A bill to force people who want to get divorced to stay married longer — in the hope that they would reconsider — was shot down in the Arizona House of Representatives today.Score one for sanity.A divorce can be the most maddening thing a person can go through, and while most of us…
What do you call a vampire who’s running for the U.S. Senate? Don’t bother asking Senate hopeful J.D. Hayworth because the guy’s apparently humorless, can’t take a joke.Hayworth seems to think that a vampire quip made by former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods was a death threat, and is demanding an apology.In an…
After an incident between Phoenix City Councilman Michael Johnson and a Phoenix police officer ignited tensions between police and minority communities, minority leaders have come out against the Phoenix Police Department, claiming it has a problem with its use of excessive force.A report released yesterday by the PPD shows that…
John McCain’s maverickness is getting called into question after an interview the senator gave this week, where McCain downplays the nickname and denies ever viewing himself in that regard. “I never considered myself a maverick,” McCain tells Newsweek. “I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to…
A Peoria man who smashed his pickup into a bicyclist in 2008, then left the victim dead on the road, was picked up by cops last week on charges of manslaughter and hit-and-run. On October 26, 2008, Peoria resident Richard Markarian, 65, was riding his bike in about 3:30 a.m. on Beardsley Road when the pickup truck careened into him…
Governor Jan Brewer signed two bills into law yesterday that — if nothing else — solidify Arizona’s reputation as the Wild West.One of the bills, HB 2307, allows Arizonans to own guns without registering them with the federal government, as long as the guns are made, bought, and sold in…
Somehow, between hiding Easter eggs and filling baskets with candy, the Easter Bunny found time to give a photo-enforcement camera in Tempe an oval-shaped “up yours!” And an anti-speed-camera group predicts such civil disobedience will happen “more and more” until the cameras are gone.As you read yesterday in our Feathered Bastard blog, a man in a…
Arpaio, Wilcox and Pearce on GeraldoIn case you missed it, here’s video from Geraldo Rivera’s March 29 show on Fox, where he takes on Sheriff Joe for the umpteenth time, and features footage of Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and state Senator Russell Pearce.The footage of Wilcox is from…
[jump] As bad as your drive to work may have been this morning, this jalopy should remind you of one thing: It could be worse…
Ace Dan Haren was awesome, Stephen Drew hit a bizarre inside-the-park home run, and Kurt Warner threw out the opening pitch — not a bad way to start the 2010 baseball season, and a D-backs win was the icing on the cake. After finishing last season in the basement of the NL West, the…
A new U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint opened near Tubac yesterday. The $1.5 million interim checkpoint along Interstate 19 is supposed to help catch illegal immigrants and drug runners, but residents in the Santa Cruz Valley say it will hurt businesses and endanger neighborhoods…A former Rhodes Junior High School student 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: Feathered Bastard: Easter Bunny Disables Photo Radar for Several Hours: Catch the Video by Jason Shelton Up…
We’re beginning to sound like a broken record, but here’s the latest from Maricopa County Superior Court: Sheriff Joe Arpaio has lost another lawsuit.Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Oberbillig today summarily dismissed Arpaio’s suit against the agency that provides healthcare in the county jail system. Arpaio had filed the…
We thought it was possible the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors had a conflict of interest in picking a new county attorney, with two of the five having been indicted last year. But the board decided today that it doesn’t have a conflict. Whew… what a relief. County attorney Andrew Thomas…
The dastardly murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz has sent the nativists into public paroxysms of jingoist ecstasy. Tom Tancredo, J.D. Hayworth and others of that ilk are exploiting the killing to inflame hatred toward new arrivals of a brown hue. Even mainstream pols like Senator John McCain and Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords are using…
In celebration of the beginning of baseball season, Senator John McCain announced today that he has the support of former Arizona Diamondbacks slugger Luis Gonzalez in his bid to fend off J.D. Hayworth, his Republican U.S. Senate primary opponent.While we don’t recommend that you take your voting cues from a…
Ten years ago, the area around Central Avenue just south of the Salt River was quite literally a dump, overflowing with trash and waste. A decade and millions of dollars later, 600 acres in the area has been converted into Audubon Arizona’s Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. On Saturday, April…
Jesse James, the bad-boy biker husband of Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock, checked into a rehab facility in Tucson last week to start battling his addiction to sex. Today, it’s reported that James left the facility but quickly checked back in to continue trying to “save [his] marriage.”Since he was…
*UPDATE* This lawsuit against Ray has since been dismissed.The hits just keep coming for “spiritual warrior” James Arthur Ray, the snake-oil salesman charged in the deaths of three people at a sweat-lodge ceremony in Sedona last October.Lawsuits filed in Maricopa County Superior Court claim that Ray misled people into paying…
Nothing proves you’re a real man like killing defenseless kittens. Cops are accusing Richard Thomas Routin, 25, of stealing three of his ex-girlfriend’s kitties during a nasty fight, then killing them and dumping their bodies in trash cans. Routin also sexually assaulted the woman in her trailer home during the Easter…
A former political aide for John McCain has put up $2,500 of his own money to counter a medical marijuana inititiative that probably will be be on the 2010 ballot. Max Fose, owner of a political-consulting and PR firm, has apparently been trying to “Stop the Pot” since he launched…
A researcher at the University of Arizona will spend the next five years studying the effects of the party drug ecstasy, thanks to a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the university announced Friday.Terrence Monks, head of U of A’s Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, won’t…
