Wish I could say I was back on the rancho, but you know how that drug war of ours (both Mexican and American) is going, so the Mexican decided to stay home for the holidays for the first time in decades. Besides, there’s too much work at mano. The failure…
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:…
A New Times story about Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon advising a transit company that employs his girlfriend on how to muscle nearly $30 million from Phoenix has prompted an inquiry from the feds.The Federal Transit Administration, an agency that provides money for and oversees federally funded transportation programs, called Phoenix officials…
We’ve spent the better part of today — and last night — trying to figure out who’s responsible for the accidental release of a would-be cop-killer freed on $320 bond by a Pinal County justice of the peace. However, as much as it breaks our heart to inform you, it…
Honestly, we didn’t think it was possible for a story about a Maricopa County Supervisor’s wife allegedly carrying out a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy to get any more strange. But today it did, and now includes code-talking with one of her gal pals about destroying evidence.If you’re unfamiliar…
A career scumbag believed to be responsible for multiple sexual assaults and kidnappings is brain dead after trying to hang himself in a Montana jail on Monday.Phillip Humeyumptewa was found dangling from a bed sheet in his jail cell in Great Falls, Montana, just minutes after a guard checked on…
State Senate President-elect Russell Pearce and state House Speaker Kirk Adams were handed a defeat this morning in their efforts to interfere with the nominees to the Independent Redistricting Commission, the powerful committee of five that will be responsible for re-carving legislative and congressional districts before the 2012 elections.The Commission…
Hundreds of people called Maricopa County this year to complain about people violating restrictions on wood-burning. Despite the Valley’s ongoing problem with bad air, though, those calls resulted in almost no action by the county. The county’s Air Quality Department announced 11 no-burn days in 2010, and received 559 complaints based on…
Another day, another several-hundred pounds of weed discovered near the U.S./ Mexico border.Border agents near Tucson stopped a truck at a checkpoint on Arizona Highway 86 earlier this week and found nearly 300 pounds of weed hidden in a compartment.Arizona Highway 86 runs parallel with the U.S. Mexico border mostly…
One potential benefit of Proposition 203 could be a boost in local food banks, if Arizona pot dispensaries follow the lead of one California clinic. The Granny Purps marijuana dispensary in Soquel, California, has collected 11,000 pounds of food for a holiday charity drive in what the Santa Cruz Sentinel calls “a large…
A 44-year-old Phoenix man who lives with his parents was arrested yesterday after cops discovered he’d been downloading kiddy-porn to the computer at his parents’ house.Earlier this month, cops accessed the IP address for the computer at the home of Kurtis Bruce’s parents and were able to directly download images…
A would-be cop-killer roaming the streets seems like the kind of thing about which authorities might have wanted to alert the public. But they didn’t — for, at the very least, four days. Even worse, it seems authorities from at least two different Arizona cop shops have known Perez was…
Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission won’t be independent if state Senate President-elect Russell Pearce has anything to do with it.Already, Pearce, with the assistance of state House Speaker Kirk Adams, has effectively bulldozed two of the Republican nominees for the IRC off the list created by the Commission on Appellate Court…
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:…
Candidates in the race for Phoenix mayor are tapping pockets across the Valley to build their campaign war chests.The Arizona Guardian reported that one candidate, Wes Gullett, is getting a little help from Arizona Cardinals President and CEO Michael Bidwill and the team’s star receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Guardian reporter Dennis…
The unprecedented claims filed against Maricopa County by its own top officials have raised fascinating and difficult questions about potential conflicts of interest. We’re not sure this makes it any less difficult: Steven LaMar, a Cave Creek town councilman, is one of the lawyers hired to represent county interests…
If you’re a Valley motorist and think you know how to drive in the snow, you’re wrong — you can’t…not even a little bit…at all.The majority of the folks who get behind the wheel here in the Valley can’t even drive safely in rain, so with up to 20 inches…
Five cars, a fire hydrant, and three landscaped yards. That’s what an Avondale motorist hit on what police describe as a “path of destruction” Friday afternoon.When he was done wreaking havoc on Avondale roadways, 34-year-old Justin Fernandez parked his mangled car in his own garage — with car parts and…
A $10 million lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley last Thursday against the county will likely end up in federal court. Lawsuits alleging abuse of power, defamation, civil rights violations and other injustices by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas that were filed by Stapley’s executive assistant,…
Did you hear Bristol Palin, daughter of one-time vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is moving to the Grand Canyon State to attend the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University? Chris Callahan, the dean of the Cronkite School, sure did, and he says it aint happenin’…
The shooting at the Great Alaskan Bush Company strip club on Sunday — one of two strip club shootings over the Christmas weekend — wasn’t the spontaneous work of an angry patron dissatisfied with his lap-dance. The suspect, 28-year-old Gavin Macfarlane, told police it was “part of a plan he…
Having recently returned from spending Christmas in my native North Carolina, an obviously older state than the almost-but-not-yet-100-year-old state of Arizona, I was struck by a sense of history that seems woefully absent here. In the Old North State, as in many other states of the former Confederacy, there are…
