Governor Jan Brewer is using a supposed threat to state workers as a “pretext” for thwarting the will of voters, say advocates of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act in a court action filed today. The American Civil Liberties Union makes that case in a court motion filed today in the…
We wrote a blog item earlier today about the parallels of the Casey Anthony and Deborah Milke child-murder cases, and mentioned the name of little Chris Milke’s actual killer, Vietnam vet James Lynn Styers. Didn’t take but a few minutes before someone informed us about an Arizona Supreme Court…
Governor Jan Brewer today celebrates the arrival of Amazon.com’s fourth major facility in Arizona today, yet the state’s revenue department calls the company a tax cheat.Brewer and the online bookseller’s representatives are touting the estimated 3,000 jobs created by the company’s other three Phoenix locations, including a 1.2 million square-foot…
A Gilbert town official recently sent us an e-mail with a “signature” at the bottom that read: “Beginning July 11, 2011, Gilbert will offer extended customer service hours for most Town services, of 7 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday – Thursday…” In government-speak, though, “extended” hours also means a lot…
A Phoenix man who allegedly shined a laser at a police helicopter was arrested with the help, naturally, of the pilots. The chopper had been flying in the area of 2300 W. Port Royal Lane, south of Greenway Road, at about 10:20 p.m. when the flyboys noticed someone shining a…
As Casey Anthony soon returns to a society that wants no part of her, a woman in her late 40s continues to sit on Arizona’s death row, convicted nearly two decades ago of killing her 4-year-old son. Deborah Milke’s case was a huge one in the Valley, though it paled…
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s heralded announcement this morning in Nogales of a new border strategy that targets drug-smuggling sounds suspicious.Like one more chapter in America’s failed Drug War.Make that the world’s failed drug war. Perhaps the former Arizona governor has no time to read in her highfalutin D.C…
>DETENTION CLASS Go after real criminals instead: Gregory Pratt should be commended for an excellent article exposing the hardships of immigration detention (“Huddled Masses,” June 23). In my newly released book, My Trials: What I Learned in Immigration Court, I expose many of the same things and call for massive…
A close-up photo of a dead man’s battered face flashes on the large screen, his closely shaved head on its side — streaked, dried blood and a blackened, bloated tongue protruding between pale lips. The image lingers for a moment, then comes another. A woman’s hand. Flesh hangs from her…
It’s not often that I peruse the aisles of Home Depot looking for a weapon that supposedly could kill a man, but I did recently, because I wanted to purchase a Nifty Nabber, manufactured by the Connecticut-based Unger tool company. My intent was not homicidal. Instead, I wanted the 36-inch-long…
Ever since Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law, pro-immigrant activists and politicians have had different perspectives on how to best show disapproval of the controversial immigration statute. Organizations such as the Phoenix-based human-rights organization Puente have called for a boycott of the state. U.S. Representative…
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:…
The starting lineup for next week’s MLB All-Star Game at Chase Field this isn’t what you’d call stellar, to say the least. Thanks to injuries, a number of baseball’s biggest superstars will be absent from the midsummer classic this Tuesday, including Saint Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols and Milwaukee Brewers…
After the storm like the one the Valley had last night and all the wildfires, you’d think Arizona was one giant dust bowl.You’d be wrong.Despite “exceptional,” bone-dry conditions in the southeastern part of the state, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Web site shows that some parts of western Arizona are…
In preparation for the MLB All-Star game set to take over the Valley early next week, baseball and city officials are giving the public a heads up to the dangers of counterfeit merchandise. Advocating a “consumer beware” mentality for fans, Ethan Orlinsky, senior vice president for MLB properties, warned against buying…
The Fiesta Bowl fiasco has raised questions about elected officials’ judgement in accepting tickets and travel to football games, especially when the sports organizations inevitably wind up before the same officials asking for financial support. Now, as Arizona prepares its bid to host the Super Bowl in 2015, we asked…
An ongoing drought in the southeastern part of Arizona, which has seen little rainfall in recent months, made last night’s dust storm “exceptional,” an official with the National Weather Service says.”This came from a thunderstorm complex not far from Tucson,” says Phoenix NWS meteorologist Ken Waters. “That area hasn’t had…
Seems that everywhere we went yesterday, everyone wanted to discuss the surprise acquittal of Florida’s Casey Anthony, who went from facing the death penalty to the cusp of being set free into a world that hates everything about her. Many folks also ask our opinions of one Nancy Grace, the onetime prosecutor-turned-angry-TV…
To former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, union is a four-letter word.Rimsza, mayor from 1994 to 2004, wrote a letter for one mayoral candidate that blasts three others who he claims are preferred by “out of control” union bosses. Rimsza believes that “Greg Stanton, Claude Mattox, and Wes Gullett all have…
Ten retired Scottsdale police officers are suing in federal court over tens of thousands in medical-leave pay they claim to have been shorted.The employees include: former Scottsdale police public information officer Sam Bailey; Bill Zeller (who once made the news for arresting a Scottsdale high school student because he disobeyed…
Video by sc2az95 on YouTube Here’s hoping you didn’t spend the Fourth washing your car. A tremendous dust storm rolled into the Valley tonight; spreading tiny particles of dust just about everywhere. Naturally, a haboob of this magnitude was captured in photo form (and videos like the one above) by…
A note to Sand Land’s hillbilly gun-huggers: Beer and firearms don’t mix. And they mix especially poorly with bigotry, latent or otherwise. Case in point is Gary Kelley, the South Phoenix man who gunned down his neighbor Juan Varela on May 6, 2010 after screaming at him in a drunken rage,…
