An autopsy report doesn’t state how soon death came for a 17-year-old boy whose body wasn’t found for nearly four days after a car crash. The report does say, however, that David Montoya had a blood alcohol content of .22 and cocaine in his system at the time of…

  The steam keeps rising over at the Sonoran Alliance blog, the site of a tiff between conservatives that we told you about last week. The underlying issue is a familiar one to readers of this blog: We’ve been on Sonoran Alliance’s case for months for its bad habit of…

  The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office released records last week showing what New Times readers already knew: Most jailed inmates kicked out of the country under the county’s 287(g) agreement with the feds were picked up by local police forces for relatively minor crimes. Our September 30, 2008 article, linked above, detailed why this is…

Jorge Gutierrez likes to spend a lot of time at Desert Schools Federal Union. The locations are convenient, and he likes the easy-to-work-with employees.Most of all, he likes the money.The FBI alleges Gutierrez robbed the credit union in the Ahwatukee/Chandler area five times, including twice at two locations. Just for…

Aaron Bridges Langston, 32, of Snowflake, will serve 26 months in a federal prison for stabbing his co-worker in the neck while working in Iraq. Langston, who worked for the Defense Department contractor Kellogg Brown and Root, was the supervisor for an Indian national woman he attacked on February 15,…

Speed cameras are blossoming all over the country, the Wall Street Journal has discovered in an overview article today that covers revenues, counter-methods and the anger felt by some ticket getters.Those subjects are nothing new for readers of New Times, but it’s refreshing to see another take from one of…

The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audobon Society filed a lawsuit in federal court today in an effort to protect the southwestern willow flycatcher bird from imported salt cedar leaf beetles.The leaf-eating beetles were imported from Kazakhstan a few years ago and released (illegally, says the lawsuit) by the…

Meghan McCain is a few major media appearances away from being known as the “new young Republican” and voice of moderate conservatism, says the Atlantic Monthly.We don’t know about all that, but it is fun sometimes to follow this local celebrity’s life on the Internet.It turns out that we share…

Some employees at the Tucson Citizen believe a corporate handler planted by parent company Gannett has been charged with keeping unsavory news stories from being published in the paper’s final days, says Gannett Blog this morning.In the post, a tipster relates the tale of high tension as nosy journalists question…

The only thing more dangerous than a drunk driver is a drunk driver behind the wheel of a massive dump truck.But that’s who’s responsible for a chain-reaction collision on the westbound off-ramp of the Loop 202 at Country Club Drive in Mesa today, says the Arizona Department of Public Safety.Michael…

This just in from the Arizona Supreme Court:Arizona Supreme Court Vice Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch has been chosen as the court’s new Chief Justice.Berch was selected by the court to serve a five-year term as Chief Justice following the July 1st retirement of the current Chief, Ruth McGregor. Berch’s…

A man who attacked a freeway speed camera with a pickax back in December won’t go to jail, but must pay a fine of more than $3,500. He also has to serve a term of probation.Travis Munroe Townsend (pictured) was seen by a Department of Public Safety motorcycle officer on…

An interesting little spat is brewing over at the right-wing Sonoran Alliance blog, where our favorite, furry whipping post, the anonymous “Chewie,” has upset the elephant cart.Chewie has inside info, supposedly, that Governor Jan Brewer’s campaign manager, lobbyist and public relations expert Chuck Coughlin (pictured), is “behind” Brewer’s billion-dollar-a-year tax…

It’s kind of creepy: There’s a sudden knock at the door. You check to see who it is — and it turns out to be someone trying to save your soul. Or maybe they just want to sell you something. Either way, you wonder if they would have tried the…

It’s a bit counter-intuitive, admits local anti-tax activist Tom Jenney.The results of a new poll show that likely voters in Phoenix and Glendale don’t want a tax increase, and they don’t want to cut spending, either. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” says Jenney, the director of…

This is Arizona!Two people were injured Tuesday night in a Cottonwood bar when a real, live bobcat bounced inside and started tearin’ up the place. Check out the coverage by Channel 3 (KTVK-TV) that includes surveillance video obtained from the bar and an article that describes what happened. Here’s a…

The Arizona Republic took a sober look this morning at the issue of a marijuana-based drug and the Phoenix company trying to legally earn cartel-level salaries with it. The article covered the toils of wealthy entrepreneur John Kapoor, who has invested $40 million of his own stash in his company,…

  Here’s quick way to pay some bills: Buy one of the new CA$H4 tickets from the Arizona State Lottery that go on sale this Sunday, match four numbers and collect your $10,000. Just four lousy numbers — that’s a probability of one in 10,000, right? Well, it’s harder than…