A federal judge who has criticized Arizona's persistent noncompliance with a settlement requiring improvements to health care for prisoners has ordered lawyers for the state and inmates to decide whether they want to throw out the 5-year-old deal and instead bring the case to trial.

The state of Arizona wants a judge to hold off on her threat to order $1.6 million in additional contempt-of-court fines against the state for failing to adequately follow through on its promises to improve health care for its 33,000 prisoners.

A Quaker organization claims to have bipartisan support for a bill that would upend Arizona’s truth-in-sentencing laws, which requires Arizona inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their court-imposed sentences.

A judge presiding in a legal settlement over the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons has raised the possibility of throwing out the four-year agreement and resuming litigation over inmate care because of the state's pervasive noncompliance with the deal.

Lawyers who filed a lawsuit challenging the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons are seeking $1.6 million in additional legal fees and other costs in enforcing a 2014 settlement that they say the state has repeatedly resisted.

A freshman Democrat in the House apologized March 7 to colleagues and staff who said they were offended by pillows made of feminine hygiene products she and activists handed out the previous day.

Democratic lawmakers from south Phoenix are siding with their voters in a fight against two proposed programs aimed at helping prisoners re-enter society, a long held constituency of theirs that doesn’t vote.

Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan is appealing a judge's order that said he and another prison official could be held in civil contempt of court and the state could face fines for repeatedly falling short in improving health care for inmates.

A judge has warned that Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan and another prison official could be held in civil contempt of court and the state could face fines for repeatedly falling short in improving health care for inmates.

Profits from seized property are paying for the latest update to a study of Arizona’s prison population that prosecutors use to argue Arizona’s sentencing laws are working appropriately.