As if the Forest Service weren’t already beleaguered over the Carlota Mine–a 300-acre hole and an equal-size mountain of toxic rock that a Canadian conglomerate wants to install in the Tonto National Forest west of Globe. The Environmental Protection Agency has given the mine its worst possible rating. The U.S…

One day, Don Dietz was a healthy 52-year-old on an eight-mile bike ride, and the next day, he was bleeding to death from an illness he’d never heard of. It was December 1991, and Dietz had just flown in from Lubbock, Texas, where he was a professor of Spanish literature…

Like two boys at the swimming hole, Kieran Suckling and Peter Galvin pulled off their shorts and tee shirts and jumped feet-first and butt-naked into the coffee-with-cream-colored waters of the San Pedro River just east of Sierra Vista. It had been a hot-desert hike down from the main road. And…

Dr. Robin Silver, emergency room physician, wildlife photographer, environmental activist and, he insists, fiscal conservative, has filed petitions to run in the September Republican primary against Congressman John Shadegg. As a last-minute candidate, Silver faces a time crunch, name identification problems and the considerable campaign resources congressional incumbency provides. Even…

On the morning that Todd Hall realized his life was falling apart, he was lying on the couch watching cartoons with his two younger children, Todd Cody, who was 17 months old, and John, who was 4. His two older children were off playing with friends, and Hall was about…

Like the calm in the eye of a storm, like a tornado that rips the roof and walls off a house without disturbing a breakfront full of fine china, the forest clearing where the Lone Fire started on April 27 is strangely unburned. The oaks and pines bordering the trail…

Jackson Hound has his nose to the ground, sniffing the desert floor. He’s a 70-pound, blond Labrador retriever used to running in the desert, but nonetheless oblivious to trouble on the trail ahead. Just two feet away, a three-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake watches; its head raised, its neck cocked to strike…

At bat for the Angels, number 44, Chrissy Sears, the 22-year-old youngster out of New Jersey. Pitching for the Firebirds, number 10, Lexee Emineth. It’s a beautiful night for baseball here at Cholla Park in north Scottsdale. The baselines are newly chalked, the grass grows green under the lights. Silhouettes…

One of Arizona’s largest commercial-rafting operations is up the Salt River without a paddle–or any other equipment for that matter. Salt River Rafting, which is based in Tempe, has had its river-running permits yanked by the White Mountain Apache Tribe and by the Tonto National Forest. And the company’s owner,…

In the rarefied world of women’s high fashion, the little black dress can cost as much as $1,000, and an evening gown can run as high as $12,000. The difference between a $12,000 and a $1,000 gown is rather like the difference between a Lexus LS400 and a Nissan Sentra…

Last Friday at the Phoenix Art Museum, a group of ladies on a tour stood around the infamous U.S. flag on the floor, peering over the edges, their faces frozen in smiles, looking for the emperor’s new clothes. The work in question, Dread Scott’s 1988 “What Is the Proper Way…

Who epitomizes success in 1996? Captain Scott Grady, who succeeded at covering his tail for six days until someone else saved it after his F-16 got shot down over Bosnia? Barbara Bush, who succeeded at marrying a man who would be president? Diamondbacks manager Buck Showalter, who succeeded in landing…

Ryan Winn, in an uncharacteristic state of agitation, exploded across the backyard of a north Phoenix house where a teenage beer party was rocking and roaring. Ryan was a strapping, big 16-year-old with jug ears. He played football and basketball at Shadow Mountain High School and was friends with just…

Lisa had an abortion yesterday, and her parents don’t know. Lisa’s only 15. She’s the cute young girl next door with long brown hair, a ninth-grade honors student. She’s got everything going for her–except, until yesterday, she was pregnant. She’s still confused about the abortion, and having it was not…

The Salt River Project is mired in sludge, and, at the moment, so is Paul Cherrington, SRP’s engineer in charge of water distribution. He’s pulled on rubber boots and stepped gingerly out onto the cracked, miles-long cake of sludge that had been mucked out of the Arizona Canal and piled…

Since late September, a media-shy collection of ranchers, legislators and sportsmen (that is, hunters) has met with Arizona Game and Fish commissioners and staffers in a basement room of the House of Representatives. The group has been discussing whether the state should pay ranchers to compensate for the forage that…

After 1 in the morning on May 1, as the off-duty police officers moonlighting as security guards cleared the parking lot of the Roxy, as 100 or so mostly black youths filed out of the club, there was a fluttering of automatic gunfire and a squeal of tires. When the…

On October 27, Governor Fife Symington wrote a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposing the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf to Arizona on grounds it would bring on a rabies epidemic. The missive also questioned the scientific studies backing the wolf project, worrying that its target…

She had all the outward signs of a dame in trouble–the trembling hands, the trembling lips–and something else, a palpable vibe that screamed “Danger–High Voltage.” You didn’t have to look in her direction to know she was there. She stood framed in the doorway of my office, blond and leggy…

Federal agents investigating the October 9 derailment of an Amtrak passenger train suspect that one or more of the rescuers who were on the scene that morning might have been responsible for the sabotage. One key piece of evidence–a letter claiming responsibility that had been taped to a wall inside…