Hundreds of people were evacuated in Arizona on Tuesday after a wind-whipped wildfire spread across 5,000 acres in just seven hours.

More than 300 firefighters, along with multiple helicopters and aircraft, moved in to tackle the “extreme” blaze which started in “remote, rugged terrain” on the east side of Granite Mountain near Prescott, Arizona, officials said.

Authorities told The Associated Press that the fire was man-made and under investigation.

Jeff Andrews, deputy fire staff officer for Prescott National Forest, said that short- and long-terms models were being used in a bid to predict how the fire might spread.

However, he warned that hot and windy conditions could make containing it more difficult.

In the space of just an hour yesterday, gusts of up to 22 mph pushed the pushed the fire from 20 acres to almost 200 acres.

Slideshow: Western wildfires

Felicia Fonseca / AP

Dry conditions fuel blazes in the U.S.

Launch slideshow

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:41 AM EDT

David Wallace / AP file

Jodi Arias stands as the jury is excused after the verdict for sentencing was declared a hung jury for her first degree murder conviction at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, Ariz., on Thursday, May 23, 2013.

PHOENIX — A top Arizona prosecutor said on Wednesday that the state still plans to seek the death penalty for convicted murderer Jodi Arias for killing her ex-boyfriend, after a jury deadlocked last month on whether she should be executed.

Arias, a former waitress from California, was found guilty last month of killing Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his Phoenix-area home in June 2008. He had been stabbed 27 times, had his throat slashed and was shot in the face.

But the same eight-man, four-woman jury that convicted Arias of murder and quickly ruled her eligible for the death penalty subsequently failed to reach a consensus as to whether Arias should be executed, prompting a penalty phase mistrial.

The state of Arizona now has the option of retrying the sentencing phase of the trial, which would require a new jury be empanelled. If there is another deadlock, a judge would sentence Arias to natural life in prison, or life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery told reporters prosecutors would ask a new sentencing jury to do what the previous one could not - put Arias to death.

"At this point, we are still preparing to move forward to retry the penalty phase," Montgomery told a news conference.

After the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on May 23, Montgomery said that his office would assess its next steps, but was proceeding "with the intent to retry the penalty phase."

A status hearing has been scheduled for June 20. A July 18 court date was set to select a new jury in the case.

The sensational trial began in January, becoming a staple with U.S. cable television viewers with its tale of a soft-spoken young women charged with such a brutal crime. The trial was punctuated with graphic testimony and bloody photographs.

Arias, 32, took the stand for a marathon 18 days and maintained throughout that the killing was in self-defense despite fierce cross-examination by prosecutors.

Sabah Arar / AP file

Former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., during a visit to Baghdad in 2007. Renzi was convicted of 17 of 32 federal corruption charges Tuesday, June 11, in Tucson, Ariz.

Former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., was convicted Tuesday of federal corruption charges involving land deals and his family insurance business.

Renzi, 55, was convicted of 17 of 32 counts in U.S. District Court in Tucson.  His defense team said in a statement that while Renzi was acquitted of 15 counts, "we are disappointed by every guilty verdict."

Renzi, who served on the House Intelligence Committee during his three terms in Congress from 2003 to 2009, was released pending sentencing, which was scheduled for Aug. 19, and had no comment, according to the Arizona Republic.

"Former Congressman Renzi's streak of criminal activity was a betrayal of the public trust and abuse of the political process," Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said in a statement. "After years of misconduct as a businessman, political candidate and member of Congress, Mr. Renzi now faces the consequences for breaking the laws that he took an oath to support and defend."

Most of the counts carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison.

Renzi  was indicted in February 2008 on federal charges of racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, extortion, making criminal transactions and making illegal campaign contributions  — insurance fraud was added to the list in 2009.

According to a superseding indictment, Renzi concealed his involvement in land deals involving two companies and exploited his position on the House Natural Resources Committee to speed things along.

He was also accused of stealing clients' premiums from his insurance business to help pay for his 2002 congressional campaign.

James W. Sandlin, a real estate investor and business associate of Renzi's, was also convicted. The indictment said he repaid loans to Renzi using proceeds from the illegal deals, some of which Renzi didn't report and used in his 2002 campaign.

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his father Friday afternoon at a residence in Prescott, Ariz., police said.

The Prescott Valley Police Department responded to a report of gunshots at 12:36 p.m. and found an adult male who had sustained a gunshot wound in a residence, said Police Sgt. Brandon Bonney. The man was transported to the nearby Yavapai Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Bonney said that the boy found a handgun and was apparently "making inquisitive statements to his father regarding the firearm and, while we he was doing so, shot his father in the chest."

