Have a long list of home improvement projects? Don’t know where to start?

Classes stopped at St. Timothy Catholic School in Mesa for a few moments last week as students and staff watched televisions, awaiting for the announcement of a new pope.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is the first ever from the Americas, an austere Jesuit intellectual who modernized Argentina's conservative Catholic church.

It’s been more than 35 years since the Oakland A’s made a change in its spring training itinerary, leaving Mesa for Scottsdale, before settling in on the Phoenix-Tempe border.

Police say a man believed responsible for setting at least seven fires in Tempe is in custody.

VATICAN CITY — Benedict XVI always cast himself as the reluctant pope, a shy bookworm who preferred solitary walks in the Alps to the public glare and the majesty of Vatican pageantry. And on Monday, the Vatican announced that the leader of the world's billion Roman Catholics was stepping down — the first pontiff to do so since 1415.

Ted Simmon, the TV Host of KAET’s “Horizon” TV Program asks “What is wrong with Arizona?”

On Jan. 22, Priest Willis slipped on a pair of powder blue football gloves, aligned his hands in the sign of a ‘U’ and confirmed to the college football world what everyone long suspected: He was verbally committing to UCLA.

Here are the local athletes expected to sign Letters of Intent with colleges beginning Wednesday. For additions, email varsity@evtrib.com and include the athlete's name, high school, sport and college of choice.

Marcos de Niza cornerback Priest Willis, the top-rated recruit in the East Valley, verbally committed to UCLA in a press conference at the school Wednesday night.

PROVO, Utah — Mikaela Merrill was in the middle of her fall semester at Brigham Young University when she abruptly altered her college plans and signed up for a Mormon mission.

Tempe police say speed and alcohol appear to be factors in a serious crash that involved a city bus Sunday night.

In what’s been an otherwise tremendous year for movies, 2012 still brought us quite a few stinkers nevertheless.

All-Tribune First Team Offense

A crowd of a couple hundred people took a break from shopping to pay their respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe at Mesa’s Fiesta Mall on Wednesday.

Check this deal. Take four people out to an evening movie; buy each a ticket, a small popcorn and a small drink for a total of $24. Where? Well, you are about to find out. The costly holidays are upon us, so let’s save some money on movies.

Area football players were snubbed on the All-Arizona team voted on by the football coaches association.

Anybody can giftwrap a matching apron and oven mitts. But if you really want to impress the foodie in your life, give the gift of kitchen tech.

The heralded holiday movie season is marked by big-budget extravaganzas, Oscar hopefuls and family films suitable for post-Thanksgiving or early Christmas viewing and for filling that luxuriously open week (for some lucky workers and students) before New Year’s Day.

In the 2012 regular season, one game prevented Marcos de Niza from reaching perfection. In week five Tucson Ironwood Ridge came to Tempe and the Nighthawks went back to the Old Pueblo with a road win over the Padres.