The owners of a stationery art studio in Phoenix are suing the city over an ordinance they say could force them to create art that violates their religious beliefs.

A federal judge sentenced the former head of the Phoenix VA hospital to two years’ probation earlier this week. Sharon Helman was at the center of the 2014 controversy over deadly long wait times for veterans at the Phoenix VA. But her sentencing was unrelated to that scandal. The court found Helman guilty of an ethics violation for accepting gifts worth thousand of dollars from a lobbyist friend and failing to report them.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, both Republicans, want their state out of the liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals district.

Ducey announced on Thursday he’s partnering with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake and Rep. Matt Salmon, both from Arizona, to push legislation to make the move. 

A year and seven months after a scandal wracked the Phoenix VA Medical Center and a year after the center’s director was fired, the Department of Veterans Affairs has named a new leader.

Longtime VA employee Deborah Amdur will be taking the reins from Glenn Grippen, also a decades-long VA employee, who has served as Phoenix’s interim head since former Director Sharon Helman was placed on administrative leave in May 2014. Helman was fired in November 2014 and in May 2015 she unsuccessfully appealed that decision.

The longest war in the Western Hemisphere could end this January, but it’s not the first time Colombian officials have publicized that hope.

On Wednesday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced his willingness to enter a bilateral ceasefire with FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, on Jan. 1. The United States declared FARC a terrorist organization in 1997.

PHOENIX—On a hot summer day here, Kelly Arrington—​a walk-in patient, because “getting an appointment is very difficult”—sat in the mostly empty waiting room of the Turquoise Clinic at the Phoenix VA Hospital. The hospital’s high-ceilinged hallways open into a series of cramped, clone-like outpatient clinics, each named for a different precious stone. Each clinic has its own staff of primary care doctors and nurse practitioners.

PHOENIX—What was billed as both an anti-Islam and pro-free speech rally in Phoenix turned into a peaceful, but heated, religious debate Friday night.