Where is 24-year-old Ivan Ibarra Garcia? The local car dealer was kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday near Van Buren and 27th Avenue and spirited away to an unknown location. His relatives received ransom-demand calls throughout the night, police say, but he’s still in the custody of thugs…
KPHO Channel 5 has picked up on the story of Katherine Figueroa, the nine year-old girl robbed of her parents by the MCSO during its raid on Phoenix’s Lindstrom Family Auto Wash last Saturday. Her tearful testimony pleading for President Barack Obama’s help in springing her parents Sandra and Carlos from Tent City…
Touchy, touchy. A representative of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection called us this afternoon to ask why our June 8 post about a roundtable being hosted by the group was so “negative.” The woman started off by telling us that she’s a journalist who was working for the…
With the deadline fast approaching to reveal the names of the SCA members or face a $315,000 fine, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Captain Joel Fox begged election officials this month to let him disclose the names in private. Fox, who obviously missed his calling as a lawyer, continues to argue in correspondence with county…
An observant reader passed this one along to us: The award-winning novel, Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill, famously being read this summer by President Obama, contains a rather downbeat assessment of downtown Phoenix: On our way out we passed through downtown Phoenix. It was seemingly an uninhabited place given over to…
It’s doubtful anyone in Arizona will match Joe Pinto’s fish tale this summer: The Scottsdale resident reeled in a quarter-ton of finned fury on Monday while fishing in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.Yeah, that’s way cooler than snagging sunfish in Chaparral Lake.Pinto and others on board a charter boat were trying to…
D-Backs manager A.J. Hinch held a big clubhouse meeting with his players yesterday afternoon, which shouldn’t come as a surprise following the team’s absolutely embarrassing 5-0 shutout loss to Kansas City on Tuesday night. No press. No other staff. Just the skipper and his crew hashing out one of the…
About 150 Iranian-Americans rallied in Tempe, to protest what they see as fraud in Iran’s recent presidential elections. The rally was peaceful, and a similar rally in Tucson drew about 60 people…A Valley man was kidnapped by a group of armed suspects near 27th avenue and Roosevelt Tuesday night. Police…
Anyone who’s traveled south on 16th Street past Thomas Road in the past 10 years has seen the fading mural that snakes along the side of the old Mercer Mortuary building. Painted by an artist named Rose Johnson in 1998, with the help of some school kids, the mural, called…
I write to you with a doubt similar to the one that Incensed in Chicago felt a couple of weeks ago, when her friend couldn’t believe that Mexicans worked in professional, white-collar jobs. I live in Tijuana, and of the gabachos who put roots here, you can’t find a single…
FAKE IT ‘TIL YOU MAKE IT Editor’s note: Plenty of readers criticized us and/or local singer Sonny Long for our recent cover story, “Sonny Long Is a Legend in His Own Mind,” but few were willing to sign their full or real names to their comments. Here’s a sampling of…
POOH-POOH-ERS Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon scored a direct hit against nemesis Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the wake of the U.S. Holocaust Museum shooting spree by white supremacist James von Brunn that left a security guard dead. Gordon, who is Jewish, took the occasion to do what no other political leader…
Last Thursday, a swarm of police officers descended on Michael Salman’s northwest Phoenix home. Armed officers herded Salman, his wife Suzanne, their five young daughters, and their visiting friends into the living room — and kept them under watch for 90 minutes while other city officials searched the grounds. And…
So I’ve just thumbed through a passel of recent White House statements and releases, looking for something about that big immigration meetup that President Barack Obama was supposed to have with Congressional leaders Wednesday, June 17. You know, the one originally scheduled for June 8, which I mentioned at the tail end…
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: Rev. Al Sharpton and Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Meet Behind Closed Doors for Battle Royale…
Infighting by Maricopa County officials worsened today with a storm of insults and budget-cutting.Earlier today, County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley voted against allowing County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ office to receive $1.4 million in state funding for enforcement against illegal immigrants. The votes blocked the funds in a…
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Captain Joel Fox has until the end of the month to cough up information about the people behind last year’s shadowy $105,000 donation to the Republican Party, says the elections department.”We believe if he goes past July 1st in the timing of all this, then the…
Jarret Maupin II, in an impassioned phone call to New Times and in a comment posted today on our blog, now says that he “unequivocally” believes the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office commits racial profiling. Maupin claims his quotes to the contrary that turned up in a deputy’s report were “completely…
It promises to be more scintillating than the Thrilla in Manila, though, sadly, this verbal donnybrook will mostly behind closed doors, according to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s camp.I’m talking about the news fresh from Rev. Al’s flack Rachel Noerdlinger that Sharpton’s taken up an invite from Joe Arpaio to visit…
Disgraced local activist and former Phoenix school board member Jarrett Maupin II was once Al Sharpton’s treasured Arizona connection. We’re not sure what Sharpton, who’s coming to Phoenix on Friday, thinks about Maupin’s shameful conviction for lying to the FBI about Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Maupin’s former political opponent. But…
Governor Jan Brewer has appointed a new student representative to the Arizona Board of Regents. Jennifer Ginther, a graduate student in biology at Northern Arizona University, comes with an impressive resume. We can’t tell you how she’ll do as a regent, but the 4.0 student knows a thing or two…
As we mentioned in a previous post, ridership for the light-rail system fell in May. Today, Metro released the official figures: PHOENIX — METRO ridership totaled 928,259 boardings in May 2009. The average weekday ridership was 33,553, average Saturday ridership was 27,176 and average Sunday and holiday ridership…
