Five storefront poker operations in the west Valley were raided on Thursday evening as part of a months-long investigation into suspected illegal gaming. As New Times reported last December in our cover story, “Off the Reservation,” numerous poker operations around the Valley — almost all on the west side –…
You know what’s worse than a 19-year-old with a credit card? A 40-year-old with a credit card.Despite the common belief that young people are the absolute worst when it comes to credit card use, a study from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and the…
Remember this in the case that we’re all living in shanty towns in five years — Forbes has some remarkably good predictions for Arizona’s economy.Forbes projects that Arizona will have faster job growth over the next five years than any other state in the nation…
Nothing reeks of desperation like Arizona residents breaking the state record for buying lottery tickets.Arizonans forked over $692.9 million for their 1-in-a-zillion chance at getting rich in fiscal year 2013, which is the most spent in the 31-year history of the Arizona Lottery…
Online retailer Amazon will no longer be Arizona’s duty-free store.Amazon noted in its latest FEC filing that it’s going to start collecting Arizona sales tax on purchases in the state, which currently stands at 6.6 percent…
The Cato Institute — a libertarian think-tank — needed just seven words to sum up its report today on how Arizona’s immigration laws are affecting business, and put those words right at the front of its analysis: “Arizona’s immigration laws have hurt its economy.”Not only that, but the Maricopa County…
Hundreds of thousands of impoverished Arizonans with health problems apparently will have to tough it out following a court ruling today that upholds healthcare cuts.Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain ruled that a group of people suing the state can’t forced Arizona lawmakers to keep funding their free health care.Proposition 204,…
“Yes?” No. About 40 people have been laid off at the Arizona Republic, which also announced plans to close a Chandler press that prints USA Today and various inserts. The local pink slips come as part of a 2 percent layoff at Gannett’s publishing division nationwide. About 700 people are…
The Arizona Legislature passed a bill late last night that allows for the creation of an Arizona vanity license plate featuring the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden Flag, which is an early symbol of the United States Marine Corps and Navy. It also happens to be the adopted symbol of…
Bryan Prehoda and Luis Belevan were running a pretty unsuccessful Scottsdale-based mortgage-relief service — so unsuccessful, in fact, as to constitute fraud and a judgment against them for almost $29 million. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge entered the default judgment this week, ordering Prehoda and Belevan to reimburse fees…
The Arizona Legislature has a knack for something: ruining the reputation of the entire state via a collection of embarrassing, symbolic bills.Last week, Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill that makes doctors who perform abortions based on sex or gender criminals, which is fine except there’s no evidence to support…
By now you probably know about the Fiesta Bowl’s decision to ax CEO John Junker following an internal investigation into how he was spending the organization’s money, but it’s the alleged illegal contributions to the campaigns of Valley politicos that has Arizona Democrats fuming.Junker, the report shows, racked up a…
Arizona’s conservative, anti-immigrant politics help make it a “failed state,” says the Boston Review in a lengthy article published today. The piece makes plenty of good points, but gets watered down by writer Tom Barry’s overly simplistic solution. If Arizona simply raised taxes, elected liberal leaders, embraced the federal government as…
Arizona apparently deserves its reputatation as a mecca for low-paying jobs, ranking 40th in an economic analysis among states for per-capita income. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports, according to the Biz Journal this morning, that the average income for state residents if $34,999 — “well below the national average of $40,584.”…
The only “first-aid”45-year-old Samuel Cresante will be receiving for the next several years will be at a prison infirmary. Cresante was sentenced in federal court this morning to 19 years in prison for a string of at least 12 bank robberies lamely dubbed by the FBI’s bandit-naming department as the…
If you live in Arizona and get pissed off every time you look at your bank statement, you may want to consider re-locating — a recent study finds that Arizona has the emptiest bank accounts of any state in the entire country.According to the study, conducted by Pitney Bowes Business…
Arizona looks like a potential deadbeat to the world-famous Moody’s credit-rating service. Citing concerns over a sales-tax increase set to expire in mid-2013 and a budget that relies on the federal government to make changes caused Moody’s to downgrade Arizona’s outlook this week from “stable” to “negative.” Moody’s affirmed…
The man pictured to the right is 28-year-old Ezequiel Gardea Diaz, and police say that over the weekend he whipped it out and started “shaking” it in front of three young girls.According to court documents obtained by New Times, about 5 p.m. Saturday, the three girls, ages 9, 10, and…
The number of food stamp recipients in Arizona has increased drastically in the past year, to the point that now more than one million people are eating government funded meals.That means about one in every six Arizonans is on food stamps.KTAR spoke with Steve Meissner from the Arizona Department of…
By now, the sale of the Tempe’s Centerpoint Towers was supposed to be a done deal. Workers should be buzzing all over the 22- and 30-story towers, which have sat unfinished and vacant (except for the occasional trespassers) since 2008. Zaremba Group, the Ohio-based company that wants to buy the towers, expected construction…
SB 1070 has gone into effect, albeit a neutered version, and the sky didn’t come crashing to the ground, the streets didn’t fill with blood, and Latinos haven’t been rounded up like cattle — yet, anyway.Despite the world not coming to an end when Arizona’s controversial, new immigration law took…
How does spending nearly $150,000 to feed cocaine to monkeys stimulate the economy? Senator John McCain would argue that it doesn’t — it’s just one of several ways to waste taxpayer dollars via President Obama’s stimulus program.McCain, along with Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, unveiled their study of the stimulus program…
