A Senate bill could lead to converting a hotel into a shelter to cope with a growing population of homeless seniors in the West Valley.

A program at the University of Arizona to test 250,000 people to see if they're immune to COVID-19 hasn't gotten the public demand that was expected. In April, UA President Robert Robbins announced the school would be offering the blood tests, first to students and staff and later to front-line medical personnel and first responders. Robbins, who is a medical doctor, said someone who shows a positive test for antibodies likely is immune from getting the virus again. And that, he said, could allow people to decide if they feel safe when doing their jobs. But Deepta Bhattacharya, a professor of immunobiology at the UA College of Medicine, told Capitol Media Services on Wednesday that only about 50,000 tests have been administered. "The 'take rate' (among first responders) when we first started was pretty low,'' he said. The flip side of that, Bhattacharya said, is that there are still tests available. "So now it's available to anyone who wants it,'' he said. Anyone interested can sign up at "https://covid19antibodytesting.arizona.edu/". All this comes as Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday doled out another $115 million of money he is getting from Washington through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, this time to help the state's three universities. That includes $46 million for the UA, money that Ducey press aide C.J. Karamargin said is designed to reimburse the school for expenses already incurred. An identical amount is going to Arizona State University. It has embarked on its own program of saliva tests for the virus itself, available to the general community, which provides a less invasive method than the swab up the nose to determine if someone is currently infected. Northern Arizona University is getting $23 million. In all cases, Karamargin said reimbursement of the expenditures fits within what is eligible for funding under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. In the meantime, Bhattacharya said the UA will continue to make the antibody tests available. "People have their own reasons for wanting to or not wanting to get the test,'' he said. But Bhattacharya said he is expecting the demand to increase. "Now that the vaccines are starting to roll out there are going to be people that want to confirm that they mounted a good antibody response to the vaccine,'' he said, meaning they will have immunity for some period of time. That, in turn, leaves the question of how long immunity -- whether from a vaccine or having a bout of COVID-19 -- will last. "Well, it's lasted as long as we've been able to look,'' Bhattacharya said. "We've looked out seven months post infection and we still see antibodies,'' he said. "So at this point I don't think there's going to be any reason to think that people will be susceptible soon after they recovered.'' Reinfection, Bhattacharya said, is possible. But he said it's not likely or frequent. A program at the University of Arizona to test 250,000 people to see if they're immune to COVID-19 hasn't gotten the public demand that was expected.

Gov. Doug Ducey is using hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds earmarked for COVID-19 relief to pay for state operations, such as salaries, which some say contravenes the intention of Congress. Ducey, who controls nearly $1.9 billion of ...

Gov. Doug Ducey is planning to put federal cash given to the state for COVID-19 relief into the soon-to-be-insolvent unemployment trust fund to save companies from having to replenish the account on their own.

Rosy state revenues belie ongoing economic turmoil, particularly for lower-income Arizonans who have been disproportionately affected by job losses and wage cuts.

Make no mistake, losing sight of the 2020 Census means losing sight of the future. Ten years ago, we could not have envisioned that the accuracy of our 2010 Census count would impact the resources that our communities and state would receive to combat and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday accepted a federal offer of an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits to more than 370,000 Arizonans out of work to replace the $600 payments that expired at the end of July.

Gov. Doug Ducey on July 2 announced plans to spend $9 million in federal coronavirus relief funds on election security, alleviating concerns that Arizona election officials could lose funding because of a legislative technicality. The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and ...

Federal government assistance is buffering Arizonans from the impact of skyrocketing unemployment, but that help is time limited.

As teachers, students and their families eagerly wait to hear when they will return to the classroom, education policy wonks, advocates and school districts are trying to figure out how they’ll spend coming federal money.