FALL BREAK: The J.O. Combs Unified School District will be on fall break today through Friday. Oct. 22 is a professional development day and classes will resume Oct. 23.

PIZZA NIGHT: Support Jane Dee Hull Elementary Parent Teacher Organization by buying pizza 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Pizza Factory, at McQueen and Riggs roads in Chandler. Information: (480) 883-4500.

FALL BREAK: The Gilbert, Higley and Coolidge unified school districts, Tempe Union High School District and Tempe Elementary School District will be on fall break today through Friday.

PARENTS MEET: The first Scottsdale Parent Council meeting of the school year will be 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Scottsdale Unified School District’s Education Center, 3811 N. 44th St., Phoenix.

BOARD SESSION: Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board’s next meeting is 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the district’s Education Center, 3811 N. 44th St., Phoenix.

NO SCHOOL: East Valley schools will be closed today in observance of Labor Day.

Grocery stores are adding coffee bars, mouthwatering boulangeries, even sushi bars in hopes of wooing increasingly discerning consumers who want high-quality food without hours of preparation.

How a parent handles a child’s shenanigans is critical to the child’s development. The wrong choice of words, experts say, can have lasting effects on self-esteem.

David Burnell Smith’s service in the state House of Representatives came to an abrupt end last week and one lesson emerged for every other candidate in Arizona politics.

Brett Hull slipped on the No. 9 jersey worn by his father, Bobby.

In these days when American political partisans are obsessed with making sure their political team wins, and when Justin Bieber’s hair is the subject of thousands of well-read articles on Google, politics and celebrity are momentarily overshadowed elsewhere by the tale of a brave Pakistan girl whose only wish was to go to school — and is battling for her life because of it.

Good Samaritans, common do-gooders, and all around decent people still exist. Willing to lend a helping hand and kind gesture, those small acts can make quite a difference.

Five days after my return from India, I was still in the “processing” stage of returning from a third-world mission.

Five days after my return from India, I was still in the “processing” stage of returning from a third-world mission.

A quote by Sheriff Joe Arpaio that appears in a national magazine raises further questions about how the sheriff views the current leadership in the city of Mesa. Arpaio says we shouldn't  read  too much  into one passing comment.

Our View: As part of our libertarian mission, we frequently mention on these pages the moral value of people freely choosing how and when to take from their own resources to support others in need. From this perspective, we urge Tribune readers to seriously consider a contribution to Our Children Matter, a two-month fundraising campaign sponsored by this newspaper and Mesa United Way.

If there is one thing most of us have heard a lot about the past couple of weeks it is experience. Who has it, who doesn't, who needs it and who we can't give it to.

 The word “experience” appears 91 times in the Federalist Papers, those distillations of conservative sense and sensibility. Madison, Hamilton and Jay said that truths are “taught” and “corroborated” by experience. These writers were eager to “consult” and be “led” by experience.

By the end of the day, Leandro Barbosa was laughing about a practical joke that had him scurrying around the team’s Beverly Hills hotel Thursday. But for a while, a phone hoax that had Barbosa believing he was traded to the New York Knicks was no laughing matter.

Larry Fitzgerald and running back Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings battled to a 7-7 tie on Monday in front of a couple dozen Arizona high school students.

Watch ABC’s two new shows Tuesday night, and you might throw in the towel on sitcoms altogether.