Tempe’s mayor, whom New Times persuaded to use the word “sucks” 11 times during a Tempe City Council meeting after he ruthlessly censored the word the week before, will not seek re-election.Mayor Hugh Hallman announced at a City Council meeting last night that he is not planning to run for…
Unless you are totally off the news grid (and probably wouldn’t be reading this), you, too, are hooked in some fashion on the Casey Anthony murder case down in Orlando. It’s probably the nation’s most high-profile criminal case perhaps since O.J. Simpson walked out of court a free man (only…
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal came to the conclusion earlier this week that the Tucson Unified School District’s ethnic-studies course is illegal.Huppenthal cited an audit of the course by the Cambium Learning Group as the basis for his claim.He may have been under the impression that nobody was…
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:…
Twenty Gilbert police officers, some in masks and riot gear, stormed a home last week after receiving a tip that the owner was in possession of an ounce of marijuana. The homeowner, Ross Taylor, is a card-carrying patient under Arizona’s new medical-marijuana law, which allows people to qualify to possess up to…
A “three or four second” boob grab could land a 20-year-old Surprise man in the slammer — which tends to be the breaks when the boob grabbed belongs to a 12-year-old.Patrick Michael McKnight, a Pizza Hut employee, was arrested on charges that he fondeled the breast of a 12-year-old family…
If a real estate company promises to rent your house to some out-of-towners for the upcoming MLB All-Star Game at a “too good to be true” price, the offer’s probably bogus. The Department of Real Estate announced this afternoon that one such profiteering company, Your Stay Accommodations, is getting investigated for swindling…
Former Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder is on the disabled list after surgery last week to repair a herniated disc in his back — which might be why he did nothing to defend his wife from a shoe-throwing maniac during a road-rage incident yesterday afternoon.Snyder, now with the Pittsburgh Pirates,…
A Phoenix man is suing the City of Phoenix, former Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris, and several others over a beating he says he received from two Phoenix police officers who initially mistook him for a drug dealer they’d previously arrested.According to the suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court…
A morning of family drinking turned deadly yesterday when police say a Phoenix man got hammered, punched a woman in the face, and then fatally shot his own nephew.According to court documents obtained by New Times, Antonio Lawrence Bracamonte II, 26, was arrested early yesterday morning after police found his…
As firefighters continue to battle the Wallow fire in eastern Arizona, the starter of half of the monstrous 2002 Rodeo-Chedeski fire is scheduled to be released from prison tomorrow. Leonard Gregg, an Apache who lived in Cibecue, admitted he’d started two fires — Rodeo and Pine. The former wildland…
In preparation for his upcoming discipline hearing this fall, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has submitted grand jury transcripts from his failed prosecutions of two County Supervisors. Because of secrecy rules about the doings of grand juries, the State Bar’s presiding disciplinary judge, William O’Neil, ordered the documents regarding Supervisors…
Frank Morris, 19, of Casa Grande, managed to escape a police pursuit early Tuesday morning. He would have gotten away scot free, but unfortunately for Morris, he didn’t manage to avoid hitting a pole once police called off the pursuit.About 4:30 Tuesday morning, a Pinal County sheriff’s deputy tried to pull…
I’ve just finished reading the Cambium report on Tucson Unified School District’s much-maligned Mexican American Studies Department. It’s a shocker.Know why? Because the report itself concludes that “no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law [Arizona…
Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash isn’t the prime minister of Canada (yet), but he still did his part to get hooligans to stop trashing a Canadian city following the Vancouver Canucks’ game-seven loss in the Stanley Cup Finals last night.The Canucks were crushed by the Boston Bruins 4-0 to conclude…
The Pima County Attorney’s Office on Tuesday cleared members of the county’s SWAT Team for shooting at an ex-Marine 71 times during a drug investigation that netted a total of one bag of marijuana.The ex-Marine, 26-year-old Jose Guerena, was holding an AR-15 assault rifle when the SWAT Team busted down…
Most of Pearce’s 2010 donations were from outside LD18I plan to ride around town with a dead crow in my car, so the next time I see local hack Howie Fischer, he of the one-man “Capitol Media Services,” I can carve him off a slice for his dinner.See, Fischer, like…
The scene inside unit 313 at the Biltmore Terrace Apartments in Phoenix was gruesome. A man’s naked, bloated body was on the floor next to a bed. He was on his back, and his badly bruised arms were frozen in front of his head. A substantial amount of blood from…
Recent events necessitate a review of the bleak, chilling years not long past, when Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his political ally, ex-County Attorney Andrew Thomas, attempted to rule the Valley like a Third World junta. As my colleague Ray Stern first reported online, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court…
I’m a white girl dating a Mexican from Jalisco who works for my dad. There lies the problem. Dad absolutely dislikes him and totally opposes me dating Ignacio and has been almost rude to him, which I don’t like. Some details now: I often visit Dad at his office and…
CULT HIT Consider the source: To say I am disappointed about your misleading article (“Loving Cult,” Stephen Lemons, June 2) would be an understatement. If you can live with your conscience writing disparaging lies and publishing this kind of rubbish, then I have nothing left to say, except I have…
Former New Times columnist Sarah Fenske was honored last week with the prestigious Livingston Award for a three-part series she wrote in Phoenix last year about corruption at the top of the Maricopa County Housing Authority. The series (“Mr. Big Stuff,” (February 11, April 22, July 1, 2010) led directly…
