WASHINGTON – Deterred by immigration laws and the lackluster economy, the population growth of Hispanics and Asians in the U.S. has slowed unexpectedly, causing the government to push back estimates on when minorities will become the majority by as much as a decade.

Census data released Thursday showed that the nation’s overall minority population continues to rise steadily, adding 2.3 percent in 2008 to 104.6 million, or 34 percent of the total population. But the slowdown among Hispanics and Asians continues to shift conventional notions on when the tipping point in U.S. diversity will come – estimated to occur more than three decades from now.

According to the latest data, the percentage growth of Hispanics slowed from 4.0 percent in 2001 to 3.2 percent last year. Their slowed population growth would have been greater if it weren’t for their high fertility – nearly 10 births for every death.

Asian population increases slowed from 3.7 percent in 2001 to about 2.5 percent. Hispanics and Asians still are the two fastest-growing minority groups, making up about 15 percent and 4.4 percent of the U.S. population, respectively.

Thirty-six states had lower Hispanic growth in 2008 compared with the year before. The declines were in places where the housing bubble burst, such as Nevada and Arizona, which lost construction jobs that tend to attract immigrants.

Arizona’s total population grew by 2.3 percent from 2007 to 2008, slightly below its 2.6 percent average growth rate for the eight preceding years.

Hispanics grew by 4 percent statewide from 2007 to 2008 compared to an average 4.6 percent growth rate for prior years and Asians grew by 4.8 percent during the same time frame compared to an average rate of 5.7 percent for the 2000 to 2007 years.

Trend also seen in Southeast

Other decreases were seen in new immigrant destinations in the Southeast, previously seen as offering good manufacturing jobs in lower-cost cities compared to the pricier Northeast. In contrast, cities in California, Illinois and New Jersey showed gains.

In Arkansas, manufacturing and poultry companies have cut hours and workers, leaving a growing number of Hispanics unable to cover their mortgage payments, said Maribel Tapia, a housing counselor in Fayetteville, Ark. Fathers are moving out of state, where other relatives have lines on menial jobs that support the families they leave behind, she said.

Police in northwest Arkansas created an immigration task force with the help of U.S. immigration agents.

“I don’t think it’s more likely they’re going back to Mexico or El Salvador or wherever they’re from,” she said. “They’re just calling different family members in different states and asking around about work. They just pack up and move.”

The political effects can be high. Minorities turned out in record numbers in November to vote, largely for Democrat Barack Obama for president, and Hispanic groups are expected to flex their growing clout in future elections as they push immigration reform.

More than a dozen states also stand to gain or lose House seats after the 2010 census depending on last-minute shifts in population.

“Not just whites are staying put, but minorities are staying put and immigrants are staying put,” said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau, citing in part a declining economy that has locked the U.S. population largely in place.

“I was surprised the drop in Hispanic growth rates wasn’t bigger given the decline in immigration,” he said. “Government policy will certainly have a major effect on future race and ethnic composition if Congress takes some action on immigration reform.”

The Census Bureau projected last August that white children will become the minority in 2023 and the overall white population will follow in 2042. The agency now says it will recalculate those figures, typically updated every three to four years, because they don’t fully take into account anti-immigration policies after the September 2001 terror attacks and the current economic recession.

The new projections, expected to be released later this year, could delay the tipping point for minorities by 10 years, given the current low rates of immigration, David Waddington, the Census Bureau’s chief of projections, said in a telephone interview.

“Policies changed,” he said, in explaining why the scientific estimates were no longer valid.

Blacks, who comprise about 12.2 percent of the population, have increased at a rate of about 1 percent each year. Whites, with a median age of 41, have increased very little in recent years because of low birth rates and an aging boomer population.

The migration shift could continue for a while, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, citing the bursting of an unprecedented housing bubble in 2005-2006 that is helping reshape the economy.

“What this means is that the idea of creating new Asian and Hispanic enclaves in different parts of the United States will undergo a bit of a wall,” said Frey. “Those staying in these enclaves will be competing for jobs with long-term residents, while others will return to social support systems in major gateways.”

