Arizona just got one step closer to enacting a new, controversial plan for dealing with air pollution and visibility problems emanating from the Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City. The public comment period for the new plan closed yesterday, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency now has a few weeks…
Fifty years of bloody conflict in Colombia — thousands of deaths from firefights, sniper attacks, bombings, assassinations, and mass executions — and it all comes down to this: a group of government negotiators and rebel leaders sitting around a big table talking about land reform and crop subsidies and what…
Maddy’s psychiatric care provider at Arizona State University had just increased the dosage of the anti-depressant she was taking and it wasn’t going well. She felt like a “zombie,” she said, and was struggling to keep pace with her busy schedule taking 16 credits and working two jobs. “I really…
Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders just announced that his campaign event scheduled for this Saturday in Phoenix will now be held at the downtown Convention Center. This marks the second time the campaign has decided to switch locations in order to accommodate the flood of RSVPs. It’s unclear exactly how…
Arizona State University Professor Matthew Whitaker has withdrawn his company’s six-digit, diversity-training contract from the Phoenix Police Department following his demotion for plagiarism. The Phoenix City Council approved the $268,000 contract with Whitaker’s company, Whitaker Group, LLC, in a 4-0 vote on May 13. Officials said at the time that…
While we want to know what ice cream Ben and Jerry’s will inevitably name after Bernie Sanders, Sanders wants to know if you, the American voter, are “ready to start a political revolution?” As part of his campaign tour for the Democratic presidential primary, Sanders will stop in Phoenix and…
Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio wants a diversity-training program for police canceled following news that the professor in charge of the program, Matthew Whitaker, has been demoted for plagiarism. As New Times reported on Friday, Arizona State University officials demoted Whitaker to associate professor and made him co-director of the…
U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton ordered Arizona state prosecutors on Friday to stop enforcing the so-called “revenge porn” law. Her decree came as she approved the final settlement in the controversial case Antigone Books v. Brnovich, which challenged the law on constitutional grounds. The “revenge porn” law, formally titled…
Not everyone can give a 70-minute political speech about domestic and foreign policy and say very little of substance or value. But Donald Trump, billionaire real estate mogul, managed to do just that in front of a few thousand people this weekend at the downtown Phoenix Convention Center. To a…
Dozens of immigration advocates marched up to the governor’s office Friday to demand he sever support for a multi-state lawsuit challenging a federal program that allows some undocumented immigrants to legally stay in the country. A secretary told the crowd, which included delegates from La Familia Vota, LUCHA, the Arizona…
Ruling late Friday, federal Judge G. Murray Snow crushed Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s attempt to have the jurist recuse himself from contempt proceedings in the ACLU’s big civil rights case Melendres v. Arpaio. Snow declared that the motion, submitted on behalf of the sheriff and his Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, did…
We live in a time where the left in this country is scoring wins like there’s no tomorrow. From gay marriage to Obamacare to redistricting, conservatives are licking their wounds and looking at the prospect of being denied the White House yet again in 2016 by their Democratic bete noir,…
The director of the Arizona Department of Health Services has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging a new abortion law requiring doctors to advise women that a chemical abortion can be reversed because it hasn’t hurt anyone yet. The lawsuit, brought by a group of physicians…
Disgraced former Phoenix Police Officer Justin LaClere changed his plea this week and admitted he was guilty of both luring a minor for sexual exploitation and then having sexual intercourse with her. Scottsdale Police arrested 32-year-old LaClere, a seven-year veteran of the force, in January 2014 after receiving information that…
Popular Arizona State University professor Matthew Whitaker has been demoted in the aftermath of his second plagiarism scandal, just weeks after he won a $268,000 no-bid contract to teach Phoenix police about “cultural consciousness.” In a recent email to ASU faculty, Interim University Provost Mark Searle states that “significant issues”…
Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, along with Missouri Congressman Lacy Clay, introduced a bill today in the House of Representatives banning the Confederate Battle flag at cemeteries operated by the Department of Veteran Affairs. “The confederate flag is a symbol of hate and intolerance, and it will forever be associated with…
At the end of the week, we bring you a roundup of visitors to the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix. To be considered for Mugshots of the Week, get arrested, strike a pose, and we’ll take care of the rest. This week: Sheriff Joe’s Next Top Model—the facial hair…
Tempe police officers were required to attend a workshop recently on “privilege” to help them better understand their own biases. Content for the classes came from a workshop series developed by Arizona State University’s Project Humanities program. Called “Perils and Perks of Privilege,” the workshops were held in communities across…
Prisoner rights advocates are calling on Governor Doug Ducey to order an independent investigation of security practices at a privately run prison in Golden Valley after a three day riot sent 13 people to the hospital. Ducey ordered Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan to look into the incident at…
Catherine screamed, but nobody heard her. She and Jacob Harvey were alone in the classroom at Eyman Prison in Florence, where, just moments earlier, as part of her duties as a teacher for the Arizona Department of Corrections, she had been administering a 20-year-old inmate a prep test for his…
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has until the end of today to answer a letter he received from the ACLU of Arizona asking why same-sex married couples are not entitled to certain adoption benefits regularly provided to heterosexual couples. The ACLU sent Montgomery a letter earlier this spring on behalf…
As the monsoon season makes its annual return, so too will the mosquitoes—particularly the ones carrying West Nile Virus. In fact, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced today that a Maricopa County man in his late 50s has already contracted the disease this year. And though he has recovered,…
