A new climatology report shows that the much-heralded El Niño weather pattern this year already is winding down, having failed to soak Arizona with snow and rain. In January, the Pacific Ocean-driven weather phenomenon spurred the state’s mini-snowpocalypse in January with flurries north and south and lots of rain in metro…
As cannabis advocates debate whether a proposed Arizona legalization law allows counties or towns to ban home growing, attempts to regulate home cultivation of medical marijuana have failed. The inability of counties to control home cultivation by qualified medical-marijuana patients gives insight into how the planned legalization measure may work…
A Taiwanese national has been indicted in Arizona for buying and possessing more than 17,000 rounds of 9-millimeter ammunition last month at a Phoenix gun show. Jian Kia Chen was stopped on Interstate 10 on February 20 after buying the rounds at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show at…
Republican Arizona legislators want to send voters a strong message this year: You don’t know what you’re doing! You need to leave it to us. Which is why an anti-voter resolution cleared a key Arizona Senate committee this week, bringing the state a step closer to destroying democracy here as…
The scamsters behind a sophisticated solar-power fraud scheme exposed by Phoenix New Times finally have been held accountable in a U.S. court. Last month, Arizona U.S. District Judge David Bury handed down a $3.1 million judgment against the men behind Matinee Energy — a group of swindlers who include a former…
Free tampons, menstrual pads, and condoms in university restrooms — and free testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Faculty race quotas in place by 2020. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in new funding for building renovations, access to free computers, paid tutors, reduced-price or free healthy food, and…
Latinos, blacks, Native American, and other minority students still struggle to achieve academic success in Arizona, a situation that limits their future work potential, a new state report shows. White students are doing better, but also face problems in a state with a below-average median income, higher-than-average poverty rate, and…
Donald Trump is well on his way to beating Ted Cruz and the three other remaining presidential candidates for Arizona’s Republican preference election, a new poll shows. The survey of 751 “high efficacy primary Republican voters” in Arizona conducted on Tuesday by MBQF, a public affairs firm, showed that nearly…
Blatant housing discrimination is alive and well in Yuma, Arizona, according to a federal complaint filed this week by the Southwest Fair Housing Council. The SWFHC accuses a Yuma apartment-building owner of shunning Hispanics by having a representative claim falsely that there were no rooms available, and that rent was…
A New Times reporter must have been bribed to do extensive reporting on a marijuana-legalization initiative expected to be on the Arizona ballot in November, a pot advocate claims falsely in a trash-talking YouTube video. It’s another example of the nasty fight between legalization supporters over two competing initiatives that may grow…
Denver Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler, heir apparent to retiring Peyton Manning as the Super Bowl champions’ starting QB, doesn’t retaliate against a man shown in a video attacking him from behind. The altercation in Scottsdale began about 2 a.m. Saturday, a few hours after Osweiler watched singer Kelley James perform at the…
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery moved forward with second-degree murder charges today against a Mesa police officer for killing a suspect without justification. Philip Mitchell Brailsford, 25, shot and killed Daniel Shaver, 26, of Nashville on January 18 after police were called to a Mesa motel following a report of…
Whether lawyers should be required to join and pay dues to the State Bar of Arizona is a fair subject for debate, certainly. But if anyone’s confused about whether a bill now before the State Senate that guts the State Bar would be a good idea, just look at who…
A longtime computer engineer for Arizona’s court system was arrested on Tuesday after he was caught in a police sting trying to meet a 14-year-old girl at a Gilbert park for sex. Merrill Barton Nelson III, 57, of Gilbert, an 11-year employee of the Arizona Supreme Court, was booked into…
A last-ditch effort by ex-prosecutors Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander to avoid a $101,294 legal sanction for abusing their power has failed. The ruling against the pair by Arizona U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan means that disbarred ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas — who would have benefited if the…
Tempe and the Arizona Game and Fish Department are working together to save scads of fish from Town Lake before it’s drained completely in preparation for a new dam. Samples of nine different species of sport fish and two species of bait fish will be recovered from the lake in…
Taking a cue from Denver and Pasadena, California, Maricopa County will take money collected at 10 renovated parking meters in downtown Phoenix and give it to homeless programs. The bright yellow meters can be found on the south side of Madison Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues, near the county…
The former director of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Medical Center pleaded guilty today to failing to disclose large gifts she received from a VA lobbyist. Sharon Helman, 45, of Surprise, admitted to one felony count of filing a false financial disclosure to the federal government, and will be sentenced to…
Arizona is the land of guns, with some of the most permissive firearms laws in the country, plus plenty of wide-open spaces to unleash lead. These are some of modern cowboys’ and -girls’ firearms-of-choice, judged by overall popularity and cool-factor, plus over-the-top ability to kill and wound. Whether you take…
Former Arizona Lottery Director Tony Bouie often took advantage of free luxury box seats at sports games, records show — and he sometimes took family or friends. Bouie, a former NFL player appointed to his post in February 2015 by Governor Doug Ducey, resigned in January two days after publication…
Glendale police say they’re submitting felony charges against the teen who provided the gun in the pre-Valentine’s Day murder-suicide of two teen girls at their high school. The families of both of the deceased 15-year-old girls in the February 12 incident at Independence High School don’t wish the boy, who’s…
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake said this week he “finally got a little worried” about Donald Trump. “I kept dismissing it and dismissing it,” Flake told the Phoenix New Times on Thursday of the possibility that Trump would carry the Republican nomination for president. Then came Trump’s crushing victory over GOP…