Six U.S. counties saw their minority populations become the majority, including Orange County, Fla., the nation’s 35th most populous county that is home to Orlando. Webster County in Georgia had a majority of minority groups in 2007 but reverted back to a white majority in 2008.

In all, about 309 of the nation’s 3,142 counties, or 1 in 10, have minority populations greater than 50 percent. Other counties that become majority-minority in 2008 were Stanislaus in California; Finney in Kansas; Warren in Mississippi; and Edwards and Schleicher counties in Texas.

Other findings:

• There are 48 majority Hispanic counties nationally; the top 10 were all in Texas. The gateway cities of Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago had the greatest number of Hispanics.

• Seventy-seven counties are majority-black; all were in the South. Atlanta edged past Chicago in the number of blacks, ranking second after New York City. They were followed by Washington and Philadelphia.

• Honolulu County, Hawaii, was the only majority Asian county in the nation. New York City had the highest population of Asians, surpassing Los Angeles. Asians also numbered the most in San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Chicago.

• California, the nation’s most populous state, also had the most number of whites. Maine and Vermont had the highest share of whites at 95 percent each.

In Nashville, Tenn., Maria Lopez, a 49-year-old Mexican immigrant, said business is down 80 percent at the restaurant she runs, and 10 to 15 people come in a day asking for jobs, mostly Hispanics.

Lopez said she had to cut back on the amount of money she was sending back home to her family in Mexico. Although she’s been in the U.S. for 13 years, she is thinking about returning to Mexico.

“I am just making enough to pay the lease and the bills,” Lopez said through a translator. “If things continue like that, I will leave.”

The 2008 census estimates used local records of births and deaths, tax records of people moving within the U.S., and census statistics on immigrants.

The figures for “white” refer to those whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity. Since the government considers “Hispanic” an ethnicity, people of Hispanic descent can be of any race.

Two-year-old Gabriel Saucedo was born without hands, his arms permanently bent. He has one finger at the end of his left arm and 1 1/2 fingers fused together at the end of his right arm.

With the help of a therapist from a state-funded program, Gabriel learned how to feed himself by holding a spoon in the crook of his arm. He also learned how to bend over and use his forehead to fasten the Velcro straps on his shoes and how to hold a pencil in his mouth to draw circles and lines.

But the programs that help 2,000 developmentally disabled children like Gabriel – and 2,000 mentally disabled adults – would be eliminated under cuts proposed by the Arizona Legislature to solve a $3 billion budget deficit.

Advocates for the developmentally disabled say that cutting early-intervention programs for children or vocational programs for disabled adults would be short-sighted and cost taxpayers millions more in the long run.

“Right now, I think with everything he’s learned, he’s perfect, he’s normal,” said Gabriel’s mother, Maria Palmerin.

She said she is inspired by her son to overcome obstacles in her own life.

“If he can do it, I can do it,” the west Phoenix mother said.

The proposed cuts affect about $41 million for state-funded disability programs and another $50 million to $60 million in state and federal money for long-term care for the more severely disabled.

For Gabriel, those cuts would be life-altering, said Tamara Gallinger, co-owner of Family Partners, a Peoria social-service agency that worked with him.

“He would be lying in a bed for the rest of his life, being cared for the rest of his life,” Gallinger said. “If we can reach a child between birth and 3 years old, they won’t need services. They’ll be able to walk, they’ll be able to talk.”

‘Millions of dollars’ saved

In Gabriel’s case, “we believe we saved the state millions of dollars” that otherwise would have been spent on his care over the course of his life, she said.

But state Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the state can’t spend money it doesn’t have. Legislators have no choice but to cut virtually all aspects of state government, he said.

“We’re dealing with a $3 billion budget deficit, and it’s growing every day,” Kavanagh said. “It’s hard to give any group immunity when the state is in a total meltdown.”

Kavanagh said the cuts for disabled programs are among the lowest in the state budget.

According to the proposed House budget plan, the state Department of Economic Security’s share of state revenues is being cut 9.8 percent. But when federal revenue and other sources are factored in, the net impact of the cut is only 2.7 percent. That is below the 3.4 percent average for the seven largest general-fund agencies.

