The 2013 legislative session began with a unanimous vote in the House and the Senate to appropriate emergency funding for additional Child Protective Services staff. With that vote, lawmakers affirmed child safety as a top priority.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation Thursday to allow foster children to be placed in homes with youngsters who are not immunized.

The Norwegian directing team of Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg, whose biopic of World War II resistance fighter Max Manus was a huge hit on home turf, have turned to another native hero for "Kon-Tiki." One of the most-vaunted escapades of the 20th century, Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Peru-to-Polynesia expedition by raft gets glossy big-screen treatment in this efficiently told action-adventure. Delivering visual drama and understated character study, sometimes in disappointingly formulaic fashion, the feature has its incisive moments but falls short as both epic and intimate portrait.

Mesa Baseline Rotary is doing something about childhood hunger in Arizona - and so can you - with a Hike for Hunger, benefiting United Food Bank.

He has given standout performances in the likes of “The Big Lebowski,” “Crazy Heart” and “True Grit,” but Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges’ enormous talent doesn’t stop there. His illustrious resume runs the gamut from musician to author to humanitarian, which begs the question: Is there anything he can’t do?

You may better know her sister, Dakota, from box-office smashes like “War of the Worlds” and “The Twilight Saga,” but 14-year-old Elle Fanning has already made quite a name for herself among the arthouse set, appearing in such acclaimed works as “Babel,” “Somewhere” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” This month, she takes center stage in a new drama from writer/director Sally Potter entitled “Ginger & Rosa” – a coming-of-age tale set in 1962 London as the threat of the Cuban missile crisis looms overhead.

Armando Adrian-López doesn’t farm anymore, but he still looks to the natural world for inspiration and materials, using corn husks, dried flowers and found objects to create fantastical winged and horned creatures.

Noah Miller is in a perpetual fight with his own body.

Kyrene del Milenio Elementary teacher Greg Broberg has been striking up education conversation lately, and hopes more teachers and parents can get involved.

I have read so many good books lately I couldn’t decide which one to review. It was a toss up between “The Obituary Writer,” by Ann Hood and “The Secret Keeper,” by Kate Norton (I don’t know about you but any title that contains the word “secret” draws me like a magnet — maybe it was that early Nancy Drew conditioning).

The Arizona Board of Regents will start the process next month to see if there are ways that some illegal immigrant "dreamers'' can qualify for lower tuition than they now have to pay.

Dear Mikey,

Jim Heath doesn't worry that his style of music will go out of style.

Sitting in a wing catty-corner from the front office at Desert Vista High School, nestled behind an outdoor play area, Thunder Tykes preschool has catered to children of school staff and other local residents since 1996.

Dear Mikey,

Remember how director Todd Phillips just half-heartedly remade “The Hangover” in “The Hangover Part II?” Remember how lethargic, lame, and tedious it felt having to sit through the same movie over again with fewer laughs? That’s the best way to describe “21 and Over.” The film marks the directorial debut of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the writing team behind the original “Hangover.” They’ve basically recycled their smash hit comedy beat for beat. Where “The Hangover Part II” at least had three laugh-out-loud moments though, there’s nothing even remotely funny in “21 and Over.” It’s a comedic dead zone from its opening scene all the way through.

Attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer told a federal judge Monday there is no legal basis to order the state to immediately provide driver's licenses to certain illegal immigrants immediately since they are not being harmed.

“Fifty Shades of Grey.”

In the same vein of “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and “Catcher in the Rye,” Rudolfo Anaya’s “Bless Me, Ultima” has evolved into one of the most widely beloved and challenged books of all time. In some high schools this best-selling Chicano novel is considered a mandatory reading. Other schools have banished the book for its use of profanity, references to witchcraft, and religious themes.

Arizona is facing a literacy crisis and it begins in early childhood.

Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed into law the first bill of the 2013 legislative session — an emergency appropriation measure that will allow the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) to immediately hire 50 new full-time employees within Child Protective Services (CPS).

4809 E. Thistle Landing, Suite 100

If Arizona "dreamers'' are going to get state drivers' licenses, they're going to have to wait for a court order.