Supporters of a Catholic high school teacher who has been lambasted for a controversial anti-abortion handout he distributed in class are speaking out in his defense and have started a petition to counter one calling for him to be removed from the classroom. Since New Times first wrote about a…
“Disabled” doesn’t describe Emily Bowe, a Gilbert teen who has been blind since birth. The 15-year-old honors student at Campo Verde High School plays the flute, clarinet, and piccolo, speaks German, says she has completed “a few” novels, and is one of the most talented young people in the nation at Braille reading and…
Jorge Rios wasn’t thinking straight when he got the news. The mother of his 15-year-old son, the woman he’d loved since high school, had been transferred to the hospital from Arizona’s Perryville Prison, where she was nine months into a two-year sentence for drug possession. It was cervical cancer. Jorge,…
From the tons sold in state-legal medical-marijuana dispensaries to the tons imported each year from Mexico, Arizona is a place that knows its cannabis. Here’s a roundup of some of last week’s biggest news stories about marijuana that affect the Grand Canyon State… Legal Marijuana Would Be Tax Windfall for…
The height of hypocrisy for this Arizona campaign season may have been reached: The pot prohibitionists who want to keep cannabis a felony in Arizona have accepted a large donation from the alcohol industry, New Times has learned. A spokeswoman for Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, the anti-cannabis-legalization group led by…
In a 162-page ruling issued, ominously, on Friday the 13th, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow found Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty on three counts of civil contempt and left the door open to criminal prosecution. Snow also found Arpaio’s chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, guilty on two counts of civil contempt…
As summer gears up, no doubt, thousands of Arizona State University students are hunting for jobs hoping to bank a bit of cash to help offset next year’s tuition bill. The Cincinnati-based nonprofit Education at Work, in partnership with ASU and the online payment company PayPal, has a better idea:…
The Gila River Indian Community this week asked a U.S. District judge to issue a summary judgment in its lawsuit challenging a planned expansion of the Loop 202 freeway. In the lawsuit, filed against the Federal Highway Administration and the Arizona Department of Transportation, the community argues that the freeway…
An angry Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told reporters on Thursday that Secretary of State Michele Reagan “did indeed violate Arizona law” in not sending out hundreds of thousands of publicity pamphlets regarding Tuesday’s special election. But the AG said he won’t go into court to stop the election from…
A solar-powered airplane designed to bring attention to renewable energy departed from the Phoenix area early this morning to continue its attempt at an around-the-world flight. The Solar Impulse 2 spent 10 days in the Valley after pilot André Borschberg landed to the cheers of a small crowd on May…
U.S. Representative Paul Gosar of Prescott is behind a new push to prevent undocumented immigrants from serving in the U.S. military. This week, the three-term Republican congressman introduced an amendment to remove from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language that would edge toward allowing young undocumented immigrants to enlist in…
On Wednesday, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed House Bill 2340 into law, making it a crime to take, harass, kill, or otherwise interfere with a popular herd of wild horses that runs free along the Salt River northeast of Phoenix in the Tonto National Forest. Christine Antaya, a volunteer with…
A jury acquitted a former Phoenix police officer of criminal sexual assault charges last week, clearing the way for his accuser to seek damages via a civil lawsuit – which she’s already in the process of doing. Court records indicate that the 23-year-old woman, whose name New Times is withholding, filed a…
Most Arizona municipalities discontinued their photo-enforcement programs in March after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich declared they were operating illegally. But now, one city is about to restart its program. Speed- and red-light-cameras are set to begin test-flashing drivers in Scottsdale this week, with full citation-churning activation planned for Friday,…
Online petitioners are demanding that a local Catholic school teacher be removed from the classroom for what they call “racist and sexist hate speech.” The petition, which has garnered more than 2,500 signatures (and counting) over the past couple of days, alleges that an instructor at Phoenix’s Xavier College Preparatory,…
For a showcase of gross incompetence on behalf of public officialdom, it doesn’t get much better than the March 28 hearing of the Arizona House Elections Committee. In the pillory that day before a packed-to-overflowing room of angry citizens sans pitchforks was Republican Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, a prim,…
Arizona Department of Economic Security director Tim Jeffries has boosted security at the agency out of concern about a possible terrorist attack and has encouraged his nearly 8,000 employees to carry Mace or pepper-spray products on the job for self-defense. But wait: There’s more. In addition, under a new security plan, about a…
A coalition of voting-rights advocates will form a commission to examine everything from how polling locations are chosen to how well citizens are educated on the voting process in Maricopa County. The effort comes in response to the long lines at many polling locations throughout the county during Arizona’s presidential-preference…
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema raised eyebrows at a recent East Valley Partnership luncheon in Mesa, by stating that she hopes right-wing ideologue and Republican state senate president Andy Biggs wins in Arizona’s deeply red Fifth Congressional District this year. The U.S. Representative for Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District was onstage, participating in…
From the tons sold in state-legal medical-marijuana dispensaries, to the tons imported each year from Mexico, Arizona is a place that knows its cannabis. Here’s a roundup of some of last week’s biggest news stories about marijuana that affect the Grand Canyon State… State Supreme Court: No Immunity for Doctors…
Talk about bad timing. In an election year rife with anti-immigrant sentiment, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics show that apprehensions of unaccompanied minors from Central America have spiked to levels near those in the first six months of fiscal year 2014, when the issue became a political football and a…
Asked whether he’ll be Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, should the presumptive GOP presidential nominee KO the Dems’ best shot at the White House, Hillary Clinton, in the fall, Arizona’s Treasurer Jeff DeWit chuckles. “Nah, I like my job,” DeWit says. “I don’t think so.” That’s a somewhat odd answer. After…
