Attorney General Mark Brnovich expanded his lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandates on Friday, asking the judge to place a temporary injunction on both mandates for federal employees and private companies as the case is deliberated.
Brnovich tweeted about the lawsuit expansion on Friday. He asserted that the mandate was unconstitutional, and declared that it was one of the “greatest infringements upon individual liberty, federalism, and the separation of powers” in American history. Brnovich also pointed out that the impact of vaccinations can’t be undone.
“Today, our office expanded our lawsuit to stop the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional COVID-19 vaccine mandate. We are asking for a temporary restraining order and nationwide injunction as soon as possible,” wrote Brnovich. “Once a vaccine has been administered, it can never be undone. Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate is one of the greatest infringements upon individual liberty, federalism, and the separation of powers our nation has ever experienced.”
Brnovich sued President Joe Biden last month over the mandates, which would require anyone working in a company with over 100 employees to either be vaccinated or get tested for COVID-19 weekly. The mandate for companies with over 100 employees was initially the protocol for federal employees, contractors, and subcontractors. With the mandate on private companies, however, Biden dropped the testing option for federal employees. Brnovich’s lawsuit covers that mandate, too.
The federal government’s deadline for vaccination of federal employees, contractors, and subcontractors is November 22. For an individual to be considered fully vaccinated, they must have had their final dose administered two weeks prior.
According to new guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, federal agencies may begin disciplining their employees by November 9. That’s because individuals who haven’t received their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the first dose of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine, on or before November 8 will technically be non-compliant.
Today, our office expanded our lawsuit to stop the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional COVID-19 vaccine mandate. We are asking for a temporary restraining order and nationwide injunction as soon as possible. https://t.co/2ZrKLZ4eKJ
The city of Phoenix set aside $2.8 million for its new Heat Response and Mitigation Office, an initiative to reduce temperatures in the metro area. The city set aside the exact same amount to address its homeless population and offer affordable housing in this year’s budget, as well as similar amounts for various community building enterprises and administrative accountability.
On Monday, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego appeared on PBS’s Arizona Horizonto discuss the city’s Heat Response and Mitigation Office, a newly-launched local government sector to tackle dangers posed by urban heat, a phenomenon in which urbanization causes higher temperatures. Gallego explained that a major complaint from her constituents concerned the extreme temperatures in cities within the valley.
“When you’re mayor in the summer people are like, ‘When are you going to do something about the heat?’ And all my colleagues [in] city council got that [question] as well, so now we’re finally doing something,” said Gallego.
Gallego also mentioned the urban heat mitigation efforts would assist the most vulnerable, likely alluding to the homeless populations. Phoenix has an estimated 7,500 homeless people. According to the latest U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report on homelessness published in January, however, Arizona has nearly 11,000 homeless people. HUD also reported that between 2019 and 2020, Arizona experienced one of the largest increases in the homeless population.
Leading Phoenix’s new Heat Response and Mitigation Office will be Arizona State University (ASU) Associate Professor David Hondula. Hondula teaches in the same School of Sustainability that was attended by Sarra Tekola, the PhD student who targeted and harassed two white male students over occupation of a multicultural center last month.
In the Arizona Horizon interview, Hondula explained that inner cities experience higher temperatures than the surrounding areas.
“The urban heat island is a process that leads to temperatures in the center of cities being higher than in the surrounding areas because of the way we build our cities and the types of activities that are concentrated in them, like driving lots of vehicles and operating lots of air conditioners,” explained Hondula.
Gallego explained that several pilot programs preceded the Heat Response and Mitigation Office, such as an initiative to introduce lighter-colored pavements.
According to the mayor, initiatives will include the addition of vegetation into the city, modifying building codes to allow for more sustainable and heat-resistant materials, and even redesigning the city to make it more heat-resistant.
Hondula expressed hope that they could create a cooler metro area, even with climate change.
Arizona summers reach regular highs between 110 to 120 degrees. The hottest day in recent history occurred on June 26, 1990, when temperatures reached 122 degrees.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Excitement is growing in northern Cochise County after the announcement that multiple jobs will be created in early 2022 when Excelsior Mining Corp. reactivates the historic Johnson Camp Copper Mine which was first opened in the 1880s about 65 miles east of Tucson.
Johnson Camp Mine has not produced copper ore in nearly a decade but reopening the mine will allow Excelsior to take advantage of copper’s strong price. In turn, the company will use those revenues to pay for a neutralization plant for its newly opened Gunnison Copper Project, which has produced far less copper cathode than it forecasted.
