Happy Wednesday, Arizona!
We're staying on top of the latest happenings from across the Valley, state, and our nation for Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025; here’s what you need to know as you start your day:
From Meteorologist Jorge Torres - Near-record warmth this week in the Valley!
High pressure is taking over, driving our big warm-up! Highs today reach the 70s, which is about 10º above normal for early December. Overnight lows hold in the upper 40s to lower 50s.
Fewer judges available to hear unemployment insurance appeals in AZ
The Department of Economic Security only has eight administrative law judges to conduct hundreds of unemployment insurance appeal hearings each month.
The ABC15 15 Investigators first reported that the state agency has a backlog for processing approximately 10,000 unemployment appeal hearings that dates back to November 2024.
Unemployment insurance appeals are for people who are denied benefits but disagree with the department’s decision.
According to DES’s website, appeal hearings are scheduled "as soon as possible."
However, the department said that as unemployment insurance claims have increased, so have appeals.
A spokesperson for DES confirms that the department has eight administrative law judges who conduct about 170 Unemployment Insurance (UI) appeal hearings each week.
That is down dramatically because of staff cuts due to federal funding cuts.
Missing comma in Arizona law forces firefighter to battle for workers’ comp coverage
A missing comma in Arizona’s presumptive cancer law is forcing firefighters to battle for workers’ compensation, an ABC15 Investigation found.
Matt O’Reilly, a Sun City firefighter with a decade of service, discovered he had cancer after a routine screening last year.
A surgeon removed his thyroid and 40 lymph nodes, 20 of which contained cancer.
“It was scary because I was asymptomatic. I had no symptoms,” said O’Reilly, who was only 37 when diagnosed.
His wife, Whitney, said the diagnosis has been difficult for the couple and their four children.
“It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever dealt with,” she said.
Arizona has a presumptive cancer law that presumes certain cancers are job-related for full-time firefighters.
Phoenix Children's reaches 700th bone marrow transplant milestone
“At the time, we thought she just needed a different antibiotic,” her mother, Kelsey Ensign, said. “They took her blood to find out that she actually had acute myeloid leukemia, which is an aggressive form of childhood cancer.”
Doctors told the family to get Blakely to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where the news grew even more serious.
“The doctors took extensive tests to be able to tell us that she was considered high risk, meaning she would need a bone marrow transplant to save her life,” Ensign said.
Fortunately, they were in the right place. Since 2003, Phoenix Children’s, in partnership with Mayo Clinic, has performed bone marrow transplants under a program launched by Dr. Roberta H. Adams.
“The goal was to build a pediatric bone marrow transplant program that would allow patients in the Valley and throughout the state to stay within the state and receive the care that they needed,” Adams said.
In the 22 years since the program began, Phoenix Children’s has expanded the scope and complexity of the transplants it performs.
“The transplants that we do now, only about 50% of them are for cancers,” Adams said. “And 50% of them are to treat patients who have life-threatening and quality–of–life–impacting, but not necessarily immediately fatal, diseases.”
Lawsuit filed against East Valley gymnastics gym alleging negligence
A family has filed a lawsuit against an East Valley gym, alleging multiple claims, including negligence, stemming from an August incident when a teen was attempting a round-off back tuck and ended up severely injured.
The complaint names multiple allegations, including negligence and a delay in emergency response following an incident that left a teen severely injured.
The 17-year-old and her mom sat down with ABC15, along with her attorney, Thomas Hasty, with Morgan & Morgan.
"The change, the new normal, it's scary," said mother Karen Stevens.
Her daughter, Analysia Spencer-Stevens, has been involved in gymnastics and cheerleading for about a decade. Karen said they had been attending the USA Youth Fitness Center locally for about four years.
But now, Analysia, or Ana as her loved ones call her, now sits in a wheelchair. The teen was recently released from the hospital after a three-month stay.
