COOL. INDOOR TOILETS
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, spent more than $680,000 per dwelling to build houses for agents in Ajo, southwest of Tucson. The average cost of a home in that town is $86,500.
GETTING THE BOOT
A Pima County judge sentenced former UA football hero Max Zendejas to six years' probation for damaging an East Sixth Street restaurant he leased from the school. The Attorney General's office accused him of going through the restaurant after it closed and stripping it of a walk-in refrigerator, ceiling fans, an air-conditioning system and even kitchen sinks.
IS IT TOO LATE TO CHANGE THAT TITLE?
Bulls seriously gored American writer Bill Hillmann, author of "Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona," as he ran among them at a long-running Spanish festival made famous in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel, "The Sun Also Rises." Hillmann was trying to use a rolled-up newspaper to lure an angry bull away from others in the crowd when he was gored.
THE MUSTACHES STAY
An ASU professor of women and gender studies offered extra credit to female students who agreed not to shave their armpits and legs for 10 weeks. Male students received the same credit if they shaved all body hair from the neck down. Prof. Breanne Fahs said the experiment helps students learn about societal norms by violating them.
HAVE THE FEDS APPROVED THAT WORD?
A fifth-grade teacher in Tucson earned the wrath of high-ranking Arizona Department of Education officials for expressing his dislike of Common Core, the effort to establish federal education standards. When Brad McQueen spoke and wrote against the standards, the bureaucrats tried to blackball him from work on any state tests and attacked him in emails. One such email called him a "f*cktard."
WE DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE
Out of 53 cities studied, Tucson is the 15th most traffic-congested in the country. A Dutch company studied the matter and found that Tucson has more congestion than Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego and, yes, even Phoenix.
LIKE WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH BIG BUTTS ALREADY
The FBI said they were hunting for two Mexican women who came to Tucson to do unlicensed medical procedures to make butts bigger. Ivonne Clarisa Ceballos Tapia and Perla Guadalupe Rubio Prado are alleged to be performing procedures that "enlarge the buttocks area via injections of a non-approved FDA substance."
IT'S OVER, ROVER
To clear the streets of Sochi, Russia, of stray dogs before the start of the Winter Olympics, the government hired a test control company to shoot the animals with poison darts that causes them to suffocate. With hundreds of dogs already killed, activists were driving around the Olympic campus in a "dog rescue" golf cart, scooping up endangered pooches and delivering them to a shanty town dog shelter on the city's outskirts.
BIEBER IN THE SKY WITH A BLUNT
NBC News reported that marijuana-loving pop singer Justin Bieber and his father were "extremely abusive" to a flight attendant as they traveled in a private jet from Canada to New Jersey. Multiple sources reported that despite pressurized cabins, the pilots wore oxygen masks to avoid inhaling marijuana smoke and failing subsequent drug tests, putting their licenses at risk.
WHEN HER TOP BLEW THE SHOE FLEW AND HARK, WHO KNEW TWAS A JIMMY CHOO
A Phoenix woman heaved a shoe at Hillary Clinton while the former first lady and likely 2016 presidential candidate was delivering a speech at Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in Las Vegas. With her hands in the air, 36-year-old Alison Michelle Ernst was hustled out of the ballroom by security guards.
LIVE, LOCAL, REALLY DUMB
The city of Nogales said farewell to former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro, 98, who was moving to a care home in San Diego. In its story on the event, KOLD-TV ran background video of the brutal Cuban dictator of the same name. Dressed in a military uniform, the weasel-faced maximum leader, Fidel's brother, was shown angrily pounding a podium as he delivered a speech.
HAIL CESAR!
Three months after approving an expensive paid holiday for city workers in honor of Cesar Chavez, City Manager Richard Miranda proposed cutting 92 jobs and $25 million from the budget to correct the city's economic mess. Chavez often complained bitterly about illegal aliens crossing the border and driving down wages for union jobs.
