My wife and I happened to be traveling this past week and had occasion to travel multiple times from Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) thru Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) airports to Orlando FL. Wow. What a stark difference. Maybe it’s not a fair comparison, I don’t know; but, the difference in quality from top-bottom, ceiling-floor, processes, finishes, services provided, retailers etc was striking. Phoenix is supposedly the #5 or 6 largest city (depending upon who you ask) in the U.S, while Atlanta is a little bigger than Mesa, not even in the U.S. top 25. Just as striking to me, while in ATL, I happened to be reading a copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (don’t know if right- or left-leaning, but a GOOD paper) and I read an AP piece about “Bush-era probe involved ‘walking’ guns”. Apparently, this whole “Fast and Furious” (BATFE) scandal actually happened first back in 2006 under the Bush administration, as “Operation Wide receiver.” Never read about that in the Republic or saw that on Channel 12! John and Patti Latson

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The Suns may have picked their playoff opponent here Tuesday night. If so, they made a wise choice. In their most important, and maybe most spectacular, comeback this season, the Suns — down 17 points at halftime — played a near perfect second half in routing the Sacramento Kings, 123-110.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The Suns may have picked their playoff opponent here Tuesday night. If so, they made a wise choice. In their most important, and maybe most spectacular, comeback this season, the Suns — down 17 points at halftime — played a near perfect second half in routing the Sacramento Kings, 123-110.

Ever wonder what it would feel like to suddenly wake up in another universe?

Backup quarterback Sean Paul Brophy began the second half holding a clipboard on the sideline. He ended it as the biggest man on the Chaparral campus after leading the Firebirds  to one of the wildest comebacks in school history, 30-27, over Notre Dame.

A new sentencing date has been set for a man who admitted working as a straw buyer for a gun smuggling ring that was monitored in the government's botched investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

New sentencing dates have been set for three people who admitted participating in a gun smuggling ring that was monitored in the botched federal investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

Saguaro didn't look like a No. 2 seed after missing its first 16 shots in the Division II girls state quarterfinals on Tuesday night.

The scope of gun walking U.S. weapons into organized crime hands in Mexico was either a lethally mis-coordinated policy that spun out of control, some kind of covert operation or official malfeasance.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House oversight committee said Sunday that he could send subpoenas to the Obama administration as soon as this week over weapons lost amid the Mexican drug war.

Bill Richardson

Jose de la Isla

Jose de la Isla

Jose de la Isla

KABUL — The Afghan government was holding secret talks with the Taliban's No. 2 when he was captured in Pakistan, and the arrest infuriated President Hamid Karzai, according to one of Karzai's advisers.

In a four-minute span of the fourth quarter Tuesday, Mountain Ridge's boys basketball matchup with rival Deer Valley shifted from a cakewalk to a gut check.