Since her sister’s health took a drastic downturn this past February, Mountain Pointe High School teacher Donna Sampanes is organizing a blood drive at the school this weekend in an effort to help her sibling.

If any piece of classic American literature should be depicted on film with wildly decadent and boldly inventive style, it's "The Great Gatsby." After all, who was the character of Jay Gatsby himself if not a spinner of grandiose tales and a peddler of lavish dreams?

Besides pulse, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, a patient’s temperature is also considered a “vital sign.” The thing that makes a person’s temperature vital is that the body’s homeostasis, or ability to maintain all functions optimally, depends upon a certain range of heat. Most everyone can recite that the average body core temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit with a healthy range being anywhere from 97 to 99 degrees. Temperatures that vary below or above this average create an internal atmosphere that is not conducive to the various systems’ functioning. The term “fever” generally refers to anything over 99 degrees. In order to maintain the healthful range, the body has a regulating system that kicks in much like any thermostat. If the core temperature starts to rise, we begin a cooling mechanism through sweating. If the core temperature starts to decrease, shivering will initiate warming through muscle contractions.

Despite the bad rap that saturated fats have, there’s a lot of evidence indicating that saturated fat is essentially good for you. The real harmful and unhealthy fats include trans fats, hydrogenated fats and vegetable oils.

Trumpeter/bandleader Doc Severinsen can still hit the notes, and it's not something he ever takes for granted. He always warms up.

In the wake of last week’s tragedy in Boston, what are the images that stayed with you? The pillowing smoke? Blood on the streets? Shell-shocked victims in wheelchairs? Our hearts have been broken again. And since the footage is shown over and over, we’re traumatized each time, just like when the twin towers burned on 9/11.

Summer is coming, but all our dogs still need exercise. Here are some tips on how to beat the heat with your dog.

It’s no wonder that Carter Gladstone has shown a tremendous ability to be patient at the plate.

"It’s been 10 years, now,” the strong voice said on the phone. Mari Justin is a breast cancer survivor. She, along with hundreds of thousands of breast cancer veterans have faced the demons and now crusade alongside those who are fresh on the battlefield.

Local running coach Susan Loken said there were several Ahwatukee Foothills residents competing in the Boston Marathon on Monday.

"The Sapphires" is missing a lot — detailed characters, a unique narrative arc, half-plausible scenes of the Vietnam War — but it's got two uncommon things going for it: genuine charm and Chris O'Dowd. They are not mutually exclusive.

The first image you see in "The Place Beyond the Pines" is of Ryan Gosling's shirtless torso, ripped and tatted atop a skin-tight pair of leather pants.

"Blood-drenched" barely begins to describe Fede Alvarez's remake of "Evil Dead," a gore-for-broke affair that strips the flesh off Sam Raimi's cult-beloved comic-horror franchise and exposes the demons at its core. The presence of Raimi, original collaborator Rob Tapert, and star Bruce Campbell as producers should give the faithful permission to attend what would otherwise smell like a shameless exploitation of the 1981 film, but the high production values and nonstop action offered here should also please younger genre fans who've never bothered to rent it.

In case you missed it, today is César Chávez Day.

As technology improves pet insurance is becoming increasingly necessary for pet owners, according to local veterinarians.

LOS ANGELES — A grave 12-year-old African girl, abducted from her village by vicious armed rebels and forced to wage war as a child soldier, guides the viewer through the horrors of Canadian director Kim Nguyen's engrossing Oscar-nominated drama "War Witch." Managing to be neither sentimental nor sensationalistic, the film tells its story from the heart, and from the simple, straightforward viewpoint of young heroine Komona, warmly played by the talented Rachel Mwanza in her screen debut.

This sweet kitty Angel needs a chance at a loving forever home. She is really no trouble at all, but simply has a blood virus that has a slight chance of getting passed to other cats so she should be an only kitten or housed with another FIV-positive cat.

A spider crawls up the leg of 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) early in Park Chan-wook's English-language debut, "Stoker," and she regards it passively, intrigued.

From the moment chocolate was discovered it was considered a valuable, divine and decadent treat. The first chocolate candies were invented in the 1860s by Cadbury, who was also the first to market them in a heart-shaped box for Valentine’s Day that same decade.

Sorry, but Nancy Pelosi is wrong. We do have a spending problem and the heart of the matter is our inability to control medical costs. Spending on health care now consumes an astonishing 18 percent of our total economic output. Rising Medicare and Medicaid costs are the main drivers of our national debt crisis. Yet health care costs continue to shoot up relentlessly.

How many times has this “Medical Advice” column reported a change in prevailing medical recommendations? Here we go again. Humpty Dumpty could certainly identify with the angst a humble egg currently has to deal with. Talk about self-esteem issues. For years, eggs have been slashed from “healthy” diets because they were considered too loaded with fat and, therefore, a leading contributor to heart disease. The general recommendation was no more than two eggs per week. Even yours truly ascribed to that theory and personally was responsible for instructing her patients in that direction.

When Jay Mesinger heard about a study seeking Golden Retrievers to help fight canine cancer, he immediately signed up 2-year-old Louie.

A car crashing into an Ahwatukee Foothills backyard is the last straw for a neighborhood girl.