At BC Wellness Center, a small retail shop in Black Canyon City, two black vending machines sit side by side behind a counter, where they can be accessed only by employees. Instead of Famous Amos cookies or soda pop, packets of buds and various cannabis-infused edibles and juices sit tucked…
Randy Pullen, a CPA who’s running for state treasurer, is either a fool or a liar. Not in general, mind you: We’re talking strictly about his role in a campaign-finance scandal that helped destroy the careers of three of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s top men…
Arizona’s water supply, barring unlikely and extreme weather events, should get us through the next 30 to 50 years. After that, as our December feature article on the subject pointed out, water will be in short supply sometime this century. The reason isn’t global warming or reduced Colorado River flow…
Another Venezuelan is going to prison for an airplane-parts deal that violated an arms embargo — and netted a fortune for the former owner of a Mesa aviation firm. Roy Roby, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan Air Force, was sentenced today in Phoenix federal court to 18 months…
The East Valley Tribune is a pale reflection of its former Pulitzer Prize-winning self, thanks to the journalism-light business model of its current owner, 10/13 Communications. That’s why we were initially stunned when we saw a Trib reporter had penned an article about a murder mystery a couple of weeks…
Arizonans no longer risk getting a DUI for driving with an inactive metabolite of marijuana in their blood following a ruling by the state’s high court. The Arizona Supreme Court announced this morning that it was reaffirming the trial court’s decision to dump the case of Hrach Shilgevorkyan, who was…
Hopi medicine man Ivan Jackson was sentenced on Tuesday to one year in prison for performing oral sex on a patient who believed she was receiving treatment. The victim, who wasn’t named in federal court records, had sought help from Jackson in the summer of 2012 because she was “seeing…
A Navajo man anally raped his buddy’s 18-year-old girlfriend on a dark road south of Kayenta early Sunday, then either suffocated or strangled her, federal court records allege. The woman’s half-naked body was found in a ditch, a tire track over her chest. Sankey Reid, 30, admitted he drove over…
If you’ve been craving a dose of “Reefer Madness,” there’s still time to RSVP to Thursday’s annual conference of the central Arizona anti-drug organization MATForce. The public portion of the conference runs from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors auditorium, 205 West Jefferson Street. The…
Professor Travis Pratt’s affair with a graduate student didn’t work out so well. The criminal-justice expert has agreed to settle the student’s lawsuit at the end of this month. He and his wife are no longer married. And he was fired from Arizona State University — on Valentine’s Day…
A woman who complained to US Airways received a shocking Twitter message in reply — a picture of a woman masturbating with a scale model of a Boeing 777. According to jalpoknik.com, the US Airways tweet with the X-rated photo remained up for more than 20 minutes before the company…
A fight Sunday night in a Phoenix diner between police officers and a berserk man on a destructive rampage ended when the man fell ill and died after he was tased four times. Police haven’t yet released the name of the 38-year-old white man, pending notification of his family…
A fake news report going viral on the Internet claims that teens are getting high by smoking crushed-up bedbugs. To the frustration of local, anti-substance-abuse speaker Shane Watson, the hoax uses video footage of him from the bogus report on dabbing by ABC 15 we told you about on Thursday…
Anti-drug educator Shane Watson often thinks about his appearance in a viral ABC 15 news story about the “threat” of dabbing. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that for a short period of time, it ruined my life,” says Watson, who works for the local drug-prevention organization notMYkid. He’s not…
Was last week’s posse crisis triggered by a former Cold Case Posse’s whistle-blowing article on March 9? Brian Reilly, the former posseman and an ex-Surprise Tea Party member, believes so. A new policy affecting posse cars and other vehicles put into effect on Thursday suggests he could be right…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will reportedly discuss the snafu over vehicle insurance for posse vehicles in Sun City today. Meanwhile, we found out that a third posse unit has parked its vehicles, contradicting information put out previously by the Sheriff’s Office (which didn’t respond to our inquiries about the…
Smoking concentrated marijuana oil is exploding in popularity, with many cases nationwide of amateur chemists experiencing explosions in their homes. Manufacturing and use of the substance comes with risks not seen with “normal” pot: Scorched skin when using the red-hot smoking apparatus is inevitable, aficionados say. Longtime marijuana advocates and…
Smoking concentrated marijuana oil is exploding in popularity, with many cases nationwide of amateur chemists experiencing explosions in their homes. Manufacturing and use of the substance comes with risks not seen with “normal” pot: Scorched skin when using the red-hot smoking apparatus is inevitable, aficionados say. Longtime marijuana advocates and…
A March 24 memo sent by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to Valley posse organizations warns that many posse vehicles violate a 2012 policy. The memo, obtained by the Phoenix New Times this morning, came about a week before the announcement over the weekend by the Sun City West and…
Contradicting several published reports, Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio’s office now says that no posse program was ever suspended due to an insurance “glitch.” The precise nature of the “glitch” still isn’t being explained to the public by county leadership or Sheriff Arpaio. But it seems to have something to do…
Maricopa County leaders and Sheriff Joe Arpaio are in some sort of fight over the insurance coverage of vehicles owned by posse members, but neither side is giving details. The issue, whatever it is, led to recent news stories about the Sun City posse being suspended, but now Arpaio’s office…
Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot told the media last summer that returning marijuana to a medicinal user was “not how we do business.” But Wilmot did not return calls or even issue a statement this morning after the U.S. Supreme Court decided — by its inaction — that Wilmot must…
