The recovery of the Eastern North Pacific gray whale from the brink of extinction is arguably the single greatest turnaround of an endangered species, and the whale’s myriad connections to human cultural conflicts are no less impressive in their scope. In New Times’ special project “Shades of Gray,” reporters from…
In a sleight of hand that would make Cardinals quarterback Jake Plummer proud, the Tourism and Sports Authority says if necessary it can tap all of the hotel and car rental taxes it collects to pay for stadium construction bonds before any funds flow to tourism, Cactus League and youth…
The streets of Rio Salado’s south bank are lined with sagging fences, steel girders and looming metal silos. Innards of defunct supermarkets, carcasses of abandoned cars and twisted strands of rebar huddle behind barbed wire. The odor of machine oil clings to the dusty air.But South Phoenix is on the…
It was Kieran Doyle’s 33rd birthday, and for once he was relaxed. Swigging beer and laughing it up with some friends at home, the burly Irishman allowed himself to forget for a while the stresses, strains and suspicions of his working life. He let his guard down. He should have…
Arizona Republic restaurant critic Howard Seftel has been around so long it’s tempting to characterize him as being here since Native American Indians settled the Sonoran Desert.We’ll pass, however, because Seftel has a lock on references to Hohokam Indians to describe anything that’s old. The Republic cleverly published The Rep’s…
The Phoenix Zoo is known for preserving wildlife, fostering environmental education and nurturing animal populations. For nearly 40 years, the privately funded facility has been a mainstay in Maricopa County’s tourism market. Its exhibits have garnered international recognition. And its mission has been supported by generous donations and volunteer support…
Updated October 5, 2001 Washington, D.C. — Florence Mahoney is a testament to the National Institute on Aging, an agency she helped create three decades ago.At 102 years old, Mahoney continues to receive America’s leading scientists, politicians and thinkers to her Georgetown home to discuss the important events of the…
Pressing Matters Media muzzle: I enjoyed your column (“Nine One One,” Kristi Dempsey, September 20). I have to put in my two cents, though. The U.S. media as a whole have studiously avoided touching on what is perhaps the greatest issue in this whole unhappy matter, that being, what has…
Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre is nearly empty. Up a flight of rickety stairs, behind the locked door of a small, dirty dressing room, Jim Adkins desperately searches for a vein. An intense, pug-nosed youth — and lead singer of Mesa quartet Jimmy Eat World — he shivers while his…
On August 31, Arizona State Prison inmate Mark Koch finally got some good news. It happened more than five years after prison officials transferred him to a super-maximum unit in Florence, solely because he’s an alleged gangbanger. In a decision that is sending ripples through the criminal justice system, U.S…
How nauseating it has been, in the aftermath of the attacks by Muslim fanatics, to watch the first big defeat for freedom of thought and speech as tens of thousands of Americans demanded the head of Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher and came away with enough of Maher’s noggin to…
Dr., No!Stirrup trouble: I just read your article on Dr. Brian Finkel after my boyfriend handed it to me and said, “Isn’t this the doctor you were telling me about?” (“Bedside Matter,” Paul Rubin, September 20.) Everything the girls have said and past allegations against Dr. Finkel I believe are…
September 11 will be one of those days that inspire the media on typical one-year, five-year and 10-year anniversaries to ask, “Where were you when you heard America got attacked?”I was in my car, driving to work. I hadn’t turned on the TV first thing and was blissfully unaware of…
Editor’s Note: The names of the women who filed police reports against Dr. Brian Finkel have been changed to protect their privacy. Carol awoke in her Phoenix home on the morning of March 1, 2000, dreading the ordeal ahead. “I’m a grown adult,” she says, “and I had made an…
Raul Monreal was only trying to inspire his students when they turned the tables on him. In the spring of 1994, the soft-spoken Monreal was instructing a teacher-certification course at Paradise Valley Community College. For Monreal, a 53-year-old native of Nogales, Mexico, who grew up dirt poor and fatherless along…
When hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon last week, M.R. Diaz was as horrified as anyone.Diaz, president of the Chandler Coalition for Civil and Human Rights, was busy at the time, making arrangements for the third annual Chandler Mariachi Festival, scheduled for September 15, when he…
More than two months have passed since more than 30 community leaders wrote to Governor Jane Dee Hull asking her to create an independent task force to review conditions at the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections.Their letter remains unanswered. And the governor’s office has yet to comment on concerns raised…
Mad dog publicist and unsavory martyr David Hans Schmidt is free at last, free at last. Schmidt was released from county jail just before Labor Day weekend after the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office dropped charges of aggravated domestic violence against him. His release came a week after a New Times…
Stadium of AlertCost plus: The biggest lie in this whole fiasco is the construction estimate (“Hidden Agenda,” John Dougherty, September 13). The new Denver Broncos stadium cost $408 million to build. And all the land and infrastructure was in place as it was erected over the demolished McNichols Arena. Plus,…
Welcome to metro Phoenix, or as we like to call it, Amsterzona, the desert dope oasis where vacationers can enjoy super-sized Quad Ganja Lattes at any neighborhood Starbucks Hashhouse. Visit the Tempe Town Bong, the power center of the Dutch West Tempes district. Enjoy heat stroke, ozone O.D.s, Cardinals football…
Last spring, Patrick Lange removed an ornate Persian urn from a shelf in his 1920s-era hacienda and carefully poured the contents of the small container on a table. He stared at the powdery mountain before him. Then, using a spoon and knife he went to work, dividing the chalky, off-white…
Records withheld by the city of Tempe and obtained by New Times reveal that Tempe was planning to submit the Papago Park Center site to the Tourism and Sports Authority for the Arizona Cardinals football stadium before the November 7, 2000, election, but withheld those plans from the public until…
