Arizona, you’re a mess. But that’s why we love you.
Maybe other places in the country make for idyllic places to live, where every news story is good and nothing bizarre ever happens. That is not the Grand Canyon State, though. With our mix of sane and crazy, far right-wing and dyed-blue progressive, we have tension. Millions of people raise perfectly normal families here, but we’re also a playground for the filthy rich and the politically batshit insane. At its worst, that mix gives us abortion bans, election conspiracy theories and other societal woes. At the same time — just often enough to make you chuckle — we get some truly weird stories that seem like they were meant to happen here.
The stories listed below fit that bill. As we wave goodbye to 2025, here’s a trip down WTF Lane with the 10 wildest news stories Phoenix New Times covered this year.
“I’m just a humble caveman,” Jack Maverik told the Tempe City Council. “I’ve never been a clown. I have never gone to clown college like the rest of you.”
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Fred Flintstone berates the Tempe City Council
Tune into a city council meeting, and odds are you’ll see something weird. At least when Jack Maverik spoke to the Tempe City Council in January, he was trying to be weird on purpose. Inspired by recordings that revealed city councilmembers laughing at the description of certain residents as “CAVE people” — that stands for “Citizens Against Virtually Everything” — Maverik donned a Fred Flintstone get-up to dress down the council during his three minutes of public comment.
“I am just a humble caveman,” Maverik stated to the council, referencing a famous SNL sketch about a thawed-out caveman who becomes a corporate lawyer. “I’ve never been a clown. I have never gone to clown college like the rest of you. So if I get things wrong, I apologize.”
Maverik then hit the council over the ongoing rezoning saga with Danelle Plaza and over the council’s concerted effort to criminally cite people who feed the unhoused in city parks. For the performance, New Times christened Maverik the “Best Yabba-Dabba-Dude.”
12 West Brewing in Mesa apologized for a racist comedy act it hosted.
Comedy show at Mesa brewery draws neo-Nazis
In late January, the popular Mesa brewery 12 West found itself issuing an extraordinary apology. A comedy show hosted in the brewery’s basement event space — featuring comic Quinn Dale and opener Leonarda Jonie, the latter of whom regularly makes racist jokes on social media — had drawn neo-Nazi pamphleteers outside the show. Inside, brewery staff cringed as Jonie cracked jokes about being attracted to old-school Nazis. In a statement at the time, 12 West claimed it had not done enough research into the acts.
“The views of the performers do not reflect the views of 12 West Brewing, and in no way do we support the presence of any sort of neo-Nazi groups around our business,” 12 West’s statement read. “Once alerted that there were people outside handing out materials and harassing guests, we immediately closed the gates and denied any entrance into the building. We absolutely do not support neo-Nazis, hate speech, white supremacy, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ+, or racism of any kind.”
Jessica Bueno, the Phoenix Elementary School Board District No. 1 president, did not attend a board’s meeting at which parents called on her to resign.
The Jessica Bueno saga
It started off as a coffee story — Randall Denton, the founder of the popular cafe Xanadu Coffee, had been busted in an underage sex sting, ultimately pleading guilty. The coffee shop closed, and the story could have ended there. But New Times kept digging, and what we found took on a life of its own.
After his 2024 arrest, Denton had been bailed out by his friend and former business partner, Jessica Bueno. Who’s that? Well, at the time, she was the president of the Phoenix Union Elementary School District No. 1. The revelation that a woman responsible for the education of thousands of young Phoenix children had sprung an accused (and later convicted) sex offender enraged many parents, who called on Bueno to resign. She ducked the first school board meeting after New Times’ report. She ultimately tendered her resignation, but not before receiving a tongue-lashing from Arizona Secretary of State and Phoenix parent Adrian Fontes during public comment.
A man sued Anthem Golf & Country Club for not giving him the tee times he wanted.
Virojt Changyencham/Getty Images
Phoenix golfer sues his club over a tee time
The Valley is a golf mecca, so it only makes sense that we’d generate a lot of golf lawsuits as well. Here’s hoping most of them are a bit more weighty than the one Phoenix golfer Brad Ghaster filed in March, though.
Ghaster was a member of Anthem Golf & Country Club in north Phoenix, but he wasn’t a happy member. Despite paying $47,000 up front and at least $1,300 a month for his “Full Golf” membership, Ghaster had problems securing a tee time. After receiving his preferred time only nine times — over an unspecified period — Ghaster requested a refund of his membership fee. When he was denied, he sued.
The lawsuit was short-lived. After New Times contacted Ghaster for comment, a motion for dismissal appeared in the court docket.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell called police on Feb. 12 after she received a package in the mail filled with animal poop.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Someone mails poop to the county attorney
In April, New Times was the first to report a prank an unidentified person had made on Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell two months earlier. Apparently using the site PoopSenders.com, the prankster shipped a package supposedly containing animal dung — its actual poopiness is unclear — to Mitchell’s home. Instead of rolling her eyes and tossing it in the trash, the Republican prosecutor called Phoenix police.