NEXT HE WANTS TO BE BOND. JAMES BOND
Scott Fistler, a former Republican who already lost in two tries at elected office, legally changed his name to Cesar Chavez to run as a Democrat in the heavily Democratic 7th Congressional District. Chavez's grandson, Alejandro Chavez, filed suit in Phoenix to get Fistler's name removed from the primary ballot.
REVENGE OF THE SUCCULENT
A 15-foot-tall saguaro toppled over in Green Valley, crushing a carport and damaging an SUV, a vintage Cadillac and a golf cart. Residents rushed outside to find their carport ripped away from the house by the renegade giant.
ARE THEY GOING TO BE UNICORNS?
A volunteer monitoring Border Patrol's checkpoint on Arivaca Road southwest of Tucson told the Los Angeles Times that being stopped reminded him of checkpoints he was required to go through as a construction worker in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I have flashbacks when I go north of Arivaca," said Bob Bertolini. "'Are they going to be Iraqi soldiers? Al Qaeda? Are they going to blow me away?'"
DROPPING YOUR PANTS STILL WORKS FOR US
Trade groups for circus clowns sounded the alarm on a budding national clown shortage due mainly to an aging population not being replaced and changing comedic standards. "Our audience expects to be wowed," said David Kiser, director of talent for Ringling Bros. "No longer is it good enough to just drop your pants and focus on boxer shorts."
THE OFFICIAL END OF WESTERN CIVILATION
The group Campus Reform reported that UA students were assigned to plan a school-wide "Condom Olympics" for a class called "Sex, Health and AIDS." Events included a condom-wrapped egg toss and an appearance by Mr. Condom, a giant walking condom. Professor William Simmons said he didn't like term papers or exams and preferred an "action learning assignment," saying, "Hopefully this will get students knowing what condoms are."
ONE DOWN, NINE TO GO
In January, People magazine reported that police investigating the theft of copper wiring from a truck in Glendale, Arizona, found a ghastly piece of evidence—the tip of a human finger. A check of prints from the wayward digit turned up 29-year-old Joshua Goverman, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft. Police Sgt. Jay O'Neill said investigators "retrieved the finger, put a Popsicle stick into it and rolled a print. It was kind of humorous."
Goverman contributed to his undoing by posting on Facebook a photo of his hand with the missing finger.
SOMEBODY DIDN'T GET A NAP
Republican Congressman Michael Grimm of New York, a former Marine and undercover FBI agent, threatened TV reporter Michael Scotto, who had the temerity to ask Grimm about an investigation into his campaign finances. The episode occurred during an interview on a balcony of the Capitol building following the president's State of the Union address.
Grimm, who later apologized, told Scotto: "Let me be clear to you. If you ever do that to me again, I'll throw you off this (expletive) balcony. ... I'll break you in half. Like a boy."
WARNING: STOP READING NOW. SERIOUSLY, DON'T GO ANY FURTHER!
Suburban Phoenix police arrested a 65-year-old Sun Lakes woman for allegedly trying to murder her husband by putting fecal matter into his IV line. Rose Mary Vogel was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder after a nurse found her handling her husband's line, which was found to contain a brown substance. The Associated Press reported that lab tests identified the substance, a trace amount of which was also found in the needle of an otherwise empty syringe in Vogel's purse.
HONEST TO GOD, YOU HAVE TO STOP READING! DO NOT READ THE NEXT ITEM! PLEASE HEED THIS WARNING!
The lingerie clad ex-wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy was arrested in New Mexico when she allegedly pulled a gun from her vagina and used it to threaten her boyfriend in an argument about space aliens, according to the smoking gun website.
Jennifer McCarthy's boyfriend told sheriff's deputies that she exited their residence during the space alien argument and returned, went into her bedroom and emerged "wearing lingerie and a silver handgun in her vagina." The episode continued with McCarthy doing the same thing with the gun that a former president, who will remain nameless, did with an intern and a cigar. She was charged with aggravated assault on a household member.
