Fare collection for Metro light rail, like the system’s ridership, is trending in the wrong direction. The system brought in an estimated $547,294 in March, says Metro Light Rail. That’s slightly higher than the $528,000 it collected in February (more days in the month, remember), but still much lower than in January,…
UPDATE: Sadly, Meghan McCain’s “Twitter creep” isn’t the real Slim Shady (read, “McCoy.”) Rather, it’s the faux Joe Arpaio that New Times has blogged about in the past. Score one for faux Joe. After painstakingly going through Meghan McCain’s Twitter correspondence, I found only one comment from “Joe Arpaio,” and…
East Valley Tribune reporter Ryan Gabrielson and former Tribber Paul Giblin have brought home a Pulitzer prize for their work on a series that exposed apparent racial profiling and wasted resources in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-illegal-immigrant tactics. The newspaper tied with the Detroit Free Press to win in the category of…
Sixto Balbuena, the 20-year-old Chandler man who stabbed his apparent rival at the home of their teacher, has been indicted for second-degree murder. That’s no surprise. But what could be interesting is if the teacher, Tamara Hofmann, ends up with an indictment of her own. The Maricopa County Attorney’s…
In a last-ditch effort to impact the way Stephen Colbert treats mean ol’ Joe Arpaio on The Colbert Report tonight, the folks at the pro-immigration org America’s Voice are urging people to e-mail a message to the show’s producers through their Web site. Thing is, if you wanna get in on…
The Peoria Unified School District has agreed “it will no longer prevent” a 14-year-old student from wearing a gay-pride wristband, the ACLU says today. The district, however, says it never agreed to any such thing — because the student was never disallowed from wearing the accessory. Maggie Olney, spokeswoman for the district,…
The East Valley Tribune web site displayed local news and advertisements again after about 12 hours of near-dormancy on Sunday due to a domain name screw-up. Evidence points to the explanation that someone at the Tribune or Freedom Communications, the Trib’s parent company, forgot to renew the eastvalleytribune.com domain name…
Paul Chagolla, a deputy chief for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, claims in an open letter published in the Arizona Republic that his office does enough work serving felony warrants, and that critics on the subject are advocates of illegal immigration. It’s difficult for us to believe nearly anything coming…
Police are hunting have arrested a suspect in a SUV who shot a photo radar van operator Sunday night. (SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST). The 51-year-old victim, Doug Georgianni, had worked for the photo enforcement company Redflex as a “driver-technician” for only three months, according to a news…
There’s one word to sum up the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 2009 season thus far: Exasperation. While the emotion has been brewing amongst players and fans since the second game of the year against the Colorado Rockies — when the Snakes began their infuriating tendency of squandering decent pitching with woefully-inconsistent offense…
The world premiere of the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine will take place at the Harkins Cine Capri at Tempe Marketplace on April 27. Tempe won the premiere, which star Hugh Jackman is scheduled to attend, through an online contest by Twentieth Century Fox…Alicia-Monique Blanco, better known as Miss Arizona, earned…
It looks like someone forgot to pay the bill.The East Valley Tribune Web site died this morning, one day after the registration on its domain expired. The Trib’s IT folks will probably have the site up and running soon — maybe even today. We’re pretty sure we’d have heard if…
Big, bad, neo-Nazis? Um, not exactly. See, the local defenders of the white race — at least the Arizona adherents of the National Socialist Movement, led by pseudo-fuehrer Jeff Schoep nationally — are girly men. When it comes to fliering Phoenix anonymously, under the cover of darkness, they have no problem. But when…
We understand that in the 24-hour news cycle it can be difficult to keep up. Worry not! We have the solution. Check back on Valley Fever every evening for highlights from each of New Times’ blogs. Today’s entries: Valley Fever: Covance: Beagle March Organizer is Known Liar Obama Scholars Program…
Arizona State University is fine for a weekend romp, but if students who want more female scenery and action ought to spend their college years at the University of Arizona, says Playboy magazine. The latest Playboy listing of top party schools puts UofA squarely in the Number Five, behind the…
Criminal charges have been filed against Steven Anderson, a local pastor we wrote about yesterday who claims he was brutalized at an Interstate 8 checkpoint. Anderson, however, says he’s the victim and that he plans to sue the authorities involved in the incident. His family’s personal Web site now includes…
Last night we gave you details from the crew of the M/V Maersk Alabama as they were attacked by pirates. Now we’ve got a full e-mail from the crew. Check it out after the jump…
In an attempt to recapture his status as an equal-opportunity sadist, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reprising his 200 Mexican March, which inflamed the Hispanic community and civil rights activists back in February. However, this time, he’s moving 900, and there’s no indication in his press release that it’ll be other than…
Camilla Strongin, spokeswoman for Covance, took issue with our Tuesday post about a planned march of beagles this Sunday in protest of the medical testing company in Chandler: Maybe you should do a little research on Jan McClellan before providing her cause such ligitamcy. I have included a story that…
The ASU Advantage program is a scholarship, despite the fact that it was never called a scholarship prior to being renamed the Barack Obama Scholars Program, Arizona State University officials argue.This could just be a game of semantics: Is it a financial aid program or a scholarship? Terri Shafer, ASU…
The Diamondbacks sucking wind with the bottom-feeders? The Padres in the clouds? What in the name of collective mediocrity is going on in the National League West? Thankfully, there’s one constant that NL West watchers can depend on, post-Barry Bonds: The San Francisco Giants still bite. At the moment, our…
A gay rights group says they were harassed by a Casa Grande police officer when they gathered to protest taxes along a city street. The group filed a complaint, and Casa Grande police chief Robert Huddleston says the incident is being investigated…Former state legislator Karen Johnson announced she plans to…