Excelsior’s Gunnison Copper Project situated one mile from Johnson Camp Mine along Interstate 10 opened last year with limited operations. It is expected to produce 125 million pounds per annum of 99.99 percent copper cathode when fully operational, but this year’s goal was only 25 million pounds.
On Oct. 20, Senior VP Robert Winton said the company has produced less than 1 million pounds to date. The problem, according to Winton and CEO Stephen Twyerould, is that carbon dioxide (CO2) has shown up in Gunnison’s in-situ recovery wellfield.
The villain, they say, is calcite, a naturally-present mineral which creates CO2 when it reacts with the leaching solution injected into the wellfield.
Winton says a fix to the CO2 issue has been identified, but it will take months to update the current wells. In the meantime, company officials have decided to make improvements at the Johnson Camp Mine in order to generate higher revenues next year.
The comments by Twyerould and Winton were made during a webinar hosted by Amvest Capital, a New York-based specialist investment management and corporate finance firm focused solely on the natural resource sector.
Johnson Camp Mine and its existing SX-EW plant can provide up to five years of production from its Copper Chief Pit and the Burro Pit, which Winton says have “a lot of near surface copper.” After construction of a new leach pad and issuance of amended state permits, Johnson Camp is expected to commence production in the second half of 2022.
That means Excelsior’s current staff of about 60 (employees and consultants) will need to be bolstered, bringing much needed fulltime jobs to the Benson and Willcox areas.
According to Winton, the presence of calcite was known from geological studies, but the extent of its impact was not understood until production began at Gunnison last year.
“Calcite was certainly understood in the prework, metallurgical costs, and certainly the feasibility study which is fundamentally an acid consumption discussion,” he said. “However, the negative impacts of CO2 and how they really impacted our flow rate was certainly not envisioned and certainly became the fundamental focus of our ramp up challenges.”
The good part, Winton said, is that the calcite reaction can be managed, which is why construction of a neutralization plant funded by Johnson Camp Mine revenues is Excelsior’s immediate focus.
In 2014, the Johnson Camp property was the main asset of Nord Resources, which was forced into court-ordered receivership by creditors after years of underperformance. Then in late 2015, Excelsior Mining obtained the blessing of a Pima County judge to buy out Nord Resources’ assets.
The company then purchased thousands of surrounding acres, including the site where Gunnison Copper Project’s North Star copper deposit is located. But Excelsior officials are not putting all of their eggs in the copper basket.
Last month Twyerould released a preliminary economic assessment of another company asset, the Strong and Harris copper-zinc-silver deposit located on the northside of I-10 a few miles from Johnson Camp.
Twyerould said that if mining is undertaken at the Strong and Harris deposit it would be by traditional open pit, followed by high-grade underground mining of the remaining sulfides at the bottom of the pit. However, he cautioned that it is still too early to know if mining will be feasible.
“Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability,” he said.
Excelsior also has landholdings in the historic Turquoise Mining District, also referred to as the Courtland-Gleeson District, located approximately 30 miles southeast of the Johnson Camp Mine.
Excelsior Mining is using a six-step in-situ recovery process to produce 99.99 percent pure copper cathode sheets. The process starts with a leaching solution pumped through injection wells which have been sunk over the ore body. This is known as the wellfield.
The leaching solution then moves through naturally fractured rock and dissolves the copper. Multiple recovery wells surrounding each injection well then extract the copper-rich solution, also known as pregnant solution.
The fourth step is for the solution to be pumped to the surface for further processing during which copper is extracted from the solution and turned into copper cathode sheets. Finally, the mining solution is recycled back to the well field to be reused.
Throughout the leaching process, Excelsior Mining utilizes differential pumping and natural impermeable barriers to keep the fluids from migrating beyond the wellfield.
The mother and father of a middle school student, Amy and Shawn Souza, filed a statement of allegations against Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) with the Arizona State Board of Education for attempting to hide reportedly politicized curriculum from them and ignoring their opt-out requests. According to emails shared with AZ Free News, PUSD Director of Social Studies Curriculum and Instructional Specialist Jennifer Mundy suggested that the teacher and school in question, 7th grade social studies teacher Holli Trentowski at Sunset Heights Elementary, disguise or manipulate the curriculum on its face so that inquisitive parents like them wouldn’t look too closely. Mundy deferred to Marla Woolsey, the district’s Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction, for final say on the matter.
