Editor’s note: This is part one of a continuing summer series on the proposed South Mountain Loop 202 Freeway.

Using their talents for hilarious, family-friendly improvisational comedy, Jef and Shurlin Rawls of Mesa hope to lift spirits while lightening the load for a family in their neighborhood with an event they are calling a “FUN-draiser.”

Lisa Spini has always had an eye for talent and 12 years ago, Stefani Catour caught her eye.

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?

Doria MeChelle is a teacher by day, salon owner by night, and once a month she flies across the country to do the hair of faithful clients. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ahwatukee resident Michael Feyrer subscribes to the philosophy that his life is like a pair of shoes — to be worn out in service.

Practicing what we have been preaching about the need to shop locally, the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce is partnering with a local business on our annual print Resource Guide and Directory. The Chamber’s 2013-14 Directory will be marketed, designed and produced through an agreement with the Ahwatukee Foothills News (AFN), the publisher of this newspaper and a chamber member. We believe this will be a valuable partnership for all chamber members and those who take advantage of this opportunity to get their message out to the public.

Here’s a sobering statistic: 46 percent of workers surveyed had little or no confidence that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years, according to the 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey, issued by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. So you may want to explore all possible retirement savings vehicles —including a variable annuity.

If you weren’t convinced of his talent by James Blake’s debut album, his sophomore release, “Overgrown,” will do the trick.

You’re probably accustomed to measuring the progress of your investments, and the overall condition of the investment world, by checking on indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. And since these types of benchmarks focus almost exclusively on American companies, you might get the idea that the best investments are located right here in the United States. But that impression would be false — because there is, literally, a world of investment opportunities beyond the U.S. borders.

As the gun debate stirs and emotions rise higher and higher, we tend to leave ration and logic out of the subsequent efforts to address what is an important public issue. Emotionally charged solutions seldom fix anything. They simply make a lot of people feel like something positive is being done but they truly accomplish nothing. And marching out victims to use as props for your initiative is a shameless political ploy. Politicians are great at using emotional issues to push their pet plans. Most of the efforts currently in flight to answer the recent tragedies in Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut (all very liberal enclaves I might add) are labeled as “Gun Safety” and “Gun Violence” initiatives. Looking at those terms, who is not for Gun Safety? And who is not for ending Gun Violence?

It has been three years since members of the South Mountain Citizens Advisory Team (SMCAT) got together, but on Monday the group will reconvene to discuss air quality before the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS).

Arizona firms are on the verge of getting new secrecy protections for the internal reviews they do of their health and safety practices.

When is the best time to get something done? There are a lot of different ways that people ask this question, but my initial reaction is: Whenever you have time to do it.

An Ahwatukee Foothills native’s life-long love for soccer skyrocketed to professional heights last August, when he became the first amateur player to sign a professional contract from Premier Development League club FC Tucson.

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.

Ahwatukee Foothills resident Barbara Cude dreams about giving public speeches — or at least she did once.

Life is full of ups and downs — and the financial markets are no different. As an investor, you’re no doubt happy to see the “ups” — but the “downs” can seem like a real downer. Isn’t there any way to help smooth out the volatility in your investment portfolio?

Despite being undefeated and helping Desert Vista to the All-City girls tennis title, Melissa Kahn feels she has something to prove.

Those unwanted text messages for everything from special sales to dating services could soon be a thing of the past.

One arrived before Rudy Valee and the other a year before The Beatles, but together they made beautiful music in nurturing a piece of Ahwatukee that spanned the decades between the roaring ‘20s and this year’s cold winter rains.

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.

If your goal is to lose weight, look and feel your best and live a healthy, vibrant life, be aware of the damaging additives and synthetic chemicals in the foods you buy and eat. Seventy-five percent of the average American diet is from processed and packaged foods, which equates to approximately 10 pounds of additives eaten annually.

When it comes to health care, the saying “you get what you pay for” doesn’t always apply. Sometimes, particularly in the realm of end-of-life care, “less is more.”

The media loosely throws around the word “sociopath.” Many people don’t understand what being a sociopath means. But, if recent studies are correct, 1 in 25 people are considered to be sociopathic. That tells us that most of us will meet several sociopaths in our lifetime. The goal is meet them, work with them, pray with them, but do not get into a relationship with them. Attempting to have a relationship with an emotionally unavailable person will ultimately be psychologically destructive.