At this very moment, someone somewhere in the Valley–a man, a woman, a child, even a parrot, maybe–is undoubtedly mimicking the maniacal mantra that has catapulted an obscure Israeli pager salesman into the forefront of the local pop-culture firmament. “I’m JJ! I’m the owner! I’m the King of Beepers!” For…
Like the calm in the eye of a storm, like a tornado that rips the roof and walls off a house without disturbing a breakfront full of fine china, the forest clearing where the Lone Fire started on April 27 is strangely unburned. The oaks and pines bordering the trail…
Like many people with the AIDS virus, Nancy Williams is trying to educate the public about the dangers of HIV/AIDS. During the past two years, Williams frequently has spoken to high school students, urging them to practice safe sex and answering their questions about the disease. But last year, Williams,…
What used to be the football field at George Washington Carver High, the “all-colored” school during Phoenix’s era of segregation, is now an asphalt parking lot where giant trucks are stored. Fees paid by the truck owners help defray operating expenses for the newly opened Carver-Phoenix Union Colored High School…
Grand Jury in Overdrive The federal grand jury investigating the finances of Governor J. Fife Symington III is meeting more frequently, suggesting that more indictments may be imminent, sources close to the investigation say. “We are not long away,” says one source, dramatically. For at least a year, the grand…
Governor J. Fife Symington III was backed into a corner. Confronted with evidence that he deceived his lenders–and Arizona voters–about his record as a businessman, Symington gave an explanation that can only be described as delusional. Shown documents that indicate he grossly inflated his net worth to obtain a $10…
Clouds of dust and grit in waves of wind the size of nightmares blew in across the lake bed, where water had not been an option for at least 1.8 million years, while the sun moved in so close that human life was barely able to survive. And that is…
Like many other embarrassing elements of recent Arizona history, Kemper Marley’s link to the state’s most famous assassination is not addressed in the state’s newest history museum. Officials of the Arizona Historical Society, a state agency, are extraordinarily proud of the gimmicky, $10 million Marley Center museum, which focuses on…
It played last July like a typical page-three scientific discovery, the slot where daily newspapers normally run the disease of the week or the story about the gene that causes obesity. The scoop: Phoenix resident and average guy Tom Bopp–truck-parts buyer for a cement company–discovers Comet of the Century. But…
Lake Havasu City did not exist in 1912, and Teddy Roosevelt did not visit a Phoenix opera house in 1902–even though exhibits at the Marley Center suggest those events did occur. And those two faux pas are hardly the only factual inaccuracies at the new state historical museum, according to…
It would be an understatement to say that Arizona U.S. Attorney Janet Napolitano doesn’t see eye to eye with ABC’s 20/20. Napolitano, her staff, her supporters–and even a few of her detractors–say she was smeared by the news show in a May 10 report about child pornography called “Caught in…
It was a tired and hoarse group of fellows that boarded an early evening Southwest Airlines flight from San Francisco to Phoenix a few Sundays back. And a happy group, to boot–even though one of the men had lost a couple of airline tickets earlier during an ecstatic celebration, adding…
A recent New Times cover story relied on deputies’ accounts and public records to document how a massive shift of resources to the posse program had taken its toll on morale, as well as law enforcement, in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. After the story ran, Sheriff Joe Arpaio denied…
A Million Here, a Million There . . . Governor J. Fife Symington III’s penchant for creative accounting knows no bounds. When it’s time to borrow money, he’s worth a fortune. When it’s time to repay loans or pay taxes, the property is squalid. Symington’s varying valuations of an office…
Two weeks ago, I bought a portrait of a Chinese woman, a paint-by-numbers of a kid fishing, and a beautiful, hand-colored photograph from the turn of the century of a man dressed in a kimono. I purchased a photo taken in 1918 of a fat woman all dressed up, an…
The state’s largest law firm has been dragged into the federal criminal investigation of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s finances. Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer represented the governor on business matters for more than a decade before Symington sought bankruptcy protection from creditors last September. The firm–considered to be the state’s…
For almost 20 years, fire captain Gary Pykare had looked death in the eye, chuckled, and gone fishing. But on May 12, the longtime business manager of the Phoenix firefighters’ union died of cancer at his home in Cave Creek. He was 54. On May 15, about 1,000 of Pykare’s…
The Vietnamese advance, firing from the left and right, but the Somalis refuse to yield. The shots keep coming, one after another, until, finally, the defense cannot hold. The Vietnamese score a goal. On the sideline, their dozen or so tee-shirted fans break into an enthusiastic cheer. It is a…
One simple fact has gone unmentioned during the recent furor about the overcrowding crisis at Arizona’s juvenile corrections facilities: The agency responsible for administering those facilities helped manufacture the crisis. State records show that even as U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bilby considered sanctioning the state for overcrowding its juvenile…
As part of its strategy to emerge from bankruptcy, America West Airlines combined its marketing and passenger-flow services with Houston-based Continental Airlines’ in 1994. Although industry analysts said at the time that a merger of the two airlines looked inevitable, America West chairman Bill Franke and Continental chairman David Bonderman…
A judge who was roundly criticized for releasing a shooting suspect has lost his job. Maricopa County Presiding Judge Robert Myers says he decided to remove Walter Jackson from the initial-appearance bench in the wake of New Times’ story about the release of Dennis Earl Bryley (“Who Sprung Alleged Shooter?”…
Jackson Hound has his nose to the ground, sniffing the desert floor. He’s a 70-pound, blond Labrador retriever used to running in the desert, but nonetheless oblivious to trouble on the trail ahead. Just two feet away, a three-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake watches; its head raised, its neck cocked to strike…
