The National Transportation Safety Board announced yesterday that it’s now urging all states to impose total bans on people using cell phones while driving.The board determined texting, sexting, emailing, chatting — whatever — is too dangerous to do while driving a vehicle.The recommendation includes exceptions for emergencies and devices that…
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday will take its second look at New Times’ lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio for the 2007 arrests of the newspaper’s two top executives..The Ninth’s 11-member en banc panel will hear the appeal this time, rather than the three-member panel that ruled on the…
Phoenix police confirmed this afternoon that one of its own is facing felony domestic violence charges stemming from an incident at his Casa Grande home over the weekend.In addition to being a Phoenix police officer, Armando Ramirez is a reserve in the United States Marine Corps. who just returned from…
Arizona Congressman Ben Quayle today officially joined several other GOP members of Congress in calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to step down over “Fast and Furious,” the Justice Department’s botched gun-running sting.Previously, Quayle politely asked Holder if he had any intentions of stepping down.Quayle, however, remains mum on the…
Sorry, gentlemen, according to her Facebook page, Brandi Farnberg, 23, is in a relationship. According to police, she’s also an alleged car thief with aliases like “Sabrina Angelo,” “Brandy Torres,” and “Kacey Whitmore.”Farnberg was arrested early yesterday morning after she was stopped by police while driving a stolen car. Additionally,…
Taylor Jose Basilio told police earlier this week that he’s done some “stupid things” lately. Specifically, he beat his 7-week-old son so violently that the baby’s skull was fractured in two places.Basilio and his wife, Candace Basilio, each of Phoenix, brought the baby to a pediatrician last week to get…
Joel Fox Joel Fox finally has achieved the equivalent of a base hit in a court case. A federal judge ruled recently that a lawsuit against Cox Communications by the disgraced former captain fired by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio can proceed, for now. At the heart of the lawsuit, so to…
Congratulations to the New Times reader who goes by the handle Joe Mamma, you are the proud winner of this week’s New Times You Write the Caption contest.On Friday, we asked readers to provide what they think would be an appropriate caption for the above cover of Globe, and Maricopa…
The Chandler Unified School District decided yesterday to uphold a semester-long suspension for five eighth grade students who threatened to kill their teacher by — among other methods — setting her on fire, cutting out her tongue, drowning her, or running her over with a truck.See our post on the…
Call it the revenge of Randy Parraz. The man who organized the end of former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s Career is returning — MacArthur-like — to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ auditorium, the place where he was falsely arrested in 2008 by Joe’s boys in beige while seeking…
If 20-year-old William Lowe’s aspiring to become a ruthless serial killer, he may be on the right track. Like Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and David Berkowitz before they were cold-blooded killers, Lowe apparently gets his kicks by hurting defenseless animals.According to police, Lowe shot a puppy with a high-powered pellet…
Since the old, 2009 Pulitzer Prize-worthy tale of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 432 botched sex-crime investigations was thrust into the national spotlight thanks to an oddly timed Associated Press article last week, two of Arizona’s three Democratic members of Congress have called for his resignation (Gabrielle Giffords hasn’t commented…
Governor Jan Brewer’s lawsuit against Arizona’s medical marijuana law took a beating today in federal court, where a judge told the state’s lawyers to pick a side on the issue.Brewer and her legal enforcer in the case, state Attorney General Tom Horne, campaigned against Prop 203 before voters passed it…
A junior high school student in Chandler will have to sit out the entire semester after she and a few friends jotted down some plans about how to best murder their language arts teacher earlier this year.Some of the ideas that made the students’ list (which you can see below)…
Police say a Scottsdale man got hammered on liquor and beer Saturday afternoon, sexually assaulted his own wife, verbally abused his nephew and daughters, and then tried to stage a fight between a chihuahua and a pit bull.When the two pooches didn’t fight, 48-year-old David Shelburg Jr. slammed their heads…
A man who placed an ad on backpage.com for an AR-15 assault rifle had the gun stolen from him — then shot at the fleeing suspect with a handgun, hitting a Valley Metro van.The messy gun deal went down in the parking lot of Sportsman’s Warehouse, 1750 South Greenfield Road…
A 20-year-old surgery assistant at a Sun City hospital was arrested at work last week following a grand-jury indictment on charges of possessing child pornography. Ryan Hazelton was 17 and living with his folks in Chandler when a 2009 Tempe police investigation caught up to him and his family’s home…
The Arizona Cardinals beat the San Francisco 49ers 21-19 yesterday for the team’s fifth win in 6 games — and that’s after starting the season 1-6.Cards’ quarterback Kevin Kolb went down early with concussion-like symptoms after getting drilled by Niners linesbacker Ahmad Brooks.Enter B-squad QB John Skelton, who replaced Kolb…
Last week, in honor of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s (embarrassing) investigation into the continuously debunked “birther” conspiracy theory (and the friggin’ beating America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” is taking in the press these days) we submitted the above cover of Globe, one of the sheriff’s favorite publications, for this week’s…
In the wake of the national media attention his office has received over hundreds of botched sex-crime investigations, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made no secret that there are “other local agencies” who absolutely suck at investigating sex crimes, too.The sheriff hasn’t named names, but we’re stunned to find…
The city of Phoenix convinced at least 1,500 misdemeanor scofflaws to come in to court this week and take care of their old warrants.Sergeant Tommy Thompson says the number is conservative and that he’ll get an exact count on Monday from city court.The police, court, public defender’s office and city…
The Arizona Supreme Court ordered the City of Glendale to pay legal fees incurred by the Tohono O’odham Nation during court battles related to the city’s opposition to tribal plans for a resort-style casino near the city.The latest batch of legal fees are more than $25,000, and that, added to…
