Free Republic

CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona police said a man who claimed he had been kidnapped later confessed during an interview that he made up the story up to avoid work.

A man recently released from the Eloy Immigration Detention Center was arrested last week after causing several crashes along Interstate 10 and fleeing a traffic stop, officials said. Carlos Martinez Baldenegro, 38, was arrested Thursday morning after a chase on I-10 that ended near Casa Grande, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a news release. Martinez was booked into Pinal County Jail and faces charges of driving under the influence, felony flight, reckless driving and three counts of criminal damage, the department said... Martinez was released from the Eloy Immigration Detention Center about a month ago after spending...

Interstate 10 is now three lanes both ways between Tucson and Casa Grande, but your commute probably won’t get faster. The Arizona Department of Transportation projects I-10 could be bumper-to-bumper all the way to Casa Grande during rush hour by 2035. The route currently carries around 60,000 vehicles daily, and that could quadruple depending on the region’s growth, according to an ADOT spokesperson. John Moffatt, director of economic development for Pima County, said those backups won’t just be bad for commuters. He said they will hurt trade with Mexico. “Trucks are like water. They find the path of least resistance...

CASA GRANDE — Republican Congressional District 1 candidate Paul Babeu says he plans to make improvements to Interstate 10 a greater priority for the federal government. Babeu, who is Pinal County sheriff, assembled a number of Republican state lawmakers on Monday to discuss his intentions as a congressman to prioritize widening a portion of I-10 that runs between Phoenix and Casa Grande. His plan is to work on expanding this section from two lanes to three in each direction. Doing so, Babeu said, improves safety and economic development. “This is directly linked to a prosperous future for western Pinal County...

Last Friday, according to Arizona’s Casa Grande Dispatch, “an explosive device was detonated … by the back door of the U.S. Social Security Administration office, shaking downtown Casa Grande, but no one was injured.” The perpetrator was a Muslim, Abdullatif Aldosary. You would think that a Muslim detonating an IED in a government building in Arizona would be front-page stuff, or that national security agencies would be at heightened alert, but you would be wrong. The FBI is not treating it as a terrorism case because of “the political sensitivities involved.” Translation? They fear insulting Muslims. They’re not properly prosecuting...

One hundred fifty soldiers with the Arizona Army National Guard's 259th Security Force Company returned home Saturday. Members come from across the state, including Tucson, Casa Grande, Sierra Vista and Florence. Dozens of families were in Phoenix Saturday to welcome home their loved ones who spent a year of service in Iraq. But the Security Force Company did not return in full, something people couldn't help but think of. "Because although all of them are coming back, there's still some that we've lost, some that have gotten injured, and we're thinking of them as well in this time," Renate Garcia...

<p>The CIA yesterday concluded that two truck trailers seized by coalition forces in northern Iraq were designed by Saddam Hussein's regime to produce biological weapons agents.</p> <p>A six-page agency white paper said an examination of the trailers' equipment showed that "BW [biological weapons] agent production is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles."</p>