Thursday, May 27, 2021
WASHINGTON – Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in the near future, experts told a House panel Tuesday.
The period from last April to this March was the driest in the last 126 years for Arizona and other Western states, witnesses said. It caps a two-decade stretch that was the driest in more than 100 years that records have been kept – and one of the driest in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence, one official said.
“We have never seen drought at the scale and intensity that we see right now, and it is possible that this may be the baseline for the future,” Elizabeth Klein, a senior counselor to the secretary of Interior, said in her testimony.
More than half of Arizona is currently experiencing “exceptional” drought conditions, the most severe level of drought, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. The Arizona Department of Water Resources said most of the state got less than 25% of average precipitation for April.
The water shortage can affect everything from the amount of power generated by hydroelectric dams on the Colorado River to the risk of wildfire.
Tiffany Davila, public affairs officer for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, said that this year’s drought is much more severe than what Arizona saw at this time last year.
“Vegetation is stricken across the state; there isn’t one area that isn’t impacted by the drought,” Davila said. “It’s pretty much kindling at this point.”
Low water levels are also likely to trigger reductions in water agreements with agencies like the Central Arizona Project and the Salt River Project. But SRP officials said Tuesday that they have long been taking steps to mitigate the immediate impact of those reductions.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
WASHINGTON – They came with studies, they came with polls, they came with statistics. And after more than two hours of a congressional hearing Monday, they walked away no closer to agreeing on how voting restrictions affect ballot access.
Democratic and Republican members of the House Administration Committee stuck largely to their talking points during a hearing on the effect that voter ID laws, proof-of-citizenship requirements and lack of language assistance have on elections.
Republicans dismissed suggestions that voter ID laws have a disproportionate impact on minority voters, pointing to the turnout in the 2020 elections as proof.
“In 2020 we saw more people cast a vote than any other presidential election in history, further dispelling the myth that voting ID requirements deter people from legally voting,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc.
But Democrats and some witnesses at the hearing pointed to a long list of studies that they said demonstrate, in the words of Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., that, “Voting ID laws have been shown to disproportionately decrease minority turnout.”
The committee debate comes as the Arizona Legislature is considering several election bills that echo the national debate, with one side saying the changes protect and the other side saying they restrict voting.
The state had 23 restrictive voting bills for the 2021 legislative session, the third-most in the nation, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. It also had 15 Democrat-backed voting-expansion bills, but those were quickly killed in the Legislature.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
The return of live music has been a vague hope for more than a year, but downtown’s Fox Theatre now has a date: Thursday, Aug. 19, will see country band The Mavericks take the Fox stage and kick off its 2021/22 live performance season.
“This is a bit of a teaser of what is to come for the season ahead,” says Fox Theatre executive director Bonnie Schock. “It is certain to be a fantastic return of music and performance to downtown in the fall – with something for everyone. So, get ready for exceptional country, jazz, blues, folk and Americana, classic rock, comedy, personalities, lifelong learning, family, and film experiences once again."
Other planned shows include swing revivalists Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on Saturday, Sept. 11; singer/songwriter Amy Grant on Sunday, Oct. 24; and Irish folk band Altan on Sunday, Nov. 21.
The Fox plans to announce next month a lineup of more than 50 shows booked through April, with tickets for the season available to the public starting Friday, June 18. Guests who purchase tickets to four or more shows in advance will receive a 10% discount.
For more information, visit foxtucson.com
PHOENIX – As Missy Farr-Kaye watched her friend Phil Mickelson master the PGA Championship, the Arizona State women’s golf coach said what everyone was thinking: “He is a fountain of youth right now.”
The legendary lefty and Arizona State alumnus became the oldest golfer to win a major at 50, capturing the PGA Championship Sunday.
It was Mickelson’s sixth major win and first since 2013. With it, not only did he become the oldest golfer to ever win a major but he also joined a prestigious list of golfers to win a major in three different decades.
And it raised an interesting question: Is Mickelson’s success at 50 a sign of things to come for other athletes?
“There are a lot of advantages that accrue over time in sports,” said Jeff Bercovici, author of “Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age.” “You acquire a lot of knowledge, and a lot of skill and experience and maturity and emotional control all these things that are advantages to any athlete. The thing is that you’re also acquiring a big disadvantage, which is that your body is getting older. You get slower, you get injured more easily. Historically, the disadvantages have accrued faster than the advantages.
“What we’ve seen, particularly over the last kind of 20ish years, is the science of particularly athletic training but also medicine, surgery, nutrition, recovery, has allowed athletes to slow down the rate at which their bodies age to the point that now we see what happens when the advantages, express themselves more fully than we’ve ever been able to see before.”
PHOENIX – Health care coverage in Arizona under the Affordable Care Act is at its highest level in three years, as enrollment continued to climb in April during a special open enrollment period, according to the latest government data.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that 17,081 Arizonans had selected insurance plans for 2021 from Feb. 15 through April 30. They were just some of the 939,575 Americans who got coverage during that period.
The new enrollments come on top of the 154,504 Arizonans who signed up during last fall’s regular open enrollment for 2021 coverage and the 8.25 million Americans who signed up in the same period.
The special open enrollment period was announced by the Biden administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and will continue through Aug. 15. Despite the apparent success of the early going, however, advocates and experts say there are still challenges – particularly for those in underserved communities.
Claudia Maldonado works at Keogh Health Connection, helping people navigate through different insurance marketplaces to find the plan that best fits their needs. The process can be overwhelming, she said.
“When you see that there is the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), there’s Arizona’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (KidsCare) and the marketplace, and you’re sitting there kind of like scratching your head saying, ‘Well, which one is for me?’”
Maldonado also shined a light on the importance of not sticking to one specific health care option, stating that the Affordable Care Act extends enrollment for all marketplaces Arizona has to offer.
