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This Week
COMMUNITY............21 Kyrene Foundation slates its signature fundraiser
BUSINESS..................
www.ahwatukee.com
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
@AhwatukeeFN
Despite big settlement, Kyrene, TU press vaping suit BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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$428.5 million tentative settlement by one of the leading manufacturers of vaping products does not impact a similar lawsuit filed by Tempe Union and Kyrene school districts. The settlement tentatively agreed to by JUUL Labs, Inc., with nearly three dozen states last week was characterized by the New York Times as a “fight for survival” by the company “over marketing and sales practices that they contend set off the nation’s teenage vaping crisis.”
Kyrene and Tempe Union in 2020 joined a separate class action lawsuit with 80 other school districts and individuals over similar issues that could go to trial in a federal court in San Francisco this November, spokespersons for both districts said last week. The districts are not spending any money to prosecute the case and lawyers for the plaintiff would collect at least 25% of whatever money – if any – is awarded to the plaintiffs in the suit. That suit charges that JUUL Labs, Phillip Morris USA, NuMark and Altria Group – as well as other manufacturers and retail giants like Walgreens, Chevron and Walmart – adopted a
“marketing strategy, advertising and product design” to push products that have “dramatically increased the use of e-cigarettes” among teens and even pre-teens. In turn, the suit alleges, that has forced Kyrene, Tempe Union and other districts to spend “significant resources to combat defendants’ deceptive marketing scheme, to educate its students on the true dangers of defendants’ e-cigarette products and to prevent the possession and use of defendants’ e-cigarette products on” school property.
First help the needy, then 25 play the Tukee Bowl
Music Maker Workshops join businesses’ drive for pet rescue pantry.
GETOUT..........................35 Bars where you can root for your favorite NFL team.
COMMUNITY ...................... 21 BUSINESS .......................... 25 OPINION.............................. 29 SPORTS ............................... 32 GETOUT............................... 35 CLASSIFIEDS ......................39
BY ZACH ALVIRA AFN Sports Editor
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or the second straight year leading up to the annual Ahwatukee Bowl between Mountain Pointe and Desert Vista high schools, the rivals are putting their differences aside for a greater cause: supporting the needy in the community. The Pride and Thunder will once again participate in the Super Food Bowl, which began last year as a way to collect non-perishable food items for Ahwatukee families in need. Last year, the two schools combined to collect enough food to feed 200 families, with Mountain Pointe taking
home the first-ever trophy for collecting the most. “I’m really, really excited,” Mountain Pointe school nurse and organizer of the Super Food Bowl Sarah Portle said. “We collected enough food items to support families in our Mountain Pointe and Desert Vista communities. We even had enough to help other families in the district. We did a lot of good last year.” The food drive will support the Pride Food Pantry and work in conjunction with the One Day at a Time Club at Mountain Pointe. Portle said that group will spearhead a lot of the initiatives from the student level. It
From left, Desert Vista’s Nikiyah Shavers, Hailey Manani, Antonio Delgado and Braxton Thomas joined Mountain Pointe’s Izaac Patterson, Matty Braun and Macie Logan to film the district second-ever commercial for the upcoming Super Food Bowl that runs in conjunction with the Ahwatukee Bowl to collect non-perishable food items for see FOOD page 8 families in need. (Courtesy Tempe Union High School District)
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