Environmental victories can be few and far between in Arizona, which is why a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to reject a proposal to widen roads and build infrastructure on a parcel of USFS land near the Grand Canyon has conservation groups, Native American tribes, and environmentalists across the…
Tracy Elise, head priestess and founder of the Phoenix Goddess Temple, has been found guilty on all 22 criminal counts of prostitution, maintaining a house of prostitution, illegal control of an enterprise, money laundering, pandering, racketeering, and conspiracy. The verdict comes five years after she was initially arrested by the…
In the slightly muffled and hiccupy voice of someone who is crying, Tracy Elise, head priestess and founder of the Phoenix Goddess Temple, pleaded with a jury to consider ”the bigger picture” of what delivering a guilty verdict might mean for society during the closing arguments of her trial. ”Sexuality…
Ever since the presidential election season really kicked off last summer, pollsters in Arizona have tracked voter preference among the state’s Republican voters, but they have paid little attention to the Democrats. Not any more. Two political consulting firms, MBQF and Marson Media, conducted a phone survey of likely Democratic…
The heated political race for one of Arizona’s seats on the U.S. Senate just got a little hotter today as the Democratic frontrunner, Ann Kirkpatrick, unveiled her first political ad of the election season. The ad targets her main Republican opponent, U.S. Senator John McCain, by making a mash-up of…
After four months of colorful or otherwise sexually explicit testimony from a wide array of witnesses, the criminal trial against Tracy Elise – founder and head priestess of the Phoenix Goddess Temple – is scheduled to end Tuesday afternoon, and her fate will be placed in the hands of a…
Cacti are hard to resist, we get it. So fluffy, smooth, almost cuddly. How could you not want to embrace a giant saguaro, or roll around in jumping cholla? Here are 10 people who clearly didn’t get the memo and got injured. “Injured Bad.” 10. Pro tip: Just. Don’t. Do. This…
Environmentalists are celebrating an order from a federal court that the state of Arizona must comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s pollution reduction plan for coal-fired power plants in the state. At the center of the case is the cloud of haze that often hangs over the Grand Canyon and…
In this weeks’ cover story, Sugar U., New Times writes about the growing number of Arizona college students dating sugar daddies (older wealthy men) to cover the exorbitant cost of tuition. In some ways these “mutually beneficial relationships” are like traditional romantic relationships, but in other ways, they’re quite different. …
The latest poll numbers are in, and even though Donald Trump is still maintaining his lead in Arizona, it appears U.S Senator Marco Rubio is rapidly gaining momentum. The political consulting firm MBQF, which has been tracking Republican voter preference in Arizona trends since July, reports that Rubio jumped 11.3…
When Victoria was 15, her father took her to the Red Light District in Amsterdam. “Vicky,” he said, pointing to the women dancing behind the glass of a shop window, “if you don’t go to college, you’ll end up like this.” More than a decade later, Victoria sits in a…
Flying in the face of those who claim it would be unpopular to give the greater Grand Canyon watershed national monument status, a new non-partisan poll finds that not only is there tremendous support for it but that it cuts across geographical and political lines. “The results were overwhelming, and…
With unprecedented numbers of children entering foster care in Arizona every day, there seems to be unanimous agreement among child-welfare advocates and experts that something in the state’s system is broken. But what exactly that “something” is — and where it stems from — remains a topic of hot debate. In a…
Arizona’s favorite Pope-boycotting congressman, Paul Gosar, had harsh words for employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, headed by probably his favorite Obama administration target. Apparently lumping all 15,000 EPA employees across the country together, he charged that they are a “collection of porn addicts, office thieves and drunk drivers… not fit to…
After Senator John McCain chimed in on whether President Barack Obama should be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court justice in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death this past weekend, social-media users shot back with vengeance. “I believe we should wait until after the next election and let the…
If last night’s Democratic Presidential debate was any indication, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders are in a tight race for the party nomination. Whether you paint the rivalry as a choice between the establishment v. anti-establishment candidate or the progressive v. the “real”…
Some members of the Arizona Legislature apparently think the people of the state can’t handle the responsibility of direct democracy, especially when it comes to legalizing marijuana. Four new measures, authored primarily by Republican state representatives Bob Thorpe and J.D. Mesnard, chisel away at the power of the people to…
Well, folks, after 41 days it appears the occupation of a federal building on a wildlife refuge near Burns, Oregon is finally over. Not only did the FBI arrest the final four holdouts holed up in the building today, but they nabbed seven others affiliated with the occupation — including…
A group of Arizona lawmakers are using a new bill to take aim at the educational and leadership qualifications of Greg McKay, director of the Department of Child Safety. House Bill 2662 spells out new minimum requirements for the position — none of which McKay satisfies — that will limit…
Talk about a never-ending local controversy: Shortly after the Phoenix City Council voted 5-4 to start its meetings with a moment of silence instead of a religious prayer so that it wouldn’t have to decide whether to allow the Satanic Temple to give the invocation at an upcoming meeting, not only…
If Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton gets his way, all police officers in the city will be outfitted with body-worn cameras within the next three years. In a joint statement with Councilwoman Thelma Williams, Stanton said he is officially asking City Manager Ed Zuercher to include the funding for such a…
Dennis Hof, HBO reality TV star and owner of the Bunny Ranch, a successful chain of Nevada brothels, testified this week in the drawn-out trial of Tracy Elise, founder and lead priestess of the now-defunct Phoenix Goddess Temple. In an attempt to draw a sharp contrast between the inner workings…
