It's a heavy Sunday morning to be writing this. The heat index outside is somewhere north of sane, the monsoon is doing its moody summer thing — intense one afternoon, gone the next — and Tucson is still processing a week that asked a lot of us. Pour something cold and settle in.

What's worth knowing

The downtown mass shooting last Sunday night is the story of the week, full stop. Just before 2 a.m. outside Empire Pizza, 21-year-old David Leroy French opened fire into a crowd, injuring nine people. A Tucson Police officer shot French as he fled; he was hospitalized in critical condition and taken into custody. By Thursday he had made his initial court appearance and was ordered held without bond, facing 19 felony charges with more potentially on the way. One victim, shot in the leg, wrote publicly that she was "grateful to still be here" and urged people to hug their loved ones tighter. It's the kind of thing that lands differently when you know the block. Court records show French was already on probation for a 2024 aggravated assault conviction when the shooting happened — a detail the Pima County Attorney's office highlighted publicly, raising pointed questions about how he was able to obtain a firearm. TPD Chief Monica Prieto praised the emergency response and announced an increased downtown presence. The city and county held a joint press conference on gun violence later in the week, and the Downtown Tucson Partnership said it's working on a plan to close roads during large events going forward.

The week also brought a verdict in a case that's been grinding through the courts for a while. A Pima County jury found Jack Upchurch guilty on all 11 counts — including first-degree murder, armed robbery, arson, and tampering with evidence — in the killing of Paul Clifford, a good Samaritan who stopped to help at a roadside incident and was shot dead for it. Upchurch showed little reaction as the verdicts were read. Sentencing is set for September 28, and it's worth being precise about what's actually on the table: the maximum is natural life — prison until he dies, with no parole, no commutation, no release on any basis. Not the death penalty. County Attorney Laura Conover has said she won't seek capital punishment in any case, and asks for natural life instead. Clifford's family has been fighting her over that for a year now — last August they asked Conover to recuse herself from this case, wanted the state attorney general to take it over, and started a petition to remove her from office. His widow, Christina, said this week only that she hopes the sentence is "as extreme as it possibly can be."

Tuesday was primary election day across Pima County and beyond, and the results set up some significant November matchups. U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs won the Republican nomination for Arizona governor with more than 70% of the vote, setting up a race against incumbent Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in the fall. Locally, David Barrett won the Oro Valley mayoral race by a wide margin, and in Sahuarita, two incumbents held their council seats while the town's general plan update — Proposition 420 — passed by nearly two to one. Officials reported no significant incidents at polling places across Pima County.

The monsoon floods that buckled roads and filled washes this week also turned deadly in southern Arizona. Three bodies were recovered from a wash near Nogales over two days of flooding, and the body of a missing Tucson man was found separately in the Santa Cruz River. Santa Cruz County declared a countywide emergency Thursday, unlocking faster disaster response and repair work. Closer to home, East Broadway near Freeman Wash remained closed after runoff damage, and residents were warned that bypassing barricades could result in citations — and, more importantly, cost them their lives.

What changed around town

The Tucson City Council had a full plate Tuesday. Beyond the shooting response, the council voted unanimously to formally support the Tohono O'odham Nation's federal lawsuit seeking to halt border wall construction on reservation lands — Mayor Romero said she introduced the measure after Nation Chairman Verlon Jose called her personally when the lawsuit was filed. The council also approved a $7 million federal housing grant through the Tucson-Pima PRO Housing Initiative, one of only 18 such grants awarded nationally from more than 200 applicants. The funds are earmarked for affordable housing gap financing, impact fee subsidies, and zoning code changes to encourage middle housing. On the development side, the council unanimously denied a rezoning request in the Tanque Verde Valley that would have split an eight-acre property into 12 lots, with neighbors and multiple council members raising concerns about flooding, sewer capacity, and unresolved questions from nearby development projects already straining local infrastructure.

Rio Nuevo had a hard week on two fronts. The downtown redevelopment district — the entity behind a good deal of what's been built and rebuilt downtown over the past decade — is projecting a roughly 25% drop in monthly revenue, which pushes it into its reserves for the first time in years and leaves something like $1 million available for new projects. That's a thin cushion at a moment when local businesses are still lining up with funding requests. Then Edmund Marquez, who joined the board in 2015 and served as vice chairman, stepped down after 11 years to focus on the Tucson Sugar Skulls, the indoor football team he owns and runs as president, during its playoff push. Board chairman Fletcher McCusker said Marquez "has engaged every day, tirelessly." Two separate stories, landing in the same week, at an organization whose decisions shape what downtown actually looks like. Worth knowing who sits on that board and how much money it has to work with.

In Marana, a long-planned walkable downtown entertainment district cleared its final obstacle after opponents failed to gather enough signatures to place a referendum on Tuesday's ballot. The project can now move toward construction. That's a meaningful step for a town that has been working toward a real downtown for years.

On the Oro Valley side of things, the police department is converting a 50,500-square-foot former medical office building on Oracle Road into a new headquarters — addressing a space crunch that Deputy Chief Curtiss Hicks says has been a problem for roughly two decades. The new facility may also take on dispatch operations, freeing room at the current campus for other town departments.

What's opening

A couple of interesting restaurant names turned up in recent city and county license applications. Masa Madre Bakery & Market applied for a restaurant liquor license at 2025 W. Grant Road, and Catrina's filed for one at 5754 E. 22nd Street — both working through the city's approval process. La Indita, the beloved Tohono O'odham-influenced restaurant on North Stone Avenue, also applied for a new restaurant license, which may signal an expansion of what they're able to serve. Worth keeping an eye on all three as they move through the process.

Also in the mix: Frida American Brasserie, planned for 2905 E. Skyline Drive up in the Foothills, applied for a restaurant license before the county board earlier this month, and Ragazzi Northern Italian Cuisine filed for one in Green Valley at 101 S. La Canada Drive. Neither has an announced opening date, but both are ones to know about if you're in those neighborhoods.

Gibson Food Hall & Market, meanwhile, reopened July 10 after nearly two years of renovations — bringing Tucson's food hall count to four, including two that operate out of repurposed shipping containers, according to the Arizona Daily Star. If you haven't been back since it reopened, it's worth the trip.

One thing to watch

The Pima County Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday, July 28 at 5 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors' Hearing Room, and it's a genuinely consequential agenda. The headline item is the appointment of a new County Treasurer — the board tried to fill the position at its last meeting and punted, so Tuesday is round two. The treasurer oversees the county's investment portfolio and tax collections, touching every resident and business in the region. The board will also publicly debate how to conduct the search for a new County Administrator, the person who runs day-to-day operations for a government with roughly 8,000 employees. How that conversation goes will say a lot about where the board's priorities sit heading into a difficult budget period. It's one of those meetings that's easy to ignore and hard to un-ignore once the decisions are made.

The Tucson Mini

This week's mini crossword is ready and waiting for you — five-by-five squares, Tucson-baked, and a perfectly reasonable way to spend ten minutes before the afternoon storms roll in. Play it here.

Stay hydrated out there, and keep an eye on your neighbors during this heat. We'll be back in your inbox next Sunday.