Twenty gallons of gasoline were poured into a 400-square-foot room. The pungent liquid soaked the floor, desk, and computer inside the small office. It was about 12:30 a.m. on the cool Sunday morning of June 14, and the room was dark. Josh Robinson stood amid the puddles, awash in fumes…
Siempre, the wisest words that appear in this column come from ustedes, y the following two cartas prove this maxim. The first one addresses my year-end column, in which a working-class gabacho insisted his people apapachan a Mexicans mucho: Half-Mexican here. I was fortunate enough to catch your column while…
TURNING UP THE HEAT Nice to know: It’s gratifying to learn, since reading the Michael Lacey article that appeared at the end of the year, that grand juries are looking into the actions of Joe Arpaio and his henchmen at the state and federal levels (“Joel Fox Testifies Before Grand…
One hundred million dollars. That’s how much money the Metro Phoenix Partnership for Arts and Culture hopes to generate from a new tax hike proposal quietly being prepared for voters. One hundred million freakin’ dollars, each year. Are these people insane? This state is in near-meltdown. Foreclosures are up. Employment…
On Maricopa County sheriff’s Deputy Roy Cook’s last day on duty, a colleague said of him, “Too bad. He was just starting to figure out the job.” Yeah, after 44 years as a lawman, which apparently makes Deputy Cook the longest tenured of any Maricopa County employee on record. Having…
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: Joe Arpaio Pays Dennis Gilman the Ultimate Compliment, Better Than E.J. Montini’s Pizzas Up on…
We’ve heard of all sorts of fevers — cat-scratch, valley, fevers where the only prescription is “more cow-bell” — but we weren’t familiar with the variety that a Phoenix man claims made him “violently ill,” prompting a lawsuit against PetCo.George Heitzman claims he contracted something called rat-bite fever after he bought…
John McCain’s wife and daughter recently posed for a photographer’s campaign to repeal a California ban on gay marriage, putting them at odds with the Arizona senator’s position on the matter. Cindy McCain followed the lead of her daughter, Meghan, who posed for photographer Adam Bouska back in June with a symbolic piece…
A Phoenix meth addict woke up from his pipe dream early Sunday morning and began viciously attacking his 85-year-old mother, thinking his house was under attack by an intruder. The woman, Eva Fitzgerald, called 911 just after 2:30 a.m. and told police that her son was hitting her. Operators could…
The highly publicized search for the Tempe baby who went missing in December has hit a roadblock, but a babysitter, who may be one of the last people to see the child alive, is describing her time with the 8-month-old to San Antonio news outlets. From everything that has been…
A rodeo performer accused of torching his Carefree-area home in 2007 to collect the insurance money has been arrested after more than a year on the lam. Aaron Jeter, 41, conspired with two other men to burn down the custom-built home at 613 West Galvin, just north of Carefree, a Maricopa…
Sarah Palin, the new darling of the Conservative party, announced today that she will be making the campaign rounds for several Republican Congressional candidates, including a stop in Arizona to campaign for her former running-mate, John McCain.Apparently getting run down by the hope and change-train in the 2008 presidential election…
Reason, the influential libertarian magazine devoted to “free minds and free markets,” has published a piece criticizing Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas as “Sheriff Joe’s Enabler.”The piece was published online yesterday.In it, senior editor Radley Balko explains that “[f]or all of Arpaio’s tough on crime preening, Thomas may actually be…
The nativists love to hate Dennis Gilman, the activist/videographer who’s always documenting their dirty deeds. And there’s no love lost between the MCSO and Gilman either. Joe Arpaio’s deputy dips have threatened to arrest him several times, all for exercising his constitutional right to monitor law enforcement. If the MCSO were a…
Arizona Senator John McCain is looking at last night’s Massachusetts Senate election as the “wake-up” call that could change how business is done in the nation’s capitol. “Last night, a shot was fired around this nation … saying no more business as usual in Washington, D.C.,” McCain said on the Senate floor this…
This is one of the few haircuts we’ve ever seen that may be dumber than the “blown out” Long Island locks Paulie D sports on Jersey Shore. This Arizona Cardinals super-fan was originally seen on The Smoking Gun and his mug was brought to our attention by our friends at Heat City, who find…
We got an incredible e-mail a few hours ago from Alan Hedges, a Texas man whose 7-year-old granddaughter, Alexia, and her grandmother Mauricia Aviles (in the photo) were bludgeoned to death in 1999 by seriously mentally ill family member Rodney Aviles. We wrote extensively about the case. This is…
The majority of the luxury condos at the posh 44 Monroe luxury high-rise are facing foreclosure. A notice of trustee’s sale has been filed by the Scottsdale’s Stearns Bank to sell 182 of the building’s 196 units. The condos will be sold to the highest bidder on April 14…Phoenix police…
Remember that 10,000 person anti-Arpaio march that happened recently? You know, like four days ago?That was really great and all, but where we need those 10,000-plus persons right now is down at the Arizona State Legislature Wednesday morning to oppose neo-Nazi hugger and state Senator Russell Pearce’s latest putrid piece…
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: Photo of Anarchists Assaulting a Horse at the Anti-Arpaio March, and Analysis of the Video…
There’s no shortage of discouraging news for Arizona today. In a prior post, we told you about Maricopa County’s dismal national ranking in terms of job loss, and the latest news on the education front isn’t any better.According to the annual report from Editorial Projects in Education, Arizona ranks fifth-worst…
It would seem that there is one defender that Arizona Cardinals star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald can’t seem to shake: speed-cams — the dreaded defender of Valley freeways. Fitzgerald’s Cadillac Escalade has been photographed by speed-cams as it was blasting down Valley freeways six times since August, according to a…
