

Cover Stories
Best of Pets 2021: For the love of pets
It’s no secret that Americans love their pets. Aside from the fact that phrases like “pet parent” are entering our vernacular, consider this: According to the annual survey facilitated by the American Pet Products Association, an estimated 67% of American households have a pet. This adds up to about 85 million families that own a pet.…
Best of Pets 2021: Tucson’s Dogtopia locations unique from national locations
Tucson’s franchise Dogtopia locations are relatively new to the area, but after a large transformation last year, they’re seeing plenty of business and wagging tails. With locations across the US and Canada, Dogtopia brands themselves as the leading provider of dog daycare in North America. However, the two locations in Tucson and one in downtown…
Congressional Candidate Kirsten Engel on the Pandemic, Healthcare Challenges, the Border and More
State lawmaker Kirsten Engel, a Democrat elected to her first term in the Arizona Senate in 2020 after serving four years in the Arizona House of Representatives, is in the race for the retiring Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s seat. (The district lines are scheduled to be redrawn before the 2022 election by Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.)…
Cat Video Fest returns to the Loft Cinema (in-person!)
The Loft Cinema is loading their calendar now that they’re back to hosting in-person events, and their latest announcement continues one of their most beloved series: the Cat Video Fest is back! This new addition of the festival features a collection of funny cat videos curated from across the world, and helps raise funds for…
After the flames: Santa Catalina Mountains rebounding from last year’s Bighorn Fire
TUCSON – It’s been a year since the Bighorn Fire blackened broad swaths of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. Now, a recent tour of Catalina State Park and Mount Lemmon reveals sprigs of new growth peeking through the forest floor. Wildlife, including bighorn sheep, are returning. Life in Summerhaven, a tiny community near…
Space Jam event planned for July 17 at Tucson Spectrum 18
Harkins Theatres is hosting Tune Squad vs. Goon Squad Space Jam: A New Legacy Special Event on July 17 at Tucson Spectrum 18. For only $12, guests get a ticket to see the movie, a small popcorn, a mini basketball and a part in the Tune vs. Goon face-off. Guests can wear orange to show…
Congressional Candidate Randy Friese on the ACA, the Border Wall, the Election “Audit” and More
State lawmaker Randy Friese, a Democrat elected to his fourth term in the Arizona House of Representatives last year, is in the race for the retiring Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s seat. (The district lines are scheduled to be redrawn before the 2022 election by Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.) Friese is a trauma surgeon who saved Gabby…
AZ goes EV: Rate of electric car ownership relatively high in Arizona
WASHINGTON – For a mostly red state, Arizona has a lot of blue-state company when it comes to states ranked by electric vehicle ownership, according to recent government data. Arizona had 28,770 registered electric vehicles as of June, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center, the seventh-highest number among states. When ownership…
Monsoon 2021 off to a Stronger Start Than Last Year
It’s no surprise to hear last year’s monsoon was wimpy — only 0.03 inches of rain away from being the driest Tucson monsoon ever recorded, according to the National Weather Service. And while rising heat is relatively predictable, climate change seems to have a less linear impact on rainfall, with monsoons ranging from weak to…
New Survey Shows AZ Voters Support Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Proposals
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Bad trip: A stripper’s scheme to make some quick bucks goes terribly wrong in ‘Zola’
In 2015, a Detroit stripper posted 148 tweets that went viral. The tweets told the story of a trip to Florida meant to score big dollars in stripping, but wound up a comic nightmare of pimps, dirty old men, and gun shots. Zola, co-written and directed by Janicza Bravo, is a taut, bonkers account of…
Silver Lining: Reeling from pandemic closures, some arts groups have found new ways to work together
It took a pandemic to get the Arizona Theatre Company and the Tucson Museum of Art to join forces once again. Sort of. Nowadays, ATC is the sole art organization that makes its permanent home in the Temple of Music and Art. But back in the 1920s, when Tucson was smaller, the Temple was host…
Editor’s Note: Cross Words
Boy, do we hear about it when we screw up the crossword. Last week, we accidentally included the wrong clues for our New York Times crossword puzzle—and judging from the number of you who reached out to let us know about our screwup, it’s damn certain that many of you love doing it every week.…
Stay at Home: Aid to renters, landlords available as CDC extends eviction moratorium through the end of July
While the CDC last week put covid-related evictions on hold until July 31, a local program aimed at preventing evictions has more than $20 million available to aid both renters and landlords. The Tucson Pima Eviction Prevention Program, a collaboration between the City of Tucson, Pima County, Community Investment Corporation and local nonprofits, provides rental…
City Week: Weekly Picks
July 4 IndepenDANCE Party at MSA Annex. At this point in the heat of summer, and as we continue emerging from the pandemic, surely there is no small number of us who feel that a dance party for the Fourth of July is just what the doctor ordered. With the high energy cumbia of Tucson’s…
Tucson Salvage: Baby vampires, daddy gifts, and toddler WTF expressions
It is Father’s Day today and my wife and two daughters huddle around me outside on the patio with gifts. Mostly the children are suckling mom’s boobs, and at 19 months apart, their size variance forces mom into awkward and painful hunched positions, Zuzu on her lap, Rickie standing, two little heads stuck to her…
Clearing Cloudy Records: Southern Arizona NORML expungement clinic coming to Tucson on Saturday
There are nearly 200,000 estimated expungable cannabis offenses throughout the state of Arizona and on July 12, the floodgates will open for those affected by old cannabis laws to petition to have charges on their criminal records sealed. While some petitioners may be able to expedite the process through the websites of their county attorney’s…
Best of Pets 2021: Telepathic Con-fur-sation: Animal Communicators Are you there, dog? It’s me, Margaret.
Ann Marie Hoff is in the middle of telling me about how she’s had conversations with pets about their end-of-life wishes, then seen those same animals reincarnated in new bodies, when she interrupts herself. “Just so you know, I have a master’s in animal science nutrition, so I come from a hard science-based background,” she…
The Skinny: Gov. Doug Ducey achieves his dream of comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted
High on their own supply-side theories and stuffed with the cheddar that Uncle Sam has been shipping to the state to keep the economy healthy through the pandemic, Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP lawmakers at the Legislature last week delivered the mother of all income tax breaks, creating a flat tax that will shift the burden of…
House Party: Local carpenter’s union volunteers to help Habitat for Humanity build homes
The sun glared down and temps rose to nearly 100 degrees at 6 a.m. Saturday as a group of carpenters installed windows and doors on a newly built home in a quiet neighborhood just south of the Pima Air & Space Museum. The nine carpenters from Southwest Carpenters Arizona Local 1912, a union created more…






