We’ll say this about the Giants-Dodgers rivalry: It gets normally sedate California fans riled up. Even at a Spring Training game — opening day at the Giants’ Old Town Scottsdale park — they were excited for this match-up between divisional rivals who’ll play each other another 10 times this season…
A woman crawling on the U.S. 60 freeway was hit by three cars and caused a collision — police don’t know what she was doing there; she probably didn’t know, either. Tempe’s photo enforcement program is raking in dough. Navajo down: Phoenix Symphony releases CD of oratorio inspired by a…
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: Dad Accused of Spinning 1-year-old Son in Clothes Dryer; Kid…
I had been hoping that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus would take a thick paddle to Janet Napolitano’s ever-generous backside when they met with the new DHS head for the first time today. But, alas, some of our congressional leaders are as worthless as a week-old bowl of menudo. If they…
Thanks to a settled lawsuit brought by Arizona and other states, cans or bottles of Enviga, a green tea made by Coca-Cola and Nestle, must now include a disclaimer to let people know the product won’t cause weight loss. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard joined fellow top cops in 26 other states…
Deputies served a search warrant on Thursday at the county office of Don Stapley, a county supervisor who stands accused of numerous counts of felony campaign-paperwork violations. The search was the latest in connection with the questionable investigation of Stapley by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas…
Hopefully, 2009 A.D. will be the year Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, starts to melt. You may recall a little essay I posted to this blog in December entitled, “A Modest Proposal: A World Without ICE,” in which I suggested “a total moratorium on all ICE activities, as preparation for the…
After all is said and done in the regular college basketball season (that would be next weekend) and the Pac-10 conference tournament, the ASU Sun Devils and the Washington Huskies will find themselves playing somewhere in the Big Dance. But all that seems so far away at the moment. At hand, in…
A Mesa dad turned on the family clothes dryer with his son still inside — and he did it on purpose, cops say. The 1-year-old boy had been sitting inside the dryer with the door open, which the young family thought was “cute,” according to a Mesa police news release…
Less than a week after our report on the high number of 2008 inmate homicides in Arizona prisons, the state Department of Corrections is reporting another possible stabbing. Maybe this latest incident will help draw attention to the inmate-on-inmate violence in state prisons — which has apparently grown out of control. As…
Like we’ve been saying all along, Cardinals starting quarterback Kurt Warner may be playing elsewhere next season. A blogger on azcardinals.com., the team’s official Web site, reports that Warner and the team are still about $4 million a year apart on a contract. Warner wants to be paid in the range of the top…
We admit we don’t get out to Goodyear much. But, with a new Spring Training stadium opening in the western West Valley city Wednesday, we made the drive (“Just 20 minutes from downtown Phoenix!” Goodyear likes to claim) to check out the new home of the Cleveland Indians, former spring Floridians…
With a 4-1 record in the Alvin Gentry era, the Phoenix Suns are winning the games they’re supposed to win. However, they’re still faltering against the NBA’s elite, evident by Sunday’s ass-whopping against the defending champion Boston Celtics. But that’s ok. The reason Terry Porter was run out of this…
A New York-based research group called Justice Strategies files a report calling Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s system for cracking down on illegal immigration a failure. They’re not the first…A recent study examines retail closures in 65 metro markets, and Phoenix tops the list of distressed markets…The FBI searched 21…
I believe that the words people use to describe other people, intentionally or unintentionally, reflect their political values. But I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I write to you. You described César Chávez as hating “illegals” in a previous column, and as being ethnocentric early…
VINNIE’S BOO-BOO “WTF?!” That’s what this ticked-off Toucan thought when he saw that local Immigration and Customs Enforcement flack Vinnie Picard was quoted in the paper of record as saying, “Arizona’s 287(g) program is working as intended,” and that there are no “firsthand” complaints of racial-profiling lodged with the Department…
The soldiers move through the wheat field, scanning the windswept plain for signs of trouble. There are six of them, dressed in fatigues and body armor, wearing the sunglasses and bushy beards popular among the Special Forces. The only thing they can hear is the rustling of wheat stalks. They…
CAP, OUR ASS If David Stern could get away with it . . .: The story on the NBA supposedly imposing a tattoo cap made complete sense to me. Commissioner David Stern’s already instituted a dress code for NBA players — because he hates hip-hop fashion. I’m sure he hates…
It was the music therapy that pushed me over the edge. For the past month, I’ve been getting an endless series of pleas, begging me to lobby the government not to ax this program or that. I’ve been asked to fight against cuts to education, the closure of state parks,…
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: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Impersonator Posts Funny Updates on Twitter Joe…
Below is the schedule for this weekend’s anti-Arpaio/anti-287(g) activities just released by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Several high-ranking NDLON staff members have re-confirmed that Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha will attend Saturday’s march, so be there and be there early. Word is Phoenix’s anti-Hispanic nativist…
County Attorney Andrew Thomas didn’t answer many questions at his press conference a few hours ago about Phoenix’s “assisted suicide” case, the story we broke in an August 2007 piece entitled “Death Wish.” What he did tell those assembled in the crowded conference room of his eighth-floor suite was that investigators…