“We understand they are a vulnerable population,” Kavanagh said. “That’s why we’re trying to have a minimal impact on them. We tried to protect them as much as we could.”

This is the second year of cuts for state agencies.

Hit hardest by DES cut

One of the measures lawmakers took to balance a $600 million deficit in the 2009 budget was a 10 percent across-the-board cut for DES, which led to state-supported programs for the disabled taking a hit because most other programs are federally mandated.

The DES cuts were placed on hold after a legal challenge that resulted in a temporary injunction to keep the cuts from taking effect. The ruling, however, was overturned by the state Court of Appeals last week. Now disabled advocates are appealing to the state Supreme Court.

Lawmakers are struggling to balance a deficit that has ballooned to $3 billion for the 2010 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

PHOENIX – It was her turn to speak, but Carol Martin couldn’t find the words.

She scanned the faces in the circle of mothers, each of whom was sharing the story of how her son was slain. Martin’s eyes settled on the tear-stained face of Victoria Garcia, whose grief was only 4 months old.

It had been more than 11 years since Martin’s own son was shot and killed, but the rawness of Garcia’s feelings was harrowing.

“Hearing her talk, I was reliving David’s death like it had just happened to me again,” Martin would later explain. “The pain you experience from an act of violence robs you of so much. For the parent of a child who’s murdered, your sorrow can surprise you, whether it’s been days since they died or years.”

Martin, 62, was one of six mothers who gathered last weekend for a three-day retreat in Pine, about 100 miles north of Phoenix. They came to find solace, guidance and hope. Like Martin, some members of this fated sorority came to find a new focus in their life. Others, like Garcia whose loss was so new, just wanted to know if their lives could ever be made whole. Some brought family members for emotional support during the weekend.

If the mothers were seeking a place of understanding, it would be here, in the mountain home of Roger and Carol Fornoff.

Twenty-five years ago this Saturday, the Mesa couple’s daughter was kidnapped, raped and smothered. The brutal death of 13-year-old Christy Ann Fornoff rocked the Phoenix area.

In the wake of her death, the Fornoffs have turned to help others like them, sharing a cabin that serves as a retreat.

On this weekend, the Fornoffs welcomed the women, members of the metro Phoenix chapter of Parents of Murdered Children, an advocacy and education organization. While the couple manned the kitchen, keeping meals and snacks at the ready, Beckie Miller led the retreat. Miller’s world was shattered in 1991, when her 18-year-old son, Brian, was shot by a gang suspect who was arrested and served seven years.

“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t live,’ ” Miller, 54, told the women as they began their sessions. “My son had such promise and was looking forward to a good life. I couldn’t believe he was gone.”

The six mothers, too, had lost sons. Four died of gunshot wounds. One was stabbed, the other bludgeoned.

“No matter how they died, it was senseless,” Miller said softly.

She took out a candle and asked each woman to light it and talk about the death.

Garcia began to speak, barely above a whisper. She held tightly to the candle as she lit a match in her son’s honor. Victor, 24, had been riding in a car in Phoenix with his cousins on Jan. 8, when an altercation erupted with someone passing by. Garcia was fatally struck by a bullet near his heart.

“I don’t understand what to do now that he’s gone,” said Garcia, 54, her voice choking. “We always had had each other. I should have been there for him, and I wasn’t.”

As they headed for bed that night, the women were physically and mentally exhausted.

“But it was good to just get to talk, knowing there were people who have been through the same thing,” said Amy Shaw, who lost her 17-year-old son, Ronnie, on Jan. 12, 2008.

It would be the next day when Shaw, 36, disclosed her rage, not only over the stabbing of her son but against herself. She can’t get out of her mind the image of her son, bloody from three stab wounds, her hand gripping his as he died.

“I’ve been so mean to other people, trying to deal with this,” she said. “And that’s not me. I want to scream, and I feel so out of control. This can’t go on. My pills to help me sleep don’t work anymore. I just have this anger that won’t go away.”

It’s not unusual, Miller said, for life to unravel.

“Your world is nothing like it ever was,” she said. “You lose friends, relationships, your health. You sleep too little, you sleep too much.”

