Overhauling the Child Protective Services abuse hotline and adding police officers to work alongside the agency’s social workers are among the most important recommendations of the Governor’s Child Safety Task Force one of the panel’s co-chairs said Dec. 30 after the recommendations were released.

The third round of federal transportation grants has come and gone, and Arizona is left with an empty tank.

The Arizona Department of Transportation applied for grants for three projects totaling $97 million, but didn’t get a piece of the $511 million doled out.

The Arizona Department of Corrections has scrapped plans to build private prisons to house 5,000 minimum and medium security inmates.

The Arizona Department of Corrections hasn’t violated the rights of death-row prisoners in its execution process, a federal judge ruled today.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has always been fond of saying he’s accountable only to the voters.

But the U.S. Department of Justice took the first steps Dec. 15 toward making Arpaio answer to the federal government after unveiling the results of a civil rights probe that one investigator described as “the most egregious racial profiling in the United States.”

State law requires county attorneys and police to cooperate with state Child Protective Service caseworkers, but police and prosecutors told the Governor’s Child Safety Task Force today that some child abuse and sex abuse investigations are falling short because of communication failures, antiquated technology and red tape.

After two and a half years with Arizona State Parks, Renée Bahl will be leaving the agency in December for a new job in central-southern California’s coastal Santa Barbara County.

Bahl came to the parks department when budgets were being slashed and the department was trying to determine which of the parks it was going to be able to keep open. Now, she said, the outlook is far rosier.

The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected Colleen Mathis’ request to block her removal as Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission chair while the appeal of her ouster works its way through the court system.

Mathis can continue to appeal her decision, but will do so as the former IRC chairwoman, the court ruled on Tuesday.

The embattled Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission will hire attorneys for three members in response to Gov. Jan Brewer’s demands for information about allegations of serious misconduct.

After being in place for four months, the Arizona Commerce Authority Oct. 24 announced its first award from its $25 million deal-closing fund.