The Arizona Court of Appeals has dealt a sizable blow to environmentalists set on stopping a proposed open-pit copper mine 30 miles southeast of Tucson in the Santa Rita Mountains, just west of State Highway 83. In a unanimous decision, a panel of three judges overturned a lower court’s ruling,…
Andy Barrios, the driver in a 2015 Christmas-night car crash that killed three men, including popular Phoenix rapper Jose “Low Key” Hernandez, failed to make a July 1 initial appearance in Phoenix municipal court for the low-level misdemeanor he faces stemming from the fatal collision. As a result, the court…
One day after an unknown suspect set fire to a recycling bin outside of the Islamic Center of Tucson, the Arizona Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (the largest Muslim Civil Rights organization in the country) is asking local law enforcement to investigate the incident as a possible hate…
Latino voters in Arizona have a chance to play a major role in deciding whether Republican John McCain holds on to his U.S. Senate seat or hands it over to Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. Latinos make up 25 percent of Arizona’s registered voters. And in a race that polls show is…
Two of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu’s siblings believe their brother is unfit to be a U.S. Congressman and have endorsed one of his rivals for the GOP primary in Arizona’s First Congressional District, which will be decided August 30. In separate statements released recently by Republican hopeful Wendy Rogers, Lucy…
A new poll indicates that unless younger and more liberal Arizona voters come out in droves in November, things aren’t looking very good for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol’s ballot initiative. In a recent survey conducted by MBQF Consulting and OH Predictive Insights, 1,060 likely voters across the state…
State Senator Andy Biggs, then-chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, rolled out his radical proposal during a late-night, marathon hearing in February 2011, where a number of controversial bills were being rubber-stamped by the Republican-dominated body. The erudite ultra-conservative wasn’t coy in laying out his revolutionary blueprint, a complete elimination of Arizona’s Medicaid program, known by its…
Hours after U.S. Sen. John McCain released a new ad attacking his Democratic rival, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, for being weak on border security, her campaign is firing back with a damning charge of its own: McCain is so desperate to save his political career that he’s willing to lie about…
Crowds of Arizona medical-marijuana patients braved the sun and waited in line this past Saturday to celebrate the marijuana holiday 7/10. Three thousand or more visitors filtered through the Phoenix Veterans of Foreign Wars post to attend the first-ever 710 Degree Cup and mingle with the 35 vendors involved, some…
Another day, another attempt to prevent legalizing marijuana in Arizona. Less than two weeks after the leading pro-cannabis effort in the state, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, submitted 258,582 petition signatures to the secretary of state to get its Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act initiative on the…
Samuel Oliphant of Scottsdale was kicked out of his luxury apartment last week, days after a hazmat team found the place trashed, toxic, and just plain gross. Scottsdale Police Department photographs of the interior of Oliphant’s former crib, obtained by New Times through a public-records request, reveal a garbage-filled drug den reminiscent…
Ex-Minuteman and anti-immigrant vigilante Chris Simcox declined to speak on his own behalf during his sentencing today in a Phoenix courtroom. “I have nothing to say, Your Honor,” the former kindergarten teacher said, as he stood before Judge Jose Padilla. He was dressed in stripes with his wrists handcuffed in…
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “doesn’t give a damn” about veterans. So said Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego hours before Trump was scheduled to deliver a speech about reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs’ healthcare system. “Trump has said so many things over the years that are just so utterly…
Arizona voters will likely get to decide this fall whether to raise the state’s minimum wage and mandate employers to provide paid sick time. The Arizona Healthy Working Families campaign submitted 271,883 signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on July 7. If at least 150,642 of the signatures…
Anger and activism met with the blunt reality police force on the streets of Phoenix on Friday night in a dramatic, hours-long confrontation filled with tear gas, pepper spray, and pepperballs. New Times was, at times, at the heart of the action that stretched into early Saturday along Seventh Street…
Matters have gone from bad to worse for Jayme Valenzuela, mayor of the Town of Superior. Facing a recall election stemming from allegations of misusing public funds, Valenzuela has now been indicted on a charge of felony theft. After the announcement today by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Valenzuela lost…
One of the Arizona militants who occupied a federal wildlife building in Oregon earlier this year has pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States, court documents show. Blaine Cooper (real name: Stanley Blaine Hicks) was arrested on February 11 for his role in…
It’s not every day that a federal judge uses words like “absurd” and “disappointing” to describe a state-designed healthcare plan, but according to a transcript, obtained by New Times, of a recent court hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge David K. Duncan did just that after reviewing a proposal by the Arizona…
In the wake of several heat-related deaths on city mountain-park trails, Phoenix officials have installed two electric fans on an outdoor shade structure at Echo Canyon trailhead. Installation was completed on Wednesday at the Camelback Mountain trailhead, and the pair of 18-inch fans – one on each side of the…
Remember that time about a year ago when Governor Doug Ducey announced that Arizona needed a “rebranding”? You know, so the world wouldn’t automatically hear “Arizona” and think of things like SB 1070 or the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating our botched presidential primary vote. Ducey said…
In the latest gesture of public support for the permanent protection of the Grand Canyon watershed, a coalition of environmental groups and tribal leaders announced today that they’ve delivered petitions containing more than 550,000 signatures to President Barack Obama demanding he create a 1.7-million-acre national monument around Grand Canyon National…
Someone is ringing a tiny silver bell. It’s tea time for the employees of Tuft & Needle. Two dozen young, carefully groomed men and women wander over to a table heaped with finger sandwiches and flaky croissants. Dressed in shorts and jersey skirts and polo blouses, they look less like…
