Cera Hassinan is one of those people who makes others feel uncomfortable with themselves.

Local entrepreneurs are in the final stages of getting their portable medical clinic repurposed from a steel shipping container sent to Kenya.

The long-awaited Draft Environmental Impact Study for the South Mountain Loop 202 Freeway will be released today and available for review and comment over the next 90 days.

"Oblivion” is another movie that seems better suited for a video game than a motion picture. Watching the characters engage in endless shoot outs and explore vast, abandoned terrains, all you want to do is get your hands on a controller. Since a movie is unequipped with game play, though, you’re forced to sit back and merely observe the story. Then again, most modern video games have more three-dimensional characters and smarter plots than “Oblivion.” This science fiction mystery from director Joseph Kosinski isn’t completely without some good ideas, elevating it above “Transformers” schlock. It’s just unfortunate those ideas never meld into anything that intriguing.

As we survey the panoply of absurd ideas our legislators, both state and national, face from special interest groups these days, we have to wonder what has become of that rare commodity: common sense.

Between the two of them, filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel have explored sheepherding in Montana, auto shops and junkyards in Queens and most recently, the fishing industry in the North Atlantic. Their experimental documentary “Leviathan” is both visceral and gritty, in no way spoon-feeding its audience information, but rather, completely immersing them in the gruesome, often dangerous environment aboard a commercial fishing liner.

"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 state's jobless rate inched down just a bit last month amid weaker than expected showing in retail and health care employment.

Now that the Chicago Cubs have secured a spring-training home in Mesa well into the future, the East Valley will soon welcome to the area the first of possibly many in a long line of Windy City favorites: Portillo’s Hot Dogs.

America has almost 12 million illegal immigrants.

Just as students from Kyrene Altadeña Middle School got into the flow of packing boxes of food this week for the Feed My Starving Children organization, a song came blaring from the back of the warehouse that seemed almost divinely planned.

"Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed the poor” (Proverbs 22:9).

February is the month we glorify “love” and “The Fault In Our Stars,” by John Green, is a glorious love story. A love story not just between a boy and a girl, but with life itself. You’ll find this book in the Young Adult section, but don’t let that keep you from reading it; its message is universal to all ages because it is about living each day to the fullest, as if your days were limited.

The Governor’s Office and Arizona Department of Education is accepting applications from Arizona high school seniors for the 2013 National Youth Science Camp.

Ahwatukee second-grader Dustin Henry loves random acts of kindness.

It’s been a busy year for nonprofit agency, Project C.U.R.E. (Commission on Urgent Relief and Equipment). In the last 12 months the organization has shipped donated medical supplies and equipment to 15 different countries.

Nearly every week someone asks me what they should do with their old electronic equipment and for many years I would tell them to smash it up, run it over with their truck or car, melt it down, or any of a dozen or so demises I have employed over the years but the bottom line was always, “then throw it in the garbage.” As an environmentally concerned citizen, I am officially appalled at my actions. I, of all people, should have known better, even in the early days, but I did not.

Five Star Publications, Inc. hopes to make the holiday season a little brighter for Phoenix area military veterans by collecting donations of new books from the public, charitable organizations and other publishers from throughout the country until Dec. 21. Five Star will deliver the books to the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in Phoenix.

The Ahwatukee Retirement Center Support the Troops volunteers were at it again. The ARC retirees prepared 108 care boxes filled with snacks, socks, cards, candy canes, and other items for the U.S. servicemen and servicewomen stationed in the Middle East this holiday season. In the four years since this programs inception, 900 care boxes have successfully been shipped to our servicemen as part of the ARC Support Our Troops program.

A new cutting-edge fertility treatment is making receiving donated eggs quicker, more inexpensive, and easier.