The women said they were tired of people telling them that their time for grieving was up, that they should move on for their own well-being.

That kind of advice can be hurtful, said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, assistant director of the Office of Forensic Social Work at Arizona State University.

“Research shows it’s hard to compare the parents of murdered children with any other grief group,” she said. “These are people who must contend with the horror of violence (plus) the death of a child.”

The sudden absence of a loved one is something the Fornoffs know all too well.

The early evening that Christy Ann disappeared, she had been on her paper route, collecting from her subscribers for The Phoenix Gazette, once The Republic’s sister paper. Two days later, her body was found near a trash can at the Rock Point Apartments in Tempe. Donald Beaty, a maintenance man at the complex, was convicted of her sexual assault and murder and is on death row in Florence.

Carol Fornoff, 69, said she could have become mired in her grief. Instead, she started support groups and spearheaded a movement that led to the 1990 passage of Arizona’s Victims’ Bill of Rights, a measure designed to balance the rights of victims with the constitutional rights of the accused.

A $1.5 million settlement against the apartments where Beaty worked helped the Fornoffs buy the cabin in Pine. Outside, it reads, “Christy House in the Pines.” So far, more than 2,200 people have stayed at the cabin while attending one of the retreats the couple have hosted. For their home to become a haven was the dream for the religious couple. When they bought the cabin 15 years ago, splitting their time between Pine and Mesa, they pegged their recovery on helping others.

“We certainly don’t think of her 24 hours a day, but there’s times when it all hits us again,” Fornoff said. “We understand what other parents go through. When you remember the life of a child, that can make every parent feel good.”

PHOENIX – Police are crediting a Phoenix-area mother’s tip for the dismantling of an Internet-based Ecstasy sales ring.

The unidentified woman’s call to the Maricopa County Methamphetamine Task Force early last week brought swift action from detectives, who within hours located the seller’s MySpace page online, including a complete price list, quantity and product review.

The woman looked at her 17-year-old son’s activity on the Internet and realized he was more than likely purchasing some sort of drug, said Lt. Steve Bailey, a Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy assigned to the task force. “She figured out it was Ecstacy, and put that together with how he was acting, lethargic and spacey, and called us.”

By Tuesday, 10 Ecstasy dealers who had a combined clientele of nearly 500 metro Phoenix high school and college students were under arrest, investigators say.

The network of small-time peddlers was coordinated and advertised through the social networking Web site, Bailey said.

Detectives were able to buy the drug from dealers in Mesa, north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Fountain Hills, and in parks, restaurants and other public places. If a dealer ran out, he simply referred undercover agents to some other suppliers, police said.

“It’s sort of a loose-knit, somewhat organized group,” Bailey said. “There’s no sense of competition among them or anything. They got kids with pockets full of money who just want to get high on Friday and Saturday night.”

Detectives purchased more than 200 hits in their brief investigation.

Dealers said they bought the pills for $7 and typically sold them for $15 and could make as much as $3,000 each weekend selling the drug at parties and raves and other all-night dance parties held in large venues.

The ease of buying and selling the drug shows where Ecstasy ranks on the list of concerning drugs for parents and teenagers, investigators said.

“It’s very easy (to buy) and unfortunately, I hate to say, accepted. Parents hear about these rave parties and alcohol isn’t allowed at these rave parties because it’s a dangerous combination,” said Phoenix police Sgt. Don Sherrard, a member of the task force. “So the parents are kind of ignorant and kind of relieved that their kids aren’t out drinking and driving and don’t realize their kids are doing methamphetamine.”

Physicians say Ecstasy can damage the brain. It dumps all of the serotonin out of the user’s brain in one massive reaction that brings a state of euphoria, said Dr. Jeff Thomas, a clinical professor at Arizona State University.

The drug also blocks the brain from recycling that serotonin, leading to the depression that follows. “It takes a long time, 6 months, for your brain to get back where it was after one dose,” Thomas said. “This drug is actually more damaging than methamphetamine.”

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer has awarded $771,000 to five organizations to keep shelters for the homeless open.

