Bartender Tony Conigliaro's new beverage book is called "The Cocktail Lab," and he's not speaking figuratively.

Humorist Dave Barry has said, "the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. The wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."

The Chandler preparedness store Dorothy Jackson helps manage may have been profiled during the first episode of the National Geographic television series “Doomsday Preppers,” but even she still considers it to be a bit of a diamond in the rough.

What is wrong with America?

Now that June is boiling up all over, as a public service this column will provide, especially to new arrivals, unsolicited advice on summer survival in the Sonoran Desert. When you’re not covering yourself in aloe vera juice to relieve a scalding sunburn, when surfaces inside your car are noticeably less than molten, when you’re watching someone else on TV being carried down from Camelback Mountain giving a thumbs-up to the camera — that’s when you’ll thank me, um, I hope.

Summertime is burger time. And it's so easy to throw a few beef patties on the grill. Not much is required in the way of embellishment, yet they have a big happiness return.

Humanity's home planet hardly merits the name-check in "After Earth," M. Night Shyamalan's sci-fi survival tale whose shipwreck action could (with the exception of a scene where our hero scrawls a crude map over Lascaux-like cave paintings) take place on any old life-supporting globe in the cosmos. The disappointingly generic film, which strands a father and son (Will and Jaden Smith) on Earth a thousand years after a planet-wide evacuation, will leave genre audiences pining for the more Terra-centric conceits of "Oblivion," not to mention countless other future-set films that find novelty in making familiar surroundings threatening. Will Smith's presence, not just as co-star but as originator of the story, seems likely to carry box office receipts beyond the benchmark of Shyamalan's previous picture, the wretched "The Last Airbender," but those hoping for a franchise should navigate elsewhere.

She: "Baby, you are gonna miss that plane."

When it rains, it pours. The combined weight of the three growing Obama administration scandals is weighing down the White House and overwhelming their ability to control the story or advance their agenda.

Is any ingredient more hardworking, yet humble, than the onion?

Barbecue chicken is one of my favorite summertime dishes. I like every part of it — the tomato-based sauce (the spicier the better), the crispy skin, even the bones.

Darkness can be paralyzing.

Foes of the governor’s plan to expand the state’s Medicaid program laid out their objections and alternatives Thursday, including one that actually would dump thousands of people from the program who are now getting care.

Mesa teachers showed up en masse to the district’s school board's April 9 meeting to show their support, but also remind them that it’s time for a raise.

Your dishwasher, sink drain and garbage disposal do the major dirty work in your kitchen, and you can keep them smelling fresh and running efficiently with a few easy steps.

The Arizona Board of Regents on Thursday approved tuition increases at the state's three public universities and directed staff to explore legal options to reduce tuition for some immigrants.

State lawmakers are moving to cut by half what cities and counties have to pay to publish their legal notices.

Arizona's higher education leaders are demanding more money from students, while also exploring legal options to reduce tuition for some immigrants.

A new legislative proposal on publication requirements for legal notices could pit large papers against small ones and dailies against weeklies -- all at a potential higher cost to taxpayers.

A spider crawls up the leg of 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) early in Park Chan-wook's English-language debut, "Stoker," and she regards it passively, intrigued.

Our dogs are often as fat as we are, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Family cats can look like furry ottomans. At Tufts University, they've set up an obesity clinic at the vet school.

“The Mesa Public Library requires photo identification to renew a library cards but no ID is required to vote.”

A winter storm brought snow to the Tucson area and hail and sleet to the Phoenix metropolitan area Wednesday, disrupting flights, making for slushy rush-hour commutes and creating the rare sight of flurries at a professional golf event in southern Arizona.