♪ Music Playing ♪ >> Come up next on "Arizona Horizon", an investigation reveals hundreds of millions of dollars in education vouchers distributed but not being used.

Also tonight, an effort to help veterans express themselves by way of creating writing are including poetry.

And we'll hear about research on how brain cells develop and function.

Those stories and more next on "Arizona Horizon."

>> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of Arizona PBS, members of your public television station.

>> Good evening, and welcome to "Arizona Horizon" I am Ted Simons, Washington continues to be consumed by the release, or lack thereof, of the even between files, Mike Johnson said a nonbinding resolution calling to the row lease of the files will not be voted on until September after congress backs from companier recess, he adds that and house Republicans are totally aligned with the president on releasing the files.

>> So here is what I would say about the Epstein files there is no daylight between the house Republicans, the house and the president on maximum transparently he said he wants all of the credible files on Epstein to be released.

He's asked the attorney general to request the grand jury files of the Court.

All of that is in process right now.

May belief is we need the administration stop the space to do what it's doing.

And if further congressional action is necessary aura appropriate.

Then we'll look at that.

But I don't think we are at that point right now because we agree with the president.

>> Reporter: No vote on this resolution?

>> No.

>> Of note the white house today barred the Wall Street journal from the traveling press pool for his trip to Scotland coming from an article they published saying event Epstein a lewd birthday card.

He filed a defamation suit.

The journal is standing by their report.

One more headline, sad note.

A being tour Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died.

Reports are that he died in a drowning accident in Costa Rica, he was 54.

Warner became a household name for his role as teenager Theo Huxtable on the "Cosby Show" which was the most popular TV show in America for much of its run from 1984 to 1992.

Costa Rican officials say that Warner was pulled into deeper waters while swimming along the coast.

And that bystanders attempted to rescue him.

Emmy and Grammy award winner Malcolm-Jamal Warner dead at 54.

>> A recent investigation by KPNX TV found that more than $440 million of distributed Arizona education voucher funds were not being used.

And that families were instead in many ways cases stop filing the fund, "Killers of the Flower Moon" investigative reporter Craig Harris broke the story and joins us now.

Good to have you.

Thank you so much for joining.

Good to sea you again.

>> You too.

>> We have you on before go your investigations this was a doozie what about got you started on this?

>> I had been here before.

With the republic we moved away for fours year and we came back and knew about the ESA program in Arizona and I thought we should be checking into it.

I started filing public records requests and we ended up getting this number which I was stunned by from the department of education.

And we just started looking into where all the money was going.

>> Yeah.

So when you started, you were not necessarily lacking for funds that were being stockpiled.

When did you notice that, hey, wait a minute, these things are not being spent?

>> Well, we just asked for how much money had been sitting in accounts.

That's all we asked for.

And they gave us all of the records that showed $444 million were not being used.

And when I added that up, I sent a note back to the department of education and I said, is this accurate?

And they said, yeah, it is.

And so we went from there and did our story.

And found, you know, people -- a lot of people had 10s of thousands of dollars that had been stockpiled and saved up.

>> Well, you've got more than 10,000 sitting on $10,000 each.

This is your reporting here.

>> Yes.

>> I am not telling you anything new.

>> Yeah.

>> Nearly 200 amassed more than $100,000 each.

There are 10 accounts of more than $200,000 each.

And, Craig, the thing is, this is -- this is A-okay, isn't it?

You can save that money for things like college.

>> Absolutely.

It was put in the law three years ago when empowerment scholarships were expanded and a lot of people may not have been paying attention, but it was put in the law.

And so this money has grown incredibly in the amount over the last three years.

About $200 million of that money is with kids with special needs.

And you kind of expect a lot of that money to be growing because special-needs kids have a lot of needs and you need to pay for services and you may need to rollover the but another $200,000 is essentially non-special Ed kids, those are likely kids that joined three years ago and have parents who already are paying for their private school and then just stockpile this is money that they can use for college.

>> Can you tell if these are upper, middle, lower-class kids?

Can you tell which families are stockpiling the funds, other than disability or non-disability?

>> We have asked for the zip codes and are waiting to get that.

Our reporting has shown in the past that in main, typically ESA funds go to high zip code areas and so if you put two and two together, you can say, well, a lot of this money is being stockpiled by well wealthy families otherwise why would it be there.

If you were a low income family you would likely be spending all of your ESA dollars.

Typically the dollars don't go to low income families anyway.

They go to middle or much higher families.

>> Which was not what this thing was designed to do in the first place.

In the first place, and you were here back in the day when this things was started.

This was supposed to go to special needs kids, this was supposed to go to those who couldn't afford the special education needed.

Now it's, you know, Katie bar the door.