Bonney said the father and son were from Phoenix and were visiting the male resident of a duplex apartment where the shooting occurred. He said the man they were visiting is the owner of the gun and was the only witness.

Police did not immediately identify the victim, pending notification of next of kin.

PHOENIX -- Five people whose skeletal remains were found in a remote Arizona smuggling corridor are thought to have been homicide victims from Mexico or Central America who were shot or beaten to death, authorities said on Tuesday.

Border Patrol agents discovered the five sets of human remains a week ago. They were partly covered by rocks in desert about 130 miles south of Phoenix near the town of Sells on the Tohono O'Odham Reservation.

After a preliminary examination on Tuesday, Pima County Chief Medical Examiner Gregory Hess said trauma to the bones indicated that the five had either been bludgeoned or shot to death.

"We are treating it as a likely homicide. However, we don't know how those injuries were inflicted yet, and whether or not those injuries were blunt force injuries that caused the bones to be traumatized or were gunshot injuries," Hess said.

"We believe that they are the remains of five foreign nationals who were killed either there or somewhere else and put in that location," he added.

Asked if he thought the victims had died together, he said: "Probably."

The age, sex and time of death of the five victims has yet to be established. However, personal effects, including currency, found with the remains were "consistent" with them being from "Mexico or Central America, or somewhere else," Hess said.

Arizona straddles a well-trafficked corridor for human and drug smugglers from Mexico. While deaths are not uncommon among border crossers, they are mostly caused by heat exposure in the summer months.

Related:

• US Marine, relatives kidnapped from Mexico border ranch
• Teen among 11 kidnapped in daylight from Mexico City bar
• 'I'm free': Arizona mom returns to US after drug allegations dropped in Mexico

Two single-engine planes collided in midair and crashed into barren desert terrain just north of Phoenix Friday morning, killing four unidentified people traveling in the small aircraft, according to fire officials.

Fire officials who responded to the scene of the crash discovered two bodies onboard each of the planes -- one of which had caught fire and was consumed by flames while the other was only partially damaged, according to Phoenix Fire Department spokesman Capt. Larry Nunez.

All four people were pronounced dead at the scene by responding paramedics, Nunez said.

A pilot reportedly spotted the two small planes plow into each other just after 10 a.m. local time Friday morning, roughly 15 miles northwest of Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix, according to preliminary information from Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

Authorities do not yet know what caused the fatal collision and have not determined the official cause of death for the four bodies found at the scene, Nunez said.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident. Three FAA inspectors are already at the scene conducting a preliminary review, according to Gregor, but he added it could take months before officials determine the cause of the collision.

Yanira Maldonado, the Arizona mother freed after nine days in a Mexican jail on a mistaken drug charge, said Friday that she got through the ordeal by reading scripture with other inmates and thinking of her family.

Beaming after her release, she told reporters: “I’m free. I’m free. I’m free. I was innocent.”

Maldonado, 42, was in Mexico with her husband for a funeral and was detained May 22 after soldiers found 12 pounds of marijuana taped under her seat on a bus that she was taking back to the United States.

She was released late Thursday after court officials reviewed security footage that showed the couple boarding the bus carrying only blankets, bottles of water and her purse.

Maldonado walked out of the jail and into the arms of her husband, Gary, and was driven back to the United States. She said that she would return to Mexico, but not for some time.

She described her time in jail as “very sad” but said she had been treated respectfully. Maldonado, a Mormon, said that she found a copy of the Book of Mormon in jail and read it and prayed with the other inmates.

“My faith and my family kept me going,” she said.

Maldonado, a mother of seven, was born in Mexico and is a naturalized American citizen. She stressed to reporters at a press conference in Nogales, Ariz., that the mistake was the fault of “a few people,” not the country. With a shrug, she said that she had just sat in the wrong seat.

“I love Mexico. My family is still there,” she said. “Mexico is a beautiful country. Please don’t take it wrong.”

She said that she needed to rest and was looking forward to seeing her children: “They can’t wait to see me.”

Maldonado and her family had proclaimed her innocence ahead of her release.

“I just want to be back home right now with my family, my kids and my husband,’’ Maldonado told Miguel Almaguer in an interview that aired Thursday morning on TODAY.

"I wanted to find a way out, and I’m telling them I’m innocent, I’m innocent. I keep saying what happened, and I’m still here, so I just have faith in the Lord.”