Mitchell fingered a few possible suspects for the cops — animal rights activists, pro-Palestine protesters and terminally online suspended attorney Vladimir Gagic, who’d feuded with Mitchell’s significant other online. Gagic in particular denied any involvement, and the smelly mystery figures to remain unsolved.
Good spelling. Good use of resources, though?
Police helicopter spells out ‘ALEX’ during a flight
What’s that buzzing overhead? And does whatever is making it know how to spell? If you were in west Phoenix one night in July, the answers were: a Phoenix police helicopter, and yes.
It’s not clear why a Phoenix helicopter pilot decided to trace the name “ALEX” with their flight path that night. What is clear is that the helicopter did it after midnight while hovering only 2,000 feet above a west Phoenix neighborhood. Phoenix police did not share the pilot’s name but told New Times a few days later that the incident was referred to the department’s Professional Standards Bureau. It’s unclear when that review will be complete.
Now running for a seat in the state legislature, Mylie Biggs told a podcaster last year that she wouldn’t vote for a woman.
Female GOP candidate says women shouldn’t run for office
There’s nothing like your own words coming back to haunt you. And hooboy, did Mylie Biggs give her opponents ample ammunition.
In June, Biggs filed a statement of interest to run for the Arizona Senate seat once held by her father, GOP Rep. Andy Biggs. In August, New Times was the first to report podcast comments the younger Biggs made a year earlier that would seem to invalidate her entire political project. On the podcast, Biggs said she wasn’t sure if she would “vote for any female” and that women should stay in the home. “I don’t think women should hold office in general,” she said. “That’s my position. That’s my stance.” She also laughingly questioned women’s right to vote and said she has a fondness for conspiracy theories.
“Don’t get me started on 9/11,” she said.
Biggs is still in the race, despite widespread backlash.
Nancy Marshall said the city of Buckeye sold her a plot next to her late husband and mother in the city cemetery, only to find out later that someone else is buried there.
Buckeye woman says unknown body is squatting in her grave
When the time came, Nancy Marshall was to be buried alongside her late husband and her late mother. She’s already reserved a specific plot next to their graves at Buckeye’s Louis B. Hazelton Memorial Cemetery. Then, last year, she got a phone call.
The cemetery informed her that there was an unidentified body already buried in her plot. The cemetery had looked through its nearly 90 years of records but could not figure out who it was. Would Marshall like a different plot? Would she like her husband and mother disinterred and buried elsewhere? Marshall decided to sue the cemetery instead.
After New Times reported on the story, the two sides appeared to reach an amicable solution. The cemetery asked a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to grant them authority to disinter and rebury the unknown corpse. Marshall said that was fine with her. But earlier this month, the court denied that request in a ruling. The body remains.
Jacob Chansley screams “freedom” inside the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021.
Win McNamee / Getty Images
QAnon Shaman sues Trump for $40 trillion
When you’re able to storm the Capitol, you probably think you can do anything. For Jacob Chansley — otherwise known as Arizona’s infamous QAnon Shaman — that apparently means thinking you’re the rightful president of the United States.
Chansley said as much in a self-authored lawsuit, consisting of one paragraph that runs on page after page, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in September. Among the defendants: Donald Trump (on whom Chansley has turned), the Federal Reserve, Israel and T-Mobile. All Chansley is asking for is $40 trillion and to be named the leader of the “New Constitutional Republic of the United States.”
Despite its format, the lawsuit makes for quite the read. In it, Chansley claims that the NSA spied on him and catfished him as the actress Michelle Rodriguez, that the movies “Avatar” and “The Dark Knight” stole his ideas and that “all radio stations and most of their DJ’s are a part of the intelligence community.” We’d love to see where this one goes, but unfortunately, the lawsuit is currently on the court’s dismissal calendar.
Avondale City Council member Jeannette Garcia.
Avondale city councilmember accused of kidnapping
Earlier this year, MAGA devotee and Avondale City Councilmember Jeannette Garcia made headlines by accusing Tom Hanks of being a “pedo,” though she attempted to walk it back in the face of widespread condemnation. What goes around comes around, it seems, because in November, Garcia was accused of her own (non-sexual) misdeeds with a child.
In an anonymous lawsuit, a father who worked with Garcia at Turning Point USA said Garcia drunkenly propositioned him last year as they celebrated Republican election wins. When he declined, he claims, Garcia conspired to abduct his teen daughter from their house under the guise of being concerned for her. Per the lawsuit, the daughter was not returned to him until the next day.
Garcia forcefully denied the lawsuit’s allegations on social media, but has not responded in court. There’s a chance this story winds up as one of the craziest of 2026, too.