The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is directing $82 million in Recovery Act Funds to Arizona water projects. The money will “create jobs, boost local economies, improve aging water and wastewater infrastructure and protect human health and the environment,” says the EPA. The money will come mostly in two big chunks: $55.3…
Image: Wikicommons Two more Valley schools will close for seven days after students were found to have swine flu, but health officials say all four known Arizona swine flu cases have been mild. (Note: This article was updated at 3:40 p.m.) The two schools are Tarwater Elementary and Hartford Sylvia Encinas Elementary schools, both…
Arizona needs a more affordable business model for its universities in the face of state budget realities, Governor Jan Brewer said this morning to the Arizona Board of Regents. In the short term, hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars will be used over the next couple of years to keep tuition reasonably low,…
Gilman’s latest, which takes apart certain sheriff ‘s deputies’ statements one-by-one This latest mini-doc from Dennis Gilman supporting the May 2 Walk for Dignity is a doozy. In it, Gilman contrasts the inflammatory statements that certain sheriff’s duputies made during a recent MCSO press conference to news footage of Joe’s…
What do you get when Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic Obama “Hope” poster and the artist behind the “Obey Giant” phenom, puts his noggin together with those of Rage Against the Machine/One Day as a Lion frontman Zack de la Rocha and L.A. artist Ernesto Yerena? You get some…
Doug Grant, the onetime Phoenix Suns nutritionist convicted last month of manslaughter was scheduled to be sentenced Friday, May 1. But Vincent Funari, the able public information officer for the Maricopa County Superior Court, just sent out an e-mail to announce that Grant’s sentencing has been postponed until further notice because…
The robot-like device standing in a gravel lot at the corner of Arizona Avenue and Buffalo is more than just a couple of surveillance cameras. The spindly contraption is really an anti-Mexican Machine, designed to discourage day laborers from hanging out in downtown Chandler. Despite the cameras’ gaze, three Hispanic men stood…
Lunchtime? In Mesa, it’s home invasion time. Just before 12:30 yesterday afternoon, two men kicked in the front door of a home near Country Club Drive and Brown, Mesa police say. Not even a knock, apparently. They tied up the woman who owned the place and “ransacked the house.” This line in…
The first-degree murder case of accused cop killer Donald Delahanty is in the hands of a Maricopa County jury. Superior Court Judge Warren Granville sent the 12-person panel home yesterday afternoon after opposing attorneys completed closing arguments in the death penalty trial. The jurors were scheduled…
Schlemiel, schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated . . . It’s temptingly easy to dis Milwacky — er, Milwaukee — a small-market town that’s home to Laverne De Fazio, Shirley Feeney, the Fonz, happy drunks, mutant sausage racing, folks who actually buy into the burg’s Chamber of Commerce nickname (“The German Athens of…
The Arizona Board of Regents will vote today on a proposed tuition surcharge for Arizona’s universities. ASU’s proposed surcharge is $600 a year for state residents, and $800 a year for out-of-state students…A 9-year-old boy in Queen Creek was walking home from school Wednesday when he was attacked by bees…
Two years ago, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Budoff decreed that Richard Franco could not take his children to a Mormon church. Never mind that Franco had been a Mormon his whole life. Or that on weekends when he had custody of his 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter, the…
As you drinko por Cinco this May 5, please take this column with you. It lists songs that mariachis will gladly play instead of having to glumly strum through the umpteenth “La Bamba” and “Guantanamera.” The following eclectic choices (and reasoning) came from hundreds submitted by wabs and savvy gabachos;…
On an intense night in the dead of summer, two pretty young women are shivering — tied up back-to-back in an old power station, sullied with sweat, blood, and dirt. The wind howls wildly outside, where a group of deranged, small-town folk waits in the dark for them to be…
TRACKING THE PROBLEM Light-rail problems stem from mismanagement: Troubling story by Sarah Fenske on problems with the new light-rail system. A lot of these problems are caused by the tight economy, but others result from just plain mismanagement. I’ve ridden the trains regularly for a couple of months now and…
DUPNIK’S SHARK Where the right wing meets the sick and surreal. Is this what Arizona’s become? Every day in this state, one’s faith in humanity is challenged on the subject of immigration. I half-expect to awake some morn and find State Senator Russell Pearce’s recipe for parboiled immigrant infant in…
An update to this story written on May 7, 2009 can be found here. In October 2007, Katherine Olson was looking for work. Since graduating summa cum laude from St. Olaf College with a dual degree in theater and Hispanic studies, she’d mostly cobbled together part-time jobs—waitressing, teaching Spanish, coaching…
We understand that in the 24-hour news cycle it can be difficult to keep up. Worry not! We have the solution. Check back on Valley Fever every evening for highlights from each of New Times’ blogs. Today’s entries: Valley Fever: Arizona Voters Reject Education Cuts in New Poll, Open to…
Sports fans, particularly baseball fans, love to play “What If?” So, what if Brandon Webb were not stuck on the disabled list for the first month (and, perhaps, two months) of the season? What if? Would the D-Backs be keeping pace with the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers as we…
It seems there’s a good reason for why Maricopa County Andrew Thomas won’t return County Supervisor Max Wilson’s phone call: Wilson’s attorney ordered him not to. As we reported yesterday, Wilson wrote to Thomas yesterday that he was surprised greatly to read an explanation by Barnett Lotstein, one of Thomas’ special assistants, for…
For all you eggheads who like to stay on top of the latest/greatest in campaign finance law, this just in: Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard says he’ll no longer enforce the state law that requires self-funded candidates to make special funding reports. Those so-called “millionaire candidates,” whose campaign funding…
A local naturopathic doctor, taking advice from Rahm “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste” Emanuel, announced today she’ll give swine flu patients a 10 percent discount.In an e-mail to news media around the Valley, including New Times, Heather Wdowin of Ambrosia Medical in Scottsdale writes that she’s “offering…
