With the monsoon season officially beginning tomorrow, June 15, Arizonans should be aware of the possible dangers the monsoon can bring both on the road and at home. Thunderstorms, flash floods, heavy rain

Every Sunday in Ahwatukee Foothills, residents can browse through a variety of cheeses, meats, fruits, vegetables, jellies, breads and other products all grown or produced within a 15-mile radius of the area at the Ahwatukee Farmer’s Market.

Each year, the Arizona Association of Teachers of Mathematics (AATM) sponsors a state-wide Algebra math competition. 
Summit School of Ahwatukee algebra students distinguished themselves for the third year in a row, with six students scoring in the top 10 percent in the state. Of the six, one Summit student, Mark Rakowski, tied for the third highest score in the state. Classmate Dillon Shipley tied for the state’s fourth place honor.
Summit students also earned top math honors in 2012 and 2011.
For more information, visit summitschoolaz.org.


An Ahwatukee Foothills salon is teaming up with local designers to empower women and raise money for domestic violence victims with the first ever Brave Wings Fashion Show on June 22.
The fashion show will take place at The Venue Scottsdale, 7117 E., 3rd Ave., beginning at 7 p.m. on the 22nd. It will feature six designers including the founders of the show, Mabel Cortez and Jenesis Laforcarde. 
The two Arizona designers say they decided to start Brave Wings to give back to the community. They plan to host a fashion show annually to benefit a different charity each year. This year they selected Sojourner Center because their clothing lines both fit with a theme of empowering women.
Cortez’s line, Mabella Chic, focuses on strong independent women.
“I’ve been around strong women my whole life,” she said. “Coming from a strong women family, for me, it was about empowering women in the sense of making them feel good with fashion. I want to present women in a fashionable way so they can feel good about themselves.”
Laforcarde’s T-shirt line is about self respect for women.
“I decided to do a T-shirt line because of my generation,” she said. “I’m only 19 and I see my friends being dependent on their boyfriends and not supporting themselves. I wanted to create a T-shirt line about being confident, independent and doing your own thing. Whatever you want to do, you can do it, as long as you put your mind to it.”
Saskia Salon will be sponsoring the hair at the event. Saskia Salon opened in Ahwatukee at 4647 E. Chandler Blvd., two years ago. Since then Saskia Almasan, the salon’s owner, said the business has become steady and she has been able to hire a few new employees and keep the focus on customer service. Her goal is to keep growing organically. Networking with the fashion industry and local charities helps that growth.
“When you feel blessed it’s automatic to feel like you want to give back,” she said. “As a business owner you start with nothing and a dream. You’ve got to find people of like mindedness to grow that… Any time we can join with wonderful people trying to make our own city better, that’s huge. We touch lives on a daily basis in the chair. I think it goes from your chair to your community, then your city. If we keep going like that then maybe we can change the world.”


Close to a thousand high school seniors tossed their caps up to the evening sky as Desert Vista and Mountain Pointe high schools hosted commencement ceremonies on their home football fields Thursday.

George Strait is amid a two-year tour before retiring from the road, but new album “Love Is Everything” proves he still has plenty of great new country music in him.

The persistence and determination I have shown in the past four years is about reform and getting us ready for the new world we live in. There is a bigger reason why I have been pushing so hard for change. It’s about getting Phoenix ready to compete in a global economy. If the council repeals the food tax it will be added to a long list of reforms we accomplished. There were three significant reforms toward the goal of getting us ready to compete in this new world market and getting government to operate more like your household

Students ambassadors from the Everest College Phoenix Mesa campus hopped to help the Easter bunny this year by providing more than 100 Easter baskets for children at Cardon Children’s Medical Center. This marks the fourth year in a row that the Everest College Phoenix Mesa campus has helped to give the children at the medical center a surprise on Easter morning.

TEMPE - It’s a baseball storyline that has played out hundreds of times over, one Mountain Pointe came to regret.

Tommy Martinez stands all of 5-foot-6, maybe 5-6 ½ in his cleats, hits ninth in the Mountain Pointe lineup and is just a sophomore.

Ready for Round 2?

While rowing has been a sport dominated by colleges and teams on the East Coast, crew teams have started to flourish in unsuspecting places—like the desert.

Desert Vista keeps churning out college athletes as 11 students were recently honored for the spring signing day session.

When former Scottsdale resident Mark Macias used the New York City subway’s 42nd Street Shuttle this past winter, he was transported not only between Grand Central Station and Times Square but back to his hometown.

Claiming the measures target minorities, some groups are threatening to sue if lawmakers adopt new restrictions on early voting and who can take someone else's ballot to the polls.

The night of the shooting in Aurora, Colo., Ahwatukee Foothills mom and lawyer Ellen Davis had enough.

Most people know what it’s like to pull up a chair at a family reunion or holiday meal, but not many have tucked their toes under the table at a community harvest feast. Several local art and community organizations are hoping to change that with Saturday’s “Feast on the Street” in downtown Phoenix.