Traffic on Interstate 10 through Tucson will be detoured to the frontage roads over the weekend.

I-10 will be closed from Prince Road to 29th Street from 9 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Monday as part of the I-10 widening project.

Northbound I-19 will also be closed at the westbound I-10 frontage road exit and all traffic will be detoured onto the frontage road.

Speedway Boulevard and Congress Street will be closed at I-10 from 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., respectively, Monday through Wednesday until 6 a.m. the next morning.

About 150 members of the Pima County Sheriff's Department accompanied by the Sunnyside football team ran north up Oracle Road from River Road to Magee Road where the torch was passed off to the Oro Valley Police Department.

The torch for this year’s Arizona Special Olympics passed through Tucson Thursday morning.

The 2009 Special Olympics Summer Games are set to begin Thursday and will run through Saturday.

Members of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the Sunnyside football team carried the torch on its way to Mesa Community College, the site for this year’s Arizona games.

The runners passed the torch to runners from the Oro Valley Police Department.

About 1,200 athletes throughout Arizona will participate in this year’s olympics.

The torch should arrive at the games in time for Friday’s opening ceremonies.

A man was arrested for allegedly setting a midtown home on fire early Thursday.

Tommy J. Quintier, 41, faces charges of criminal damage, second-degree burglary, unlawful means of transportation and arson of an occupied structure, a Tucson police news release said.

Firefighters went to a condominium in the 5700 block of East Glenn Street about 2:46 a.m. and extinguished the fire, but not before it caused an estimated $250,000 damage.

Capt. Trish Tracy, a spokeswoman for the Tucson Fire Department, said nobody was home when the fire started.

Police and fire investigators found that the fire was started in three spots inside the home.

Witnesses reported seeing Quintier leaving the area driving a vehicle belonging to the residents of the torched home, authorities said.

Investigators served a search warrant at Quintier’s home and found evidence connecting him to the fire, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a police spokesman.

Quintier is being held at the Pima County Jail, Pacheco said.

A 58-year-old Tucson man drowned Wednesday in his East Side pool.

The man, who authorities are not identifying, was declared dead at the scene at his home in the 6600 block of East Julia Street.

He was found in the pool by his stepson, who called 911 at about 5 p.m., said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a spokesman for Tucson police.

Police investigators do not know how the man ended up in the pool but determined it was not the result of foul play, Pacheco said.

He also said there was no evidence that alcohol played a role in the incident.

Police are looking for a man who opened fire when employees at a South Side convenience store tried to stop him from stealing beer.

Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson police spokesman, said the incident occurred at 10:46 p.m. Wednesday at the Circle K in the 5600 block of South Campbell Avenue.

A man wearing a dark jacket, striped polo shirt, jeans and athletic shoes took a 30-pack of beer before leaving without paying.

Store security officers tried to stop the man and a scuffle started, Pacheco said.

The man pulled out a handgun and fired a shot at the security officers, but nobody was wounded, he said.

The man escaped and authorities ask that anyone with information dial 911 or 88-CRIME, the county attorney’s anonymous tipster line.

Dr. Michelle McDonald speaks during the H1N1 influenza press conference on the flu cases in Pima County.

Six cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Pima County – four on the Tohono O’odham nation, one in Tucson and one in Marana, according to the Pima County Health Department.

Another 11 cases are suspected, but have not been confirmed.

The number of confirmed swine flu cases in Arizona rose to 17 over the weekend, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services Web site.

Last week four cases of swine flu were confirmed in Arizona, all school-age children in Maricopa County who have either recovered or are recovering, officials said. The state sent samples in at least 52 more suspected cases to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, about half of which were from Pima County, said Patti Woodcock, spokeswoman for the Pima County Health Department.

If cases of the virus are found in the county, then local officials will begin “active surveillance” of hospitals and clinics, Woodcock said. That means health workers will track patients’ contacts and retrace their steps, much as they did during a spring 2008 outbreak of measles.

As they did with the measles outbreak, county health officials are urging people experiencing flulike symptoms to call their doctors instead of going to doctors’ offices or hospital emergency rooms, potentially exposing more people, Woodcock said in a statement Thursday.

