by Daniel Stefanski | Aug 14, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
A Mesa, Arizona native is being highlighted by the U.S. Navy for his service.
The Navy Office of Community Outreach recently published a story, featuring Mesa’s Rylan Sweigart, a Petty Officer 3rd Class. Sweigart graduated from Desert Ridge High School in 2020 and has spent three years (so far) in the Navy. He is an electronic’s technician on the USS Charlotte – a submarine. Sweigart’s job aboard the submarine makes him part of an exclusive class of Navy personnel – only ten percent of Navy personnel are submariners.
This nuclear-powered attack submarine is the fourth “Charlotte” to be christened with that name in American history. It was commissioned in September 1994 and is based out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Sweigart’s father also served in the Navy, and he credits his parents for instilling values and characteristics vital for his future success. He said, “I learned in school how to study well and my parents taught me professionalism. My dad was previously in the Navy and he taught me a lot as well.”
The Petty Officer 3rd Class enlisted with his brother – an action he points to as key to his start: “I would like to thank my parents and my brother for helping me in my Navy career. I joined with my brother and it made the process of joining easier.”
Sweigart will undoubtedly gain more experience as he serves in the Navy, but he has already accomplished feats that make him proud of what he has come through to reach this point in his career. He told the Navy Office of Community Outreach, “My proudest accomplishment would be receiving my submarine qualifications, also known as ‘dolphins.’ It provided that I know the systems on the boat and I can be trusted in tough situations.”
The Mesa native is laser focused on his mission and his service to his nation, saying, “The Navy contributes to national security because our presence at sea deters our adversaries and provides access to free trade and safety on our shores.”
According to the Navy Office of Community Outreach, “strategic deterrence is the nation’s ultimate insurance program; and as a member of the submarine force, Sweigart is part of a rich history of the U.S. Navy’s most versatile weapons platform, capable of taking the fight to the enemy in defense of America and its allies.”
Admiral Mike Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, also weighed in for the story, adding, “Our mission remains timeless – to provide our fellow citizens with nothing less than the very best Navy: fully combat ready at all times, focused on warfighting excellence, and committed to superior leadership at every single level. This is our calling. And I cannot imagine a calling more worthy.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 13, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Come February 2024, travelers can book a direct flight from Phoenix to the one of the world’s deadliest cities: Tijuana, Mexico.
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport announced late last month that American Airlines will begin offering the direct flights to Tijuana.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego hailed the move as an economic boost.
“This new connection will ultimately strengthen our tourism industry, support business, and create more job opportunities for Phoenicians,” said Gallego.
The Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, a Mexican organization, reported that Tijuana had the fifth-highest murder rate of 105 for every 100,000 residents in 2022 (there were nearly 2,200 homicides in one year per two million residents). Nine of the ten deadliest cities worldwide were located in Mexico.
In May, the Baja California’s State Attorney General’s Office reported over 600 murders from this January to April.
The one city to make the top-ten ranking that wasn’t located in Mexico was New Orleans, Louisiana at eighth. Baltimore, Maryland ranked 17th; Detroit, Michigan ranked 23rd; Memphis, Tennessee ranked 25th; Cleveland, Ohio ranked 27th; Milwaukee, Wisconsin ranked 39th; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ranked 46th.
Located in Tijuana is the New Generation Tijuana Cartel, or Tijuana Cartel, formerly the Arellano-Félix Organization (AFO), allied with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel: one of the two leading cartels responsible for the deadly drug epidemic in the U.S. The other is their rival, the Sinaloa Cartel.
Drug smuggling has become an issue on passenger flights; reports identified American Airlines flights among those used to traffic drugs. In May, the American Airlines mechanic was convicted for drug smuggling.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stated in a report last year that cartels have internal conspirators within airlines that assist in smuggling the drugs. Ramon Santaliz, a CBP Aircraft Search Team officer, said he’s seen traffickers posing as all sorts of figures. They store the drugs anywhere imaginable: checked luggage, life vests, bathroom waste tanks, galley carts, garbage cans, toilet paper rolls, aircraft computer cabinets, pilot seats, wing spars, even first class armrests.
