• ROXANA VASQUEZ/ARIZONANEWSSERVICE.COM
• Sofia Torres, right, and her niece Sandra Torres gather at San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora. Migrants are provided with shelter for three days.

Written by Nohemi Ramirez / Arizonanewsservice.com

They struggled through the spiny desert and felt the harshness of cold winter nights, all before getting caught by U.S. Border Patrol agents and sent back to Mexico.

And now Sofia Torres, 36, her niece Sandra Torres, 20, and Aurora Angeles, 45, sit disappointed in a shelter in Nogales, Sonora, after getting caught when they attempted to cross the U.S./Mexico border illegally.
They are not the only women who try to cross to the U.S. through the Sonoran Desert. The number of female border crossers jumped 37 percent from 1994 to 1998, according to a continuing study by University of Arizona anthropologist Anna Ochoa O'Leary.

O'Leary pointed to a 2006 study that showed that 48 percent of the people who move to or who try to cross the border illegally through Nogales, Sonora, are women. She cited the decline in the Mexican economy and said that it all seemed to begin with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"With NAFTA they disrupted a lot of the economies in rural and impoverished parts of Mexico," she said.

So women increasingly cross into the United States to try to earn money to survive.

Andrew Sullivan makes an observation about the Tea Party that translates in some ways to the Republican primary in Congressional District 8, where Jonathan Paton, Jesse Kelly, Brian Miller and Andy Goss are competing to take on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords:

So they are truly not serious in policy terms, and it behooves the small government right to grapple with this honestly. They both support lower taxation and yet bemoan the fact that so many Americans do not pay any income tax. They want to cut spending on trivial matters while enabling the entitlement and defense behemoths to go on gobbling up Americans' wealth. And that lack of seriousness is complemented by a near-fanatical cultural alienation from the modern world.

I will add that Kelly and Miller have offered up blunt reforms of Social Security and Medicare: They want to basically scrap both programs, although they say that people who now receive or will soon receive benefits should continue to do so because they have paid into the system. Both believe that a private insurance market will provide affordable insurance to the aged and infirm, and both believe that Americans will do a better job of saving for their retirement years if they know they cannot depend on Social Security.

"Fashion Island" is one many decorated rocks now on display in Old Pueblo Hall at the Pima County Fair, which continues through April 25. More info here.

Jazmine Woodberry, a junior at the UA School of Journalism, gives us an inside look at popular bike shop Fairwheel Bikes, and employee Terry Womer.

Written by Victoria Blute/El Independiente

Tough economic times have not stopped Imago Dei Middle School from continuing to provide a solid, tuition-free prep-school education to more than 50 low-income students.

The school has survived when other schools have failed.

Imago Dei Middle School, 639 N. Sixth Ave., was founded in 2006 by the reverends Anne Sawyer and Susan Anderson-Smith, both graduates of the Harvard Divinity School.

"Truthfully, it had been a journey of faith from the get-go," she says. "While many nonprofits were having to freeze budgets and cut budgets in order to operate, over the past four years we've had to grow a budget."

The school has added one grade each year, which requires a larger budget over time, Sawyer says. Further, it costs roughly $15,000 per child per year to attend the school, she says—money that parents of students never pay as part of a tuition-free institution for low-income families.

Last year's national average cost per year per student was $18,300, according to the National Association for Independent Schools. Imago Dei tries to keep their costs low.

"It takes resources to staff a program and offer a small class size and a low student-teacher ratio," Sawyer says. She emphasizes that their model isn't complicated—but sticking to it is vital.

RC Bicycle's bike doctor talks about his history in this multimedia project by UA School of Journalism junior Timothy Arrigo.

John McCain on Fox News Sunday, explaining his recent comments about whether he's ever considered himself a maverick.

The rumors that Janos Wilder would be taking over the old Barrio Food and Drink space are no longer rumors.

Here's the news release:

Janos Returns To Downtown

Janos and Rebecca Wilder announced this afternoon that they are returning to downtown Tucson to open a new restaurant in the site of the former Barrio Grill at 135 South Sixth Avenue in the SoCo (south of Congress) district. The Wilder’s, who own Janos and J BAR on the grounds of the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa, began their Tucson restaurant career in 1983 when they first opened Janos Restaurant in the former Hiram Stevens house on the grounds of the Tucson Museum of Art.

“This is coming full circle for us.” Wilder commented, “We’re inspired by the opportunity to return to our downtown roots and to be a part of the renaissance taking place there. We couldn’t be more excited to be opening a new restaurant downtown.”

The new, as yet unnamed restaurant will be located in The Odd Hall, a 1914 era building built by prominent architect, Henry Jaastadt whom also designed Tucson High School and the original

Get out to the Pima County Fair! Details here.