>> That's exactly what Superintendent horn said on some other things is that you know, it was for special-need kids then military families and then kids in failing schools.

When governor dosey signed the law to expand it, he promised and said this is going to lift kids out of poor performing schools.

That hasn't happened.

As a matter of fact.

A lot of high-performing schools have been hurt by the ESAs.

>> Yeah, and what kind of reaction are you getting from educational officials?

It's one -- I mean, this is a very polarizing subject here in Arizona in a variety of ways.

This puts a new stamp on it.

What are people saying about this?

>> The tide might be shifting a little bit.

In the main, Republicans are saying, nope, we are not making any changes, but as we continue to uncover things and expose where this money is going, some folks are starting to say, well, maybe we need to put some guardrails in or some changes in.

We are working on a story that will air tomorrow.

There was a state senator, Lauren cuby from Tempe, she tried to rein this in and say you can't use the mountain for college and after a year the money gets swept back those bills didn't get letter because she's a Democrat.

>> This is how it works being Democrat has an idea if a Republican thinks it's a good idea they appropriate it is anybody appropriate I go her idea?

>> Absolutely not.

Republicans were no changes whatsoever, when the budget went through the governor tied tried to put a million dollar cap if you made a million dollars you couldn't get ESA and then lowered to $200,000.

And web caning said no way.

They said no way it's for everybody.

>> What happened if I stockpile $200,000 for junior to go to college.

What if junior says I am going to Pakistan or something?

I am going to headache the world and Hindu do I have to give the money back?

What happens to the money?

You have three years until it gets taken back.

You could let is sit there for three years before they could sweep it back.

And then they are going to send you a letter saying, hey do you know this money is there, oh, my gosh I forgot and you can say we need this.

And I am using it no you.

>> The can I had can hang out in a cafe for two years and go to school in the third year and it's okay.

>> I think so, possibly.

Here is the issue.

The law is very clear that you have to go to an Arizona public university or an Arizona community college.

The law just says private universities.

So it hasn't been pushed yet.

But theoretically, you could take that money and go to Harvard or Stanford or Vanderbilt.

Now, an Administrative Law Judge apparently has said, no, it's only for Arizona.

But the law hasn't really been tested.

>> Yes.

>> The law is not clear on that >> You did public records requests as you mentioned at the start of our interview here, how difficult was it to get those records?

>> Well, from the department of education, it's been okay.

They have trickled records out little by and the that's thousand we found some of this out.

State treasury YE has been really difficult on getting records.

She released records from the first year of the ESA program.

She has refused to release records from year two and three of the empowerment scholarships and that's what we are fighting with her about.

Her contention is that all she is in charge of is the third party vendor called class wall that distribution the mountain, state law is very clear.

>> The stay law says the department of education and the treasurer's office has control over the ESA program.

Our contention is over the third party venture Don went the records to see where the money was expense the last two careers, our hunch is they accident release it is since department the department of education has approved every request for under $2,000.

We want to see what's being bought and spent.

>> Is a fight between Republicans in general, horn was saying one thing and some Republicans were very much pro voucher were saying the other and getting on each other's case here.

Last question, surprised you the most diving into these record and doing this report?

>> You know I have been a reporter for well over 30 years, as you know, and typically very few things surprise me.

But to see $444 million just sitting there was eye opening.

We reported before my good colleague Jordan a reported that a million dollars wag spent on Legos by ESa families the first year.

I wanted to look and see and I saw that 10s of thousands of dollars were spent on high-end Kitchenaid products.

E salt.

Families get to buy these products and keep them forever.

And so if you want to buy an 800-dollar Kitchenaid blender as long as you can write the curriculum, you get it.

And there are a lot of companies now that have caught onto this.

Because you have to write a curriculum to get the item.

They will sell a curriculum for 99 cents, so you can buy a high-end plant or a high-end rug and so those are the things that we keep uncovering.

>> Last question here, you have been around a while.

As you mentioned, as we all have here, we all remember alt fuels and what a near disaster that thing was.

Some people are comparing it to alt fuels, what do you think?

>> That's a big comparison.

Christine Jones has made that point, she ran for congress.

It could be.

But what alt fuels happened there was an overall view by Republicans, Democrats, like this is way out of control.

>> Yes, exploded.

>> It exploded.

We need to reign it in or you are budget will get busted the difference now you have a governor and Democrats in the major at this saying this alt fuels, saying this is going to bust our budget the Republicans are like, no, we are going to keep going.

The numbers have way exploded by what it was going to cost.

When ESAs first began, universal ESAs it was $170 million.

Until three years we are Now the at a Bud to 90,000 kids.

>> Craw.

