Police want four people, including an off-duty Scottsdale firefighter, charged with starting a melee in downtown Scottsdale. Hundreds of people were involved in the incident, which shut down North Saddlebag Trail and East Shoeman Lane about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, August 2, according to a report reviewed by New Times. No…
The city of Phoenix sent an official demand to a disgraced Arizona State University professor today for the money it paid for police-training material the city alleges actually was an “egregious” copying job. Phoenix’s move is yet another blow to the now-stained reputation of Matthew Whitaker, a history professor and…
Backers of a marijuana-legalization plan in Arizona are outraged over an unsigned editorial in the Arizona Republic published on Friday that used an inaccurate tax-revenue figure to bolster its claim that campaign officials were lying. New Times also noticed the error on Friday morning and left the Republic’s editorial page editor,…
Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Washington D.C. have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older, and Arizona voters will probably get the chance to decide the question for themselves next year. The people of the 48th state are a proud, independent-thinking bunch who prefer the federal government to butt out…
Rather than tearing an offensive page out of an honors biology textbook as previously considered, Gilbert Public Schools this month chose to put pro-abstinence, anti-abortion stickers in the book. Laura Conaway, writing for CNN’s Rachel Maddow Show, broke the story last Friday after a viewer tipped her off, and an…
Supporters of a plan to legalize marijuana in Arizona gathered at the State Capitol today to symbolically grant the state a check for $40 million — the amount they say schools would reap if voters approve the plan next year. J.P. Holyoak, chair of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like…
Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio is demanding that a plagiarizing Arizona State University professor return money for allegedly plagiarizing material he prepared for an anti-bias police training program. DiCiccio says Matthew Whittaker’s firm, The Whitaker Group, was paid $21,800 by the city after Whitaker sent invoices for the time it took…
Sue Black, the well-connected new Arizona Parks Department director, has reportedly hired another Milwaukee buddy to a top slot in her agency. The former head of the Milwaukee parks system vows to build a “dream team” that will lead the parks department to a coveted National Recreation and Park Association’s annual…
A team of 27 journalism students from the Carnegie-Knight News21 program at Arizona State University released a major investigative series on marijuana legalization this week that focuses on the many problems related to the evolving culture and legality of the plant. The students, ranging from 19 universities across the country…
A mother-and-daughter activist duo are nearing the end of their walk from Washington state to Arizona in protest of the pending destruction of the Oak Flat area near Superior because of copper mining. Sally Noedel, 54, and her daughter, Emma Bigongiari, 19, braved heat waves and talked to people in…
Friday started off with a withering low temperature of 93 degrees, giving Valley residents a hint of the heat-blast to come. By late afternoon, metro Phoenix reached a record-setting 117 degrees, the National Weather Service confirmed. It wasn’t the hottest day in Phoenix ever — that record of 122 degrees…
Top residential water users in Tempe and Glendale use 10 to 30 times as much as average customers, with totals of 2.5 million and 3.6 million gallons consumed respectively in 2014, research by Phoenix New Times shows. The biggest users of water in the non-residential category for those cities, meanwhile, add…
Arizona has reached a marijuana-legalization milestone, with more than 80,000 people now qualified to legally possess, grow, or sell it for medicinal purposes. State voters passed the 2010 Medical Marijuana Act by a slim margin, resulting in about 90 dispensaries statewide and an ever-increasing number of patients, caregivers, and registered…
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the anti-legalization group MATFORCE with a nice shout-out to the Phoenix New Times. In a Sunday article in Prescott’s Daily Courier newspaper, Polk tells reporter Scott Orr that New Times has made her and MATFORCE a “target” for their prohibitionist…
An excessive-heat warning is predicted for metro Phoenix on a day in early August, with a high of 111 anticipated. At noon, only a few people are strolling the residential streets of Tempe near Arizona State University. Yet in spite of the intense heat, and in seeming defiance of the…
A city of Phoenix effort to encourage safe hiking in mountain parks is expected to continue at least through the fall. The “Take a Hike, Do It Right” program was launched after several recent heat-related tragedies in Arizona, including the July 7 death of a British visitor last month on…
The Verde Independent, a 67-year-old newspaper based in Cottonwood, isn’t living up to its motto as the “trusted news leader” for Verde Valley communities. On Saturday, the online-and-print paper published what looked like a news article about a group of Valley residents busted in connection with a suspected illegal marijuana-growing…
An Arizona prison inmate who sliced off the penis of a seriously mentally ill inmate before killing him has been sentenced to death. Jasper Rushing, 45, was already serving a 28-year prison sentence for the 2001 murder of his stepfather when he mutilated and beat to death his cellmate, 40-year-old…
Muhammed, the prophet and founder of the Islamic religion, taught peace, love and women’s rights. At least, that’s what billboards going up around the Valley say. Two Islam-promoting billboards have been seen by Phoenix motorists for the last couple of weeks, and new ones are coming in August in an…
The state Court of Appeals has ruled that the scent of marijuana alone can no longer be used as probable cause for a search warrant in Arizona because of the 2010 Medical Marijuana Act. Tuesday’s ruling provides more legal protection for medical-marijuana users and industry workers, as well as for…
LifeLock, the Tempe-based company that claims it can protect customers from identify theft, saw its stock value cut in half on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission accused it of violating terms of a 2010 settlement agreement. LifeLock has a history of deceiving the public and its customers, starting with…
Anshantia “Tia” Oso, one of the protesters who interrupted a Town Hall event with presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders on Saturday, writes in a in a high-profile column today that she was the “right person” to lead the halting of the program. Oso touts her many activist qualifications…
