A group of geology enthusiasts are rallying the public after the governor vetoed a bill that would have reopened the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum, which has been shuttered since 2011. Senate Bill 1200, sponsored by Senator Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), passed nearly unanimously in both the Senate and the House…
A controversial proposal before the Arizona Board of Regents to offer a lower tuition rate to some undocumented immigrants would not be subsidized by taxpayers, board chair Mark Killian told New Times. Under the plan, outlined in a the agenda for the board’s next monthly meeting May 4, undocumented immigrant…
Arizona university students aren’t exactly happy to pay more tuition, but during a public meeting with the Board of Regents last evening, many said they support proposed price increases in the name of maintaining quality amid deep cuts to state funding. “It’s not students’ fault and it’s not the administration’s…
Inside the McDonald’s at 1205 South Rural Road in Tempe, dinner guests sipped on soft drinks, munched on burgers, and surfed Facebook on their laptops. Outside, 600 protesters lapped up against the building, plastering signs to the windows and yelling, “Keep your burgers! Keep your fries! We want wages supersized!”…
The majority of federal and state dollars spent on Arizona anti-poverty programs go — not to the unemployed — but to college professors, home-healthcare nurses, child-care specialists, and other low-wage workers. According to a new University of California, Berkeley study, 57 percent of the $6,596 million the federal government spent…
Twelve Tucson activists who used their bodies to block two busloads of undocumented immigrants headed to expedited deportation proceedings in 2013 have been convicted of obstructing a highway and causing a public nuisance. Pima County Justice of the Peace Susan Bacal is expected to dole out sentences in July. The…
“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio after police busted into a squalid Wittman mobile home Wednesday to find 54 dogs and 18 cats crawling over urine-stained furniture. One striped cat, nestled inside an old, cardboard produce box, was nursing three Chihuahua puppies. Another lay…
Within a week, Governor Doug Ducey is expected to say yay or nay to a proposal that would block the state from cooperating with the Affordable Care Act. Among other things, House Bill 2643 would prohibit Arizona from building a state-run healthcare exchange — a move that some say could…
A new law requiring doctors to tell women that medication-induced abortions can be reversed — a premise most of the health care community refutes — could be in violation of the First Amendment, experts say. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, ruled that, in the…
Governor Doug Ducey’s approval of a new law that would force doctors to inform women that a medication-induced abortion can be reversed has the healthcare community roiling. The statute he signed into law Monday, formerly known as Senate Bill 1318, draws its theory from a case study published in the…
Say you’re in a relationship, and things are going well. Your boyfriend is staying night after night until, before you know it, he’s pretty much moved in. Life is bliss, except for one thing: Your landlord doesn’t like Prince Charming. Is this a problem? Critics of a bill zipping through…
U.S. senators John McCain and Jeff Flake have proposed an amendment to the federal budget that would create a spending-neutral reserve fund to support a zero-tolerance approach to prosecuting illegal border crossers. The motion follows reports that the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office plans to stop using a controversial program, called…
Arizona could be one of the first states in the nation to close the gender pay gap, according to a new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Women in the United States are paid about 78 cents on the dollar compared with men, which is about 16 cents…
A bill that would put an end to a nearly five-year ban on payday lending is languishing in the Arizona Senate after narrowly slipping through the House with a 31-29 vote. Still, about two dozen legislators, faith leaders, and community activists gathered in a gravel parking lot sandwiched between two…
An Arizona House committee passed a bill Thursday that would prohibit state agencies and employees from enforcing any new federal “act, law, order, rule or regulation” restricting gun ownership or ammunition. Senate Bill 1330 prevents the federal government from forcing Arizona to use resources and manpower to enforce federal laws,…
The Arizona Department of Education is throwing out 84 standardized math and reading assessments after an investigation at a Santa Cruz County middle school revealed irregularities in answer patterns. But the state isn’t accusing the kids of cheating. It’s pointing at teachers. An analysis of eraser marks on AIMS tests…
The black SUV had been parked outside Dr. Jack Wolfson’s Scottsdale office for more than an hour. Inside, two people — one a formidable-looking man — sat staring into the window, watching the receptionist prep files and check in patients. A few weeks earlier, Victoria Broussard might have brushed it…
In a desperate move to secure more money for sorely underfunded K-12 schools, 47 Phoenix-based Teach for America corps members and alumni have appealed to the nonprofit to return $500,000 set aside by the Arizona Legislature to fund its programs. Governor Doug Ducey is asking schools across the state to…
For the second time in two weeks, hundreds of students, parents, and teachers descended on the Arizona Capitol to protest cuts to the state’s education budget. “Doug Ducey step off it!” they shouted, marching around the Capitol courtyard waving brightly colored signs. “Put students over profit!” Legislators are mulling over…
Stacey Jenner has been teaching special education in Peoria for 13 years, but, because of repeated cuts to Arizona’s K-12 education budget, her paycheck has grown just $8 since the day she signed on. When the mother of two learned that Governor Doug Ducey’s Fiscal Year 2015-2016 budget proposal slashes…
For nine years running, state senators Steve Farley and Andy Biggs have been duking it out over a ban on texting while driving. Farley, who’s authored a proposal annually since 2007, insists that Arizona needs a law to pressure people to quit texting behind the wheel — a habit that’s…
Everything you’ve heard about teen gangs is wrong. That’s the basic conclusion of a new study from Arizona State University. “You think gang and you think ‘boys in the hood’, urban, minority boys living in bad neighborhoods,” said Gary Sweeten, an associate professor of criminology and co-author of the report,…