Maldonado and her husband were married a year ago. She said before her release that she believed she may have been set up at the military checkpoint, where soldiers initially accused her husband of smuggling the marijuana before detaining her instead.

Soldiers staffing a checkpoint stopped the bus in Hermosillo, about 170 miles from the U.S. border.

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

Related:

• Jailed Mexico mom: 'I just want to go home'
• 'Nightmare' for US woman held in Mexico accused of smuggling drugs
• Family: We fear mom jailed in Mexico 'will be lost'

This story was originally published on Fri May 31, 2013 4:56 AM EDT

Courtesy of Maldonado family

Gary (left) and Yanira Maldonado were stopped for alleged drug smuggling on their bus ride home to Phoenix from Mexico after they went to Mexico for Yanira's relative's funeral.

An American woman who went to Mexico for a family funeral has been stuck there for nearly a week, accused of smuggling drugs and facing a potential 10-year prison sentence.

But Yanira Maldonado's family says she is a victim of Mexican corruption, and is hopeful a judge may free her in the coming days. A hearing in her case that started on Tuesday concluded for the day without a decision on her freedom.

Six days earlier, Maldonado and her husband, Gary, were on a bus home to Goodyear, Ariz., after going to her aunt's funeral in Mexico. The bus was stopped at a military checkpoint outside Hermosillo, about 170 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, their relatives said.

Soldiers ordered everyone off the bus and interrogated all the passengers, but didn't question the Maldonados — Mormon parents of seven children, according to Gary's brother-in-law, Brandon Klippel, who also lives in the Phoenix area. 

"They're very staunch Mormons. They're extremely active in their church, to the most far side that you could possibly be in the faith," Klippel said, adding that Maldonado's detainment has been "devastating."

Yanira Maldonado is accused of drug trafficking and possessing 5.7 kilos of marijuana "that were bungee-corded to the metal post beneath her seat. The minimum sentence is 10 years in federal prison," according to Klippel. 

At first, soldiers targeted Gary, and police arrested him first. Hours later, authorities allegedly switched their story, and claimed the drugs were underneath Maldonado's seat.

As Maldonado was taken to jail, a local attorney arrived and allegedly told Gary, "You know how it works in Mexico, right?" and explained money would secure his wife's release.

"The attorney that Gary called was from a list of attorneys who were ranked on a list of how well they spoke English. He talked to the prosecuting attorney before he talked to Gary, and then he came to Gary and said, 'If we give them money, they'll release your wife.'" 

Gary offered $3,500. The prosecuting attorney allegedly bargained for $5,000, which Gary frantically got wired to him from family members back home. After he managed to scrounge up the money — at this point a day later — he found out Maldonado had been transferred from Hermosillo to a women's correctional facility in Nogales, on the border.

"His attorney's assistant said in broken English, 'It's not about money anymore, and they want you to leave,'" Klippel said.

The U.S. Consulate in Hermosillo said it could not comment on the matter and referred all questions to the U.S. Consulate in Mexico City, which did not return a phone call seeking comment. The Mexican Consulate in Washington, D.C., said federal officials are in “close communication” with Mexico’s government to “guarantee Mrs. Maldonado’s right to Consular assistance.”

“Mrs. Maldonado’s rights to a defense counsel and due process are being observed. As the process is ongoing and a preliminary decision by the judge is due soon, no other comments will be made at this time,” Consulate spokeswoman Lydia Antonio said.

'Nightmare that felt surreal'
At 10 a.m. local time Tuesday, Maldonado went before a judge with her Mexican attorney. By late afternoon, Klippel got word that "there will not be any verdict issued today."

The past week has felt like a "nightmare," he said.

"At first, it just seemed surreal. You didn't believe it. You said, 'This is just going to blow over, it's a mistake,'" Klippel said. "The reality is sinking in now that in this country, this thing happens and we don't have a protocol to follow when this happens. What went from being a nightmare that felt surreal is turning into a reality that is overwhelming emotionally." 

Maldonado’s family has visited her in jail.

"She's not doing well," Klippel said. "Just to get in, you have multiple guards with machine guns with their fingers on the trigger staring you down as you get in there. It smells awful. There's this big mesh window that she sits at, and she just cries, saying, 'I've never done anything illegal in my life.'" 

Maldonado is wearing clothes lent to her by another inmate because there are no uniforms, Klippel said, and she's buying food from other inmates because the jail expects family members to provide meals for their relatives behind bars.

"This is the most horrible circumstance," Klippel said. "We want her home soon."

