Her daughter wouldn’t have spent the first 30 months of her life enduring violent abuse if a bill a panel of Arizona senators voted to kill under religious pressure today had been law six years ago, a mother told the Senate committee.

Time is quickly running out for many who were sexually assaulted or abused years ago as children to try to get some justice from perpetrators or those who allowed it to occur.

If the Democrat candidates do find themselves on a debate stage in Arizona a few months from now, I look forward to watching them try to adapt their far-left rhetoric and policy agendas for a Southwestern audience. I wish them luck. They’ll need it.

The fate of an $11.8 billion budget could be decided today as lawmakers debate the question of the liability of churches, the Boy Scouts and other organizations over old charges of sexual abuse.

Our presidential election campaign is picking up steam, and money is being raised as never before, mostly to convince voters that the other party’s guy is a very poor choice to be president. Most voters have already dug in and need little convincing that their views are a kind of political light that must prevail over the opposing darkness. It’s as if we have brought religious sectarianism into our politics as they have been doing in Iraq and now in Egypt.

While a bill allowing religiously motivated employers to deny contraception coverage to workers spurred heated debate on its path to becoming law this session, one of its provisions was largely overlooked.

For years, the Catholic clergy in Arizona has been among the most prominent religious organization opposing various anti-illegal-immigration measures at the Capitol. With the Mormon church’s statement, and a similar one from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholics now have new allies.

A former teacher considered to be a pivotal witness against the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program alleges in a lawsuit filed May 9 the district and his former colleagues defamed him.

The attorney for a 22-year-old loner accused of trying to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a low-key style and a record of saving high-profile clients from the death penalty.

Throngs of reporters waited hours Monday to get their first look at the mysterious man accused of a deadly shooting rampage that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded.