Interim Phoenix Police Chief Joe Yahner was appointed as the city’s permanent police chief. Yahner, who’s been with the department for nearly 30 years, was tapped as interim chief late last year after city management fired Daniel Garcia after just a few years on the job. Yahner won’t hang on…
Professor Ersula Ore, convicted for resisting arrest and suing ASU for $2 million, is defiant as ever in a new statement that blames Officer Stewart Ferrin for her troubles. “While I requested he respect the exercise of my constitutional rights, his anger clearly grew to frightening proportions. He unjustifiably grabbed me and threw me to the ground with the excessive force that he…
If you believe the stereotypes about Arizona, then pigs are flying around the state Legislature. Republican and Democratic lawmakers are coming together to form a science and technology caucus to work with the scientific community in promoting research in the state. “We should do a lot of work with the…
A week after two Arizona agencies were implicated in a federal class-action lawsuit because of the state’s “dangerous, severely deficient foster care system,” Governor Doug Ducey’s office finally made a move. On Tuesday afternoon, Ducey announced that he was firing Charles Flanagan, head of the Department of Child Safety, and…
An Arizona aid worker who spent the past 18 months as a hostage of the Islamic State in Syria is dead, the 26-year-old’s family said today. “We are heartbroken to share that we’ve received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller has lost her life,” Mueller’s parents, Carl and Marsha, and her…
The mother of a mentally ill woman who was fatally shot last year by a Phoenix police officer is seeking $7 million from the city. A notice of claim filed by attorneys for Frances Garrett contends that the officer who shot her daughter, 50-year-old Michelle Cusseaux, mishandled the situation leading…
Phoenix just got one step closer to becoming the global center for diagnosing autism after an iPhone app called NODA™ opened to the public yesterday– and no, this has nothing to do with the measles vaccine. NODA, for Naturalistic Observation Diagnostic Assessment, allows parents to upload videos of their children…
Some Arizona lawmakers want to take a statewide inventory of untested sexual-assault kits collected by law enforcement agencies. In late 2012, an investigation by ABC 15 found that there were at least 3,000 such untested kits just in the Phoenix area, half of which were from the Phoenix Police Department…
As U.S. officials scramble to corroborate the Islamic State’s reports last week that an American hostage died in a Jordanian air strike, the woman’s family is trying to stay positive. “This news leaves us concerned, yet, we are still hopeful that Kayla is alive,” wrote Kayla Mueller’s parents, Carl and…
Two members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club were shot while riding their motorcycles in Phoenix on Saturday night. One man died as a result of his injuries, while the other was hospitalized with serious injuries. The bikers apparently didn’t see who fired the shots, police say. “We don’t know…
Since the news of a lawsuit about Arizona’s “dangerous, severely deficient foster care system” broke on Tuesday, February 4, the story has made headlines around the nation. It’s been reported in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and if the past week is any indication, Beth K. v Flanagan…
Roxana Bacon really should know better. A former president of the State Bar of Arizona, she recently penned an op-ed for the Arizona Republic wherein she blasted state Attorney General Mark Brnovich for a blame-the-victim “you asked for it” opinion of rape. “In Brnovich’s view,” she wrote, “prisons are places…
The Islamic State released a statement today claiming that an Arizona aid worker the terror group was holding hostage in Syria has been killed in a Jordanian airstrike. ISIS reported that Kayla Mueller, 26, was buried in the rubble of a building in Syria’s ar-Raqqah governorate. Air assaults on the…
A new tax break for some religious groups was passed yesterday by the Arizona House of Representatives. The bill, which is being pushed by the notorious Center for Arizona Policy, was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer after it was passed by lawmakers last year…
Chalk one up for patient rights: the Arizona Court of Appeals has opened the door for people to sue prescription-drug companies under the state’s consumer fraud act. Previously, the court held pharmaceutical companies liable for warning doctors about dangerous side effects — but not the people who were actually taking…
Kristen Keogh, spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, has been named by a local magazine as one of the Valley’s “Most Eligible” singles. The award isn’t surprising to us a for a couple of reasons: Keogh is a a former Arizona Coyotes cheerleader and TV news reporter who just…
At the end of the week, we bring you a roundup of visitors to the desert’s own Fourth Avenue Jail. To be considered for our Maricopa County mugshots of the week, get arrested, strike a pose, and we’ll take care of the rest. This week, we found some fantastic –…
Advocates for LGBT immigrants are again trying to bring attention to a case of a transgender woman being mistreated in immigration detention. After an alleged rape of a transgender woman at an immigrant detention facility in Eloy last year, advocates are rallying behind another trans woman who’s claiming to have…
Two more people have been arrested in a 2014 ax murder Phoenix police say was carried out by members of the white-supremacist Aryan Brotherhood gang. Christopher Paul Mason, 31, was arrested for the crime in December, but court documents obtained by New Times indicate police have arrested two more people…
Do Mexicans sling racial slurs at each other or casually refer to each other as “wabs,” similar to the way blacks call each other “nigger?” What’s your take on the whole “nigger” thing anyway?” Kingfish the Cabrón What do I think of “nigger”? Um, it’s bad? I think you mean…
Save for his cast-bound right leg and the scooter next to him, which he uses to get around while recuperating from a recent bone-graft operation, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich looks like John Belushi in Animal House. Maybe it’s the wiry black hair, dark features, and jovial persona. The comparison…
Arizona lawmakers are discovering that it costs a lot of money to be “tough on crime.” Just as Governor Doug Ducey was elected under a promise of getting the state in fiscal shape, he’s proposing new spending of more than $70 million a year for more space in private prisons…
