Hola,
Many Southern Arizona students are heading back to school this week and alongside them, we’re returning to two newsletters a week. Also: a lot of you didn’t receive our newsletter Saturday due to an issue with our email provider, so we’ve included a few stories you might have missed below. Gracias for making Arizona Luminaria part of your week. We are always grateful to hear from you.
In today’s newsletter:
📡 In Peach Springs, teens from the Walapai 100.9 youth radio club write, host and produce their own show — and this month, they’re delivering 250 handheld radios across a community with little cell service and no chain retail stores. Read the full story.
🌡️ Tucson swapped a decade-old national survey for a homegrown one — designed to assess who’s most at risk of dying outside, not just who fits a national checklist. Read more | Lee en español
🌱 More than a dozen Arizona youth met with Rep. Adelita Grijalva and Ward 5 Council member Selina Barajas in Tucson this week to talk about extreme heat, outdoor work and the climate policies they’re already pushing for. Read more
📬 In case you missed it: Tom Horne is off the ballot for the first time in 30 years, setting up a Nov. 3 rematch between Terry Leyba Ruiz and Kimberly Yee for state superintendent. Pima County’s preschool scholarship program is losing pandemic-era funding just as demand climbs. And if you’re looking for a good read, we’ve got four books that offer different ways into Tucson’s story.
Featured stories
Radios, lunch runs and a pickup truck: Walapai 100.9 is the heartbeat of the community
PEACH SPRINGS, Ariz. — “Do we have the radios?” Rachael DeFord asks. Four girls, all members of Walapai Media’s youth radio club, have piled into a blue Chevy Silverado. They […]
Tucson’s new homeless survey asks who’s at most risk of dying
Tucson’s homelessness outreach workers spent a decade using a national questionnaire to decide who gets housing resources. This summer they’re using a homegrown one instead that is centered around a […]
Nueva encuesta en Tucson identifica a las personas sin hogar con mayor riesgo de morir
Los trabajadores de alcance comunitario para personas sin hogar en Tucson pasaron una década utilizando un cuestionario nacional para decidir quién recibe acceso a recursos de vivienda. Este verano están […]
Arizona youth tell lawmakers: Climate change can’t wait
When Carmen De Backer was a toddler, she would sit on the couch staring at photos of wildlife in the worn pages of National Geographic magazines her mom bought at […]
Thank you Thursday
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The city of Tucson will host four community engagement sessions on transit safety as part of its broader Safe City Initiative. The effort, called Safe City Connect, offers three in-person and one virtual option to connect. The in-person events will take place at 5:30 pm on the following dates and locations: Aug. 10 at El Pueblo Activity Center on 101 W. Irvington Road; Aug. 12 at Randolph Recreation Center at 200 S. Alvernon Way and Aug. 13 at the Ward 2 office at 7829 E Broadway Boulevard. Register for the in-person events here. The virtual event will take place Aug. 12 at noon, and you can register here.
The moon will rise over the Galiuro Mountains and slip into Earth’s shadow during Lunar Eclipse Night from 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at Oracle State Park. Visitors can watch through a park telescope as the moon darkens to coppery red and gray, reaching 96% coverage at 9:15 p.m. Advance registration is required, and attendance is limited to 50 people.
A new federal watchdog report finds FEMA Region 9, which includes Arizona, lost 13% of its regional staff to voluntary buyout programs, one of the hardest-hit regions in the country, according to the Government Accountability Office. Wildfires drive most of Arizona’s federal disaster declarations, and the report warns short-staffing and a lack of planning could hurt FEMA’s ability to respond when disaster strikes.
Customs and Border Protection ordered construction crews building Trump’s second border wall to stop drilling wells in drought-stricken New Mexico after ranchers said pumping the groundwater needed to mix cement could threaten their livestock, the Associated Press wrote. The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer says they’ve identified eight wells drilled without their permission and ranchers report the wells could pump up to 350 gallons per minute. CBP did not say whether wells already drilled could be pumped. Read more.
Pima County spent $479,000 cleaning up 300 tons of trash and debris along the Chuck Huckelberry Loop and adjacent washes in Fiscal Year 2026, according to a county memo.
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