Recipients of the cash awards announced Thursday include three groups in Maricopa County. They are Central Arizona Shelter Services ($503,000), United Methodist Outreach Ministries of Phoenix ($114,500) and A New Leaf in Mesa ($62,500). Others are Catholic Charities in Prescott ($41,000) and Primavera Foundation in Tucson ($50,000).

State Housing Department Director Don Cardon says the money will be used to keep shelters open to help meet increased demand for services at a time when donations are down and other funding is being cut.

“The current economic conditions have created a wave of Arizonans who have never been homeless before, and these individuals and families are showing up at shelter doors only to be denied services,” Cardon said.

The money comes from a housing trust fund fed by unclaimed property proceeds.

PHOENIX — Arizona can better protect women who find themselves in abusive relationships by applying domestic violence laws to dating couples, stiffening penalties for repeat offenders and making choking a felony, advocates told lawmakers Monday.

“There are significant gaps in the system when it comes to domestic violence,” said Kendra Leiby, a lobbyist for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “The cost of not having an effective system in place that protects victims and hold perpetrators accountable is way too high.”

While briefing the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leiby said her coalition counted 126 Arizonans who died last year in domestic violence-related murders and suicides.

Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, the committee’s chairman, has introduced three bills to try and cut down on the number of deaths.

SB 1068 would classify choking, which includes strangulation or suffocation, as aggravated assault, a Class Three felony. Under current law, choking can only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.

Paton said many domestic abusers choke their victims because the punishment is lenient and strangulation or suffocation often doesn’t leave marks that would be evidence of assault.

Kathleen Mayer, an assistant Pima County attorney, said choking is one of the leading causes of domestic violence-related deaths in her area.

“That’s a huge red flag for future homicides,” she said. “Until we can afford ourselves of some felony intervention in that kind of conduct, we’re going to continue to see women die as a result of strangulation and suffocation.”

SB 1087 would allow prosecutors to file felony charges on a second domestic violence offense instead of a third, as the law currently provides.

Rebecca Baker, an assistant Maricopa County attorney, said her office was unable to pursue felony charges in 40 percent of domestic violence cases it handled last year because prosecutors couldn’t prove that defendants had two prior convictions. She said it is often difficult to document convictions in other states.

Paton said, “We want to stop the repeat offenses because we know they lead to murders and other heinous crimes.”

SB 1088 would expand domestic violence laws to cover romantic or sexual relationships in which the victim and abuser have never married, lived together or had a child together.

Victims of crimes classified as domestic violence can more easily obtain protective orders against their alleged abusers. Victims of dating violence have to show a series of events in order to obtain an injunction.

“I think that when these bills get heard there’s going to be a huge reaction from the community and it’s going to be positive,” Paton said. “I’m convinced of that.”

None of the measures has been heard because the Senate isn’t hearing bills while lawmakers work on the state budget.

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Domestic violence bills

Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced three bills aimed at protecting women from domestic violence:

• SB 1068 would classify choking as aggravated assault, a Class Three felony. Under current law, choking can only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.

• SB 1087 would allow prosecutors to file felony charges on a second domestic violence offense instead of a third, as the current law provides.

• SB 1088 would expand domestic violence laws to cover romantic or sexual relationships where the victim and abuser have never married, lived together or had a child together. The change would make it easier for women with abusive boyfriends to obtain protective orders.

PHOENIX – With a self-proclaimed “pro-life” governor now in office, the Arizona House on Thursday approved a bill to impose an array of new restrictions on abortion, with supporters saying it would help protect women and critics saying it would crimp abortion rights.

Provisions include toughening an existing law on parental rights and newly requiring a waiting period and mandatory disclosures to women seeking abortions. It also would allow pharmacists and other care providers to refuse to participate in abortion or emergency contraception on moral grounds.

The Republican-led House also approved another abortion bill to revise a current law outlawing a type of late-term abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save the mother’s life. Critics call the procedure, which involves partially delivering a fetus before aborting it, a “partial-birth abortion.”

