Are you a sky-lantern pilot? The flying bags of flame are illegal in cities like Gilbert and Phoenix — not that city ordinances stopped the lanterns that flew over those cities on Christmas Eve. We were scouting for Christmas lights near Guadalupe and Alma School roads about 7 p.m. Tuesday…
The popular Chili’s location in downtown Tempe will close its doors on January 8, ending a 25-year run as one the area’s most stable restaurants. Located at the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and University Drive since 1989, Chili’s Tempe lasted through several periods of immense change in the downtown…
Rural/Metro Corporation agrees to pay the federal government $2.8 million to settle allegations that it ripped off Medicare by falsely billing patient transports as emergencies. From 2007 to the end of 2011, says Arizona U.S. Attorney John Leonardo, Rural/Metro’s ambulance divisions including Southwest Ambulance and Tucson’s Kords Ambulance would routinely…
Shannon Smith would be in her late 20s if not for the wrong-headed actions of some jerk who fired his gun into the air. Instead, she was killed by a bullet at age 14 while standing in her front yard. Odds are, the person who fired the gun from about…
A Phoenix grandfather was arrested last week after having child-porn pictures developed — as well as photos featuring kids he’s suspected of molesting. Brian Neal Wallace, 51, went to the CVS Pharmacy at 7499 West Bethany Home Road in Glendale and used a kiosk to download hundreds of photos from…
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested 30 people last week who had thought they were about to have sex with one or two 16-year-old prostitutes. But nearly half of those who called an online ad were stopped cold — or nearly so — after the woman on the phone, who…
Phil Gordon keeps making the same mistake. The former Phoenix mayor knows that to make a legal, right-hand turn on a red light in Arizona, a driver must first come to complete stop. But he can’t seem to make himself do it — even after getting busted four times for…
A Peoria man who was convicted in September of starting a 5,220-acre wildfire with a propane tank has been ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution. The U.S. Forest Service had recommended that Bryan Teague pay $487,000 to reimburse the costs of fighting the 2012 fire, making it appear as though…
Robert Curtis Milliron, a 22-year-old from Phoenix, told police he kidnapped an 8-year-old girl in Mesa on Sunday because he was “lonely” and wanted companionship. Police identified the man this morning in a news release, calling the brazen, broad-daylight kidnapping a “terrifying incident for the family that strikes a cord…
Joe Fitzgibbon, a Washington state lawmaker, called Arizona a “desert racist wasteland” after becoming upset at the Cardinals’ win on Sunday over the Seattle Seahawks. “Losing a football game sucks,” tweeted the 20-something at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday. “Losing to a desert racist wasteland sucks a lot.”…
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors didn’t just settle with New Times’ former top executives today — the panel also settled with former Supervisor Don Stapley. The county (or rather, its insurance company) will shell out $3.5 million to Stapley, who represented the east Valley on the board from 1994…
Richard Dumas Jr., a former star player for the Phoenix Suns during their legendary 1992-1993 season, was arrested on Thursday in connection with organized retail theft. Specifics about Dumas’ alleged crimes weren’t readily available, but the U.S. Marshals Service in Phoenix announced the ex-Sun had been picked up as part…
Gonzalo Inzunza Inzunza, a top lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, was among six people killed in an hours-long shootout on Sandy Beach in Rocky Point this week, Mexican officials say. But Mexican authorities reportedly are confirming this based on samples of DNA from the bloody crime scene — the body…
A scorching, 120-degree breeze stirs dust in the streets before passing through the windowless ruins of former mansions on the flanks of Camelback Mountain. The largest ghost town in history extends to every horizon of the Valley of the Sun — now a superheated no man’s land of crumbling walls,…
A scorching, 120-degree breeze stirs dust in the streets before passing through the windowless ruins of former mansions on the flanks of Camelback Mountain. The largest ghost town in history extends to every horizon of the Valley of the Sun — now a superheated no man’s land of crumbling walls,…
Arizona’s medical-marijuana dispensaries sold more than 2.5 tons of marijuana in the past 12 months, officials say. From December 6th, 2012 — opening day for the state’s first state-authorized dispensary, Arizona Organix — to December 9th of this year, 5,279 pounds of marijuana were sold, according to the Arizona Department…
Five storefront poker operations in the west Valley were raided on Thursday evening as part of a months-long investigation into suspected illegal gaming. As New Times reported last December in our cover story, “Off the Reservation,” numerous poker operations around the Valley — almost all on the west side –…
Christine Jones’ much-criticized 2011 essay in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act has disappeared from her personal website since New Times pointed it out. Jones, the former Go Daddy general counsel now running for Arizona governor, had been vilified by legions of Internet users following the essay’s initial appearance…
The massive roll-out of solar panels and structural supports at Arizona State University in the last couple of years is already nearly paying for itself, ASU Magazine reports this month. In the magazine’s December edition, an article on “carbon neutrality” by Texas freelance writer Eric Butterman, (they can’t find a…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s agency can’t even arrest a few drunks with the other cop shops without first submitting his plans in writing to federal court. As part of the order by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow last month in a wide-reaching racial-profiling lawsuit, procedures to help stop Arpaio’s…
A federal lawsuit resulting from the soured affair of an Arizona State University professor and one of his former students is not time-barred and may continue, a judge has ruled. Tasha Kunzi, a former graduate student at ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, alleges that Professor Travis Pratt harassed…
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s bad advice to County Supervisors on medical marijuana has resulted in less county control of dispensary locations. The county is now prohibited from imposing any of its own restrictions on a planned dispensary for Sun City because the county failed to comply with a previous…
