MCSO

MCSO

Mohave County found its own version of the feline hurling "Crazy Cat Lady."

Authorities arrested 47-year-old Lana Rennee Meadville Thursday after she allegedly killed a cat and heaved it at her mother, according the Mohave County Sheriff's office. 

See also:

Helen Flint, 74, Found Out Being the Cat Lady in Bullhead City Is Illegal

Cat Show at Phoenix Convention Center

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After spending a year studying 156 penises in Uganda, researchers say male circumcision reduces bacteria on the penis, and perhaps is the reason why circumcision can protect men from contracting HIV.

Scientists have been studying the relationship between circumcision and rates of HIV for more than two decades, and this study led by the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) apparently provides the reason why.

See also:
-Anticircumcision Activists Say Trimming a Bit Off the Top Is Too Much


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Brand new versions of the Phoenix New Times apps are now available on iTunes and Google Play. The apps are loaded with new features. Check em out and download them now.

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Download the new app here.

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See also President Obama Approves Version of the DREAM Act, Grants Immunity from Deportation for Certain Young Undocumented Immigrants
See also DREAM Act Has Support From 73 Percent of Arizonans, According to Poll

www.immigrationimpact.com

The Department of Homeland Security has released the forms undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and who meet certain requirements, can fill out to apply for deferred action.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will accept forms at various sites starting on August 15.

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Every week writers for New Times and our parent company, Village Voice Media, produce elegant magazine-style feature writing -- a gritty portion of which comes in the form of true-crime stories.

Now VVM has collected some of its best recent true-crime yarns into an ebook: Seven Sins: A True Crime Anthology from Village Voice Media. Available on Amazon and iTunes, the book features seven stories, including the incredible tale of a young American Muslim woman "honor-killed" by her own father in Peoria (a Paul Rubin gem); the odd story of a young San Francisco woman so enamored of serial killers that she became known as America's most prominent "murder groupie"; and a historic murder case in Colorado in which the golden age of tabloid journalism collided with Erle Stanley Gardner, the larger-than-life creator of the Perry Mason mysteries.

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Mike Kiefer, a longtime colleague of ours and (more important) a longtime friend, writes these days for the Arizona Republic, mostly about bad guys in trouble down at the Maricopa County Superior Court and elsewhere.

One of those bad guys is Jared Lee Loughner, pictured to the left (just so folks don't get the idea that Mike looks like that these days).

Mike is a fine reporter and a true wordsmith (we know one when we read one, just like the Supreme Court justice and pornography) and wish we still had him over here.

All that said, Mike writes novels "on the side," and will be reading from his latest, The Lion Hunter, tonight at 7 at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. The address: 6429 South McClintock Drive.

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Latino Vote 2012 Election

The emerging Latino vote in Arizona is the focus of the Arizona Latino Research Enterprise and Raul H. Castro Institute's annual Town Hall gathering at Phoenix College.

Panels of experts and speakers at the Town Hall will examine the increasing influence of Latino voters at a national, state and local level, as well as the growing contributions of Latino youth -- as voters and community organizers.

That was also the theme of "Brown Wave," a New Times feature about young Latinos, including undocumented students, mobilizing west Phoenix voters and helping increase voter turnout by nearly five times.

But it wasn't just in Phoenix, helping turn the tide in two city council seats and the mayor's race. Election experts say Latino voters played a pivotal role in the recall of former State Senate President Russell Pearce.

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Shannon Smith was killed on New Year's Eve in 1999 by a stray bullet someone randomly fired into the air.

​Saturday is New Year's Eve, and for a lot of Valley residents, that's apparently an invitation to randomly fire bullets into the sky.

If you didn't already know, the Phoenix Police Department wants to remind city residents that not only is blasting away at the sky an incredibly stupid thing to do (bullets, believe or not, are subject to the same rules of gravity as everything else), it's also a felony.

New Year's Eve marks the 12th anniversary of the death of Shannon Smith, a 14-year-old honor student killed in 1999 by a stray bullet fired randomly into the air while she was standing in her backyard talking on the phone.

Shocked that randomly firing a gun in an urban environment was only a misdemeanor, Smith's parents campaigned to pass "Shannon's Law" in 2000, which makes doing so a felony.

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Tempe Police

Griffith Smith

​The House of Glass Smoke Shop in Tempe was raided by police Tuesday after the store's owners accepted stolen cigarettes and sold unlicensed marijuana and morphine pills to undercover cops.

In February, Tempe Police were tipped off to shady behavior happening in the smoke shop's parking lot in the 1600 block of East Apache Boulevard. During the investigation, store owners Griffith Smith, 49, and 27-year-old Joshua Gault, of Peoria, knowingly bought stolen cigarettes from undercover officers.

Smith and Gault resold the cigarettes at the smoke shop for profit.

The two owners -- with the help of 20-year-old Arizona State University student Tyler Benenstuhl -- also sold weed and morphine pills to the undercover detectives, according to Tempe Police spokesman Sergent Steven Carbajal.

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www.pcrf.com

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The federal government avoided economic catastrophe today after the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to increase the debt-ceiling yesterday. The bill cleared the Senate this morning, and President Barack Obama signed it into law moments ago.

The vast majority of Arizona's members of Congress, apparently, were no fans of the bi-partisan bill -- only two Arizona House members voted in favor of the bill, which kept the federal government from going into default.

So how did your member of Congress vote on the bill? Find out below:

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