“It could be the caterers, cleaners, mechanics, baggage handlers, flight crew, or even the security guards. Money moves a lot of people,” said Santaliz. “The aircraft is its own contained world. [Drugs] could be anywhere on the aircraft — from the tip of the nose all the way to the tail because there are hidden spaces everywhere.”
CBP conducts its drug seizure tactics using a mix of trends and chance. Officers review flight schedules and will “randomly” select flights to search. Airlines pay fines of $1,000 an ounce for any drugs discovered during CBP searches.
Last August, the U.S. Consulate issued a “shelter in place” advisory for Americans residing in Tijuana after dozens of people were killed amid a fight between the Jalisco and Sinaloa Cartels. The advisory succeeded former Gov. Doug Ducey’s executive order to finish the border wall by several hours. The violence prompted the descent of military reinforcements to the area.
In recent months, local cartels have engaged in violent public conflict over control of strip clubs, brothels, and bars within Tijuana’s Zona Norte. One confrontation earlier this month resulted in a deadly shootout, with two dead.
In addition to Tijuana, American Airlines will also offer daily flights to Guadalajara, Mexico.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 12, 2023 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Applicants to Arizona State University’s (ASU) law school may have to take their admissions test on their own, but they won’t have to do their own applications.
ASU Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will now allow applicants to use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to complete their applications. In a press release at the end of last month, the law school stated that generative AI will be a necessary tool for upcoming lawyers.
“In our mission to educate and prepare the next generation of lawyers and leaders, law schools also need to embrace the use of technology such as AI with a comprehensive approach,” stated the school.
Stacy Leeds, Willard H. Pedrick Dean and Regents Professor of Law, added that generative AI also allowed for more equitable admissions.
“Our law school is driven by an innovative mindset. By embracing emerging technologies, and teaching students the ethical responsibilities associated with technology, we will enhance legal education and break down barriers that may exist for prospective students,” said Leeds. “By incorporating generative AI into our curriculum, we prepare students for their future careers across all disciplines.”
Generative AI consists of large language model (LLM) tools: one of the most popular models is ChatGPT.
Last month, two New York lawyers were sanctioned for relying on a ChatGPT-generated brief that cited fake cases. The judge punished the pair for not conducting a proper review of the AI brief and for insisting that the fake cases cited were real, not for relying on generative AI in the first place.
The pair paid $5,000 for their oversight. The lawyers stated that they didn’t know that ChatGPT could create fake cases. However, the lawyers’ firm issued a statement disagreeing that the use of generative AI constituted bad faith.
“We made a good faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth,” stated the firm.
The New York lawyers may well become a case study at ASU. ASU’s law school also offers courses through its Center for Law, Science, and Innovation (LSI) on the legal questions of AI use, especially within the legal field.
One of LSI’s AI-centered projects, the Soft Law Governance of Artificial Intelligence, proposes using “soft law” governance for AI rather than existing legal frameworks. Soft law is a blanket term for recommendations or guidelines, rather than law. The project is funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.
ASU’s law school began allowing AI-generated applications this month.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 12, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
An audit released last month found that the Arizona Department of Child Services (DCS) has failed to follow state law on information sharing and case review attendance for foster children.
The report was the first in a three-part series on DCS, determining whether DCS followed law to provide the information necessary for local foster care review boards to complete foster children’s cases. The auditor general, Lindsey Perry, found that DCS caseworkers failed to provide all the necessary documents for children’s cases, and failed to attend case review meetings.
There are 109 local boards that determine foster cases; these boards rely on the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to relay information from DCS. The auditor general found that DCS consistently failed to provide case documents to the AOC through their automated application, Guardian. The auditor general found that the poor DCS performance not only hindered children’s cases, but diminished trust from the AOC and the local boards.