Craig Harris, 12 news investigative reporter great work as always on this.

>> Thank you.

>> We'll look for your new store on this tomorrow and keep it going.

>> Thanks.

>> It's incredible Howell do you find these things?

>> A new program is working to help veterans communicate and connect by reading, discussion, and writing poetry about their service.

It's called verses for vets.

And learn more we welcome Rosemarie Dombrowski the pow he had laureate of the city of Phoenix.

Are you still the poet laureate of the city of Phoenix.

>> Unofficially am.

>> What does that mean.

>> I am not lowering longer paid.

Poets are used to being unpaid.

>> Thanks for being here.

>> Thanks to having me is.

>> Versus for vets what are we talking about?

>> I call a poetic medicine program, which means that there are a drama-informed facilitate their is guiding veterans through reading, discussion, and writing of their own poetry.

What's unique about this program is that we always read poems by veterans and those poems can span from the civil war to Afghanistan.

And the goal is obviously to get them to read those poems, see some connection in those poems to their own service, their own emotions, discuss that openly, and then hopefully that leads nicely into a writing exercise.

Which everyone has a few minutes to do in the session.

And then we end with sharing.

>> Yes.

So basically introduce the idea, you know, experience the idea.

Talk about the idea.

>> Yes.

>> And then why don't you go over and try it out.

>> And then create.

>> Yeah.

Poetry in itself.

The creative process here, for poetry, can be unusual in that sometimes it's instruction doored sometimes it's not.

You have all sorts of different forms or you have free verse or whatever.

Sometimes the structure makes things pop out that you don't necessarily expect.

Do you hear that from these guys and gals who are getting involved here?

>> Absolutely.

I tell them not to worry about how it looks like on the page.

We just want to keep it short.

Which is why we only have 10 or 15 minutes for writing.

They can write something that looks like a poem or a paragraph.

The point is, when we are working in this modality, they are creating metaphors and there are essentially recasting their narrative so instead of just replaying the trauma loop, they are kind of looking at things through a new lens, maybe a metaphorical lens, maybe an image lens, hopefully new emotions coming to the fore.

Hopefully there is some discovery happening so that they are not just reenacting trauma but essentially moving through it.

Within a community.

>> Are you get that's response from some of these folks?

>> I am.

I am getting a lot of people in the workshops who have never written poetry before and never really read it either and so, you know, you always worry when you are running a new poetry program, that there will not be a lot of buy in, a lot of reticence in the beginning.

And so we actually talk about some of the studies in my workshops as well.

The studies that have been been down with veterans that show thabo etic medicine is actually more effective for some people than traditional therapies.

>> As much as maybe music or counseling, or retreats.

Really?

>> It can be.

Absolutely.

Because we are telling them here is the container in which you have full agency to tell the version of the story that is the story that you need to tell now.

How can we overwrite that trauma perhaps.

How can we sort of put good memories on top of bad memories.

How can we commingle those two things in a new way.

>> How do you get past the idea of just being, you know, oh, it's poetry, I don't understand it.

This is way too, you know, artsy fartsy for me, can you get past all of that.

>> I think it's easy to get past that.

Because every poem that I use in the workshop was penned by a veteran.

>> Yes.

>> So those poems tend to resonate with everyone in the workshop.

Her more to say about the poems than I do, they are more interesting interpretations than I do because they have a shared language coming in it doesn't mat if it's a civil war veteran, Washington two veteran or a veteran of African Stan, they find connections.

>> And I imagine the same poem you hear difference responses and different view points on the same bunch of words.

>> Absolutely.

And so that is why I am not the only one who reads the poetry.

I will read a poem once to them And then I will ask someone in the audience to read the poem so that everybody can hear it in two different voices with two different inflections, two different paces.

So I think they are always eager to respond in some way.

>> Did I read that you were a military brat?

>> Yes.

>> You were?

>> My dad ways marine.

>> This is close to home to you, isn't it?

>> It is close to home.

I was brought in as a fellow into the office of veteran and military academic engagement at ASU in 2022.

And they asked me to create a poetry workshop for veterans I created this and then it became a series, so we off are a couple of these every semester.

>> Last question here, for people into poetry in general the difference between poetry about service and general poetry?

>> You know, poetry about service almost always tells a story.

I like it to war reporting.

Sometimes I call it the more lyrical of war reporting.

It can contain statistics, historical facts that are familiar to us.

But then there is usually a layer of emotion, that takes us deeper into the heart of the conflict than mere war reportage would.

I find it accessible to everyone.

>> Rosemarie Dombrowski, again, this is versus for vets, congratulations on this.

>> Thank you so much.

We have our first workshop in September.

>> All right.

>> So check the website.

>> Okay.

