Just 5 feet tall, with a baby strapped to her chest and a soft, faltering voice, Kim Rivera is anything but soldierly. Yet two years ago, she was a Texas private in the War on Terror, guarding a gate with an M4 rifle and frisking Iraqi civilians at a base…
Elaine Sanchez understands Guadalupe, Arizona, as well as she understands her six children. She was born and raised in the village of 5,500 souls hard by the freeway and the conventional suburbs of Tempe and Phoenix. Sheriff Joe Arpaio put Guadalupe on the nation’s map during his anti-immigrant sweep last…
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: US Airways Ships Corpse to Pet Store Instead of Fish…
One clip from today’s media event denouncing Joe Arpaio, and heralding the investigation into him by the U.S. Department of Justice. The big news out of D.C. for us here in Sand Land, of course, is that the Justice Department is investigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office for civil…
Maricopa County Manager David Smith lit into Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s top aide at a meeting last Friday, comparing him to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and calling him “just plain childish.” Amazingly, Chief Deputy David Hendershott then memorialized the conversation in a six-page memo to his boss, Arpaio. The memo,…
Republican state Senator Jack Harper of Surprise really let it rip in a recent commentary for the Arizona Capitol Times, and some of his comments are under fire from the blogosphere.The commentary, published on the Cap Times’ “Capitol Voices” page on March 6, 2009, is about 1,500 words long, and starts…
Time was that the Arizona Wildcats hated the Pac-10 postseason basketball tournament with a passion. That was when the `Cats routinely dominated league play, finishing first or second seemingly every year after now-retired Lute Olson revved up the program in the mid-1980s. Olson and his minions considered the tourney an…
Yesterday, we reported on a series of dog poisonings at Carriage Lane Park in Mesa. At the time that story was published, we’d been unable to reach a spokesman at the city. Today, we learned that Mesa Animal Control is indeed investigating the poisonings — which have been linked to…
On January 2, a Valley man named Mark Irby disappeared near his family’s vacation home in Forest Lakes, Arizona, after leaving for what was supposed to have been a short ATV ride. Turns out, Irby is the vice chairman of Chandler’s Planning and Zoning Commission. A large-scale search for Irby…
Tempe-based US Airways has already come under criticism for requiring flight attendants who complained about safety issues to handle their own defense in a lawsuit filed by a pilot. Now, they’ve pulled an even stranger stunt, flying a corpse to a pet store in lieu of the fish the business…
Shaquille O’Neal scored 21 points against the Dallas Mavericks to go ahead of Elvin Hayes for sixth on the NBA career scoring list (he needs 88 points to best the next guy on the list, Moses Malone). Matt Barnes also had 21 points, and Steve Nash had 23 and 13 assists. All the Suns’…
The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department is investigating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the MSCO, looking for evidence of discrimination based on race. Arpaio says “We’ll open our books. We have nothing to hide.” If that’s true, then why has he repeatedly refused to release public…
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: Mesa Dog Owners Frustrated by Lack of Answers in Park…
So much of the time, Joe Arpaio, with his speech punctuated with dese, dats, and dose, and his defiance of federal authority, sounds more like he’s imitating Robert DeNiro’s Al Capone in The Untouchables, than acting like a local sheriff. Now the feds are after Joe for real. If you haven’t heard…
Two weeks ago, Mexican Consul General Carlos Flores Vizcarra fired off a letter to Maricopa County, complaining about Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s televised forced march of illegal immigrant inmates — and their subsequent segregation in Tent City. Today, Arpaio returned fire, sending a letter to Vizcarra saying that he has stripped Mexican…
So Andrew Thomas fought the Bar, and Andrew Thomas won. But it looks the real losers here aren’t only those good government types who’d hoped to hold the erstwhile county attorney accountable for his overzealous prosecutions. No, the real losers include us, the taxpayers. According to a recent story in…
The Goldwater Institute has submitted a public records request to the City of Glendale, asking for information on lease negotiations between it and the Phoenix Coyotes. Goldwater attorney Clint Bolick told the Phoenix Business Journal that the institute is not ruling out legal action regarding the lease terms between the Coyotes…
When a new runway opened at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 2000, it received the blessing of the Federal Aviation Adminstration. But a newly released report from another federal agency, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation, cites that same runway as a potential…
Since November, at least four dogs have gotten sick and one has died from poisoning after eating laced meat at Carriage Lane Park in Mesa. The owners of the afflicted canines have had to fight to get a case opened with Mesa’s Animal Control Department, which is short-staffed after a…
Last week, we reported that the $29 million dollar Polly Rosenbaum State Archives and History Building Reading Room closed because of budget cuts. But after an outpouring of requests, Arizona State Library Archives and Public Records director GladysAnn Wells has announced that the reading room will remain open to researchers…
Last month, we reported on Valley business majoreventrentalz.com, a company that’s been successful at renting out homes for sporting events in various cities to visiting sports fans. The company was founded in Phoenix in 2008, and quickly branched out nationally. Now, it’s getting even more attention — but not the…
Check this video the group America’s Voice has been using to gather signatures for the anti-Joe petition to be ballyhooed tomorrow. This is one I wish I could be in D.C. for: Tomorrow at 1 p.m., House Judiciary Chair John Conyers, Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, and apparently our own…