“[Trentowski’s] titles could be toned down a bit. For example, instead of saying ‘Science behind mob mentality,’ she could say ‘The science behind the KKK’s behavior’ or just put Tuesday’s title on Wednesday as well. I’m assuming that she’s teaching about the Ku Klux Klan on Tuesday and following that up with how it’s possible that people could commit the atrocities they did toward African Americans in the South during Reconstruction (and for a century and a few decades afterwards). If kids are thinking, they’ll [sic] on there [sic] own to take it to what happened this past summer as well as what happened at the Capitol a few weeks ago. Analyzing connections and explaining the multiple causes and effects of events past and present are both standards in social studies. The problem does not lie in what Holli is teaching (assuming I’m correct about the path she’s taking this week).”
According to the Souzas’ complaint, PUSD officials attempted to pull a workaround as soon as the Souzas first began to communicate concerns with them about their daughter’s 7th-grade social studies curriculum. Sunset Heights Elementary Principal Rae Conelley even complained about having to meet with the Souzas to discuss their concerns frequently: she stated that she was “going to lose [her] mind.” Conelley also speculated to Mundy and Woolsey that Trentowski was “baiting” the Souzas with her curriculum. “I am going to lose my mind,” wrote Conelley. “If I am off track in my guidance to [Trentowski] please let me know. I almost feel like she’s baiting them now but I’m the one who’s spending time I don’t have meeting with them.”
The Souzas asserted that Trentowski’s curriculum was “developmentally inappropriate and inherently political.” For a section on work conditions in the early 20th century, one of the assigned resources was a graphic, hour-long documentary by PBS on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The 1911 tragedy claimed nearly 150 lives, most of whom were young women and girls.
Despite Trentowski promising to give the Souzas’ daughter an alternative text and place to work, she reportedly gave her the disputed assignment and had her complete it.
The entire ordeal caused the Souzas to remove their children from PUSD. Last week, the Souzas appeared before the PUSD governing board to warn parents and confront the board members about their experience. “We hear all the time at these meetings and from district employees that if you don’t like [the curriculum] opt them out,” said Amy. “We have lost all faith in [the] Peoria Unified School District having the best interest of our kids at heart.”
Must Watch.
Tonight, the Souza family stepped forward to share how @peoriaunified11 violated their parental rights by forcing their daughter to complete an assignment they had opted her out of. pic.twitter.com/Ebpt6edmrG
Free to Learn – a nonprofit organization that advocates for parental rights in education and the removal of political agendas from schools – assisted the Souzas in filing their complaint. In a statement, President Alleigh Marré said that the Souzas’ action should empower other parents.
“By shining a light on this incident with their complaint, Amy and Shawn are setting an example for other parents in Arizona and around the country as they pursue a quality education for their children free of activism,” said Marré. “If parents work within the parameters of the school and follow all the rules, they should see results. Instead, what we saw in Peoria was deceit and an intentional push to keep parents in the dark. At Free to Learn, we want to empower these parents and give them a platform to advocate for their children when all else fails.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office nominated a Phoenix elementary school teacher, Amanda Delphy, for the national John Lewis Youth Leadership Award, due to her classroom activism. Delphy started a “diversity club” at her school and openly teaches her second grade students social-emotional learning (SEL), activism, and “authentic history” primarily focused on black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). SEL is a framework for interpreting and processing subjects – especially complex ones like history or sexuality – through tools like literature, writing, and art to develop certain social and emotional skills. Oftentimes, SEL serves as a vehicle for propagating tenets of controversial concepts like Critical Race Theory (CRT) and social justice. Ultimately, Delphy didn’t win the award – conservative activist C.J. Pearson did last week.
“Amanda Delphy is a second-grade teacher in the West Valley, where she has focused on empowerment through social-emotional practices, conversations about activism, and authentic history lessons that represent BIPOC individuals as powerful,” read the secretary of state’s nomination.
Delphy regularly posts TikTok videos on how she educates her students to understand certain progressive concepts. Most recently, Delphy described how she teaches her second graders about SEL and equity, how Halloween isn’t “culturally responsive” and that the slang term “savage” – used by kids to describe something or someone considered cool for being bold and unbothered by any consequences – is actually offensive to indigenous people. She’s gained over 14,600 followers for her content.
Delphy teaches second grade at Holiday Park School in the Cartwright School District (CSD). The elementary school’s diversity club launched this semester under Delphy’s suggestion; she announced she will lead the club, and has referred to it jokingly as “indoctrination.” Both the school and the district emphasize that SEL is of equal importance to academics.
