As of the day I am writing this there are 130 active rental listings on the MLS in Ahwatukee and 416 have been rented in the past six months.

Indie-folk artist Jay Nash will be performing in the Valley’s very own The Rhythm Room this Wednesday May 22, with fellow performer David Ramirez.

Desert Vista High School students this week presented a near-complete application for teacher evaluations to be rolled out in the fall, a project more than a year in the making.

If you are returning to the dating world after a long time away or if you have not had the dating life you hoped for, maybe it is time to try something different.

As anyone who has ever taken a standardized test knows, the last step in preparing for the test is to sharpen your No. 2 pencil. That may not be enough, however, for those thinking about taking college entrance exams. Planning and preparation for the ACT/SAT should begin now for rising seniors. Here are some topics to consider as you establish your test-taking strategies.

Even though “The Great Gatsby” has gotten the movie treatment several times in the past, no film adaptation has ever really stood out as the definitive version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s celebrated novel. Director Baz Luhrmann’s film is certainly the most visually arresting interpretation of “The Great Gatsby” ever produced. Catherine Martin, who previous worked with Luhrmann on “Moulin Rouge,” “Romeo + Juliet,” and “Australia,” deserves multiple Oscar nominations for her hyper sets and eye-popping costumes. As wonderful as Luhrmann’s “Great Gatsby” is to look at, the enchanting visuals are also ironically the movie’s downfall. In the midst of the art direction, costumes, and music, the story and characters that made Fitzgerald’s book a classic become a mere afterthought.

Phoenix film makers Marcus A. Stricklin and Sandy Kim, of Future Legends Production, have been invited to the Cannes Short Film Corner for the production of their film, “The Last Dance,” working with children actors from Ahwatukee.

Alex Shin, a kindergartner at Kyrene de la Sierra Elementary School, placed first in a writing contest for PBS Kids Go! He was invited to a special awards ceremony in downtown Phoenix where local author, Terri Fields, presented Shin with his first place prize, a Kindle Fire.

Jewell Parker Roades, the Virginia G. Piper Chair in Creative writing, meets fans and discusses "Sugar," her new novel for middle readers. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl who lives on a sugar plantation on the banks of the Mississippi and takes it upon herself to serve as the cultural bridge between the plantation residents and the Chinese workers who come to harvest the cane. Roades will sign copies of her book after the presentation.

I am writing to express my sincere gratitude to the women of Mesa Arizona Hermosa Vista Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My Sisters’ Place recently received 60 beautiful handbags filled with an assortment of makeup, jewelry, lotion, perfume and notes filled with love and encouragement for the women in our shelter.

For the past two years, Desert Vista High School teacher Debra Benedict has seen her students grow in writing, leadership and in their understanding of the issues within education.

Joss Bates was dropped off at his Ahwatukee home last weekend to find 114 notes hanging around his front yard, displaying quotes, words of comfort, love and encouragement written on them from friends and family.

With the onslaught of Oscar contenders that debuted last November, there’s a good chance that a little-seen indie gem, “Starlet,” managed to fall off your radar during its short, theatrical run. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 SXSW film festival, “Starlet” explores the unlikely friendship between a cheerful, aspiring actress (played by the winsome Dree Hemingway) and a cantankerous, elderly widow (the late Besedka Johnson).

It’s not often art lovers get to see a work in progress let alone contribute to it, but Arizona Opera gives fans the opportunity to do just that this weekend when they present the first reading of “Riders of the Purple Sage” — an original opera based on Zane Grey’s western novel, set on the Arizona-Utah border.

Even though “The Great Gatsby” has gotten the movie treatment several times in the past, no film adaptation has ever really stood out as the definitive version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s celebrated novel.

There are so many reasons for the Legislature to approve Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal to expand Medicaid that it is hard for me to believe that any elected official would put ideology before the good of their constituents and the state of Arizona.

I did it. Even though it might make me the last person in Ahwatukee over the age of 9 to do so, I have a smartphone. It was not a case of desire; the screen on my “vintage” phone was so scratched I couldn’t see it, and it turned out I could get the smartphone and pay $10 less per month. I suspect the kid that sold it to me was like a seedy, back alley pusher — “come on, its even cheaper” — and that a smartphone is gateway technology.

“ISBK” and “MLB” were two of the graffiti tags appearing frequently on block walls, trash dumpsters, and road signs in Ahwatukee during 2010, particularly inside the Elliot-Warner Loop.

Hard rocker Tom Keifer would be among the first to say that life doesn’t go as planned. The long-time musician, best known for his lead role in the band Cinderella, released his first solo album – ”The Way Life Goes” – April 30 after a 10-year process and a long struggle with partial vocal chord paralysis — the ruination of many music careers.

The adage “truth is stranger than fiction” is proven in “The Lost Wife,” by Alyson Richman. She has succeeded in blending both for an unforgettable reading experience.

New York • When he first started working with Imagine Dragons, music producer Alex da Kid was looking for some inspiration for the Broadway musical, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

Having observed the failure of our education system by dumbing-down our children for the past 50 years, concern has to be expressed about the “new” Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI).

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.

"Mud" has the feel of a classic, although it's perhaps not enthralling enough to be one. The third and most elaborate feature to date from writer-director Jeff Nichols seems to have been adapted from a novel that doesn't exist -- something by James Lee Burke, perhaps, or Cormac McCarthy, or some other specialist in frequently violent tales about the challenges to masculinity and the forging of new identities that face rural people who belong to a sprawling modern world -- who might be hanging out in a supermarket parking lot one moment and falling into a creek full of deadly cottonmouths the next.