WASHINGTON – Arizona’s vehicle-safety laws continue to be among the worst in the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by a national highway safety advocacy group.

Arizona police agencies were among those singled out in a two-year Senate probe that reported “widespread deficiencies” in a Homeland Security Department program that officials touted for years as a centerpiece in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

The former Cochise County sheriff had been traveling at 62 mph along a dirt and gravel road in northern Arizona when he lost control of his vehicle and died.

Family members of an Arizona U.S. Border Patrol agent killed in connection with a botched gun-smuggling operation said they won't have closure until someone is held accountable for his death.

States that expand their Medicaid programs under President Barack Obama's health care law may end up saving thousands of lives, a medical journal report released Wednesday indicates.

WASHINGTON – Arizona got a grade of D for its legal protections for employees who need to take family or medical leave, in a recent national report ranking states on their health leave laws. But the state was in good company: The report by the National Partnership for Women and Families gave grades of D or F to 34 states for their leave policies for both public- and private-sector workers.

WASHINGTON – More than half of the 47 Arizona hospitals ranked in a recent survey of patient safety got a grade of C, the lowest grade offered in the first year of the national report. The survey by the Leapfrog Group measured 26 patient-safety factors, everything from the hospital’s computer system to how often catheters are removed and even the frequency of surgeons accidentally sewing up a patient with an object left inside.

Arizona is one of 13 states to turn “hostile” toward abortion rights during the last decade, according to a report Thursday from a national reproductive health organization. The Guttmacher Institute said Arizona and 12 other states enacted tougher abortion restrictions since 2000, doubling to 26 the number of states it deems “hostile.”

The Arizona Department of Corrections’ oversight of private prisons has improved since a deadly, July 2010 escape, but the Office of the Auditor General also found the state-run prisons have their own security problems.

Phoenix police say that many of the departmental reports originally submitted to the federal government for grant money to fight border related crimes like kidnappings and home invasions were poorly chosen.