• Slug: BC-CNS-Medicaid Unwinding,850 words.
• 4 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Annika Tourlas
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – One year after restarting the pre-pandemic review process for enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System cut coverage for 611,144 recipients and approved 1,953,301 renewals, according to its eligibility dashboard. The agency is continuing to review coverage for 1,892 recipients as of April 5. The nationwide review process, referred to as “unwinding,” cut the Medicaid rolls in every state.

State agencies, like AHCCCS, go through a process every year known as “renewal and discontinuance.” During this process, recipients’ income levels are evaluated to determine if they still qualify for coverage through Medicaid or CHIP – the Children’s Health Insurance Program. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act instructed states to suspend disenrollment efforts and extend coverage through March 2023. Continue reading “Year of Medicaid ‘unwinding’ cuts 600,000, but renews nearly 2 million on state’s rolls”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Lethal Restraint Ketamine,1890 words.
• 2 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Caralin Nunes, Wyatt Myskow and Grace Copperthite
Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic Jeremy Cooper stood above the slight 23-year-old man as he lay face down in the grass, a policeman’s knee in his back, wrists handcuffed and pulled high behind him.

For roughly six minutes, Cooper observed the man crying, gagging and calling out for help while being pinned face down by two officers. The paramedic asked no questions and performed no physical exam before deciding that the young man was suffering from “excited delirium” — a controversial term used to describe people displaying extremely agitated behavior.

“So, when the ambulance gets here,” Cooper can be heard saying on body camera footage, “we’re gonna go ahead and give him some ketamine.” Continue reading “Ketamine: An alternative to police force or a silent killer?”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Lethal Restraint Superhuman,2100 words.
• 4 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Shahid Meighan, Nathan Collins, Elena Santa Cruz
Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Deputy Steven Mills of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office was on patrol one night in 2013 when he received a call about a Black man walking down a rural road in Phenix City, Alabama, naked in 50-degree weather.

Mills said the man ignored his calls to stop, but when the officer threatened to use his Taser, 24-year-old Khari Illidge turned and walked toward him, saying “tase me, tase me.” In a sworn statement, the deputy later said he had to tase Illidge twice because he’d been unable to physically restrain the “muscular” man with “superhuman strength.” Continue reading “Myth of ‘superhuman strength’ in Black people persists in deadly encounters with police”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Electors Indicted,940 words.
• 2 file photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Ian McKinney
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Eleven top Arizona Republicans were among 18 people indicted on felony fraud, forgery and conspiracy charges for their part in a plan to present themselves to Congress as the state’s presidential electors and throw the election to Donald Trump.

The 58-page indictment handed up Wednesday gives a detailed account of the plan by former state party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, current state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and others, to keep Trump – identified as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1” – in office “against the will of Arizona’s voters.” Continue reading “‘Fake electors’ indictment charges GOP leaders with felony fraud, forgery”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Valley Fever. 1,625 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).
• Can run with BC-CNS-Valley Fever Sidebar.

By Jack Orleans
Cronkite News

TUCSON – Daniel Sestiaga remembers being in the COVID-19 ward of a hospital in late 2020. He tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 in June, then later tested negative, but he was still struggling to breathe and testing positive again by the end of August.

After driving 60 miles to see his Indian Health Service primary care physician in Sells, Sestiaga said that his doctor took a chest X-ray showing pneumonia. His breathing became so difficult that he had to go to the emergency room before seeing a pulmonologist.

It wasn’t only COVID-19 causing his difficulty breathing. He was diagnosed with Valley fever after the X-ray revealed fluid around his lungs restricting their capacity. Sestiaga was told the fluid needed to be removed.

Continue reading “Valley fever, a fungal disease endemic to the Southwest, disproportionately affects minority populations”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Valley Fever Sidebar. 365 words.
• Photo available (thumbnail, caption below).
• To run with BC-CNS-Valley Fever.

By Jack Orleans
Cronkite News

SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, Calif. – Valley fever has been infecting people in the Southwest U.S., Central America and South America for decades.

“It’s not just (in Arizona). It’s also up and down the Western Hemisphere. There are pockets in Mexico, there are pockets in Central America,” said Dr. John Galgiani, director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona.

