Category: ARIZONA_MN

Several million heat-tolerant Arizonans spent the weekend in air-conditioned semi-darkness, drawing their curtains shut as temperatures soared to nearly 120 degrees in one of America's largest metro areas.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on Sunday leaned into his experience as an astronaut to call for climate crisis action amid a blistering heatwave across the United States, including his home state of Arizona.

A megadrought has seared Arizona, stressing its rivers and reservoirs and reducing water to a trickle in the homes of farmworkers near this desert valley.

A coalition of tribal and environmental groups has submitted resolutions to federal regulators opposing three pumped hydro-storage projects proposed for Black Mesa on the Navajo Nation.

Phoenix is close to breaking a record streak for consecutive days with high temperatures at or above 110 degrees, and the heat will continue to become more enduring as urbanization grows and the impacts of climate change continue.

Landscaper Eduardo Rios can feel those moments when the familiar in Phoenix morphs into the treacherous, as the skin under his straw hat starts peeling off his forehead, the heat radiating up through his steel-toe boots.

In the desert, summer starts in earnest in May. It’s the beginning of dry season, with highs in the 90s—just a taste of the triple-digit days to come. Some people still venture out to trails and campsites, but for me, May marks the end of hiking season and the beginning of pool season. Every day since May 1, I’ve been heading out for a swim at the University of Arizona recreation center, in Tucson, where I can watch the mourning doves and hawks crisscrossing the sky above me while I’m doing the backstroke.

The three most populous U.S. states — California, Texas and Florida — are facing the worst of a punishing summertime heat wave, with 54 million Americans slated to see triple-digit highs this week. Some of the most intense heat is predicted in Arizona, and Phoenix, its largest city, could see its longest period of 110-degree high temperatures on record.

In September 2020, the Hopi Tribe’s four-decade effort to secure its right to water culminated in a court proceeding. The outcome would determine how much water the arid reservation would receive over the next century and whether that amount would be enough for the tribe to pursue its economic ambitions. Under rules unique to Arizona, the tribe would have to justify how it would use every drop it wanted.

Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Arizona on Thursday for a meeting with Native American communities and Tribal Nations. This was the first time a sitting vice president had visited the Gila River Indian Community. The stop is part of the Investing in America Tour, showing the administration’s infrastructure investment.