Where is the website?

>> It's the office of veteran and military academic engagement at ASU.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

♪ Music Playing ♪ ♪ Music Playing ♪ >> I am Jeff Bennett tonight on the news hour under a U.S. imposed deadline to make a peace deal, Russia bomb boards Ukraine with hundreds of drones.

That's at 6:00 on Arizona PBS.

♪ Music Playing ♪ >> New research is racking at the growth and development of brain cells, to better understand how to help those affected by neurological conditions, which are a leading cause of illness and disability worldwide.

Joining us now Madeline Anders from ASU IraA.

Fulton school of engineering, welcome to "Arizona Horizon."

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> This research is very interesting I think I got it right here.

Your research is like guiding cells outside of the brain to become brain cells.

>> Absolutely.

So there are different ways that you can study the brain.

But obviously we can't go into someone's brain that's alive and look at how they grow and change in the context of neurological diseases what may lab does is we take blood or cells from routine clinical assays and then we can take them and reprogram them until they are in this sort of developmental state and then study how they change overtime.

This provides a really new tool and resource to really look at how different neurological disorders arise.

And maybe some ways that we can treat them.

>> Are these like stem cells you get from skin and that kind of stuff.

>> Yes.

Exactly.

Basically there is I won a Nobel prize in 2012.

There are strategies now to take cells that are from mature tissues like skin or blood and them take them and push them sort of back to Stan early developmental stage.

These are called induced stem cells.

And then when they are in this early pluripotent stem cell stage you can push them into cell type of into in to the wood body and we are interesting in the brain so we push towards this brain-lake cell.

>> Now that you have pushed them in that direction, what are you find something.

>> Absolutely.

We are really interested in understanding how they change overtime.

Both in sort of healthy development and in different disease states.

And what we are really excited about and interesting in pursuing moving forward is really understanding how nutrients in the brain, how we consume nutrients and then how those things are processed to produce energy, how that becomes disrupted in different neurological disease states and we know from a variety I have different neural development and neurodegenerative disorders that there is alterations in these met colic perhaps and really interested in studying how these things change and sort of healthy development and also in alterations in different neurological disorders.

>> Basically how the brain uses energy?

>> Exactly.

>> Exactly.

>> Okay.

How important -- I read about this stuff here, as best as I can understand it here, it sounds like glucose say biggy.

>> Yes.

Yes.

Glucose is the main energy fuel in the brain and actually, when we eat various calories, right, glucose is basically 20 or 25% of the glucose is consumed into the body is utilized by the nervous system or the brain.

And so it's really, really important for how we break these, you know, fuel sources down into producing energy.

And when these programs become disrupted.

It can disrupt how the cells within the brain communicate.

And so the cell culture model system that we utilize we are trying to study how this happens normally and also when we disrupt and because we have access to these cells in a dish we can manipulate these programs and see what happens.

>> What about things like glucose intolerance?

We have a whole type two diabetes endemic out there it seems like.

How does that equation work into all of this?

>> There is some I think more whole body kind of understanding of how hyper hypoglycemia can affect brain function and health in different sort of development and degenerative disease states.

And there is at least from sort of a public health perspective, there are some correlations there.

But really we are interested in understanding mechanistically how these things can alter function and the way that the brain cells communicate with one another.

And we are trying to understand how this could maybe be a way that we could use it as a censor to indicate on set of different neurological diseases or if this could be a target or if we could prevent some of these changes to prevent on set of different neurological diseases.

>> So some of these diseases, could it possibly be a factor of having too much glucose, not enough glucose?

>> Yes, action absolute.

>> I either or.

>> Yes, either or.

>> That's a factor.

>> It is.

>> It's whole body and you have to put that in the equation?

>> Absolutely.

It's important to understand the refined level.

Did he disfunction could be not enough or too much.

It's a Goldilocks happy medium.

>> What about other nutrients.

>> Also very important.

We are interested in regulation, during early development glucose metabolism is important for the way energy is used and produced.

We are also interested in lip it's or fats how they are important for brain and body development and function.

Cholesterol is also very important.

And so there is different sort of strategies that you can use to study different kind of components and how they are broken down and utilized appropriately to both build a brain but also help it function appropriately.

>> Last question, what's next in this research?

>> Oh, wow.

So we are now using stem cells that have been derived from patients with different neurological disorders either autism or Alzheimer's disease and trying to understand how these might being different in these patients.

>> All right.

Madeline Anders, ASU this is really a fascinating stuff on the cutting edge of this research.

Good to have you here.

Thank you for doing this.

>> Thank you So many I really appreciate?

>> You get.

That is it for now it, I am Ted Simons, thank you so much for joining us.

You have a great evening.

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