Legislative Republicans used the final hours of the just-ended legislative session to shove through a series of changes in election laws that could give them advantages in future elections.

WASHINGTON — In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers.

Quick: someone call a chiropractor for California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. He's overreached so far his arm may separate from his shoulder. Even some key figures in his party are suggesting he needs an adjustment. F-a-s-t.

NEW YORK — Laura Radocaj of Vero Beach, Fla., was warned when she was pregnant with twins that motherhood would be harder than she imagined — especially because she planned to go back to work while the twins were still babies. "But this has been the easiest transition," said Radocaj, 28, who works from home in corporate communications.

Q: What causes a laptop’s screen to suddenly have a tiny black spot in the middle of it and is there anything I can do about it? — Thomas

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an outbreak of hepatitis A linked to a frozen berry mix sold at Costco has grown to 87 people with illnesses in eight states.

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. — The website used words like "rustic" and "old-world style accommodations" for the lodge, but somehow I read that as "charming" and "romantic."

Characters are frequently urged to "release the beast" in "The Purge," a high-concept home-invasion shocker set in a future where one night a year, all crime is legal. But what should be a clammy exercise in claustrophobic, queasy tension becomes, in the hands of writer/director James DeMonaco, an underpowered compendium of over-familiar scare tactics and sledgehammer-subtle social satire. The intriguingly nightmarish premise may well rustle up a decent opening weekend for a picture that comes with the imprimatur of producer Michael Bay before the lukewarm word of mouth hastens its trip to DVD and VOD.

“Gloat. Gloat. Gloat. Randy Parraz and Lilia Alvarez: I was getting sick of seeing your seedy signature-gatherers lurking around the Mesa Library. We like Joe because he ‘gets ‘er done’ in spite of Obama, the Arizona Republic and the Courts. I just wish he was about 50 years old so we could look forward to 40 years with him as sheriff.”

LAS VEGAS — The junked signs that attracted throngs to old Las Vegas have for years gathered dust in a neon boneyard just a few miles from the sleek mega-casinos on the Strip.

A campaign to force a recall election against the polarizing sheriff of metropolitan Phoenix has failed. Recall organizers said Thursday that they couldn’t collect enough voter signatures to bring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the ballot again.

As development of the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway has inched closer to a reality over the years, the proposed Pecos Alignment of the freeway has been most hotly debated because of the impending destruction to South Mountain itself. But many in Ahwatukee Foothills — on paper a part of the City of Phoenix, but ostensibly it’s own community of nearly 80,000 residents neighboring Tempe and Chandler — are also fearful of the state removing homes, businesses and a church to build the new freeway.

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

Twelve-year-old Alana Smith of Mesa took home a silver medal at X Games Barcelona earlier this month, becoming the youngest competitor in event history to receive a medal.

When the school year ends a few weeks from now, millions of kids will head off to sleepaway camp for a summer filled with color wars, kayaking and bunk life. Most will have a great time, some will make friends for life, and many will look back on the experience fondly.

Boz Scaggs knows he has a reputation for being something of a perfectionist. The casually stylish singer-songwriter recalls the endless tinkering and expansive budgets that went into making his multiplatinum 1970s albums “Silk Degrees” and “Down Two Then Left.”

When our nation’s founders wrote the language in the First Amendment guaranteeing the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” there were no words describing the form of that petition.

A lone, painted white bicycle sits at the side of Usery Park Road near Bush Highway.

Selling your first home in a buyers’ market? You can get the best possible price if you know how to negotiate.

Last year, each at the age of 11, Mesa youths Jagger Eaton and Trey Wood dropped in on the X Games stage as the event’s youngest competitors ever. This year, they’re joined by 12-year-old Alana Smith when they compete next week at X Games Barcelona.

LAS VEGAS — To step into club XS at the Wynn Las Vegas is to enter the dreamscape of a modern artist with fetishes for gold and bronze and bodies in motion.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

The jury has rendered its verdict — Jodi Arias is guilty of first-degree murder — but the trial is far from finished.

Jodi Arias was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend in Arizona after a four-month trial that captured headlines with lurid tales of sex, lies, religion and a salacious relationship that ended in a blood bath.