The Daily Agenda: The Tucson Agenda team is growing

We have an intern! ... A University of Arizona journalism student is joining our ranks this semester ... AI's role in education under debate.

It’s the last day to get your tickets for the Children’s Museum of Tucson’s October fundraising gala at the summer sale price. Starting Friday, you’ll pay more to attend Evening of Play, an interactive night of food, festivities and fun that gives adults the chance to play like we’re kids.

The museum is a nonprofit that provides hands-on educational opportunities to thousands of kids in our community each year and this is its main fundraising event.

Click on the image above to learn more or purchase tickets.

And if you’d like to get the word out about your business, event or organization, we have good news! The Tucson Agenda and Arizona Agenda are opening up sponsorship/advertising opportunities. Click on the button to get in touch.

The Tucson Agenda is less than two months old, but we’re already expanding our team.

We’ve partnered with the University of Arizona School of Journalism to take on a student intern who will help out over the next few months, while we mentor her on the news business.

Caitlin and Curt both have a lot of experience working with student reporters. We mentored student apprentices at the Arizona Daily Star, and last year, Curt oversaw the apprenticeship program.

We’re excited to work with the next generation of journalists and give students an outlet to showcase their work and develop their voices.

Our intern, Kyra Berg, will write about topics she cares about and we’ll regularly feature her work, as soon as she gets her bearings.

We want the Tucson Agenda to be appealing to readers of all ages, so we’ve also asked Kyra for input on issues that matter to young people — and specifically, young voters. We want Kyra to use her youth to her advantage and educate us — and you — about what the younger generation thinks, feels and cares about.

But enough about us. We want you to learn more about Kyra. Please give a warm Tucson Agenda welcome to our student reporter.

Kyra is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and minoring in public relations. She’s a California native and during her time at the UA, she’s been nominated by professors to attend awards and hall of fame ceremonies as a representative of the school, and participated in the school’s Finley Beginning News Writing Contest in 2022. Kyra is attending and has also worked as a mentor intern at the Honors College, served in a leadership role in her sorority and joined the UA’s Black N’ Blue Hip Hop Crew. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, playing with her two dogs and working out.

We can’t wait to see what Kyra brings to our coverage. But in the meantime, we asked her to tell us a bit about what she’s looking forward to and what she hopes to accomplish during her time with the Agenda.

“I’m excited to bring a different perspective to Arizona politics. I’m interested in digging into government and political issues and making more connections in the Tucson community. I’m ready to put what I have learned from class into practice,” she tells us.

Caitlin and Curt both came up in the days of unpaid internships, and we want to be a part of the movement to change that and join the growing number of outlets that pay interns and student contributors for their work.

But we need your help to do that. We can’t provide this mentoring experience to students if we can’t afford to pay our own bills.

Help us hit our fundraising goal so we can pay our interns, and ourselves, a living wage.

Looking out for first responders: Oro Valley police have added a comfort dog to the ranks as a way to improve staff well being, Tucson Local Media’s Karen Schaffner writes. It took nearly a year for OVPD leaders to acquire Ari, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever, who was originally training to be a drug-sniffing K-9 in Washington.

“During some of the searches, if she would go into a room and there were people there, she was more interested in the people than finding the dope,” said Ari’s handler, Darren Wright. “She was failed out for that reason, but (she’s) perfect for this because she just absolutely loves everybody.”

Funding for overdose prevention: Pima County has been awarded a $2.5 million grant for efforts to prevent opioid and fentanyl overdose deaths, Jim Nintzel reports for the Tucson Sentinel. Accidental or undetermined opioid overdose deaths have increased by more than 50% since 2019, with about 450 deaths last year, a Pima County Health Department report shows. Fentanyl has been an increasing factor in the deaths, growing from being involved in less than 30% of accidental overdoses in 2019 to more than 60% in 2022.

AI in education: As the academic year kicks off, experts are still at odds about the role of artificial intelligence in academics at the University of Arizona and academic institutions across the country, the Daily Wildcat’s Bailey Ekstrom writes. As AI becomes more frequently used by students, some feel as though not applying it to education puts one at a disadvantage, according to Arthur “Barney” Maccabe, executive director of the UA’s Institute for the Future of Data and Computing.

“It’s not just a disadvantage, I think we should be teaching students how to use these tools ethically and effectively,” he said. 

Help wanted: Santa Cruz County’s unemployment rate climbed to 8.7% in July, more than a full percentage point higher than June’s 7.2% unemployment rate, the Nogales International reports. About 16,800 people were employed in the county in July, more down 800 from June, according to the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity’s latest report.

Help Caitlin and Curt remain employed and not become part of a statistic.

County passes its credit check: Pima County has received a good credit rating, County Administrator Jan Lesher wrote in a memo to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The two firms that provided the ratings spoke highly of the county’s fiscal management and local economy, saying it has a “healthy financial profile… coupled with a stable operating budget supported by diverse revenue streams.”

627,929: The number of registered voters in Pima County as of yesterday, according to County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly. About 38% of the county’s voters are registered Democrats, 33% are independent and 28% are Republicans.