Stephanie Bennett

The government shutdown impacts military families worldwide as some overseas teachers work without pay. One substitute teacher describes the situation at a U.S. base in Italy.

Police departments across the country are struggling to hire new cops and it’s now forcing cities to get creative. The Phoenix Police Department is looking out of state to fill more than 300 open positions. They’re also raising annual salaries, offering hiring bonuses, and turning to social media to spread the word. Everything from politics, to the job market, and overall lack of interest is to blame, they say.

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, school nurses across the country are being stretched thin. Many districts say trying to hire staff is proving difficult, so they’re forced to share nurses between schools.

More than 93,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, with fentanyl being a major contributor to that high number. In Pinal County, Sheriff Mark Lamb says they’ve had more overdose deaths than COVID-19 deaths last year.

Organizations helping resettle Afghan refugees across the country say that as they take in more people over the next few weeks, there will likely be an increased demand for translators.

The delta variant is spreading quickly throughout the U.S. and some schools are trying to get the upper hand by requiring or offering vaccinations on campus. The Phoenix Union High School District is hosting mass vaccination events for their students and community, even offering it directly on campus. Some school districts are taking things even further. Hawaii became the first state to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for students participating in high school sports. California, is the first state to require all teachers and school staff to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

Out west, several states are still fighting wildfires, but now a new threat is emerging in their burn scars. A sudden downpour of rain has ripped through a small Arizona town, leaving some residents without a home.

Across the country more states are beginning to legalize drug testing strips that can detect the presence of the potent opioid Fentanyl to avoid deadly overdoses. Arizona is the latest state to legalize these it, allowing users to see if their drugs have been laced with lethal doses.

The U.S.-Mexico border has been closed since March 2020 because of the pandemic and it’s not known when it will reopen. However, it’s forcing cartels to change their drug trafficking tactics as they’re now recruiting American’s to do the job.

During the pandemic, schools across the country have seen a sudden spike in interest for public health degrees, specifically epidemiology.

The number of migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally continues to rise and so does the temperature along the Southwest border.

The Big Bend sector is seeing a sudden uptick in illegal border activity. They only have around 600 agents to cover the entire area, so to help combat the issue they're using new technologies to give them the upper hand.

As the weather warms up and COVID-19 restrictions ease up, swimming pools across the country are re-opening but finding enough lifeguards for them is turning out to be tough.

Across the country, states are expanding their COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to 16- and 17-year-olds. Doctors say if teens get their vaccines soon, they hope in-person proms and graduations will be possible.

Proof of COVID-19 vaccinations might become mandatory for enrollment at colleges and universities starting this fall.

As thousands of migrants head to the southern border, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is worried drug smugglers might have the same plan.

Waves of new migrants, including families and unaccompanied children, continue to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border daily. In El Paso, local shelters are dealing with not only asylum seekers under former President Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program (MPP) but now migrants from other Texas sectors too.

The U.S.-Mexico border remains closed because of the pandemic, but hundreds of migrants are still heading north and it’s leaving several communities, including Nogales, Arizona, on edge.

Overwhelmed border officials are now releasing dozens of migrants into a rural community in southern Arizona and it’s leaving local leaders on edge, saying they’re not equipped to handle it.

An unintended consequence of COVID-19 has been a surge in new trash, from face masks, wipes, and gloves to now used syringes.

While the coronavirus has been at the forefront of health news over the past year, fire departments nationwide face another crisis in rising cancer rates.

Border Patrol K-9s are getting back to work after their training classes were canceled for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Farmers across Southwestern Arizona are hard at work harvesting much of the country’s lettuce supply during their busiest time of the year.

The increasing need for more substitute teachers to fill in for full-time teachers calling out sick, resigning or even protesting over in-school learning as coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country has pushed some school districts to temporarily relax qualification requirements.

The Salvation Army says they typically feed 2.6 million Americans at Christmas nationwide but this year that demand is expected to be 6 million.

Firefighters across the country are preparing for their busiest season of the year – with the coronavirus pandemic making their jobs even tougher.

COVID-19 has taken its toll on the tourism industry, and as we head into winter, it’s now impacting our snowbirds and part-time residents.

Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday, a national initiative to shop local and break away from large box stores.

With only days until the 2020 presidential election, the topic of health care access, insurance and affordability is front and center in the minds of millions of Americans.