The Daily Agenda: It's game time

Tomorrow is the big day! ... Silly String doesn't scare our dogs ... And we found the perfect tunes for your backyard BBQ.

After many months of finger-straining labor, we’re finally prepared to launch the Tucson Agenda tomorrow. 

We’re stoked to see what Caitlin and Curt have put together for their inaugural edition, and we’re excited to watch them create a whole new Agenda! 

The Tucson Agenda will be modeled after what has worked for the Arizona Agenda: consistent roundups of what’s happening on the political scene, insights and scoops that you can’t find elsewhere, and regular breakout investigative stories, explainers, features and the occasional fun gimmick. 

But Caitlin and Curt are going to make the Tucson Agenda their own — they’re working on new formats, beats and ideas to bring a fresh approach to hyperlocal journalism. 

So ahead of their big launch, we sat down to chat about the last few months: their hopes, dreams, fears and vision, and why they decided to take a big chance and go into business for themselves. 

You can listen to the podcast we recorded for you loyal readers over at the Tucson Agenda. 

We also want to ensure you loyal Arizona Agenda subscribers don’t have to pay full fare for your new Tucson Agenda add-on. Unfortunately, Substack doesn’t have a mechanism for a bundle discount for those of you who want to support both publications with a paid subscription.

So we created a workaround: Any paid subscribers to the Arizona Agenda can click this link to get a steep discount on an additional subscription to the Tucson Agenda. 

If you’re not a paid subscriber to the Arizona Agenda, you can subscribe now to get a bundle discount on both. Just click the button below and then check your inbox for details. 

We’re so thankful for all the support and encouragement you readers have offered as we grow and expand the Agenda universe. 

And this is just the beginning of our master plan to reinvent old-school local journalism with a new kind of statewide newsroom that is employee-owned and answers to you, our readers, instead of some faceless out-of-state corporate overlords.

One final note: The Arizona Agenda will not publish on Wednesday, July 5, so we can take the Fourth off and celebrate a little. We’re hoping it’s a slow news day anyway, but if any politicians do something stupid like get drunk and blow some fingers off with fireworks, don’t worry: We will cancel our holiday to tell you all about it. 

And the Tucson Agenda has got a lot of fun stories lined up for this week, so go subscribe to get your Agenda fix! 

Have a safe and fun holiday! See you soon!

Don’t do fireworks: Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and it’s gonna be hot as hell out there. So hot that Phoenix Zoo animals are getting iced treats and air conditioning. Axios Phoenix has a list of firework shows across the valley. But Bisbee has the coolest holiday event in the state: The Bisbee Coaster Race is 109 years old, making it “one of the world’s oldest gravity races,” per the Republic’s Helen Rummel. The race is back on track this year after being canceled the last few years due to the pandemic. It’s essentially a motorless go-kart race that is only open to kids now after an adult driver killed two spectators in 1980, Rummel reports. Meanwhile, forest officials wish you wouldn’t light off fireworks and suggest you fire off some Silly String instead, the Associated Press reports, but just do it at home, not in the forests. 

“We’re certainly not advocating folks go out into the forest and, you know, shoot off Silly String,” George Ducker, a spokesman for the State Forestry Division, told the AP.

These are not the drugs you’re looking for: The Arizona Department of Child Safety is taking babies from new mothers who are prescribed Suboxone, an anti-addiction medicine that doctors say is perfectly safe to take while pregnant, the New York Times reports. And it’s not just an Arizona phenomenon — the Times found thousands of cases of state departments taking children from women with legal prescriptions nationwide. 

“In Arizona, which keeps better data than most states, 16 babies exposed only to methadone were removed from their parents in 2021 and 2022,” the Times reports.

Managing the management: Attorney General Kris Mayes visited Cochise County in a show of support for the groundwater “active management area” that residents approved last year, which will establish new rules on large-scale groundwater users, the Herald-Review’s Shar Porier reports. Environmental reporter Tony Davis explains why those new assured water supply rules that Hobbs announced would limit some development in the Phoenix area are already potentially getting watered down. 

Summer and schools: Gov. Katie Hobbs issued a few more executive orders Friday, bringing her grand total to 15 so far. One orders the Department of Administration to inspect school facilities at least once every five years, and the other forms a committee to suggest revisions to the state’s 20-year-old minimum standards for school facilities. 

We’re way ahead of you: The U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions, but it won’t mean much in Arizona, which had already outlawed the practice of considering a person’s race as part of the public university admissions process with a question on the 2010 ballot, the AP reports. Meanwhile, Elvia Díaz, the Republic’s editorial page boss, and Phil Boas, the former editorial page boss, disagree on whether affirmative action is good. She was a beneficiary of the policy and thinks affirmative action should stay, and he has mixed-race grandkids and thinks it should go.

There’s an app for that: Tucson launched an app last year to allow people to report homeless encampments and to send outreach specialists, rather than law enforcement, to check it out, the Daily Star’s Nicole Ludden reports. The new tool has improved engagement with the unhoused, freed up police resources to focus on crime and helped the unhoused find access to programs and services. 

Own a piece of history: The state is auctioning off more of former Gov. Doug Ducey’s border shipping containers. After cities and nonprofits get first crack, the public can also buy them, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. They range from about $500 to $2,000, and they are not in great condition.

We recommend us: Hank joined AZFamily’s “Politics Unplugged” with Dennis Welch this weekend to talk about politics and stuff alongside Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm. And speaking of Axios Phoenix, you should subscribe if you don’t already because Jeremy Duda was kind enough to give us some ink today about the Tucson Agenda launch!

We had no idea that Pinal County was home to some world-class fiddler children. But Pinal Central’s Melissa St. Aude informs us that The Arizona Wildflowers, a quartet of children with some serious string skills, crushed it at the National Fiddle Championship this week. If you need some twangy bluegrass tunes for your July 4 barbeque, check out their YouTube page.