​Tonight is the night... for more primaries. Arizona and Michigan are next up for primaries as voters in these states have until this evening to choose their favorite Republican presidential candidate. Contrary to popular belief, these two primaries are actually worth something: Arizona will award 29 delegates to the first place candidate in a winner-take-all fashion while Michigan will divide its 30 delegates according to the results.

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UPDATE: The site referred to in our original post below, as well as in the CNN report on the Phoenix Goddess Temple, cannot be confirmed as the website of the recently investigated temple in Arizona. Please refer to this post from the Phoenix New Times for information on the arrests and investigation.

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Soft serve ice cream cones are kind of grenade-shaped, no?

​Here's what not to bring with you next time you're craving mediocre soft serve: a grenade. That's right! I'm sorry, but just leave it at home. Otherwise you'll end up like Renee Deshaies, 30, a homeless Arizona woman who bought an ice cream in Mesa on Thursday and also threatened DQ employees with a grenade she had in her pocket. Deshaies was under the impression that the grenade was real, though it turned out to be just a training grenade. She was arrested about a mile away from the scene. Here is her requisite terrifying mugshot.

[NYDN]

[@_rosiegray]

​• Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would require presidential candidates to prove they were U.S. citizens born in the U.S. before their names could appear on the state ballot. A candidate would have to show a copy of his or her birth certificate, or "a combination of baptismal or circumcision records, hospital birth files, postpartum medical records or other documents" if a birth certificate could not be produced. The bill was approved in the state House last week but won't become law unless Brewer's veto is overridden. Arizona State Rep. Carl See authored the bill, which he says is is not about Barack Obama but aimed at "maintaining the integrity of the Constitution." [CNN]

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via Tokyo Electric Power Co.

​• Tokyo Electric Power Company will be releasing some 11,500 tons of water with low levels of radiation into the Pacific Ocean to make storage room for water with more dangerous levels of radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant. According to Tokyo Electric, the water to be released "contains about 100 times the legal limits of radiation." Eating seafood caught in such water daily for a year would give one a quarter of the average annual exposure to radiation. This is as workers continue to battle more high-level radioactive leaks: Over the weekend workers tried to use sawdust and shredded newspaper to stop a leak coming from a pit near the reactor. [NYT]

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​Jared Lee Loughner has been charged with 49 counts by a federal grand jury, Politico reports. The 22-year-old is being charged for the January 8 shooting in Tucson, where he allegedly killed six people and injured thirteen more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke stated, "This indictment involves potential death-penalty charges, and department rules require us to pursue a deliberate and thorough process."

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Artist's rendering of the man's self-image

​Firefighters in Gilbert, Arizona pulled a naked man from a manhole, KPHO reports. He was high on PCP, marijuana, and mushrooms, or as it is commonly referred to nowadays, "winning." He told police he thought he heard children trapped in the manhole and climbed in to rescue them. There were no children trapped in the manhole. If you are wondering why he was naked, clearly you have never taken PCP.

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​On January 8, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by the gunman Jared Loughner, who killed six others in the attempted assassination. Weeks later, Arizona politicians pushed a gun bill that would "require universities and communities to allow guns on campus and one of 10 that permit guns inside public government buildings such as the state Capitol." But they're not done yet! From our sister blog in Phoenix comes the news that Arizona is advancing a bill that would give the Colt single-action Army revolver the distinct pleasure of being the state's official firearm.

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​Shawna Forde, the anti-immigration vigilante found guilty of murder in the home invasion that killed nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father, Raul, was sentenced to death last night by an Arizona court. Forde, who hoped to fund her Minutemen border patrol organization with money from the robbery, was convicted of murder on Feburary 14, after a horrific trial in which Brisenia's mother, Gina Gonzalez, testified of watching her young daughter and husband slayed in cold blood. The case, covered spottily by the mainstream media, became a cause for many immigration and Latino activists, who saw the crime and its fall-out as ignored on account of skin color.

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​• Italian Foreign Prime Minister Franco Frattini says the death toll in Libya may be more than 1,000, and that he's worried the protests will spur "Islamic radicalism." Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is working to evacuate U.S. citizens from the country. [NYT, NY1]

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