Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that would have outlawed “aggressive solicitation,” also known as panhandling.Arizona’s old anti-begging statute was found unconstitutional in federal court last fall, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union…
The Arizona House of Representatives voted down a bill that would have expanded the taxpayer-funded private school scholarships known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.The ESA program is similar to a voucher program, but has been held up in court because it’s not quite a voucher program — the taxpayer money that…
The alternative weekly newspaper of Tucson, the aptly named Tucson Weekly, has been sold.A company called 10/13 Communications purchased the Weekly, as well as another newspaper in Tucson, Inside Tucson Business, which is also published weekly…
At the end of the week, we bring you a roundup of visitors to the desert’s own Fourth Avenue Jail. To be considered for our Maricopa County mugshots of the week, get arrested, strike a pose, and we’ll take care of the rest.This week, we bring your some people that…
It’s just now surfacing that former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was arrested for DUI in December.McNabb’s arrest near the Loop 101 by the Salt River police was kept quiet until today, when his mugshot surfaced, as McNabb had to serve his sentence of one day in jail…
U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow finally may be catching a clue about Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his team of beige-shirted flunkies, and all the lies they’ve been spreading about Snow’s findings and orders in the ACLU’s big civil rights lawsuit Melendres v. Arpaio. Today, Snow filed an enforcement order,…
Arizonans won’t necessarily have the right to keep chickens in their backyards.A bill intended to prohibit municipalities from creating zoning restrictions to prevent homeowners from keeping chickens easily passed the Senate in February, but was voted down by the House yesterday, by a 25-32 vote…
Here’s a view of the Grand Canyon you don’t get everyday, in this photograph taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.The ISS has been manned for more than 13 years now, which had led to plenty of picture-taking opportunities across the world. Below, check out other shots taken…
Hopi medicine man Ivan Jackson was sentenced on Tuesday to one year in prison for performing oral sex on a patient who believed she was receiving treatment. The victim, who wasn’t named in federal court records, had sought help from Jackson in the summer of 2012 because she was “seeing…
Unfortunately, the process of passing bills in Arizona isn’t as easy as the Schoolhouse Rock explainer, “I’m Just a Bill.”Remember House Bill 2305, the package of election-law changes passed last year by the Republican majority, which was then referred to the ballot thanks to Democrats and third-party supporters, before being…
I like reading your articles — they are funny, sad, insightful, crude, serious and even a little provocative and antagonizing at times. One thing I find a little antagonizing is the use of the term “Latino” as a synonym only for “Hispanic;” certainly, yours is not the only forum in…
We see you, Phoenix. When we set our sights on finding up-and-coming creatives pushing boundaries in performing art, visual art, design, culinary art, and urban vision, you suggested hundreds of nominees about to hit it big. We narrowed down that long list to 15 finalists for the 2014 Big Brain…
A local group that announced plans to try to recall Republican Senator Kimberly Yee is ending that recall effort.The group, the Arizona Veterans Assistance Committee — which was formed by people from the Phoenix chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) — targeted Yee as…
No Arizona legislative session is complete without some attention paid to guns.The Senate this morning voted to approve five gun-related bills, the majority of which generally would be considered pro-gun bills, naturally…
Is there a diaper big enough to fit big ol’ baby Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Yep, Arpaio’s pitching a fit like the spoiled, soiled octogenarian that he is, demanding a do-over on a “corrective statement” that his attorney Tim Casey recently submitted to the federal court in the ACLU’s groundbreaking civil…
Governor Jan Brewer has signed a bill that allows the state health department to search abortion clinics without an administrative warrant.Brewer didn’t make any public comments on her signing of the legislation, House Bill 2284…
The Phoenix Veterans’ Affairs Health Care System has come under fire for allegations of negligence and delayed care. While delayed care can have drastic consequences on vets who are physically ill, it impacts those who are mentally ill as well. On January 13, a veteran committed suicide in the Phoenix…
A Navajo man anally raped his buddy’s 18-year-old girlfriend on a dark road south of Kayenta early Sunday, then either suffocated or strangled her, federal court records allege. The woman’s half-naked body was found in a ditch, a tire track over her chest. Sankey Reid, 30, admitted he drove over…
A bill expanding tax exemptions for churches passed the Arizona Legislature yesterday, and could cost the state $2.1 million in lost revenue.The bill, House Bill 2281, is also the third bill pushed by the Center for Arizona Police that legislators have passed this session. Others include the notorious anti-gay Senate…
A survey of nearly 200 U.S. metro areas shows people in Tucson and Prescott aren’t exactly the happiest about the city they live in.According to a Gallup poll, no metro area was full of people who hate where they live, as the least-satisfied city in America still had the approval…
What will it take to rid Arizona’s political scene of the man whom one wag I know has dubbed Sand Land’s “Rasputin”? Not the conclusion of a humble administrative law judge, that’s for sure. I’m not knocking ALJ Tammy Eigenheer, trier of fact in the campaign finance case against Arizona…
In an anti-Walmart stunt, activists delivered a $7.8 billion “tax bill” to the Paradise Valley home of Walmart chairman Rob Walton.It’s the latest in a long line of demonstrations organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers or related union-supported groups, which have been campaigning on a claim that Walmart…