Continue reading “Sidebar: The rise of Valley fever”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Artists 4 Liberation. 1,335 words.
• 13 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Kayla Mae Jackson
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – American writer Amiri Baraka once said, “The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.”

Artists 4 Liberation is a Phoenix-based human-rights advocacy group that is using art to raise consciousness about the Palestinian people and fight for marginalized groups across the globe.

The organization holds community art events, fashion shows, movie screenings, rallies and marches throughout Phoenix in support of Palestinian liberation. At the events, local artists are invited to create posters with provided supplies, create political graphic T-shirts at screenprinting locations with designs by local artists, hang up political art flyers around the city and hear from local activists.

Continue reading “‘Power to evoke change’: Phoenix-based Artists 4 Liberation uses art to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Space Sector. 630 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Vanessa Pimentel
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – “Our opportunities are boundless, just like space,” Gov. Katie Hobbs told an audience at the second annual Arizona Space Summit in Tempe last month.

Arizona is the fifth-largest employer in aerospace and defense manufacturing, home to over 1,250 supply chain contributors, according to the Arizona Commerce Authority. Sandra Watson, the authority’s president and CEO, said Arizona has become the “global hot spot for emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing.”

Major industry players in Arizona have a significant impact on the economy. Together, these companies employ more than 52,000 people directly, according to the authority. Its website states the numbers reflect “Arizona’s long-standing history with leading names in the industry – companies whose continued success in everything from unmanned aircraft systems to missiles, space vehicles to commercial aircraft and research into alternative fuels – drives further future growth.”
Continue reading “‘Opportunities are boundless’: Arizona’s pushes space sector’s growth through education, collaboration, economy”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Abortion Repeal,790 words.
• File photo, video story available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Reagan Priest
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – The Arizona House voted Wednesday to repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortion, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to reverse the law despite emotional rhetoric from anti-abortion lawmakers.

The 32-28 vote came just two weeks after the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated the 1864 law that criminalizes abortion except to save the life of the mother, and it was the third try by Democrats to reverse that ruling.

The measure still needs Senate approval before it goes to the governor, who has said she would sign it. Continue reading “House votes to repeal near-total abortion ban; bill still needs Senate OK”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Abortion Calentdar,910 words.
• 2 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Martin Dreyfuss
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – As state lawmakers push to repeal a near-total ban on abortion, Planned Parenthood of Arizona confirmed Wednesday that it will continue to provide abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy “until the last legal moment.”

But when that last legal moment is depends on who’s talking.

Abortion opponents argue that the ban should have taken effect this week, while Attorney General Kris Mayes said it would not take effect until June at the earliest – and she would not enforce it then. It could take weeks yet for final Senate approval of a repeal, and even then it would be months before the law took effect. Continue reading “Abortion law status remains unclear, even as lawmakers near repeal of ban”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Veterans Suicide Prevention. 850 words.
• Photos available.

By Brooke Rindenau
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – Suicide prevention was a key focus of the Arizona Coalition for Military Families’ 14th Annual Statewide Symposium held in Phoenix on April 17 and 18. The symposium brought together military, government and community resources to focus on strengthening services and support for the half-million veterans who live in Arizona and their families.

In 2021, 6,392 veterans were among the 46,412 suicides among U.S. adults, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Between the years 2015 and 2019, veteran suicides accounted for 20.6% of the suicides in Arizona.

Continue reading “Annual symposium for Arizona military members and families highlights veteran suicide prevention”

• Slug: BC-CNS-Navajo Nation Psych. 1,840 words.
• 5 photos available (thumbnails, captions available).

Mia Milinovich
Cronkite News

GANADO – As a Navajo himself, Dr. Richard Laughter understands mental health issues experienced by members of the Navajo Nation on a deeply personal level. As a Native American psychiatrist, he breaks down accessibility barriers for his people by blending Native cultural practices with Western behavioral health care.

According to Laughter, the rural nature of the Navajo Reservation greatly impacts the number of accessible behavioral health services because of the distances people have to travel to get to them. The Navajo Nation website says tribal lands cover 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

Continue reading “Navajo psychiatrist bridges gaps between Native American culture and behavioral health care”