In the event of an outbreak here, the county’s allotment of antiviral medication would be used only to treat patients, not to vaccinate others, Woodcock said.

Maricopa County’s health director, Dr. Bob England, said none of the patients who had the swine flu there has been hospitalized or suffered severe symptoms.

“It isn’t going to stop there,” England said. “We have lots of testing to be done, and in the coming days we’re going to have more (confirmed cases).”

England and state Health Services Department Interim Director Will Humble said it appears the swine flu that has spread across the nation in the past week isn’t any more severe than a normal influenza. If evidence mounts that that is the case, school closures could end quickly.

About 36,000 people die each year in the United States from the regular flu. The U.S. has reported only one death outside Mexico from the swine flu – a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family.

As a precaution, Tucson Unified School District leaders have canceled school field trips Friday to the Tucson Convention Center for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s “Young People’s Concert.”

Fifth-grade visits to TUSD middle schools Friday have also been cancelled.

Tarwater Elementary and Hartford Sylvia Encinas Elementary schools in the Chandler Unified School District were ordered closed for seven days. Moon Mountain Elementary School in northwest Phoenix was ordered closed on Wednesday.

Health officials said there was no known relationship between the two Chandler-area students. In the third new case reported on Thursday, the student had been home during the infectious period and could not have infected any classmates.

State Department of Health Services officials also learned Thursday that a 19-year-old Northern Arizona University student had a “probable” case of swine flu.

NAU and the Coconino County Health Department were awaiting confirmation from the CDC, but a school spokesman said it will continue to operate under normal business conditions.

“We have a residential campus here, we’re right at the tail end of the semester, finals start next week,” said Tom Bauer, a NAU spokesman. “We don’t feel this would be in the best interest of anyone at the moment to be thinking about closing because of one ‘probable’ (case). We’re not being blasé about this. We are very concerned with all of our students.”

The first case was confirmed Wednesday in an 8-year-old northwest Phoenix boy. Although he had returned to school, health officials ordered his elementary school closed for a week to prevent the disease from spreading.

England said in that case, the child had not traveled to Mexico, where the flu strain was first identified.

“There was no travel history, which, again, underscores my thought – that it’s here. It’s in the community. There are probably many more people infected than we realized,” England said. “Nobody’s cared about it because it hasn’t made people all that sick.”

The student whose illness prompted the closure of the second school also had recovered. The third student hadn’t attended school while contagious, and the fourth case is being investigated, England said.

The CDC and officials in several states have confirmed at least 120 cases of the swine flu as of Thursday. They are in New York, Texas, California, South Carolina, Delaware and scattered cases in Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia and Maine.

Health officials said people should treat the swine flu strain like any other flu – contact your personal doctor, and avoid spreading the virus by staying home and covering sneezes and coughs. Patients should seek additional medical help if fever persists or spikes, breathing is difficult or other severe symptoms develop.

Officials were worried that people unnecessarily visiting hospitals or clinics could make it hard to tend to trauma patients. Dr. Jeffrey Schultz, pre-hospital director at John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix, said an increase in patients could affect the ability to care for them. Furthermore, people have been coming to the hospital to request they be tested for the flu, even if they don’t show symptoms.

“If you’re not having any of those symptoms, it’s unlikely, even if you request that test . . . you’d be getting that test. That wouldn’t be good health care,” Schultz said.

Arizona health officials have tested more than 400 samples since Monday in a state lab and determined that about 60 percent of them were seasonal flu.

“We’re chugging them in and out,” state health department spokeswoman Laura Oxley said. “We’re prepared to go around the clock, (but) we haven’t had to do that yet.”

Oxley said the state could receive test kits by the end of the week from the CDC that will enable health officials to confirm the virus themselves.

“We are working on it,” she said. “We want to do it, and life will be a lot easier when that comes.”

Citizen Staff Writer Ty Bowers and the Arizona Republic contributed to this article.

By Citizen Staff Report, Wire Report

C. Leighton

Two brothers and a third man were arrested Wednesday and accused of killing 37-year-old Rosario Maria Morey, police said.