House passage of the bills, which included in the first batch of non-budget bills approved by the chamber, was mostly along party lines and sent to the Senate. The bill (HB2564) that included the waiting period was approved 36-19. The late-term procedure bill (HB2400) was approved 37-19.

If either bill is signed by Brewer, it would mark a reversal from the past six years during which then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democratic supporter of abortion rights, vetoed every anti-abortion bill sent her.

Supporters of the bill imposing new requirements said the legislation would not overturn abortion rights but would provide women with information enabling them to make informed decisions. It also would protect and enhance rights of women, parents and health care providers, supporters said.

The bill strengthens the doctor-patient relationship by ensuring that women are informed of risks, benefits and alternatives, said the sponsor, Republican Rep. Nancy Barto of Scottsdale.

Now, consultations between women and abortion doctors are often minimal because “time is money,” Barto said. “Patients need an opportunity to raise questions.”

However, another backer later couched the bill in moral terms.

“This is human life that we’re talking about here, not a choice,” said Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Chandler.

Critics said the bill would reduce the availability of abortion services and emergency contraception, particularly in rural areas with fewer health care options

Rep. Patricia Fleming, D-Sierra Vista, said the conscience provision could interfere with a doctor’s prescription of emergency contraception to a woman. “That person may end up taking more desperate measures, which is not in the interests of anyone,” she said.

The bill, Fleming said, “places the lives of women in danger.”

The Arizona law on late-term abortions was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in October 1997. However, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 upheld a federal version, and the current state legislation is intended to conform the 1997 state law to the federal statute.

Changes from the original law include specifying a punishment of a prison term up to two years and allowing a doctor charged under the law to seek a hearing before a state regulatory board to determine whether the doctor’s conduct was necessary to save the mother’s life.

A bill supporter, Republican Rep. Carl Seel of Phoenix, said enactment of a new state law would enable local authorities to enforce the prohibition. Bill opponents said the late-term procedure is not performed in Arizona.

In urging members to lobby lawmakers to support both bills considered Thursday, the anti-abortion group Arizona Right to Life called them “two of the most pro-life bills ever to grace the halls of the Arizona Capitol.”

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Major provisions of House Bill 2564

• Changes the existing parental consent law for minors seeking an abortion by requiring that parental consent be notarized. Also specifies criteria for judges to use in considering bypasses of the requirement and allows a parent or guardian to sue over violations of the law.

• Generally requires a physician performing an abortion to obtain “informed consent” from the woman at least 24 hours before the abortion. Information conveyed individually and privately to the woman before obtaining her consent must include medical risks of abortions and of carrying the pregnancy to term, alternatives to abortions, probable gestational age and other characteristics of the fetus, and the father’s responsibility to help support the child.

• Allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other regulated health professionals who file written objections citing moral or religious grounds to not participate in providing abortions, abortion medication or emergency contraception.

• Prohibits non-physicians from performing surgical abortions. This would prohibit nurse practitioners from performing surgical abortions.

• Prohibits a person, including a parent or guardian of a minor, from coercing a minor to obtain an abortion.

• Specifies that the legislation does not create a right to have an abortion.

Agencies feel pinch of poor economy; donations shrink

The recession is giving Arizona nonprofit agencies a double blow: shrinking their funding at the same time a soaring number of people are turning to social-service agencies for help.

Because corporations, foundations, individuals and governments began donating less last year, Arizona non-profits lost an average of 18 percent in revenue in 2008 and expect to lose at least that much again this year, a new survey by the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits says.

Revenue has shrunk so much that one-fourth of the 87 organizations surveyed in early February have laid off or plan to lay off employees this year. The alliance estimates that will mean at least 5,000 job losses by the end of this year. Most organizations are still getting volunteers.

At the same time, 75 percent said the demand for their services rose last year, and 80 percent expect the demand to grow even more this year.

The Association of Arizona Food Banks said its members saw a 48 percent increase in people seeking food in fourth quarter 2008, compared with a year earlier.

The United Food Bank in Mesa alone has been running about 2 million pounds short of supplying all the food requested this fiscal year.

Among the food-bank newcomers are Chandler resident Paulette Pineda, who lost her job at a temporary-service agency four months ago and had to move in with her daughter, a single mother of three, because it took 10 weeks to begin receiving unemployment aid. Then her daughter was laid off.