“[T]he automated information exchange not providing some information to AOC on behalf of local boards has negatively impacted AOC’s and local boards’ trust and confidence in the Department and the Department’s reputation,” stated Perry. “As a result, AOC staff reported that they and local boards may assume that the Department has withheld information that should have been provided, which has negatively impacted AOC’s and local boards’ trust in and working relationship with the Department.”
Local boards require three necessary documents: the court report, which DCS develops for hearings; the case plan, in which DCS outlines the goals and tasks necessary to ensure a child achieves permanency; and the Team Decision Making (TDM) meeting summary, in which DCS summarizes decisions made during meetings about a child’s safety, stability, and permanency.
The auditor general report found that all 13 samples of 124 case reviews conducted by local boards on June 28, 2022, and July 6, 2022 failed to include a complete version of those three necessary documents. That came out to 31 of 39 case documents provided incompletely or not provided at all.
According to the report, AOC staff and local board volunteers experienced difficulty in conducting reviews due to the lack of information about children’s cases.
Part of the information exchange failure resulted from AOC staff failing to submit valid document requests. That mistake resulted in 15 of the 31 missing case documents. The auditor general also found that DCS caseworkers failed to store complete case documents in Guardian in 10 of the 31 faulty or missing case documents. This latter mistake by DCS accounted for some of the AOC staff members’ faulty document requests: AOC failed to obtain the necessary documents because DCS failed to upload into the system.
The auditor general noted that DCS policy doesn’t advise superiors on proper punitive measures.
4 of the 31 missing case documents were due to DCS determining they weren’t necessary and therefore weren’t stored in Guardian — a circumstance which DCS doesn’t communicate to AOC. The remaining 2 missing or inaccessible documents were due to a software issue and a limitation on legal document access, respectively.
The state legislature passed changes to the law through HB2213 requiring DCS to provide AOC direct, remote access to Guardian in addition to any DCS information necessary for local board duties.
DCS attempted to dismiss the significance of their shortcomings in information exchange via Guardian, advising the auditor general that AOC staff may request case documents via other means, such as when emailing reminders to caseworkers about local board reviews, or accessing the Maricopa County Superior Court IT system. However, the auditor general dismissed these alternatives as time-consuming.
“[O]btaining case documents from these alternative sources may require both AOC and Department staff to spend additional and potentially unnecessary time that could be otherwise spent on other mission critical activities,” stated Perry.
Perry advised that DCS should provide all necessary case documents, hold monthly supervision meetings with caseworks to ensure document compliance, revise and implement policies and procedures to require caseworkers to store court reports in Guardian by verification of supervisors, implement guidance for supervisors to handle non-compliant caseworkers, and solicit continued feedback from AOC on their information exchange. DCS agreed to implement the proposed changes.
The auditor general also found that 18 percent of caseworkers on a sample of days failed to follow policy requiring either attendance or having their supervisor attend local board case reviews, and notify AOC if attendance isn’t possible. In two of the 124 case reviews observed in which the caseworker failed to show or provide a case update, the auditor general noted that the local board was unable to determine the status of a child who’d been hospitalized for abuse and a child plagued by mental health and self-harm issues.
The auditor general recommended that DCS ensure caseworkers comply with policy requirements on case review attendance, revise and implement policy to provide case updates, and work with AOC to determine information for updates when caseworkers can’t attend.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Aug 11, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
On Tuesday, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) announced that it “joined a multi-state settlement with Robinhood Financial LLC, which will pay up to $10.2 million in penalties for operational failures that harmed main street investors.”
According to the ACC, “the investigation was sparked by Robinhood platform outages in March 2020, a time when hundreds of thousands of investors were relying on the Robinhood app to make trades. In addition, prior to March 2021, there were deficiencies at Robinhood in its review and approval process for options and margin accounts, weaknesses in the firm’s monitoring and reporting tools, and insufficient customer service and escalation protocols that in some cases left Robinhood users unable to process trades even as the value of certain stocks was dropping.”
The investigation was led by “state securities regulators in Alabama, Colorado, California, Delaware, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Texas coordinated through the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) regarding Robinhood’s operational failures with respect to the retail market.”
