The medical staff at Banner Health’s 10 Valley hospitals have quit using a rapid test for the H1N1 swine flu virus because of too many false-negative results. About 50 percent of people who came up negative on the rapid test were later found to have swine flu. According to a…
In case you’ve been living on Mars for the last several months, the nation is in the midst of an intense debate over healthcare. Sick of it yet (no pun intended)? Well, a Mesa man claims to have the solution: Don’t bother getting health insurance at all.Chad Harris, chief executive…
In Gilbert, the carefree days of whimsically crossing a street at your leisure are over, as the Gilbert Police Department is beginning a sweep to cut down on jaywalking.Um, talk about taking a bite outta crime…With the school year fast approaching, police issued a firm warning to students and parents…
A planned $527,000 “donation” to Maricopa County’s IT department by Tempe-based Insight Networking (a.k.a. Calence) looks suspicious to the sheriff’s office. After a hearing last week over the sheriff’s takeover of the ICJIS system, Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott told New Times and other news media he questioned the “gift.” “Why would anybody give that…
A snowbird has joined us in a Phoenix a little early this year; we’re just not sure how the heck he got here.Douglas Rudsinski, 66, from Matteson, Illinois, disappeared from a vacation home in Connecticut on Friday morning, and was inexplicably found at the Safeway on East Greenway Road in…
The feds are going to study 670,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in six western states — but only 16,000 of those acres are in Arizona. What an oversight! Those gloomy skies over Washington D.C. must have dimmed bureaucrats’ minds. It’s typically said that we get…
Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott claimed last week that federal law prevented him turning over a password to a computer system used by law enforcement officials. Yesterday, without an act of Congress, Hendershott reportedly agreed to give the county computer administrators the password. The agreement means a judge won’t be sending…
Two children have been safely returned to their mother after an early morning kidnapping near 27th avenue and Indian School Road. According to police, a group of men stormed the victims’ house, yelling that they were police, and forcibly took the children, ages two and eleven months. Police are searching…
I don’t know if playwright James Garcia modeled the character Captain Montoya from his new play The Tears of Lives on Deputy Chief Paul Chagolla of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. But as portrayed by actor Andrew Valenzuela, Montoya is a chilling vision of Hispanic self-loathing, a man driven to…
In the 24-hour news cycle it can be difficult to keep up. We have the solution. Check back on Valley Fever every evening for highlights from each of New Times’ blogs. Today’s entries: Feathered Bastard: Minuteman CEO Carmen Mercer Named in Arizona Attorney General Lawsuit Over Fraudulent Scam Up on…
A man carried an AR-15 assault rifle across his back to the Phoenix Convention Center, where President Barack Obama spoke today. Fortunately for gun-rights advocates, the armed dude was an African-American, a fact that’s bound to reduce the tone of criticism in the media. The man, identified in the Arizona Republic…
For you Diamondbacks completists, May 17 is now officially in the books. For D-Backs faithful, it was hardly worth the wait. In a rain-delay makeup game against the Braves at Atlanta’s Turner Field this afternoon, D-Backs starter Max Scherzer (7-7) got folded, spindled, and mutilated in the 9-4 loss to the…
You’re a graffiti artist who takes pride in his work — your stuff is really unique. And that’s why Tempe police are going to catch you. (Or so cops think, anyway). Police in the college town plan to launch new computer software that is slated to help officers in the…
Thanks to countless idiots, who despite more than a decade of warnings are still giving their debit card pin numbers away to strangers, there is a brand new debit card scam going on right here in the Valley.Desert Schools Federal Credit Union is warning customers about a scam that is happening…
The Valley family of one of the dead prison inmates we wrote about in February is suing the state, claiming the Department of Corrections knew the inmate was in danger and did nothing. Timothy Lucero (at right) was a pot violator and car thief who was scheduled to be…
Arizona has its own “Obama Girl,” and she happens to be part of the state House Democratic leadership.Assistant House Democratic leader Krysten Sinema, whose apparent crush on our progressive president reached fever pitch today, as she marched with dozens of demonstrators in favor of “Obama-care.”During the president’s speech to the Veterans…
Someone in the Valley just won a ton of money, and they probably don’t even know it.The Arizona State Lottery is looking for the person who bought a powerball ticket at the gas station of the Safeway store at 5810 West Thunderbird Road in Glendale for the February 18 drawing.The…
Know how the minutemen and the nativists are always kvetching that illegal immigrants are all criminals, even though the most they’re guilty of is a federal misdemeanor, if that? Well, methinks these pseudo pay-triots kvetch too much about others, particularly in the wake of the arrest of Minuteman American Defense founder Shawna…
Last month, Arizona State University trickled further down the list of the most elite party schools in the country, drawing a tear from frat boys throughout Tempe. While the keg might be kicked for ASU’s party scene, students can rest easy knowing that, according to a recent survey, they are…
A year after suffering serious burns in an airplane crash, blogger Stephanie Aurora Clark Nielson has posted a photo of her reconstructed face:…
The Arizona Republic has already noted that Macayo’s, which was President Barack Obama’s pick for Mexican food on Saturday night, is not the gold standard of Mexican food in the Valley. A quick check of Maricopa County’s restaurant-inspection Web site shows how true that is. The Central Avenue landmark eatery scored only a “silver”…
A TMZ.com article headlined “Obama Graduates to the Hard Stuff” pokes fun at the president for slurping down a magarita with his family this weekend at the local landmark restaurant, Macayo’s. But the gossip site doesn’t fully report how much hard stuff Obama reportedly had. According to a Channel 12…