So, with her unemployment funds about to run out, Pineda, 58, on Friday went to the United Food Bank in Mesa to buy a food box that includes a whole chicken, bread, fresh and canned vegetables and a bunny cake for $16.

“With a big family to feed, it’s about enough for one meal,” she said. “Maybe I can make a big stew.”

Patrick McWhorter, president and chief executive officer of the alliance, said social-service agencies that serve people directly have become the most dependent on government funding. And they are getting hit the hardest because of devastated government budgets, especially the state’s.

Sixty percent of the agencies surveyed said their government funding has fallen, and they expect deeper cuts this year.

“Without question, the combination of the revenues being down and the service demand going up is something the non-profit sector probably hasn’t seen in a couple of decades,” he said.

The biggest drop in funding has come from big corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals. Companies are pulling back on supporting fundraisers, such as golf tournaments and lunches and dinners, agency officials say.

More affluent people used to donate stock to foundations and non-profits to get a tax deduction for the difference between the purchase price and the current market price, said Veronica Meury, vice president and executive director of the Universal Technical Institute Foundation.

Meury is attempting to raise $1.5 million a year to help students attending the vocational school in Avondale and other campuses.

But with the stock market down, those donations have also dried up.

“The hardest part this time versus other recessionary times is that it’s not just one segment of the society that seems to be suffering,” Meury said. “It’s all segments. It’s going to be a very difficult year.”

Although several groups have seen individuals contributing more, Mesa United Way says more people appear to be cutting back. While each person may figure the United Way won’t miss their $5 or $10 a week, Carol McCormack, the group’s president, said so many people are pulling back that the agency is hurting. “It’s death by a thousand cuts, a little bit from everybody,” she said.

Ray Taylor, of Surprise, helps daughter, Isabelle, 2, with her shoes, while daughter Gracie, 6, puts on her jacket as the Talyors get ready to leave. Taylor had to figure out how to do a few things on his own since his wife, Jessica, a sergeant in the Air Force, left in October for Iraq. As more women enlist in the military and take on jobs traditionally held by male soldiers, from transportation to security, they're also being deployed overseas in greater numbers.

PHOENIX – Ray Taylor pulls 6-year-old Gracie’s hair into two stiff braids, something he learned how to do on the Internet.

He’s had to figure out how to do a few things on his own since his wife, Jessica, a sergeant in the Air Force, left in October for Iraq.

He’s eliminated the hassle of trying to figure out which little socks belong to which of his two little daughters by buying the girls all new ones: purple stripes for Gracie and pink for Isabelle, who’s 2. Taylor has learned to get everything ready for day care and school the night before: tracking down Isabelle’s shoes and putting Gracie’s Littlest Pet Shop backpack by the door of their Surprise home.

Taylor, 31, who’s also a sergeant in the Air Force, is ribbed by his co-workers at Luke Air Force Base, who call him “Mr. Mom.”

As more women enlist in the military and take on jobs traditionally held by male soldiers, from transportation to security, they’re also being deployed overseas in greater numbers.

The war in Iraq has resulted in the largest deployment of American women to a combat area to date. At the height of the conflict in 2003, one of every seven U.S. troops in Iraq was female. About 11 percent of the 1.8 million active-duty military personnel deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2002 have been women. Of those, almost 37 percent are mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. And when Mom goes away to war, Dad is left to soldier on alone.

This is Jessica Taylor’s third tour away from home.

“She’s going to come back when I’m 7 1/2,” says Gracie, whose birthday is this month. Jessica, 26, is expected back by early May.

Gracie is used to saying goodbye to her parents.

Both shipped out at the same time in 2003 – Jessica to Qatar, Ray to Baghdad – when she was just 1. She spent five months with her maternal grandparents in Minnesota. Two years later, her mom left again, this time for Baghdad, while her dad went to Mississippi for five months of training. She stayed with her paternal grandparents in Kentucky.

Now Ray works in education and training, a job that should keep him home even during times of war.

