The recovery of the Eastern Pacific gray whale from the brink of extinction is the single greatest turnaround of a marine mammal population, 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 several…
Legal issues and other questions are swirling around a proposed Deer Valley charter high school that last year was touted as a national model and a creative way for the school district to quickly solve overcrowding problems.Envisioned as a new stand-alone high school with an emphasis on technology, the school…
A federal judge has convicted Fen-Phen doctor Pietr Hitzig of illegally prescribing the now-banned diet-drug combination over the Internet to patients he’d never examined in person. The 58-year-old West Virginia man faces up to 104 years in prison when he is sentenced in Baltimore on August 16.One of Hitzig’s 12…
Youth MovementMay the task force be with you: I am disturbed by the allegations and the compelling evidence presented by Amy Silverman in her articles on the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (“The Kids Are NOT Alright,” July 5). As a result, I have written a letter to Governor Jane…
You’re Tim Anthonise. You’re the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for Gloritone, one of the Valley’s better bands of recent years. You’ve played touch and go with major-label success, earning and then ending a deal with RCA Records, and you’ve toyed with more alternative methods of attracting attention by way…
Margarite Faras tried to fight the endemic corruption in the tribal government of the San Carlos Apache. For her effort, her political enemies began a campaign late last year to strip her of her tribal council seat, destroy her reputation and run her out of business.They held rallies outside her…
Editor’s note: The names of juveniles throughout these stories have been changed to protect their privacy. Although their criminal case files are public record, their corrections files are not. The boys in the Nova cottage at Adobe Mountain School had been locked in their cells for six days. They had…
On a warm day in mid-May, the Black Canyon School campus is quiet and clean, the rose and hibiscus bushes as well-groomed as the girls in their white sneakers, khakis and regulation bras visible beneath peach polo shirts. The Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections girls school — off Happy Valley…
Fifteen-year-old Sun Lynn Henage threatened another girl with a butter knife after the girl cut ahead of her in line for the shower at the group home where they both lived. The court sentenced Henage to 90 days at Black Canyon, the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections detention facility for…
A burgeoning partnership between Phoenix’s La Campesina radio station and a new business relocating to the Valley is expected to shake up a growing money transfer market that currently sends about $6 billion a year south across the Mexican border. The deal, still being finalized between the United Farm Workers…
The operator of a boot camp for troubled teenagers where a 14-year-old boy died Sunday has a long history of violence, deception and shady financial dealings that sparked a state Attorney General’s Office investigation in the mid-1990s.Charles “Chuck” Long has left a trail of angry investors who claim they are…
Shalom RunPeace offering: I am disappointed that political instability threatens the safety of athletes competing for their country (“This Jew Won’t Bunt,” Paul Rubin, June 28). It is indeed a sad day. All of us can only hope, dream and pray for a day when the world will be at…
As one of Arizona’s most influential lobbyists and business leaders, Marty Shultz isn’t accustomed to getting his political butt kicked. In 1995, Shultz was asked by Arizona’s Supreme Court justices to lead a high-powered commission to reform Arizona’s limited-jurisdiction courts, the bottom tier of Arizona’s judicial pyramid where more than…
A few hours after Kelly Blake set fire to herself and her three kids on the morning of March 20, 1998, a Phoenix police detective spoke with her surviving child.Detective Dave Swain had the unthinkable job of telling John Fausto Jr., then 14, that his 9-year-old sister was dead, and…
Nancy Etta Elliston, the longtime leader of Arizona’s private fiduciary industry, was sentenced Friday afternoon to six years in prison for stealing money from clients over a period of several years. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Louis Araneta ordered the 50-year-old Glendale resident to report immediately to the state prison…
Divorce Precedings Ex’s baggage: It’s no surprise to me that Donna Van Dyke experienced a delay in having her order of protection served. (“Beaten By the System,” John W. Allman, June 21) An order of protection may well be the most abused and misused court document there is. Often, an…
I was watching CNN on the evening of June 1. The news hit me hard. “It was the beginning of the Sabbath weekend,” anchor Bill Hemmer said, “and countless young Israelis were out to enjoy a Friday night. The mood shattered, though, when a suicide bomber wandered into the crowd…
Marion Blake is stuck between a rock garden and a hard place.An art history major at New York University, Blake was visiting Phoenix when someone took her to see the Grover Cleveland Thompson rock garden in 1979. “I couldn’t believe such a place existed,” gasps Blake, who bought the house…
The body count of culture is on the rise. In the past half year alone, more than 200,000 people passed through the Norman Rockwell exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum. Another 19,000 took in the James Turrell show at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Last year, ASU’s performing arts…
Donna Van Dyke never imagined accusing her boyfriend of beating her baby.She never conceived of having to seek a court order to remove him from the Mesa apartment they shared. And she never thought that the last place she should turn for help would be the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office…
Bear Essence Cheap shot: So, Tony Fabriger sees this magnificent bear, and realized it was going to just walk right by him, still a little “dazed” from being in hibernation (“Kodiak Moment,” Patti Epler, June 7). Did the “Great Hunter” need food or was he under attack? No, he just…
It goes without saying — but you know I’m gonna say it anyway, right? — that music provides much of life’s soundtrack, and the privately shared experience, between listener and creator, forges a deep bond. Such has been the case for your humble writer and Tucson’s Calexico. One of those…