Delphy claimed in a September video that equity and SEL education in the classroom were necessary to build “future leaders.” Just the day before posting that video, Delphy posted another video lamenting that her students were “very far below grade level.” She explained that her school received a new math curriculum that she liked, but her team was having trouble implementing it due to the students’ capabilities. As a result, Delphy described how she became “extremely escalated,” “frustrated,” and “overstimulated” from trying to teach math to her students. She said that ended the lesson by sharing those feelings with them.
“I just can’t stress enough to always be vulnerable with your kids when you feel like it’s the right time to do so. I didn’t have to tell my kids how I was feeling. I really didn’t,” said Delphy. “But I wanted to because I wanted them to understand that feelings happen and sometimes negative feelings happen too, and even to people like me, who’s a teacher, right?”
SEL and equity are related to Delphy’s teaching moments on how both Halloween and a favorite slang term for kids, “savage,” are problematic.
In a video posted Tuesday, Delphy explained that she told her students she didn’t decorate for Halloween because she didn’t want those who didn’t celebrate Halloween to “feel unsafe or not welcomed.” She also explained that celebrating Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) could result in “cultural appropriation” that would be disrespectful to Hispanics, but said she couldn’t explain what is or isn’t culturally responsive because she “doesn’t identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano.” This video was a follow-up to a similar one at the end of last month, posted as a “reminder” after she’d seen people decorating for Halloween.
In another video posted earlier this month, Delphy complained that one of her second-grade students called cartoon puppies in a video “savage,” inspiring the entire class to do so as well. She explained how she told her students that they were in a “safe space” and therefore they needed to have “honest conversations” about why they couldn’t say the word “savage” in their “safe space.”
“For those of you who don’t know, I’m half Native American and I actually hate that word. [T]here was a huge mass-murdering of Native and indigenous people, hence the population and culture dying the way that it has, and one of the words that were used to label Natives and indigenous people was ‘savages.’ I understand it’s a cool term now, whatever, but no not over here. Don’t bring that negativity over here,” said Delphy. “I let them know where the word ‘savages’ came from and why it hurts me as a Native person. And I told them that my goal is to create a safe space for everyone, and I just wanted to be honest with them and ask them if they could just not use that word in our safe space.”
Delphy added that this wasn’t her pushing an agenda pertaining to social justice or modern liberalism.
“This didn’t push a ‘social justice, liberal agenda,’ as many of you people call it. This was just me being honest about something that was traumatic to my ancestors and people before me and my people now, and my people in the future,” said Delphy. “Don’t be afraid to have those conversations with your students. My kids are eight years old, and they can understand it!”
Delphy also sells educational resources through “Teachers Pay Teachers,” a collective of supplementary curriculum created and sold by teachers to other educators. One of Delphy’s resources summarizes the origins of Thanksgiving, which she claimed was established as a celebration to thank Native Americans for their kindness to the early settlers. In reality, Thanksgiving had to do with a longstanding tradition expressing gratitude to God – Native Americans just happened to be there for one hosted by the early Plymouth colonists.
“What is Thanksgiving?” read the resource. “It is a Holiday that is the fourth Thursday of every November. It has also been told that the Pilgrims came across a tribe of Native people who taught the pilgrims how to hunt and gather so that they could survive. The story continues that Thanksgiving is meant to represent the large celebration that the Pilgrims held for the Natives to say ‘thank you’.”
In history predating the colonial settlements and long after, thanksgivings were regular celebrations thanking God for His blessings such as a good harvest, health, or military victories; in 1798, the Continental Congress proclaimed a national thanksgiving for the Constitution’s enactment. Thanksgiving Day as known to modern America was first called for by the “Mother of Thanksgiving:” a famed women’s rights activist and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” poet, Sarah Josepha Hale, to unite the nation and ease tensions between the North and South – she had the idea from the annual thanksgivings that her family celebrated. President Abraham Lincoln heeded Hale’s call in 1863 as the Civil War raged on – his proclamation called for a “Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer” to occur the last Thursday of November, with no mention of the Native Americans.
Delphy’s presentation characterized the settlers as callous, selfish people who took advantage of Native Americans.The resource also taught that wearing any traditional Native American items, like headdresses, was disrespectful. Delphy has displayed her prioritization of Native Americans over other races to her students. Last week, she wore a shirt that read “The Future Is Indigenous.”
Other resources sold by Delphy teach about Women’s History Month, Black History Month, Indigenous People’s Day, and Native American Heritage Month.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
