Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is taking some heat this afternoon by social-media users who think he went way too far in mentioning drug use by musician Prince, who died on Thursday at age 57. Arpaio’s known for making politically incorrect remarks and discriminating against Latinos, but he’s even ticked…
An Arizona Department of Economic Security worker cracked under the strain of an abusive boss, admitting herself to a psychiatric ward and talked of wanting to “shoot someone,” the agency says. When the DES Office of Inspector General investigated, witnesses corroborated the employee’s story of verbal and physical abuse, and…
Standing in line for hours to cast a ballot. Cries of “voter suppression.” The finger-pointing, the recriminations, the heads hanging in shame. These all could be things of the past, at least in relation to voter angst, if a Republican effort to repeal Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election, now held up…
Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego wants to bring some deported veterans back to the United States, the country they fought for and served. He introduced a bill this week that asks the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary to allow deported veterans who served in the U.S. military to come back,…
Phoenix ranks high on a list of U.S. cities where Latino families spend a larger portion of their household incomes on energy costs than average families, a new report found. The report by the American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that in 2011, Latino families in Phoenix spent on…
Veterans with post-traumatic-stress disorder will soon be able to take part in cannabis study in Arizona and Colorado after recent approval by the Drug Enforcement Agency. The study will be conducted by the California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) with embattled Arizona Dr. Sue Sisley, fired from the University…
Scottsdale resident Laurice Dee started an online petition earlier this month to stop the Mexican entertainment company, Dolphinaris, from building a swim-with-the-dolphins facility in her area. Since the petition went live on April 2, more than 95,000 people have signed it. New Times spoke with Dee about her petition, what…
Arizonans could reject “recreational marijuana” on the ballot this November, according to a poll released on this week by a group that opposes the measure. Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, led by Seth Leibsohn and Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, commissioned the poll from Data Orbital, a company run by…
Shortly after a worldwide campaign successfully got SeaWorld to stop breeding orca whales in captivity, a new animal-rights effort aimed at protecting marine animals seems to be picking up steam here in Arizona. As of publication time, more than 92,000 people across the country had signed a petition demanding the…
From the moment Arizona Governor Doug Ducey tweeted “We got him,” and announced to the world that a SWAT team from the Department of Public Safety had taken the suspected I-10 shooter into custody, people throughout Arizona were upset by the way the state was handling the situation – “What…
If the news releases posted on Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website are supposed to represent what Joe Arpaio’s shop is doing lately, these must be the agency’s dog days. After 20 years of dog-and-pony shows from Arpaio, the intense focus on dogs has gotten to a ridiculous point. Something has…
Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the five-member Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, says federal oversight of county elections is needed after last month’s voting debacle. He may right – but one glaring reason the county may need federal oversight of its elections because of the lack of county oversight…
Rob McElwain has a system. He scours his neighborhood for materials, delivers them home, paints, and finally, he protests. On most weekdays, the tall, lanky 61-year-old — in jeans, his hair sun-bleached white and pulled back into a ponytail — stands on First Avenue in front of the Wells Fargo…
For the first time his decades long political career, U.S. Senator John McCain says he’ll skip the National Republican Convention in Cleveland this July because he needs “to campaign for reelection,” CNN is reporting. McCain is in the middle of tough election battle against Ann Kirkpatrick, the Democrat trying to…
Small-magnitude aftershocks are expected by the Arizona Geologic Survey following a swarm of mini-quakes in northwestern Arizona that began in late March. No damage was reported from any of the earthquakes, but there were more than 42 of them starting on March 28, according to the Arizona Geological Survey. The…
A new citizens’ initiative launched last week aims to help solar-power companies and customers by guaranteeing lucrative power-purchase rates for six years. But don’t expect a clear, sunny picture of the facts during what is sure to be a nasty fight in the next several months — the truth is…
Ivonne Salazar wants to get a better-paying job so she can help her 18-year-old daughter, who’ll be attending Arizona State University this fall, pay for college expenses. But Salazar’s job opportunities are limited because she is undocumented. She has been living in Arizona without legal status for 23 years. The…
Should 1.7 million acres of land around the Grand Canyon be designated a national monument? It’s certainly a topic of hot debate in Arizona. Supporters of the monument say it will permanently protect an ecologically fragile and historically significant area from uranium mining, while those opposing the plan say it’s…
A string of dark-money organizations with ties to the billionaire Koch brothers is helping Arizona politicians and special-interest groups fight the popular Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument proposal, tax documents show. The money trail begins with a conservative political advocacy organization funded in part by Charles and David Koch and…
Arizona has marijuana on the brain — and no wonder: The state has one of the country’s biggest medical-marijuana programs, it may approve an adult-use legalization initiative at the ballot in November, and it shares a border with one of the world’s biggest producers of cannabis. Here’s a roundup of…
Arizona and Maricopa County officials violated federal law and the Constitution with bad legislation and the bungled March 22 election, a group of voters and the Democratic Party allege in a lawsuit filed today. The anticipated lawsuit, which the Democratic National Committee said this week would be forthcoming, blasts the…
The U.S. Senate race in Arizona between Republican incumbent John McCain and Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick has reached a new milestone: For the first time since Kirkpatrick announced she was challenging McCain, polls show the two candidates tied at 48 percent. For months Kirkpatrick has been slowly catching up to McCain,…
