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downtown Phoenix is losing the Y on Wednesday.

The Downtown Phoenix YMCA on 1st Avenue closes for good on Sept. 30 after more than 70 years. The YMCA says the building has reached the end of its useful life and would need major repairs to critical systems. Memberships automatically move to the Chris-Town location on 17th Avenue.

The building also housed residents, and the YMCA says it’s helping them find new housing. It’s keeping the land, working with ASU to document the building’s history, and hasn’t said what comes next.

What’s your best memory at the downtown Y?

Via: FOX 10 Phoenix

gilbert drained the Freestone Park lake and the duck plan was basically good luck.

The town is replacing the liner and clearing years of silt, the first renovation since the park opened in 1988. The wildlife plan expected ducks, geese and herons to relocate on their own. Domestic ducks can’t fly, sick ducks started turning up, and neighbors say the smell and the mosquitoes got bad fast.

East Valley Wildlife and Crystal’s Critter Haven stepped in and have taken in more than 30 animals. Botulism is suspected but testing isn’t back yet. Gilbert says it’ll work closer with wildlife groups on the next lake project.

Did Gilbert have a real plan or just hope? Sound off.

Via: ABC15

Brandon McNulty’s actual job is helping somebody else win bike races. On Sunday he went and won the biggest one-day race in the world himself.

The 28-year-old from Phoenix took the Elite Men’s Road Race at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, becoming the first American to win that title since 1993. He covered 273 kilometers, about 169 miles, in 6 hours, 17 minutes and 4 seconds, and crossed the line 13 seconds ahead of Australia’s Michael Matthews, with the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel third.

If you don’t follow cycling, here’s what makes it wild. McNulty rides for UAE Team Emirates, where he’s known mainly as a domestique for Tadej Pogacar, one of the best riders alive. A domestique’s job is to burn himself out setting up his team leader’s win. That’s the role. That’s what he’s known for.

Pogacar was out injured. The other contenders spent the day watching each other. And McNulty just went, attacking solo with 33 kilometers to go, about 20 miles, then used his time trial background to hold off everybody chasing him for the rest of it.

He’d joked with his wife before the race that it would take a miracle. After, he said, “I guess, today, miracles happen.”

He also said he didn’t believe it until the last 300 meters. That up the final climb he was only doing zone two, that he was just dying, but he kept pushing.

When he crossed, he ran straight to his wife before he celebrated with anybody else.

McNulty won a junior world title back in 2016. Ten years later he’s got a second rainbow jersey and he’s still processing it. He posted that he wasn’t sure it would ever sink in and that he was still at a loss for words.

Pogacar, the guy he spends his career working for, posted “The King of Montreal. Proud of you.”

Thirty-three years since an American won that jersey. The guy who finally did it is from Phoenix.

Via: AZFamily, USA Cycling and the Associated Press

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A man in Litchfield Park told deputies he fired at his wife because she came at him with a knife.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says deputies were sent out just after 1 a.m. Sunday, September 27, for reports of gunfire.

According to MCSO, the man who called it in said his wife was trying to attack him with a knife, so he fired. Deputies arrived shortly after and detained him.

The woman was taken to a hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Two things worth being clear about.

Nobody has been arrested or charged. He was detained, which is not the same thing, and the investigation is still open.

And so far there is only one account of what happened in that house, and it belongs to the person who fired. The woman is in the hospital and has not given a public statement. Neither person has been named.

We are not publishing the cross streets on this one.

If you or someone you know is in a domestic violence situation, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, 24 hours a day.

Everything above comes from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

A Phoenix man was arrested at Sky Harbor Saturday morning after TSA officers found drugs on him at a security checkpoint.

According to prosecutors, TSA intercepted 32 year old Hayden Cole Hidalgo around 9 a.m. on September 26 as he was clearing security for a flight to San Diego. TSA alerted the Phoenix Police Department, and officers field tested what was found.

Prosecutors allege it was 70 grams of ketamine and 10 grams of co***ne. Hidalgo was booked into jail on two felony counts of possession for sale.

At his initial court appearance, Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Ashley Stetson argued that a man who was about to fly out of state with a stash on him is a significant flight risk. She asked the judge for a $75,000 cash only bond and asked that he be ordered to surrender his passport.

The judge set bond at $25,000 cash only, with electronic monitoring and house arrest if he posts.

State records show Hidalgo has spent nearly 10 years in prison on drug related offenses.

His next court appearance is set for October 1.

These are charges. Nothing has been proven and field tests are presumptive, not final.

Everything above comes from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, the Phoenix Police Department and court records.

A Peoria man has been sentenced to 128 years in prison. His projected release date is August 7, 2154.

Stiven Nissan Awshana, 40, was sentenced on September 18 on 16 total counts, including child molestation, sexual exploitation of a minor and public sexual indecency. He was admitted to the Arizona Department of Corrections last Wednesday and is being held at the Phoenix prison complex.

The case started in late July 2024. The Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force alerted the Peoria Police Department’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit that Awshana was believed to be in possession of child sexual abuse material.

On July 28, 2024, Peoria SWAT and detectives served a search warrant at his home and seized multiple electronic devices. He was 38 at the time and was initially charged with 27 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, four counts of child molestation, three counts of furnishing harmful items to minors and two counts of endangerment.

As detectives worked through the evidence, the investigation led to a second person. On August 16, 2024, Peoria police arrested 39 year old Marina Shmaeil Bethyo on 22 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of child abuse. Her case has not been reported as resolved, and she has not been convicted of anything.

We are not publishing details of what investigators say they found. There is nothing in those details that serves anybody reading this.

Everything above comes from the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Peoria Police Department.

