months before the presidential election is inappropriate and a violation of federal law,” argued 49 House Democrats led by Marcia Fudge of Ohio in an August 14 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, requesting information about the purpose and process behind Trump’s letter. “A public health crisis is not an opportunity for the administration to promote its own political interests. Likewise, a federal food assistance program should not be used as a tool for the President to exploit taxpayer dollars for his re-election campaign.”

PHOENIX – The small office building, nestled just off the road near a medical office and appliance store, looks more like a house where a quiet family might live. The only signs of activity are the cars in the small parking lot out front.

Most passersby likely have no idea what goes on behind the dark purple door; an intercom doorbell ensures that only those who belong are allowed in. There are no signs outside, only inside, such as “You Matter” and “Happy Thoughts.”

Bulletin boards are brightened by slips of neon-colored paper with phone numbers to Planned Parenthood and shelters for homeless youth. There are nearly 10 work spaces, each with a computer, a landline and a chair.

On a Friday night early last spring, Madison Marks, 20, sits in one of the chairs waiting for the phone to ring. The part-time Starbucks barista, who’s dressed in black and rocks blonde streaks through her short brown hair, picks up when a 15-year-old calls to share the troubles that led her to seek help from a stranger.

Marks stops her at one point and asks the requisite question: “On a scale of one to 10, one being you’re OK and 10 being you’d kill yourself right now, how are you feeling?”

For decades, researchers have looked to human genetics for linkages to mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Patterns of inheritance are murky, but it is clear that “stuff runs in families,” says Dr. Douglas Gray, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

His 2018 study – published in the journal of Molecular Psychiatry – went a step further. It examined four specific gene variants that appear to raise the risk of suicide.

Four percent “of genes in the genome have current evidence associated with suicide risk,” according to the study, which identified the variants as APH1B, AGBL2, SP110 and SUCLA2. Their presence is “noticeably associated with suicide risk.”

“We need to tell people who’ve had a suicide that their family’s at risk,” said Gray, who studies suicide to better understand risk factors and develop prevention programs. This genetic component may account for as much as “45 to 50% of the risk,” he said.

Genetic screenings or simply reviewing family histories could be one method of increasing both awareness and prevention, Gray said.

The study was rooted in the work of another researcher at the University of Utah in 1980: Paul H. Wender. His team of American and Danish researchers in Denmark compared adopted children and their adoptive parents to biological parents and their children.

“They looked at a group of children who were adopted at birth and then grew up and completed suicide,” Gray said. “It turned out that almost all of the risk of suicide was from the biological relatives and not the relatives that raised the child. So your suicide risk doesn’t come from the parents that adopt you, it comes from the parents you never met.”

WASHINGTON – American Airlines’ announcement that it could let go up to 19,000 workers on Oct. 1 has left the airline’s roughly 10,000 employees in Arizona worried, but hopeful the state can avoid the worst of the cuts.

The airline has not specified which regions of the country will see the cuts – which American executives said would not be needed if the federal government passes a new round of relief funding.

That has one local union “blasting out all over Facebook” to get members to press their representatives for a deal.

“I think some think that a second stimulus will come,” said Pat Rezler, assistant general chairman of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 141st District. “But some are hesitant on believing that.

“People are worried,” Rezler added.

It is unclear how many jobs, if any, American will cut at the airline’s hub in Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. An airline spokesperson said a regional breakdown of the job cuts is not yet available.

In a letter to employees last week, American Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom announced plans to either furlough or permanently lay off 19,000 U.S. employees on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to pass a new round of stimulus to support the airline industry.