Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The forces of nature that blessed Arizona with the Grand Canyon also provided high-grade uranium, trapped in nearby layers of rock. Whether the uranium is a blessing or a curse depends on whose side you take.

The Arizona State Fair will still feature a petting zoo, livestock competitions, a pig race and a 1,000-pound swine named Harvey even though a few fairs elsewhere have cut back on contact with animals due to concerns about the H1N1 virus.

Critics of federal cap-and-trade legislation told a panel of Arizona lawmakers Sept. 28 that its effects insofar as reducing global carbon emission at the end of this century will be negligible - similar to turning off one 100-watt incandescent bulb in a football stadium. Some participants and onlookers, though, said the panel was a sham.

Jim Scussel and his partners started Four Peaks Brewing Co. 13 years ago as a brewery and tasting room, rolling out kegs of Scottish Ale, Four Peaks Ale and Arizona Peach to restaurants and bars. Four Peaks later opened a restaurant at its brewery in Tempe and another in north Scottsdale. And consumers now can purchase Kilt Lifter and its other brews at grocery and convenience stores around the state.

Two hours after Tim Kieff was laid off, he called Jim Clayton. As career management director for the W.P. Carey School of Business MBA program, Clayton works to find jobs for new graduates. Clayton credits the program for placing 92 percent of the 2008 master of business administration class, within three months of graduation.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Sept. 30 will weigh the fate of a tax rebate offered by the city of Phoenix to lure a developer that built a massive shopping mall in the northern outskirts of the city. The 1997 ...

Lawmakers will be facing quite the conundrum in 2010 - how to raise more revenue for the cash-strapped state without raising taxes. The Republican-led Legislature stymied attempts by Gov. Jan Brewer to put a sales tax increase on the ballot, and outright rejected the idea of passing a tax increase itself.

You don't have to work at a resort or sell souvenirs to be hurt by the downturn in Arizona's tourism industry, a group of Valley leaders said Sept. 22. "Do you know a teacher, a police officer, a firefighter, a librarian?" Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said. "They're all dependent on tourism because of the sales and property tax it provides."

Aggressive, agile, smart. Arizona needs to be all of these to build on international business growth that has defied the economic downturn, Gov. Jan Brewer said Sept. 22. "Exports create jobs, and I encourage and applaud businesses that are ready to enter the global marketplace," Brewer said in her International State of the State Address to the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations.

The Arizona Constitution rates better than the constitutions of most other states in part because it guards against government seizing private property and putting public dollars toward private ventures, according to a report by a conservative Goldwater Institute.