“We’re in the ‘red zone’ right now. Today, tomorrow is probably it,” says Duane “Chili” Yazzie, chapter president of the Shiprock Community on the Navajo Nation Reservation. “We’re about to lose a lot of our crops.” Two weeks after an accident in an abandoned mine in Colorado caused more than 3…
The homeless sit in groups on the sidewalks of downtown Tempe, faithful dogs panting by their sides, sometimes chatting among themselves, sometimes hailing passersby to ask for cash, water, or cigarettes — and it drives merchants crazy. Angelica Seliga, a manager at the BMO Harris Bank on Mill Avenue, used…
When it comes to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 22-year reign over Maricopa County, a cursory glance at newspaper clippings from earlier in his career reveals that some things never change. Consider Arpaio’s penchant for investigating his enemies, his critics, and anyone who stands in his way. In January 1999, Maricopa County…
Sue Black, the well-connected new Arizona Parks Department director, has reportedly hired another Milwaukee buddy to a top slot in her agency. The former head of the Milwaukee parks system vows to build a “dream team” that will lead the parks department to a coveted National Recreation and Park Association’s annual…
A team of 27 journalism students from the Carnegie-Knight News21 program at Arizona State University released a major investigative series on marijuana legalization this week that focuses on the many problems related to the evolving culture and legality of the plant. The students, ranging from 19 universities across the country…
As governor, what do you do if your state’s incarceration rate is 48 percent higher than the national average and is full of fourth-graders who can’t read? If you’re Governor Doug Ducey, you use tax dollars to launch a “rebranding” campaign, duh! Ever since Ducey asked the public to submit…
Puppy-mill breeders, beware — Tempe is the latest Arizona city to consider a ban on the commercial sale of dogs and cats in pet stores. The move is part of a national campaign to crack down on puppy mills — breeding facilities where animals are kept in crowded, inhumane conditions and…
After what’s being hailed as an “overwhelming response from the people of Arizona,” Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is moving the location of his rally Tuesday night. The event was originally going to be held in the Grace Community Church in Tempe, which can hold about 2,300 people, but…
No, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, you can’t sue President Obama for filling up Maricopa County jails. That’s what three judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit concluded when they affirmed a lower court decision to dismiss Arpaio’s lawsuit challenging the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and…
A mother-and-daughter activist duo are nearing the end of their walk from Washington state to Arizona in protest of the pending destruction of the Oak Flat area near Superior because of copper mining. Sally Noedel, 54, and her daughter, Emma Bigongiari, 19, braved heat waves and talked to people in…
Republican U.S. Senator John McCain did not exactly receive a warm welcome when he visited the Navajo Nation this weekend to commemorate the Navajo Code Talkers. Throughout the day he was confronted by activists waving banners painted with messages, such as: “McCain = Indian Killer” and “McCain’s not welcome here”…
The Tonto National Forest Service says the horses who run free along the Salt River are abandoned livestock, wreaking havoc on the landscape. Simone Netherlands, president of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, a nonprofit that has been monitoring the herd for more than 17 years, says they are…
Friday started off with a withering low temperature of 93 degrees, giving Valley residents a hint of the heat-blast to come. By late afternoon, metro Phoenix reached a record-setting 117 degrees, the National Weather Service confirmed. It wasn’t the hottest day in Phoenix ever — that record of 122 degrees…
The Islamic State’s top leader repeatedly sexually assaulted Arizona aid worker Kayla Mueller during the 18 months she spent in the terrorist group’s custody before her death in February, according to a news report.. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi, personally delivered the 26-year-old Prescott native to the home of Abu…
U.S. Senator John McCain is “deeply concerned” about the United States decision not to prosecute an Islamic State militant that held Arizona aid worker Kayla Mueller hostage in Syria for 18 months before her death earlier this year. McCain penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Attorney…
Top residential water users in Tempe and Glendale use 10 to 30 times as much as average customers, with totals of 2.5 million and 3.6 million gallons consumed respectively in 2014, research by Phoenix New Times shows. The biggest users of water in the non-residential category for those cities, meanwhile, add…
Glendale Police Department Commander Andre Anderson, on loan to the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department as acting chief, has a blemished personnel record, according to a recent news report. The report reveals, based on Anderson’s personnel file, that he was suspended three times in one year and had an order of protection filed against…
As more than 3 million gallons of heavy metal-laden sludge from a spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado has worked its way down the A nimas River and toward the San Juan River and Lake Powell, many are asking how something like this could happen and how we…
In the neighborhoods surrounding Arizona State University, the first three weekends of school mean big parties, loud music, and streets full of drunk co-eds celebrating new-found freedom from parental control. For the last two years, those weekends have also meant an influx of police force — not just from the…
The main outreach and service provider for homeless veterans in the Valley, the Community Resource and Referral Center, recently moved out of its small office within the downtown Phoenix Lodestar Day Resource Center to a much larger and newly renovated facility. It’s a move its directors say will allow the…
Arizona has reached a marijuana-legalization milestone, with more than 80,000 people now qualified to legally possess, grow, or sell it for medicinal purposes. State voters passed the 2010 Medical Marijuana Act by a slim margin, resulting in about 90 dispensaries statewide and an ever-increasing number of patients, caregivers, and registered…
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the anti-legalization group MATFORCE with a nice shout-out to the Phoenix New Times. In a Sunday article in Prescott’s Daily Courier newspaper, Polk tells reporter Scott Orr that New Times has made her and MATFORCE a “target” for their prohibitionist…