Christopher Leighton, 23, Robert Leighton, 25, and Zachary Roesch, 21, are charged with first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and kidnapping, said Tucson police spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco Wednesday.

Morey was dead when officers answered a call from her boyfriend, who said he had found her unconscious and not breathing in her ground floor condominium in 1600 block of North Wilmot Road on Aug. 20, suffering from “obvious trauma.”

Pacheco would not release how Morey died, saying the information played a role in identifying the three who are charged.

Pacheco said all three are from Rio Rico and were in the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections at the time of the arrests and are serving time on unrelated charges.

That could not be confirmed with state prison officials.

R. Leighton

Roesch

The Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families at the University of Arizona has been awarded a $200,000 grant to study how student sexuality, gender and conformity norms affect school systems.

The Ford Foundation awarded the grant this week for the two-year study.

Stephen T. Russell, Institute director, said in a news release that past research has focused on the connection between student sexuality and gender norms, and overall health or student well-being.

The new study will examine how schools, districts and state education systems can implement programs and policies to improve student safety and create a better world for youth.

The University of Arizona baseball team moved within a game of .500 with a dominant performance at Stanford on Friday night.

The Wildcats (18-19, 4-12) won 11-1 as Preston Guilmet (3-4) threw seven strong innings, allowing five hits and one run while striking out three.

UA scored four times in the fourth and twice in the fifth to take a 6-0 lead. The Wildcats added two runs in the seventh and three in the eighth.

Brad Glenn went 3 for 5 and hit his 40th career homer for the Wildcats, while Dwight Childs went 2 for 3 with three RBIs.

Glenn and Childs scored three runs apiece.

Jett Bandy, Kyle Stiner and Bobby Coyle also had a pair of hits for Arizona.

Bryce Bandilla pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Guilmet, who won for the first time since March 13.

Stanford’s Jordan Pries (3-1) took the loss, allowing six runs in 4 1/2 innings. The Cardinal had just six total hits, and got their only run on a homer by Toby Gerhart in the sixth.

UA is still in last place in the Pac-10, a half-game behind Oregon. The teams meet again at 1 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. UA will be home next week to host Arizona State at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

An African swallowtail butterfly sits on a leaf in the Butterfly Magic exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens on Thursday. The swallowtail butterflies are easily identifiable by the "tail" on their lower wings.

Love butterflies? C’mon, who doesn’t?

Thursday is your last chance to catch the Tucson Botanical Gardens’ Butterfly Magic Exhibit before it closes for the season. At any given time, 400 butterflies are on display, said John Rhodes, curator of the exhibit. Over the seven-month duration of the exhibit, more than 200 different species of all shapes, colors and sizes have fluttered about the hothouse.

Each day, garden staff brings in the new butterflies and take out the ones that died of old age, Rhodes said.

On Friday morning, the exhibit was filled with children from the Cornerstone Christian Academy. As Rhodes stood with a visitor waiting to exit the greenhouse, one of the young students cheerfully announced, “five of them landed on my head.”

The butterflies in the garden’s exhibit come from nine suppliers who pack and ship them while the butterflies are in the chrysalis stage. Once they arrive in Tucson, they are taken to the emergence room, a climate-controlled space where they emerge from the chrysalis. Visitors who arrive early enough in the day can watch through a window as the butterflies emerge.

The butterflies are given loving care during their short lifetimes. The greenhouse is kept at a humid 85 degrees to 90 degrees.

It is filled with flowering plants that provide nectar for the butterflies. The flowers are sprayed four times a day with artificial nectar. And for those species that eschew flowers, there are small pots of puréed fruit.

If you happen to come across Rhodes, he’s happy to answer any questions you might have. Unless you ask if he has a favorite butterfly.

“It would be like asking someone who is your favorite child. They’re all my children,” he said.

A stationary, pinned exhibit might provide a closer look at butterflies, Rhodes said. But the garden’s live exhibit allows people to observe the lovely creatures as they would in nature. Visitors can watch as the butterflies feed, engage in courtship, and just do their thing.

