Recent Articles from Alexis Waiss Cronkite News
‘Other’ no more: Census change could add MENA, Latino categories, more
The Census Bureau could follow through on plans to overhaul the way it asks people about their race and ethnicity, including altering the definitions of American Indian or Alaska Native and other categories, and adding MENA – for Middle Eastern or North African.
Border towns see ‘disaster’ without federal help as end to Title 42 looms
Arizona border communities face a “humanitarian disaster” in two weeks if the federal government does not step in to help with the crush of migrants expected when Title 42 ends, local officials told a Senate panel Wednesday.
State begins to shed thousands from Medicaid, push them to other care
Arizona started purging people from the pandemic-inflated Medicaid rolls this month, a process that could end up pushing more than 600,000 people off the plan, health officials and advocates said.
Arizona will fail clean-air standards if other states aren’t ‘good neighbors’
Arizona is doing all it can to improve air quality but will not meet federal standards as long as pollution from other jurisdictions can drift across its borders, the director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality testified Wednesday.
Justices grapple over Navajo water rights, government’s duty to tribe
Supreme Court justices pressed government attorneys Monday on their argument that the treaties that put the Navajo on reservation lands implied an intent – but not a duty – for the government to provide water to the tribe.
Supreme Court hears Navajo water rights case with potentially big impact
When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in Arizona v. Navajo Nation, it will be considering fairly technical legal questions, but the answers could have a large impact on water allocation in the Colorado River basin.
Both sides pan administration plan to tighten rules for asylum seekers
The White House unveiled a plan Thursday to deny asylum to migrants who try to cross the southwest border illegally or who do not first seek asylum in countries they cross on their way to the U.S. as they flee their home countries.
Documentary film works to preserve the legacy of Arizonan Stewart Udall
John de Graaf says there was a time when a list of Arizona political icons would have included Barry Goldwater, John McCain and at least one other – Stewart Udall. But de Graaf worries that Udall, an Interior secretary widely recognized as the modern father of conservation, is being forgotten, a slight that he hopes to reverse with a recently released documentary.
Arizona advocates win national recognition for work on Proposition 308
An Arizona nonprofit was honored here Tuesday for its push to win in-state tuition for students who were brought to this country illegally as children, a change that organizers said has moved the state from an “epicenter of hate toward immigrants into an epicenter of hope.”
Arizona lawmakers agree to disagree on Biden’s border, fentanyl plans
Arizona lawmakers agreed with President Joe Biden’s call in his State of the Union address Tuesday to secure American borders and fight fentanyl trafficking, but they disagreed on how to get there.
Record numbers sign up for Obamacare health coverage
A record number of Arizonans signed up for health insurance this year under the Affordable Care Act, as enrollment in the program continues to rebound from the Trump administration’s efforts to suppress coverage.
Arizona led nation for rise in homeless youth last year, HUD report says
Arizona saw the largest increase in the number of homeless youths in the nation last year, at a time when other large states were seeing those numbers decline, according to a recent federal report.