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AZ Briefing: Inspectors hit Scottsdale Italian restaurant with 5…

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AZ Briefing

YOUR MORNING NEWS ROUNDUP

Tue Dec 23 2025

Christopher Howley
Digital Producer

Good morning, Arizona. Here’s what our reporters are working on and what you should know about what’s happening across the state before you start your day.

Maricopa County health inspectorscited a metro Phoenix restaurant for five health violations during the week of Dec. 8. Violations included bare-hand contact with ice cubes for drinks, a dishwasher not sanitizing properly and a clogged sink with standing water.

See all the inspection notes from restaurants across the Valley.

Try the burgers, pastries and pasta at these new restaurants

Food La Hamburguesa First Bite

The bacon avocado burger, and Viva Mexico burger, photographed at La Hamburguesa food truck Nov. 28, 2025, in Phoenix.

Megan Mendoza/The Republic

Of all the new restaurants that opened recently in metro Phoenix, put an Italian trattoria, a burger joint and a breakfast stop on your dining list.

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Today in history

Here are just some of the historic events on this date in the past.•On this day in 1947: At Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, physicists made the world’s first transistor, a key component in electronics that led to integrated circuits and helped fuel the technological revolution. It had two gold contacts near each other that were lightly touching a germanium semiconductor on a metal plate connected to an electrical current. For their work, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics. The transistors were smaller, used less power and generated less heat than previous vacuum tubes. Innovation led to smaller and smaller transistors, eventually on silicon chips as semiconductors.•In 1950: Pope Pius XII said the tomb of St. Peter, one of Jesus Christ’s 12 original disciples, had been located beneath the main altar of the Vatican Basilica.•In 1954: Surgeons at Brigham Hospital in Boston performed the world’s first successful human organ transplant, a kidney, from one identical twin, Ronald Herrick, to his brother Richard. Dr. Joseph Murray shared a 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for transplantation using radiotherapy and immunosuppressants to avoid organ rejection. The transplant team – Murray, Drs. J. Hartwell Harrison, John Merrill, David Hume, Benjamin Miller and George Thorn – also received a 1961 Amory Prize, which recognizes major contributions to reproductive biology.•In 1970: During a New York City “topping-out” ceremony, ironworkers used cranes to hoist an American flag, structural steel and a Christmas tree for the north tower of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, which stood at more than 1,350 feet. Two months prior, it had surpassed the Empire State Building to become the world’s tallest building, though its skyscraper record only lasted a couple years until the Sears Tower in Chicago surpassed it.•In 1979: New York native Peggy Guggenheim, an art collector who inherited her father’s mining wealth, died at 81 in Italy. The socialite-turned-bohemian financially supported artists like Jackson Pollock and donated her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, an organization named for her uncle that owns the Guggenheim Museums. Her father, Benjamin, was one of 1,496 people who died in 1912 when the Titanic sank.•In 2021: The Food and Drug Administration approved emergency-use authorization for Merck’s antiviral pill, Molnupiravir, for treatment of COVID-19 in adults who test positive and were at an increased risk of the disease becoming severe. However, the FDA said Pfizer’s Paxlovid remained the preferred option amid supply concerns.

— Charlie White, USA TODAY Network

What’s next in the PV Ritz-Carlton bankruptcy case?

Any liens on the property will be attached to the sale proceeds, meaning villa owners are able to secure clean, insurable titles for their properties.

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