Arizona’s first shopping mall opened in 1957, and downtown Phoenix has never really recovered from it.

Two brothers, Ralph and A.J. Burgbacher, bought the 46 acre Central Avenue Dairy and decided to put a shopping center on it at Central and Osborn, about two miles north of the state capitol.

Other developers thought they were out of their minds. Building retail out in the dairy farms, that far from downtown. People genuinely asked whether anyone would drive that far north just to shop.

Park Central Shopping City opened in 1957 with 31 stores. Mid-century modern, open air, long shaded breezeways. Welton Becket worked on it, the same architect who would later design Christown.

And people drove.

Here is the part that tells you what really happened. Diamond’s opened its first branch location ever at Park Central on August 25, 1957. That same year, it closed its flagship on Washington Street downtown, which had been operating since 1897. Goldwater’s moved north too. J.J. Newberry’s came out.

Sixty years of downtown Phoenix retail ended because a mall opened two miles away.

Phoenix city historian Steve Schumacher put it about as plainly as it can be put. Park Central was a milestone in the Valley’s growth, and it was the gravestone of shopping in downtown Phoenix.

Then it happened again. Christown opened in 1961 with air conditioning. Metrocenter opened in 1973 and was bigger than anything in the Southwest. Each one pulled the center of gravity further out.

For a while, Park Central was the place. There was a tea room. There were community events. The first pigeon race held there had matching Volkswagens as the grand prize.

The mall stopped being a mall decades ago and spent years as offices and data centers. Newer owners have been turning it back into a mixed use spot with restaurants and shops.

The sign is still up on Central. The breezeways are still there.

Send us the wildest thing you’ve seen in the Valley.

A man finished reading his victim impact statement in a Phoenix courtroom Wednesday, turned around, and was under arrest minutes later.

Abel Uribe, 33, was in a Maricopa County courtroom at the South Court Tower on Wednesday, September 23, to be sentenced to life in prison. He had pleaded guilty in the 2022 murder of David Navidad-Parra, a 27 year old Army veteran.

Alberto Ontiveros Sanchez, 55, is Navidad-Parra’s father-in-law. He spoke to the court from the podium, said what he had to say about the man who took his son-in-law, and started walking back toward the gallery.

According to his attorney, that is when Sanchez saw Uribe laughing and snickering at the defense table.

He turned around, went back to the defense table, and struck Uribe four or five times in the back of the head. Uribe was handcuffed and in leg chains at the time. The whole thing was caught on courtroom video.

The judge stopped the hearing and ordered the courtroom cleared.

At his own initial appearance afterward, Sanchez’s attorney told the judge he lost it after watching Uribe laugh, and described him as a man with no criminal history who works full time supporting his children and grandchildren. A model citizen his entire life, the lawyer said.

The judge said she personally could not imagine the emotions he must have been feeling that day, but that the court cannot tolerate that kind of conduct.

Sanchez now faces charges including aggravated assault of a bound or restrained victim, fighting, and interfering with a judicial proceeding. He was released on his own recognizance.

The video is going around nationally right now and plenty of people are going to tell you he did the right thing. The court’s position is in the record, and so is the reason a family was in that room to begin with.

Staff at a Buckeye elementary school opened the gates early Thursday morning to get kids inside ahead of a storm. Lightning hit the gym minutes later.

Principal Merideth Noce says her team was watching the weather from around 7:30 a.m. at Verrado Heritage Elementary. Gates normally open at 7:45. They made the call to open early and get students in before it arrived.

Surveillance video from the school is timestamped 7:40. It shows a flash, then a crack of thunder, then debris falling off the gymnasium roof onto the concrete below.

About 1,100 students were on campus at the time.

Staff near the courtyard doors by the front office said they saw the door handles sparking. Noce said the sound was almost like a plane hitting a building. Very startling and very loud.

Nobody was hurt. Nobody was in the courtyard when it happened, and that part of the school is not usually occupied at that hour.

The school went into a hold, keeping students in their classrooms and off the playground while crews checked things out.

The strike took a corner of the gym roof and sent brick and concrete down to the sidewalk. Assistant superintendent Erik Stone said debris scattered 25 to 30 feet, and that in 24 years in public education he has never seen anything like it at a school site. He gave an early estimate that repairs to that section could run up toward $100,000.

The school says a roofing professional has since confirmed the damage is minimal and not structural. The gym stays closed until every inspection is finished.

The whole thing came down to a few minutes and a staff that was paying attention to the sky.

Send us the wildest thing you’ve seen in the Valley.

A private gun sale in a Mesa parking lot Thursday afternoon ended with a woman in the hospital.

Just after 1 p.m., Mesa police were called to the Bass Pro Shops parking lot at Mesa Riverview, near Dobson Road and the Loop 202. Officers arrived and found an adult woman wounded by gunfire.

Police say the whole thing came out of a private firearm sale that went wrong, and that multiple rounds were fired.

Two people were detained at the scene. One of them had briefly run and may have been trying to hide from officers, according to Mesa PD.

Police say it was an isolated incident, nobody is outstanding, and there is no known threat to the public. The store stayed open through it and no employees were involved or in danger.

The woman’s condition has not been released. No charges have been announced, and nobody detained has been charged with anything at this point.

Here is the part worth actually taking away from this.

Mesa police are reminding people to use caution when buying or selling anything from someone they do not know, and especially when that item is a weapon. And this is the part most people have no idea about. Mesa police stations have designated areas in their parking lots specifically so the public can make transactions safely.

Cameras, lighting, and officers walking in and out all day. It costs nothing and it is open to anybody.

If you are meeting a stranger off the internet to hand over cash or a firearm, do it there instead.

Everything above comes from the Mesa Police Department.