Just about everyone we know who routinely plays around on the Net — which is just about everyone — has gotten a Nigerian scam letter. You gotta know the deal: Someone has $30 million awaiting them in a Swiss bank, or something, but only if you fork over $3,000…
Norm Davis, a steady-as-she-goes gent we dealt with when he presided as the chief judge in both Juvenile and Family Court, started his five-year term today as the presiding judge of Maricopa County Superior Court. What we like about Judge Davis (that’s a photo of him from a few years back)…
Just heard from Dan Saban, a decent guy who has taken on Sheriff Joe Arpaio on the campaign trail and in civil court (and, alas, has lost every time). He tells us that he recently participated in a roundtable discussion with CNN “regarding the abuses of authority by Joe Arpaio…
On April 27, Janet Napolitano pronounced that the border separating the United States from the Republic of Mexico is more secure than ever. “I say this again as someone who has walked that border,” the former Arizona governor told a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the oversight of the…
Though we really miss fired ASU head baseball coach Pat Murphy, we think it’s about time that the iffy powers-that-be at the Tempe school finally drop the title “interim” from coach Tim Esmay’s title — which they are about to do. Esmay (smiling man in photo) has led the Sun Devils…
We have learned this nearly a third of the way through the 2010 Major Leagaue Baseball season: No lead is safe with this year’s edition of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The word “relief” is a true oxymoron when referring to the D-Backs’ bullpen. Arizona was up by 4-0 early, and still…
Truth told, we have spent an hour or two over the years with our longtime colleague John Dougherty at Casey Moore’s Oyster House, the venerable neighborhood joint on South Ash in Tempe. Did it again last night (Wednesday).The beer was cold as always, and the food delicious. But this was different –…
Channing Frye shoots from three. Shazam! Whoops, wrong sport. As a huge audience in the Valley watched the Phoenix Suns top the Los Angeles Lakers last night to tie their increasingly interesting series at two games apiece, our Arizona Diamondbacks quietly lost a tight one to the Colorado Rockies up…
Thankfully for the Arizona Diamondbacks, tonight’s game against the Colorado Rockies is up in Denver at beautiful Coors Field. Almost exactly the same time as Rockies right-hander Jhoulys Chacin tosses his first pitch, the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers will tip off at US Airways Arena for the monster…
An update on our August 2007 story entitled “Death Wish,” the bizarre tale of how a so-called “right to die” organization, the Final Exit Network, helped a mentally troubled Phoenix woman to commit suicide. Earlier this week, New Jersey resident Roberta Massey, who is one of the four criminal defendants…
We get many a blurb here at Alt-Weekly Central, many of which we pass along to the proper authorities (ie: our Night & Day editor) and some of which we dump in the circular file (or push the delete button on our computer). One that came in earlier today caught our…
The floundering Arizona Diamondbacks actually won last night, beating the Florida Marlins 5-1 in a game most memorable for a bizarre play by usually stellar shortstop Hanley Ramirez. The play happened in the second inning of the game in Miami, and it was a doozy: The D-Backs’ Tony Abreu dinked a…
Mum has been the operative word in recent days about the April 30 desert incident involving Pinal County sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll. Readers will remember this one: Sheriff Paul Babeu (in the photo) told the world that Puroll claimed to have been grazed by a bullet fired by a…
During his controversial tenure as Maricopa County attorney, Andrew Thomas may have styled himself as a “tough” prosecutor — but insiders knew that the real iron in Thomas’ proverbial fist came from Lisa Aubuchon. The notoriously aggressive Aubuchon took on high-profile political cases with a vengeance. She served as lead…
We read that in yesterday’s Romenesko, a well-read insider blog about the media that appears on the Poynter Institute’s excellent Web site. Huh?! The boss of Village Voice Media and Phoenix New Times (who usually looks a little better than in this photo) didn’t tell us he was planning on adding a new New to…
Terrible tragedy off Interstate 17, up the big hill north of Black Canyon City last weekend, that took the lives of a Valley attorney and his 7-year-old son. According to news accounts, 47-year-old Conrad Hernandez did have a lot on his plate, including financial worries and previous suicidal ideation. But…
Obviously, both a glorious and gruesome weekend for Phoenix’s professional basketball and baseball teams, respectively. Alas, our task here is not to recount the Suns’ sweep of the Spurs in a memorable one-eyed effort by one Steve Nash. No, we are here to report on the absolutely miserable three-game home…
Phoenix police Sergeant Andy Hill, a 26-year veteran of the agency whose last assignment was in the “media relations” unit, is about to retire. Though Hill’s last official day is May 27, he’s already cleaned out his cubicle and is ready (with vacation time) to call it a day…
Great old-school game last night between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Houston Astros at what used to be called Enron Field (before the mighty financial fall). D-Backs eked out a 1-0 win in a stellar pitcher’s duel between the excellent Roy Oswalt and the Snakes’ Ian Kennedy, who won his…
But we’ve spoken with about a dozen current and former local cops in the last few days (most of them initiated the contact), and check this out: When mentioning the highly publicized (and highly charged) incident near the intersection of Interstate 8 and Arizona Route 84 last Friday afternoon, every last…
As the Phoenix Suns steel themselves for what promises to be a killer best-of-seven series against longtime nemesis San Antonio, The Matrix, a.k.a. Shawn Marion, pops into our sports-addled head. Once an almost-superstar with the Suns, and now relegated to a glorified journeyman role with the recently eliminated Dallas…
In the we-really-aren’t-making-this-up department, our ex-colleague John Dougherty tells us that he’s filed documents today with the Federal Elections Commission as a first step to run in the upcoming Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat. Dougherty, who now lives in Yavapai County, has been working for a think-tank in…