He's hopeful that will happen. 

"They have witnesses who saw that they were the last ones to get on the bus," Klippel said. "They saw them put their luggage underneath and get on the bus without anything with them. How they managed to hide big blocks of marijuana and bungee-cord them underneath is overwhelmingly ridiculous."

Four of those witnesses testified on Tuesday, he said. 

"It's a challenge though. Some people won't come unless they're financially compensated, and some won't come because it's a Mexican court," he said.

A judge had six days to make a decision concerning Maldonado, another brother-in-law, Brian Neerings, said via a Facebook page he has been updating for the family.

"If she is not released within that 6 day window, they are transporting her to a facility in southern Mexico and she will be there for 3-4 months before an official case can be made from the attorney they retained this evening. We are hoping and praying that something happens before that 6 day window expires," he wrote.

It's unclear if the verdict delay will affect the six-day window. Klippel said military officers from the security checkpoint are expected to testify on Wednesday.

This story was originally published on Tue May 28, 2013 7:23 PM EDT

Rob Schumacher / Arizona Republic via Reuters

Jodi Arias stands as the jury enters the courtroom during the penalty phase of her murder trial at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, Ariz., May 22, 2013.

If an Arizona jury decides she deserves the death penalty for the brutal murder of her former boyfriend, Jodi Arias will join 63 women currently on death row nationally – a small group representing only about 2 percent of all death row inmates.

As of Jan. 1, there were 3,125 total inmates on death row in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

“About 10 percent of the murders in the United States are committed by women,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, “but only about 2 percent of the people on death row are women, and slightly less than 1 percent of those executed are women.”

Earlier this month, Arias, 32, was convicted of the brutal murder of ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, who was stabbed 27 times, shot in the face and had his throat slashed.

In the immediate aftermath of the trial, she told a local radio station: "I said years ago that I'd rather get death than life, and that is still true today."

But in an interview last week with NBC’s Diana Alvear, Arias said she deserves life in prison instead of the death penalty because she still has a lot to contribute to society.

Eva Dugan

“What I receive will be what I deserve, I believe,’’ she told Alvear only hours after she begged the jury to spare her life.

The jurors failed to reach an agreement over whether she should receive the death penalty for killing Alexander.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens has called for a retrial in the penalty phase. The new jury will be impaneled on July 18, unless the prosecutor decides to no longer seek the death penalty and agrees to a life sentence.

Under Arizona law, if the new jury is seated and also cannot come to an agreement on sentencing, the judge would then decide whether Arias will spend life in prison or have the eligibility of parole after 25 years. A judge cannot sentence Arias to death.

Arizona is one of 32 U.S. states that have the death penalty. Two women and 122 men are currently on death row there. The only woman ever to be executed in the state was Eva Dugan, a convicted murderer who was executed by hanging in 1930.

"Juries are a little more reluctant to mete out the death penalty to a woman than a man," Andy Silverman, a law professor at the University of Arizona and a member of the Coalition of Arizonans to Abolish the Death Penalty, told Reuters.

"We don't look at women as being as violent ... We don't think of death row as a place for them," he added.

Nationally, more than 1,300 inmates have been executed since 1976 – only 12 of these were women.

“It’s not necessarily [just] a gender bias,” Dieter said. “Even though women commit murder, they rarely commit torture murder, or serial killings, or kidnap murders, or multiple murders in their life.”

But, he said, women’s cases are more often overturned or granted clemency.

Debra Milke, who was convicted of the murder of her son and sentenced to death in Arizona, had her conviction overturned in March after being on death row for 18 years.

Even if Arias gets the death penalty, it could take many years for her case to travel through the appeals process.

“It’s rarer and rarer that a woman gets executed for murder, but it could be, as I say, the extenuating circumstances rather than the gender,” Dieter said.

“There’s the crime and then there’s the whole life history of a person that a skillful lawyer will make sure gets into the jury’s consideration,” he added.

Arias’ lawyer Kirk Nurmi argued in court that Alexander subjected Arias to physical and emotional abuse, which could play big in her potential appeals.

"I am expecting that it will be at least 20 years before her case is final," Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender who represents death row prisoners' appeals told Reuters.

"There may be a better understanding of the post-traumatic stress. Politically there may be a change in the governor's office, or in the legislature, or the clemency board," he added.

Related:

Arias jury hung on penalty phase

Arias jury to judge: What if we can't reach a decision?

Jodi Arias: Death penalty would be 'revenge,' not justice