All-Tribune Softball First Team

Legislative Republicans used the final hours of the just-ended legislative session to shove through a series of changes in election laws that could give them advantages in future elections.

For more than 30 years, two words — “East Valley” — did more than anything else to put a vibrant, growing, destination-in-an-of-itself region on the map. Without them, this area may well have remained the land of Nod: A sleepy place whose residents do little other than shift positions every few hours.

All-Tribune Boys First Team

All-Tribune Girls Track First Team

The Walton Group of Companies, a Canadian company whose U.S. headquarters are based in Scottsdale, has pledged to improve the well-being of needy children in Arizona with a $25,000 donation to Phoenix Suns Charities.

Voters who have seen how medical marijuana works in Arizona may get a chance to extend the ability to use the drug to all other adults.

Finding air-conditioned summer entertainment can be tricky in the Valley of the Sun. It got a bit easier when Arizona’s newest cultural attraction — Butterfly Wonderland — opened last month in Scottsdale.

I would like to address the supposed ban President Obama and Governor Brewer put on Spice, K2 and Bath Salts:

I found it interesting that a recent letter to the Tribune, “Congress Needs to Close Tax Loopholes” talked nothing about the legislation before Congress that would close the sales tax loophole online retail companies currently use to not pay their fair share. Last year, this issue popped up in the Arizona legislature, and the Governor ended up reaching a deal with Amazon.com to pay their fair share. This year, it is popping up in Congress, and our East Valley congressman (Schweikert and Salmon) need to step up and show the same leadership. Small retail businesses are too critical to our communities to ignore this inequality. Ask any store owner in Old Town Scottsdale, or downtown Mesa, Chandler, or Gilbert, and they will all tell you that it’s an extreme disadvantage for them to try and compete with online retailers when they can undercut your price by as much as 10 percent. So yes — let’s close the tax loopholes, and start with this one.

Get down and dirty at Scottsdale’s 38th annual mud fest, where kids and adults of all ages can have fun slogging through age-appropriate obstacle courses. Closed-toe shoes are required as are signed permission slips, available online or at the Chaparral Park office. Non-muddy entertainment will also be available.

Conceding he lacks the votes, House Speaker Andy Tobin gave up Tuesday in his bid to block the Medicaid expansion plan by Gov. Jan Brewer with his own alternative.

D.J. Peterson will be home from college soon, and little brother Dustin will be there waiting with a smile on his face and a paddle in his hand.

Arizona public schools again had some of the lowest per-pupil spending in the nation in 2011, ahead of only Oklahoma, Idaho and Utah, according to a recent Census Bureau report.

Going to need hospital care?

After seven rescues of hikers in two days the efforts to save lives is taxing rescue crews and costing tax payers.

As development of the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway has inched closer to a reality over the years, the proposed Pecos Alignment of the freeway has been most hotly debated because of the impending destruction to South Mountain itself. But many in Ahwatukee Foothills — on paper a part of the City of Phoenix, but ostensibly it’s own community of nearly 80,000 residents neighboring Tempe and Chandler — are also fearful of the state removing homes, businesses and a church to build the new freeway.

The League of American Bicyclists has ranked Arizona 10th out of the 50 states for bike friendliness in 2013, a jump from its position of 14th in 2012.

Most foot races take place early in the morning or at sunset, when temperatures start to lower — but not this race. The first-ever Beat the Heat race will begin at 2:47 p.m., the time when, on June 26, 1990, temperatures reached 122 degrees, the hottest recorded temperature the Valley has ever endured.

Portillo’s Hot Dogs — the Chicago-based fast-casual eatery that opened its first Arizona location in Scottsdale earlier this year — is set to hire 200 more hourly positions for a new Tempe location beginning this week.

Dinner and a movie could do more than expand your waistline and entertain your brain in the case of Audubon Arizona’s Nature Film Festival.

Bridgestone Corporation officially broke ground last week on a biorubber process research center — a facility expected to investigate ways to better produce rubber from a native southwestern plant.

There have been highs and lows from the 2012-2013 athletic year.

A Scottsdale restaurant planned to reopen Tuesday night after it temporarily shut its doors following an embarrassing reality TV experience.