AZ Memo: Court date for Green Acre kennel owners; job cuts in Phoenix school district; Zika virus summit for Arizona
Good morning, Arizona.
Valley residents can again enjoy below-normal temps today. We'll have a high of 90 degrees and a low of 67, with breezy conditions throughout the day, forecasters say.
We had it even better on this date last year, with a high of just 85. The record for this date? 109, so it could be much worse.
Looking ahead, the average high for Wednesday and Thursday of this week is 88 degrees, but temperatures are expected to warm up thereafter.
Expect a high of 93 degrees and a low of 68 on Friday.
Saturday is supposed to be the hottest day of the week, with a high of 95. Sunday will bring similar heat, with a high of 94.
Here's what you need to know to start your day:
Today in history:
- In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, was dedicated.
- In 1935, the first major-league night game was held at Cincinnati's Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1.
- In 1976, Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde supersonic transport service to Washington.
- In 1991, the film "Thelma & Louise," starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, was released by MGM.
The owners of a Gilbert-area kennel where 21 dogs died of heat exhaustion are due in court.
Jesse Todd and MaLeisa Hughes, owners of Green Acre Dog Boarding, have a final status conference today in Maricopa County Superior Court before their June 6 trial.
The couple are each charged with 29 counts of animal cruelty and fraud in connection with the June 2014 incident at Green Acre. The couple had been out of town at the time of the incident, having left the son and then-daughter-in-law of U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake in charge of the animals.
Austin Flake, the senator's son, and Logan Flake, a child of the kennel's owners, were initially charged with animal abuse and neglect after more than 20 dead and dying dogs were discovered, but charges were dropped in 2015 after attorneys pointed out flaws in the investigation. The pair are suing Maricopa County and Sheriff Joe Arpaio in federal court, alleging abuse of process and malicious prosecution.
Almost three dozen school workers are out of a job after a south Phoenix district overspent its budget by $4.4 million over two years.
The positions eliminated in the Roosevelt Elementary School District include assistant principals, psychologists, social workers and coaches, azcentral.com's Rafael Carranza reports.
The cuts are necessary because budgets weren't updated to reflect actual spending, rather than projections. District officials said the person responsible was held accountable, but they did not elaborate.
Roosevelt Superintendent Jeanne Koba, who just completed her first year in the job, said she was notified of the error in January.
The district must refund the money to the state by taking money from next year's budget.
State health officials are hosting a Zika virus summit today to brainstorm ways to prevent the spread of the virus in Arizona.
The summit, hosted by the Arizona Department of Health Services, will convene health, medical and environmental officials.
There have been three confirmed Zika infections among Maricopa County residents who traveled to Latin America, but state officials said they expect far more cases during the summer as travelers return with Zika infections.
The key will be to find them and to make sure they get proper treatment. Perhaps most important, officials said, is to ensure Zika-infected individuals don't come into contact with the type of mosquito, Aedes aegypti, that carries Zika. Those mosquitoes circulate in Arizona and thrive during summer.
"We don't have Zika in our mosquito population," Dr. Cara Christ, director of ADHS, tells azcentral. "The goal is to keep it out of our mosquito population."
President Barack Obama's a big fan of Arizona State University.
In remarks Monday during his state visit to Vietnam, Obama spoke of American efforts to help Vietnamese universities.
"American academic and technology leaders — including Intel, Oracle, Arizona State University and others — will help Vietnamese universities boost training in science, technology, engineering and math," Obama said.
Obama was referencing an ASU program that trains professors from eight Vietnamese universities on new ways to teach engineering.
During the trip, the president also lifted a decades-long American arms embargo and dined with Anthony Bourdain in a restaurant in Hanoi. We can't wait to see that episode of "Parts Unknown"!
So the Diamondbacks are slow — really s-l-o-w-w-w.
No team in baseball plays games that take longer than the Diamondbacks — and the team's players and coaches aren't proud of it.
When informed of this statistic, pitching coach Mike Butcher cringed.
“For us to be near the bottom is not where we want to be,” Butcher said.
What makes the team so plodding? Beat writer Nick Piecoro breaks it down, and the explanations aren't all bad.
Talking points
- Powerball winner: Check your wallet or glovebox if you recently purchased a Powerball ticket from the Safeway at 90 S. Val Vista Drive in Gilbert -- you could be $1 million richer (less taxes).
- Sad Satanists: Scottsdale has decided not to allow the Satanic Temple to lead a prayer at a City Council meeting in July, officials announced.
- Cosby case resumes: There's a hearing today in the sexual-assault case against disgraced comedian Bill Cosby.
- Sports Authority fire sale: The sporting-goods chain is set to launch its going-out-of-business sales no later than Friday.
- Bot-holes: A wave of apparently automated bomb threats directed at schools has forced lockdowns and evacuations across the U.S. (Arizona appeared to have been spared.)