Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has filed felony child abuse counts against a Mesa stripper who left her toddlers alone while she visited a boyfriend. Samantha Abernathy, who turns 21 this week, returned to her Mesa apartment about 10:45 a.m. last Sunday, admitting to waiting police officers that she’d been gone…
Anti-abortion license plates are for sale in Arizona, though you wouldn’t know it from mainstream news sources. The contentious legal battle to allow the “Choose life” plates, which started after Governor Janet Napolitano rejected the plan, was covered adequately by news outlets. Now that people are actually buying the plates, coverage has been limited…
The Homer News in Alaska last night covered Scottsdale resident Joe Pinto’s catch of a 575-pound salmon shark on Monday, giving some more details — including the fun factoid that Pinto’s an environmental planner for the Maricopa County Department of Transportation.A few seconds of Googling reveals that he’s also the…
So-called “Border Czar” Alan Bersin and other Homeland Security officials met with state Attorney General Terry Goddard today to discuss how to get different agencies working better together. During the meeting, Bersin (pictured above) reportedly called Arizona, “the most lawless corridor on the Southwest border.” We have no idea what…
An hour after Valley Fever called ex-Green Bay Packers player Tony Mandarich (above) for comment about a lawsuit filed against him by an ex-girlfriend, an offending Web site with pictures of the girlfriend no longer works. Mandarich never called us back, but our message may have had an effect. The…
Wired’s online site published an excellent photo recently of one of the weather balloons reported by wishful thinkers in the Phoenix area as a potential alien mothership. In May, we tried to disabuse believers of the idea that a scientific balloon viewed from the ground had extraterrestrial origins. But another balloon floating…
A former Green Bay Packers player famous for his use of steroids has been sued by an ex-girlfriend who claims he posted sexually explicit pictures of her online — under her own name. Tony Mandarich of Scottsdale, who recently released a tell-mostly-all book about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, purchased…
President Obama seemed to express support for major immigration reform during a speech at the Esperanza National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. this morning, promising better border security and a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants. Obama says, “we’re taking steps to strengthen border security, and we must build…
Two women who work in a Valley Wells Fargo bank claim their manager instructed them to stop speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking employees, says a civil rights lawsuit filed in Superior Court. The white manager “didn’t like” when they spoke Spanish and told them to speak English, even when trying to…
Gannett Blog reports that the media company might be preparing for more across-the-board layoffs. The blog, which has done a good job predicting previous layoffs, says it receives a comment recently from one its best sources that says: 1. Principal executive and Chief Financial Officer Gracia Martore has ordered layoffs…
A Phoenix pharmacy and its owner have been indicted for selling up to $8 million in human-growth hormone to doctors without receiving prescriptions. An announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix also says the Compounding Center, 4045 East Bell Road, and wholesale division manager Sean Shaffer advertised anti-aging products based…
The Department of Public Safety released the names of victims in two major roll-over accidents from earlier this month on southern Arizona highways. It’s a list that punctuates just how huge these two tragedies were: June 6, on State Route 82 Injured: Isaias De La Cruz-Gonzalez, 21 of Guatamala; Jose…
Where is 24-year-old Ivan Ibarra Garcia? The local car dealer was kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday near Van Buren and 27th Avenue and spirited away to an unknown location. His relatives received ransom-demand calls throughout the night, police say, but he’s still in the custody of thugs…
Touchy, touchy. A representative of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection called us this afternoon to ask why our June 8 post about a roundtable being hosted by the group was so “negative.” The woman started off by telling us that she’s a journalist who was working for the…
With the deadline fast approaching to reveal the names of the SCA members or face a $315,000 fine, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Captain Joel Fox begged election officials this month to let him disclose the names in private. Fox, who obviously missed his calling as a lawyer, continues to argue in correspondence with county…
An observant reader passed this one along to us: The award-winning novel, Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill, famously being read this summer by President Obama, contains a rather downbeat assessment of downtown Phoenix: On our way out we passed through downtown Phoenix. It was seemingly an uninhabited place given over to…
It’s doubtful anyone in Arizona will match Joe Pinto’s fish tale this summer: The Scottsdale resident reeled in a quarter-ton of finned fury on Monday while fishing in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.Yeah, that’s way cooler than snagging sunfish in Chaparral Lake.Pinto and others on board a charter boat were trying to…
Infighting by Maricopa County officials worsened today with a storm of insults and budget-cutting.Earlier today, County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley voted against allowing County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ office to receive $1.4 million in state funding for enforcement against illegal immigrants. The votes blocked the funds in a…
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Captain Joel Fox has until the end of the month to cough up information about the people behind last year’s shadowy $105,000 donation to the Republican Party, says the elections department.”We believe if he goes past July 1st in the timing of all this, then the…
Jarret Maupin II, in an impassioned phone call to New Times and in a comment posted today on our blog, now says that he “unequivocally” believes the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office commits racial profiling. Maupin claims his quotes to the contrary that turned up in a deputy’s report were “completely…
Disgraced local activist and former Phoenix school board member Jarrett Maupin II was once Al Sharpton’s treasured Arizona connection. We’re not sure what Sharpton, who’s coming to Phoenix on Friday, thinks about Maupin’s shameful conviction for lying to the FBI about Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Maupin’s former political opponent. But…
Governor Jan Brewer has appointed a new student representative to the Arizona Board of Regents. Jennifer Ginther, a graduate student in biology at Northern Arizona University, comes with an impressive resume. We can’t tell you how she’ll do as a regent, but the 4.0 student knows a thing or two…