NASAA President Andrew Hartnett issued the following statement in conjunction with the announcement: “Today’s multistate agreement represents states at their best – working together for the benefit of Main Street investors. Robinhood repeatedly failed to serve its clients, but this settlement makes clear that Robinhood must take its customer care obligations seriously and correct these deficiencies.”
ACC Chairman Jim O’Connor also added, “This agreement is part of an ongoing effort by state securities regulators to protect investors and to make sure they are treated fairly by their financial services companies.”
The ACC’s news release made clear that “the Commission found no evidence of willful or fraudulent conduct by Robinhood, and that Robinhood fully cooperated with the investigation.” Also, “Robinhood neither admitted nor denied the findings as set out in the states’ orders.”
One of the findings of fact in the order before the ACC was that “Robinhood acquired approximately 89,136 new Arizona customers from October 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020, for a total customer count of approximately 290,356 as of March 31, 2020. From October 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020, Robinhood approved approximately 13,713 Arizona customers for option trading and approximately 1,934 Arizona customers for margin trading.”
The ACC’s release highlighted these violations as included in the order:
- Negligent dissemination of inaccurate information to customers, including regarding margin and risk associated with multi-leg option spreads.
- Failure to have a reasonably designed customer identification program.
- Failure to supervise technology critical to providing customers with core broker-dealer services.
- Failure to have a reasonably designed system for dealing with customer inquiries.
- Failure to exercise due diligence before approving certain option accounts.
- Failure to report all customer complaints to FINRA and state securities regulators, as may be required.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 11, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Tucson has received nearly $71.5 million to cover progressive housing and emissions initiatives.
Around $50 million will go into housing, and $21.5 million will go into emissions reduction and elimination.
The city received $50 million out of a total $370 million awarded to eight communities by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Choice Neighborhoods Implementation (CNI) initiative.
Tucson received the higher reward of $50 million alongside Birmingham, Alabama; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Wilmington, Delaware. The remaining three recipients — Atlanta, Georgia; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Miami-Dade County, Florida — received $40 million.
Tucson’s $50 million will only partially cover the 550 new or rehabilitated housing units planned by the city— the city disclosed that it required $334 million more from public, private, and nonprofit benefactors to complete its plan.
408 of the 550 units concern the city’s 17-story public housing facility, Tucson House. The remainder will be established across three new developments.
The 550 units are part of the Transformation Plan of the Thrive in the ‘05 initiative: a 2.3 square mile area marked by Oracle Road and Miracle Mile. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and the Tucson City Council adopted the plan last year.
HUD CNI is a progression of former President Barack Obama’s original Choice Neighborhoods program. The Obama administration sought to disrupt the consolidation of crime and poverty prevalent in purely public and HUD-assisted housing by engineering mixed-income neighborhoods: a mixture of either market-rate and welfare-discounted housing, or entirely welfare-discounted housing. The program also focuses on establishing other amenities, such as schools and businesses, to improve those areas.
In addition to the CNI, Tucson’s initiative includes the Community Based Crime Reduction (CBCR), an effort to increase reliance on community-based policing led by Nadia Roubicek with the Arizona State University (ASU) Office of Community Health Engagement and Resiliency (OCHER). CBCR was established through the Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Innovation Suite (also called the Smart Suite).
There’s also the Workforce & Economic Development, a partnership with the City of Tucson Economic Initiatives and Pima Community College, which provides employment and business resources and opportunities.
The fourth focus of Thrive in ‘05 — Tucson Community Access, Referral, Education, and Service (CARES) — offers residents medical and behavioral health care liaisons.
In addition to the $50 million for government housing, the city also received nearly $21.5 million from the Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration to decarbonize its Sun Tran transit system. The funding will cover the replacement of the city’s remaining diesel bus fleet with 39 compressed natural gas buses. Their cut comes from a total of nearly $1.7 billion in funding for similar transit emissions reduction or elimination initiatives spanning 46 states.
In addition to the $21.5 million, Tucson contributed nearly $5.4 million to the grant.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