“A lot of them, it seems like they play,” Rhodes said.

He’s seen them follow each other in what mimics a game of follow-the-leader. They seem to playfully bump each other off of leaves.

Once the butterfly exhibit closes, the remaining butterflies will be rounded up, carefully packed and shipped overnight to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colo., for its final exhibit.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Butterfly Magic Exhibit. Visitors this Sunday also will enjoy Bugging Out, a display of live bugs from the Sonoran Desert and tropical rain forests, including tarantulas, scorpions and centipedes.

Where: Tucson Botanical Gardens, 2150 N. Alvernon Way.

When: Through April 30, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Cost: $11 for adults and $5.50 for children ages 4-12.

A house fire that did $25,000 of damage Friday has left a man, his wife and dog without a place to live.

Tucson Fire Capt. Trish Tracy said the American Red Cross will help the family with shelter, medication and food.

Firefighters arrived at the scene of the blaze, in the 2200 block of East Poquita Vista near South Campbell Avenue and East 36th Street, about 1:45 p.m., Tracy said.

Tracy said the fire was caused by heat conduction. The man had been soldering as he installed a new hot water heater. The heat from the soldering caused some flammable materials in the ceiling to catch fire.

The University of Arizona snagged two academic awards Wednesday.

• Craig Sheedy, a senior on the Wildcats’ diving team, was the men’s winner of the NCAA’s Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship, given for outstanding academic accomplishment and superior citizenship. Sheedy will receive a $24,000 scholarship.

Sheedy has a 4.0 grade point average in biochemistry and molecular biophysics, plus a second major in physiology and a minor in Spanish. The Byers award was established in 1988. Sheedy is Arizona’s first recipient. He and USC women’s soccer player Ann Massey were chosen from among six finalists.

• The UA men’s cross country team was among almost 800 teams across the nation recognized for top academic performance as part of the NCAA academic reform program. Based on its most recent multi-year Academic Progress Rates, the UA squad earned an NCAA Public Recognition Award, given each year to teams scoring in the top 10 percent in each sport with their overall APRs.

University of Arizona football coach Mike Stoops would get more than a $300,000 pay raise and make $1 million this season as part of a proposed contract extension through 2013.

Under the deal – pending Arizona Board of Regents approval – Stoops would make an extra $100,000 per season, culminating with a $1.4 million salary in 2013.

He also could earn more through attendance, academic and victory incentives.

Stoops, 47, would receive a $500,000 base salary and $500,000 in “peripheral and other duties” for the 2009 season. His previous contract paid him $685,288 per year, including a $385,288 base salary.

Stoops, who took Arizona to its first bowl win in 10 seasons last year, is 25-34 entering his sixth season at UA.

Stargazers are invited to attend a star party and fundraiser hosted by astronomer and author David Levy next month.

Levy’s nonprofit organization, the Sharing the Sky Foundation, is dedicated to getting young people interested in the night sky and will be accepting donations during the party, which will run from 3:30 to 10 p.m. May 2. The party will be on the Mall at the University of Arizona next to the Flandrau Science Center, 1601 E. University Blvd.

Telescopes with special filters will be set up to view the sun during the daylight hours. The moon and Saturn, along with distant stars and far-off galaxies, will be viewed after dark.

Admission is free but donations are encouraged. For more information, go to www.sharingthesky.org.

The University of Arizona baseball team managed to salvage one win on its trip to Washington.

UA suffered a three-game sweep to Washington State over the weekend, but held on to beat Gonzaga 8-7 in Spokane, Wash., on Monday in a nonconference game.

Shaun Cooper had three hits for Arizona (17-19); Dillon Baird, Jett Bandy and Steve Selsky each had two.

Hunter Pace and Bandy homered for the Wildcats.

Joe Allison (3-0) picked up the win in relief, and Cory Burns picked up his first save.

Burns allowed the first two hitters to reach base in the bottom of the ninth, but got out of trouble without allowing a run.

Gonzaga fell to 25-13. Ernesto Ortiz had three hits and scored three runs for the Bulldogs.

UA visits Stanford for the start of a three-game series at 5 p.m. Friday.