A school bus crashed in Mesa early this morning, injuring the bus driver and some of the ten students on board. The bus, from Desert Hills High School, was rear-ended by a pickup truck hauling a tractor near Val Vista and University Drive. The driver of the truck, the bus…
I spoke briefly today with both County Manager David Smith and County Budget Director Sandi Wilson, who yesterday confirmed to Channel 5’s Morgan Loew that they had both been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury this Wednesday, January 13. Both said they spoke to deputy U.S. Attorneys at…
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: Emil Pulsifer’s Intriguing Essay on the Subject of Immigration Up on the Sun: Arty Girl:…
The Arizona Cardinals return to the playoffs on Sunday to square off against the Green Bay Packers for the second time in two weeks, and they may have to do it without wide receiver Anquan Boldin.Boldin hurt his ankle in last week’s loss to the Packers and hasn’t practiced all…
Pac-10 men’s basketball supposedly is in a down cycle this season, what with UCLA and other squads losing a bunch of underclassmen to the professional ranks. One of those schools is ASU, which saw Jeff Pendergraf and the great James Harden split to the land of the big bucks (especially in…
A Chandler man was arrested today for doing one of the most inexplicably stupid things we’ve ever seen: speeding down the highway with half his body out the sunroof of his car in a county renowned for its use of photo radar. He wasn’t even wearing a monkey mask, like a…
In a move that seems taken from the pages of Barack Obama’s social-media political playbook, Paradise Valley Mayor and political rookie Vernon Parker will be tweeting live criticism from Governor Brewer’s State of the State address next week.Considering Parker is looking to oust Jan as the GOP’s candidate for governor,…
Joe Villasenor, a senior assistant to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, will be placed on “indefinite, unpaid leave” as of this evening, according to his supervisor.Villasenor was arrested December 15 after his wife told Phoenix Police officers that he’d grabbed her arm and shoved her hard enough to send her face-first…
National unemployment numbers for the month of December are in, and they aren’t pretty for Arizona.The numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics find that Hispanics and construction workers were the hardest hit by the sluggish economy, and in case you hadn’t noticed, Arizona happens to have both a…
A phoned-in bomb threat this morning at the Maricopa County Superior Court had some folks wondering about a possible tie to negative news about Sheriff Joe Arpaio. An earlier bomb threat at the court last month followed the jailing of Adam Stoddard, the detention officer Sheriff Arpaio claimed was the victim…
A recent study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology’s January print edition made a rather shitty discovery for soda-lovers everywhere: nearly half of all soda fountains are spraying high levels of fecal bacteria into people’s cups.Anyone familiar with the Internet phenomenon Two Girls, One Cup (which we will…
Regular readers of the Feathered Bastard blog are familiar with the trenchant, and often amusing observations of regular commenter Emil Pulsifer. So you will be interested in Pulsifer’s recent, thought-provoking guest column for Jon Talton’s Rogue Columnist blog. Formerly a business columnist for the Arizona Republic, Talton currently dwells in…
A Tucson woman told a judge on Wednesday that she starved her baby, Kimberlie, which caused the baby’s death in August of 2008. In Pima County Superior Court, 27-year-old Terri Sullivan admitted to starving the baby after she was born in July 2008, as well as failing to get help when it was…
A Phoenix church was ordered again to stop feeding homeless people. After a lengthy discussion in the city of Phoenix’s Board of Adjustments yesterday, the board agreed with the city’s earlier decision to force the Cross Roads Methodist Church to stop offering meals to the homeless. Since 2008, Reverend Dottie Escobedo-Frank has been…
A Mesa native has discovered a new dinosaur. Sterling Nesbitt was featured in an article in Science magazine last month, which detailed his team’s discovery of a new dinosaur species during a four-year dig in New Mexico. The new species may fill in evolutionary gaps between early dinosaurs and two-legged,…
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: J.T. Ready, Sal Reza, and a Horde of Racist Tea Party Tards in Big Noise…
According to KPHO’s 5 p.m. newscast, the station has confirmed that a federal grand jury is looking into Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s abuses of power, and his retaliatory investigations of his political enemies. Reporter Morgan Loew just broke the story that two county officials have received subpoenas ordering them to testify before the…
Arizona State Government Adam Henning, principal at Adobe Mountain School Arizona’s incarcerated juveniles are having sex with staff members at one of the highest rates in the country, according to a survey published by the U.S. Department of Justice. In a survey of thousands of kids held in juvie halls across…
Joe Villasenor, a senior assistant to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his wife December 15, according to a police report obtained by New Times.Villasenor is currently on “personal leave,” according to his direct supervisor, Bill Scheel.The alleged assault took place at the North Central Phoenix…
In what might possibly go down as one of the most boring divorces in the history of marriage, Mayor Phil Gordon’s divorce from now former wife Christa Clark Severns is now official.No juicy gossip to report here — the divorce was filed on March 30 of last year, the couple is…
John McCain’s newest radio ads are ready to hit the airwaves, and a couple things about them may shock you. First: at no point in either ad does McCain begin a sentence by saying “my friends.” Second: as for now, the ads won’t be barging in on J.D. Hayworth’s radio…
Pinal County, Maricopa’s southeastern neighbor, has been rocked in recent years by allegations of incompetence and wrongdoing by some of its top officials. New Times has obtained two more names for the list: * Lisa Garcia, assistant county manager for Health and Human Services, who was suspended for a week…
