Speaking of warrants… All that talk of warrants last year spurred several agencies — yes, even the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office — to round up a few fugitives. About 70,000 felony and misdemeanor warrants could be served in the Phoenix metro area on any given day. One of the…

  Whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio is using his resources correctly when it comes to serving felony warrants will be among issues discussed at a legislative hearing on Monday. The State Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony starting at 1:30 p.m. on the subject of felony warrants — a topic well known to…

  Last year, when the city of Phoenix still had money, Earth Hour was all fun and games. Then came the recession, which forced the city to start making nine-digit budget cuts and laying off hundreds of people. New Times has confirmed that, this year, Phoenix won’t be spending thousands in public funds to…

Just got off the phone with Senator Linda Gray — who almost made us feel bad that we gave her a cyber-slapping in our previous blog post. Gray was brimming with apologies for her critical letter to local high school sophomore Ana Garcia. In fact, she’s hoping to visit Garcia’s school next…

State Senator Linda Gray slams a high school student for poor writing and displaying “ignorance” in a biting letter that was first published in the Daily Kos today. The worst part: Gray’s own letter contains poor grammar and typos. What a friggin’ hypocrite — and she claims the student’s the one…

  Despite the many tales of abuse, we know of only two cases in which one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio investigated his own deputies for alleged racial profiling incidents. One is the investigation of deputies related to the traffic stop of Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s aide, Jessica Rodriguez. As…

  The California man arrested by police thanks to a tip by a concerned alleged pimp served time previously for forcibly raping a 13-year-old girl. The vicious 1996 crime by Dell Rainbow Vanderschuit, (pictured), is mentioned in a police report obtained by New Times that also records how the perv…

  The public feud between the county Board of Supervisors and the county attorney’s office is getting more personal. Lawyers hired by the county supervisors want Lisa Aubuchon, the prosecutor in the criminal case against County Supervisor Don Stapley, held personally liable if a judge orders sanctions for Aubuchon’s release…

  You’re 14. You’ve got 100 pounds of pot and an illegal immigrant in the car, and you’re being chased by a ticked-off deputy. Where do you go? The mall, naturally. On Tuesday night, a Department of Public Safety officer tried to pull over a passenger car on Interstate 10…

  The party’s not over, after all: A year and a half after a New Times article about the rave scene at a downtown Phoenix warehouse owned by a convicted child molester, the glowsticks are brighter than ever. Michael Booher, (pictured), who served four years in prison for coercing a 7-year-old…

  A Maricopa County Superior Court judge signed a bench warrant today for prostitution whiz David Elms, who skipped his scheduled arraignment. As readers of the blog know, Elms also missed a court hearing on March 4, but officials decided it might have been inadvertent. When he failed to appear…

  Valley Fever spent part of Monday afternoon at the home of Bobbie Meza, a 1982 graduate of Tempe High School. Her family is kind of like the Brady Bunch, except Dad’s an illegal immigrant in jail for identity theft. Meza is 44 years old, wearing a black tank top…

  Today, Tucson Citizen employees have a job and the paper’s customers have something to read. As for tomorrow — wait and see. That’s going to be the pattern for the next few days as the Tucson Citizen, the state’s oldest newspaper, publishes on a “day-to-day” basis while waiting to see if…

Maricopa County will close a family planning clinic, put off non-crucial building maintenance, reduce cleaning services and make other changes because of a $32.6 million budget cut. Revenues are coming in even slower than expected, forcing the Board of Supervisors to approve the latest cuts and eliciting hard-nosed promises by…

The American Civil Liberties Board of Arizona is threatening action against the Peoria Unified School District after an eighth-grade student was prohibited from wearing a “Rainbows are Gay” wristband. The 14-year-old gay student was told to wear the wristband inside out or quit wearing it to school, says the demand letter by…

  A homeowner who was holding an intruder at gunpoint just before a Phoenix cop shot him multiple times is seeking at least $5.75 million from the city for himself and his family. Tony Arambula, 35, still suffers pain and will require several more surgeries following the September 17, 2008 shooting, according…

Hey, good-lookin’ — be a model for a fancy strip mall in the North Valley. The Shops at Noterra, which opened in 2006 near Interstate 17 and Happy Valley Road, will hold an open casting call from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 28 for models to be photographed…

Chandler cops say this individual, 22-year-old Alex Acedo of Chandler, shot his baby girl during a domestic dispute with the girl’s mother. Initial reports by cops that the shooting was an accident were apparently incorrect. The mother, 23-year-old Alex Vera, had been holding the 7-month-old baby, Emily, when Acedo fired the…

  Our esteemed state lawmakers should not be fodder for over-eager journalists who want to follow them around as if the Legislature was a reality show, says Pamela Gorman (pictured), a Republican state senator from Anthem. In an East Valley Tribune article by Howard Fischer about the senate’s upcoming media…

Who could possibly think it’d be a good idea to build an over-sized statue of a stereotypical, sombrero-wearin’ lazy Mexican out of sand and put it in the middle of the desert? The far-out cats at Arizona State University’s Future Arts Research, that’s who. As New Times writer Kathleen Vanesian covered in the paper’s March 5 edition,…

This isn’t the New York Times story about Arizona State University that Michael Crow (pictured) hoped his former colleagues at Columbia University would ever have to read. Crow, the president of ASU, has received plenty of criticism over the years for his grandiose plans to expand the university while simultaneously polishing…