We’ll need to put this heat behind us, and quickly. The heat warning finally ended Saturday night, but a flood watch runs through tonight, with storms likely into Monday. A fitting end to a week that felt relentless in every sense of the word. Triple digits, a community in grief, and a stretch of news that asked a lot of this city. Pour something cold and read on.

First, a thank-you

If you're reading this for the first time, there's a good chance you found us through KGUN 9. Reporter Marc Monroy came out to TDB headquarters (which is to say, my desk) this week and put together a story about what this project is and why I do it. He was generous with his time and careful with the details, and I'm grateful to him and to KGUN for taking a small, one-person Tucson project seriously.

The response was more than I expected — a lot of you signed up in the days after the segment, and this Sunday email is going to a much bigger kitchen table than it was a week ago. Welcome. The deal here is simple: one free email every Sunday morning, the Tucson stories you’d otherwise miss, and a crossword built from Tucson vocabulary at the end. Between Sundays, you can follow along on Instagram, Facebook, X, and Bluesky.

As always, I'm at [email protected] for any and all feedback — I read and answer every message. And if there's someone in Tucson (or, heck, anywhere) you think might enjoy TDB, feel free to forward them this email. Now, on to this week's news.

What's worth knowing

Tucson is still in shock over the killing of 23-year-old police recruit Carlos Ramirez, and this week brought even less closure: just more hard details. Court records now indicate that the shooting was random: the two main suspects had no known connection to Ramirez or his fiancée, who was also wounded when Ramirez fought off intruders at their southwest-side home. By Monday night, all three suspects were in custody, the last surrendering after a large SWAT operation near Broadway and Camino Seco. Funeral services were held on Friday. The Erik Hite Foundation had raised $12,000 for Ramirez’s family in the week following his death, and the community rallied around them—but a harder story is emerging around the timeline of the final arrest: a deputies’ union told the Arizona Daily Star that one suspect fled after the Pima County Sheriff’s Department declined requests to contain his location while a SWAT-equipped arrest warrant awaited approval, and that he was arrested days later.

The federal government finalized a plan this week to cut Colorado River water use through 2028, and Arizona takes the largest reduction among the three states affected. What residents may feel most directly: KOLD reported the cuts could eventually push up local water bills. Nevada has already gone to court over the river’s allocations, AZPM reports, while Arizona is still weighing its options.

The confrontation between the federal government and the Tohono O’odham Nation escalated sharply this week. Tribal leaders said more than a dozen federal agents and border-wall contractors entered Nation land this week to begin pre-construction work over the tribe’s objections — and that on Tuesday, Border Patrol agents including a SWAT team blocked tribal police from issuing trespassing citations and removing the workers. Rep. Adelita Grijalva and Nation Chairman Verlon Jose condemned the entry in a joint statement; Senator Gallego called it “disgraceful.” It’s one of the starker moments in a year of accelerating friction between federal immigration enforcement and Southern Arizona communities.

And a quiet but significant piece of local news that deserves more attention: Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry — in business since 1909, run by four generations of the same family — is closing this fall. One hundred seventeen years. There aren't many businesses anywhere that can say that, let alone in Tucson.

What changed around town

The Pima County Board of Supervisors had a full plate at its Aug. 25 meeting, which we covered in full. The most contentious item was a $122,000 contract with the Southern Arizona Education Council, which had been continued from the Aug. 11 meeting amid questions about the organization's performance, executive compensation, and whether the county was shouldering too much of the funding compared to the city. Supervisor Steve Christy called the situation something that "stinks to high heaven," and Supervisor Rex Scott tried to cut the contract to $40,000 with a match requirement — but that motion died without a second. The full amount passed 4-1, with Christy the lone no vote, along with new oversight requirements including quarterly reports to the board starting Oct. 1. The board also approved a no-cost agreement with the University of Arizona to establish an Arizona-Taiwan semiconductor workforce hub at the county-owned Roy Place Building in downtown Tucson, over Christy's objection that the building should be generating real lease revenue.

Rio Nuevo committed $2.5 million to the Friedman Block development at its Aug. 25 meeting (our report is here): $500,000 in upfront cash to the developer, plus a rebate capped at $2 million. The board also voted unanimously to extend the Tucson Children's Museum's agreement through May 2029 to allow time for fundraising and construction planning at the historic Carnegie Library building. The board's finances are tighter than they look: transaction privilege tax revenue for fiscal year 2026 is tracking at roughly $16.4 million, down nearly $3 million from the prior year. Also on the discussion table: a proposed nightclub at 121 East Congress from a group of Tucson natives, and an extension request from El Ritual, the downtown bathhouse-spa that's about 75% complete and targeting an October opening.

Over at TUSD, the governing board voted 3-2 to begin a community engagement process around possible school closures and consolidations. No schools have been identified yet — this is the process that leads to recommendations, not the recommendations themselves. But Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo put a number on it later in the week: he’s targeting six to ten schools for phased consolidation or closure. The district is dealing with declining enrollment, and the conversation is only going to get harder from here.

And a first for us: TDB now covers the Sahuarita Unified School District governing board, the first school board on our beat. At its Aug. 26 meeting the board unanimously approved its FY 2027 capital plan — the district has room for 5,400 pre-K-through-8 students against a projected 3,397, which makes it ineligible for a new school for at least a decade — and got into a pointed exchange over the state formula that counts each kindergartner as half a student when measuring school capacity. "We're not giving them half an education," board member Denise Reis said. Read the full report.

What's opening

This week’s food news belongs to a Phoenix couple with three James Beard Award nominations who are opening what the Arizona Daily Star described as Tucson’s first Chihuahuan-style Mexican restaurant and tortilleria. The Daily Star covered it this week as the opening was underway—well worth tracking down if that style of northern Mexican cooking is new to you.

There’s a couple of things in downtown Tucson that are definitely worth keeping an eye on. The first is El Ritual, the bathhouse-spa project that Rio Nuevo has been supporting. It’s now about 75 percent complete, as of the board meeting this week, with a grand opening planned for October. The second is Casino Del Sol, which is planning to open a new property called Vahi Taa’am later this fall, further solidifying the company’s footprint in Southern Arizona.

One thing to watch

Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani and Democrat JoAnna Mendoza will face off in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District debate at 6 p.m. on Thursday, September 10, according to Green Valley News. CD6 covers a wide swath of southern Arizona, and this race is one of the more closely watched in the state heading into November. If competitive congressional races are your thing, it’s worth putting on the calendar.

The Tucson Mini

This week's crossword is ready and waiting — a quick 5×5 built for Sunday mornings exactly like this one. Play it here.

Stay cool out there, and let those storms roll in. See you next Sunday.