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Arizona Daily Star

Gail Kocourek spends two to three days a week along the Arizona side of the border wall, greeting migrants with raised arms and calls of “Somos amigos.”

Beginning her days around 7 a.m. in Tucson, she gathers food, water, and first-aid supplies before driving two hours to the nearly abandoned town of Sasabe, often stopping to feed dogs at the border checkpoint. For about 12 years, Kocourek has volunteered with the Tucson Samaritans, a humanitarian aid group that provides essentials to migrants crossing the harsh Sonoran Desert with the goal of alleviating their suffering on the journey to a better life.

The new interim principal at Tucson High School, the district’s largest campus, was a key player in an investigation by the Star into alleged religious misconduct.

Jonathan Lansa, recently the senior director of federal programs and school improvement for TUSD, was tied to a 2015 Star investigation while principal at Amphitheater High School. The investigation looked into the school’s relationship with Faith Christian Church, which multiple former members have described as a cult.

Tucsonan David Wright drained his wife Mary’s $250,000 retirement account, sending tens of thousands of dollars to a woman he met on Facebook last year.

The couple, in their 70s, took out a loan on their Jeep, which had already been repossessed once for missing payments. They are also hoping they can take out a home equity loan.

The couple’s example is one of the most extreme reported to the Pima Council on Aging, which offers resources to older adults daily who have been scammed via social media, emails or phone calls.

This is Tucson

U of A, welcome back! Let’s party 🪩

It’s 11 p.m. on a late July Wednesday, and The Maverick King of Clubs is packed with twentysomethings, many of them dressed in their faux-cowboy finery: flannel shirts, Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots and hats.

A throng of young people stacks two and three deep at the bar waiting to order dollar draft beers and $3 well drinks as the DJ lights up the dance floor with chart-topping hip-hop-infused country hits from Morgan Wallen, Walker Hayes and Beyoncé.

Welcome to Wildcat Wednesdays, the one night a week that Tucson’s legendary country music nightclub invites college-age revelers to live their 21st-century version of “Urban Cowboy.”

New downtown murals to celebrate 250 years of Tucson history

The Rio Nuevo District is collaborating with the Mayor’s Office, Visit Tucson, Downtown Tucson Partnership and the Presidio Museum to commission four new murals throughout the downtown area.

The public art project celebrates Tucson’s upcoming 250th birthday in August and honors over two millennia of cultural history. Every mural displays each of the four artists’ interpretations of the city’s history, from the early Hohokam people before the year 1000 to modern-day Tucson.

This new mural chronicles the arrival of the railroad in Southern Arizona

Artist Bill Singleton has spent the last year chugging away, learning about the history of the railroad in Tucson, for his latest work at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum.

The mural, entitled “Arrival of the Railroad: The Mural That Tells the Multicultural Story,” offers perspectives of three time periods crucial to the construction and use of the railroad in Southern Arizona.

Arizona Sonoran News

New project aims to put Tucson’s arts and culture “on the map”

Finding sustainable funding as an artist in Tucson is a challenge, said local artist Alex Jimenez.

Jimenez, a lifelong Tucsonan, sees the city’s art scene as a relaxed and supportive community compared to competitive places like Los Angeles and New York, where artists often feel more isolated.

A new city project is looking to change that.

Poco and Mom’s: Bringing New Mexican flavors to Tucson for over 25 years

In a city full of fork-tender birria and tangy, charred carne asada, Tucson’s Sonoran-style food scene is booming, but a cantina in the Tanque Verde area takes a flavorful, four-hour detour east to Hatch, New Mexico.

Poco and Mom’s serves up authentic flavors from the Land of Enchantment, smothering breakfast, lunch and dinner in spicy green or red chile sauce.

The Daily Wildcat

Midnight Wildcat: Cold War, Kennedy and cocktails

The Shelter Cocktail Lounge is Tucson’s all-American bar.

It doesn’t feature country music or a cowboy theme like the Maverick or Whiskey Roads. It doesn’t play loud, modern hip-hop or pop hits like The Hut or Playground. Instead, it offers Cuban-missile crisis era decor, ‘80s classics and John F. Kennedy memorabilia. Everywhere.

Trump administration requests political pledge from UA

The Trump administration sent the University of Arizona, along with eight other universities, a request to sign a pledge in exchange for better access to federal funds on Wednesday, Oct. 1.

The letter urges university leaders “to sign a ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’ committing them to adopt the White House’s vision for America’s campuses,” according to the Associated Press.