A new study warns of serious water shortages on the Colorado River. Will turning off the tap help, or are more extreme measures in store? 

October 13, 1893. One-armed explorer John Wesley Powell strides onto the stage at the National Irrigation Congress in Los Angeles, to the swelling sounds of a choir praising “plenty’s horn.” Years before, Powell had been asked to map the uncharted Colorado River Basin and assess the river’s capability of sustaining Western development – a perilous 1,000-mile paddle involving the first known passage through the Grand Canyon.

Arizona wants California’s tax refugees. So does Rick Perry. Could this mean war?


Barry Broome likes Texas, but he likes Arizona better. In fact, the head of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) has made a detailed study of Arizona outperforming the Lone Star state, from primary education in Chandler (“...one-fifth the size of Austin, but it has more high-performance schools...”) to our bigger “entrepreneurial engine.”
 

Could the police shooting of a troubled Scottsdale war vet have been avoided? 

Marine Sergeant Jason Prostrollo survived a tour of duty in Iraq, but the streets of Scottsdale proved less forgiving to the 25-year-old war veteran. On Saturday, January 28, 2012, Prostrollo – suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder – drunkenly emerged from a residence in north Scottsdale brandishing two jagged halves of a pool cue. Scottsdale Police Department Lieutenant Ron Bayne – called to the scene to investigate a domestic disturbance –  subsequently opened fire and shot the serviceman dead.

HIV treatment remains a critical health care issue in the Valley, but one doctor in Germany claims to have cured a patient of HIV. Read this Hot Topics bonus feature to learn how.

A new Valley task force aims to exploit the link between animal abuse and violent crime.

It sounds like an episode of Criminal Minds: A Valley woman calls the police, worried that the dog in her neighbor’s backyard is dying under the hot sun. Police arrive to find a dead animal with no shelter, food or water. Finding a second dog in the yard with a gash above its eye, the now-suspicious officers ask the homeowner if they can come inside and look around. The owner obliges. Inside, police find an 8-year-old girl, severely neglected.

Farmer Bob McClendon and the Cancer Treatment Centers of America have teamed up to create the nation’s largest hospital-owned certified organic farm

Bob McClendon, renowned local farmer and supplier of organic goods to many of the state’s best restaurants, surveys rows of Tuscan kale and blooming radishes – not, mind you, on the 25-acre farm in Peoria that bears his name. Rather, this farm is adjacent to Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s Western Regional Medical Center in Goodyear. And its harvest sprouted from a partnership that in hindsight seems fated. “I’ll call it a symbiotic relationship,” McClendon says.

An art appreciation program helps med students and young physicians sharpen their soft skills

Future doctor Drew Maynard has sat through hundreds of hours of biology classes, studying the human body, quite literally, inside and out. However, on this evening, the second-year University of Arizona medical student is studying works of fine art on the walls of the Phoenix Art Museum. Educators say it will help him become a better doctor.

More Valley war veterans are turning to alternative medicine to treat their battlefield ills.

Will Gray can finally sleep for the first time in 15 years. He says he’s happy again. And, he says, he’s hooked – not on drugs or pills, but needles. It’s acupuncture, and the treatments have helped the 52-year-old veteran overcome the sometimes-unbearable effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet this type of alternative medicine – aka, non-drug-based – is still met with a fair amount of skepticism and controversy from physicians and patients alike.

Former KTAR morning-talk personality Darrell Ankarlo recalls the devastating brain injury that changed his life.

“It was a perfect night,” Darrell Ankarlo recalls. Indeed, April 8, 2009 was such a perfect spring evening in Arizona that the KTAR morning host had the top down on his Volkswagen. His wife, Laurie, was in the car behind his, following him home from a Diamondbacks game. He was in high spirits, heartily singing along to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” as he turned left from Seventh Street onto Thunderbird Road.

Faced with a funding shortage and an increasing number of patients, Arizona’s HIV/AIDS service community struggles to provide much-needed medical care.