A record-hot day in Phoenix, captured and verified

Friday, July 24, 2026. Phoenix broke its daily temperature record.

A daytime high of 117 degrees. An overnight low of 97.

Hundreds of unhoused people walked the streets or crouched in a rare patch of shade. For days, they had endured sweltering heat that just kept getting worse.

News21 fellows spent the day alongside them, passing out water bottles and hygiene kits and listening to their stories. Across three Arizona cities, voices rang with desperation.

For many, this wasn’t their first summer living on the streets of Phoenix. But they all said they want it to be their last.

As temperatures in Phoenix reached 117 degrees — then matched that high the following day — News21 fellows piloted a journalism tool called ProofMode Authentication. The project was conducted in collaboration with Starling Lab, co-founded by Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and the USC Shoah Foundation.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our day-to-day lives, people are being forced to ask, “Is this real?” And fabricated or manipulated footage poses a very real threat to the trust newsrooms hold with their audiences.

ProofMode uses cryptography to establish the authenticity of photos as they’re captured. It attaches a digital receipt to each image, documenting when, how and where the photo was taken. The technology cannot replace a journalist’s reporting. Instead, it allows journalists to show audiences evidence of where a photo came from and whether it’s been altered.