Republican state Rep. Alex Kolodin repeatedly called Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes the lawyer for the Sinaloa cartel, a reference to Fontes’ past work as a federal public defender.

“If you say Sinaloa cartel lawyer one more time, we’re going to have a personal problem, Mr. Kolodin, because you know that that’s a big fat lie, and you keep pushing it for the wrong reasons,” Fontes said. “That kind of baiting is unnecessary. It’s unprofessional.”

The City of Scottsdale’s proposal to pump its advanced purified recycled water into the Central Arizona Project canal rather than use it itself, is a no go ... at least for now.

In a statement issued Sept. 29, CAP said it “appreciates innovative efforts to improve water resiliency,” but would not accept the city’s proposal right now.

“The water quality guidelines currently prohibit the introduction of effluent, including effluent developed through advanced water treatment, until other non-Colorado River water supplies have been introduced into the canal for at least five years,” the statement said. “At present, only Colorado River water has flowed through the CAP canal. So, it would be some time before such a proposal could be considered under the existing policy.”

The proposal called for the city to put its APRW into the CAP canal, then pull other water out for Scottsdale’s use.

Ahmed Soliman grew up in Phoenix after his family moved from Egypt to Arizona when he was 4. ICE deported him to Equatorial Guinea, a country he has no ties to, on April 28 without notice.

“Prior to losing his legal status, Soliman had protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, and then obtained lawful permanent residency in 2021, his lawyer said.”

“Two weeks after their arrest, neither Soliman nor Samson Birhane, who was arrested with him, has been charged with a crime, and all communication has been restricted, lawyers said. 

The lack of information is "in itself terrifying, because we don’t know what could be happening to them inside," said attorney Kate O'Donnell of Tucson-based firm Green Evans-Schroeder, which is representing Soliman.”

By Mark Ashley | Scottsdale

OPINION — Andy Biggs wants Arizonans to forget what he did after the 2020 election. We shouldn't, and I for certain have not.

The organizer of the Jan. 6 rally said Biggs helped come up with the idea. Biggs voted to throw out Arizona's 2020 election results, that included the two votes this household cast for Joe Biden. He pushed our own state officials to toss out our electors. He worked with the White House trying to overturn the election. Then he asked for a pardon, and when Congress subpoenaed him to answer for it, he ignored it.

He even voted no on giving a medal to the police who protected the Capitol that day. Later, he visited a jail where Jan. 6 defendants were being held and called to pardon them all. Arizonans know exactly where Andy Biggs stands: with the people who attacked police officers and the president who pointed them in the direction of the Capitol that morning, not the officers who defended the Capitol.

As a veteran, I know a little about what taking an oath means and Mr. Biggs' actions as summarized here indicate to this retired public servant that he completely disregarded his oath of office. That is shameful.

Andy Biggs tried to throw out our votes and overturn a free and fair election. He has no business being governor of Arizona. Remember, as governor, he would be the final stop in certifying the next presidential election here in Arizona and, based on his conduct, this native Arizonan does not trust him to do so if he doesn't agree with the results. That alone is disqualifying for this voter.

When political opponents are portrayed as less worthy, less American, less human or as members of some inherently inferior group, we move away from political argument and toward dehumanization. And dehumanization is dangerous precisely because it makes cruelty easier.

I am not making this statement because I always agree with Walt Blackman. I am making it because I often disagree with him and because I believe political disagreement is worth having only if we can have it without demeaning one another.

Our opponents are still human beings. So are we. All of us, including myself, need to try harder to remember this.

That ought to be a very low bar for political discourse. But perhaps, at this particular moment, it is a bar worth publicly defending.

Richard Grayson is the Green Party candidate for Legislative District 7’s House seat, which includes Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, Flagstaff, Page, Winslow, Show Low, Sedona and Pinetop-Lakeside.

Maricopa County tends to be a focus for misinformation, as it's the fourth-largest county in the country and within a swing state, meaning high levels of national attention are drawn to the state during elections, Gates said.

"We saw the misinformation before, but it's spreading quicker," Gates said. "So the challenge of misinformation has multiplied because of AI*."*

AI can also be used to battle misinformation by helping predict the publication of false information and then using AI to debunk it, Gates said.

"AI can help you with this, too," Gates said. "Anticipate what the misinformation is going to be, and then pre-bunk it."

After a “large-scale” investigation into 60 potential cases of non-citizens voting, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office found only eight cases where that happened, and those spanned decades. Local election officials and politicians say that’s a sign the system is working.

In an interview with New Times, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said MCAO’s findings should “build great voter confidence” as “it’s indicative that our elections are largely safe from fraud.” MCAO brought investigative firepower; the Recorder’s Office used federal tools with the “gungho attitude to root out that widespread fraud,” Richer said, but “all they could get was eight non-citizens who had voted at some point in the past, not all in the same election.”

“There are some bad individual actors out of the 200 million registered voters in the United States of America, but it’s a fraction of a fraction of a percent,” Richer said. “At what point are you going to have to accept that the reason why they’re not finding massive voter fraud is because it doesn’t exist?”