With every conflict, the military has learned more about how to best support families of deployed service personnel, says Shelley MacDermid, director of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind.

Every branch of the service offers support, including counseling, child-care subsidies, 24-hour help lines and family activities, before, during and after deployment.

The programs have gotten better in the past eight years or so with the increased tempo of deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, says Lt. Bryan Bouchard, a spokesman for Luke Air Force Base.

The military recognizes that deployments are difficult for families, whether it’s Mom or Dad who is shipping out, Bouchard says. Good support programs at home can help soldiers focus on their jobs by knowing that their families are being cared for.

At Luke’s airmen and family readiness center, spouses of deployed troops can get free oil changes for their cars and referrals to reliable mechanics. Families also gather at the center for potlucks, to bowl or just talk.

Jessica says in an e-mail from Iraq that Ray has always been a good father. Her deployment has made him an even better one.

PHOENIX – In a move that one program advocate called a precursor to widespread service cutbacks expected from budget cuts, the Department of Economic Security said Wednesday it will restrict new enrollments for child care subsidies because funding doesn’t meet demand and no new dollars are on the horizon.

The limit means parents of an estimated 5,000 children from low-income families won’t be able to enroll for subsidies before June 30, the end of the fiscal year, Assistant Director Patrick Harrington said.

Harrington said the enrollment limit starts Feb. 18 and affects families eligible because of income, not those participating in work-training or child welfare programs.

The $200 million program will serve about 49,000 statewide this fiscal year, including about 11,000 in Pima County. About three-fifths of the funding comes from the federal government. The average subsidy this year is projected at $351 a month, a Senate staff memo said.

Harrington referred to the parents of the 5,000 children going onto a waiting list. DES spokeswoman Liz Barker later said the waiting list is expected to remain in effect through at least the end of the fiscal year.

The enrollment limit doesn’t result directly from budget cuts approved for DES and other agencies last weekend by legislators when they closed a big revenue shortfall, but it is related to the state’s overall budget troubles.

Initial funding provided in the budget approved in June proved inadequate to meet demand. And with the state’s budget crisis, the department didn’t receive additional dollars it requested to carry the subsidy program through the fiscal year without an enrollment limit.

The child care enrollment limit “is the tip of the iceberg,” Children’s Action Alliance President Dana Naimark said, referring to benefit and program cuts expected from the recently approved budget reductions. “This is the first of a very long list and it gives us a chance to see the human impact.”

The result, she said, will be “very, very painful and very bad for families and bad for the economy.”

During the 2002 recession, some families put on waiting lists for child care subsidies had to choose between quitting jobs and putting children in dangerous situations, Naimark said. She said possible relief could come as dollars designated for child subsidies in the federal economic stimulus legislation pending in Congress, but she said state spending of that money would require legislative authorization.

Conjoined twins Alex Mendoza (left) and Angel Mendoza at Phoenix Children's Hospital in Phoenix on Jan. 8. The boys were successfully separated during an 18-hour operation Thursday.

Dr. Stuart Lacey stood over the table and looked down at the boys.

Around him, Operating Room 5 at Phoenix Children’s Hospital was a blur.

Nurses finished draping the patients, anesthesiologists monitored their vital signs, scrub techs checked, and checked again, that all the equipment was ready.

Lacey stood perfectly still.

He was saying goodbye.

In the five months since Alex and Angel Mendoza were born, their bodies fused together below the chest, Lacey had come to love them.

He would slip into their room at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Phoenix Children’s Hospital just to hold them.

He watched when Alex would cry and Angel would reach across, rub his brother’s cheek, and soothe him.

On Thursday morning, Lacey put that all aside.

Alex and Angel were no longer babies he loved. They were patients. He had work to do.

“All right,” he said. “We’re beginning.”

• • •

In May 2008, Ashley Frank went to her doctor’s office in Kingman for an ultrasound to find out the sex of her baby.

The technician doing the scan told Frank she was having twins. A few moments later, the technician got very quiet and went to find a doctor.

Conjoined twins are created when a fertilized egg, on its way to becoming identical twins, fails to split completely.

Typically, identical twins divide within a day of conception. Conjoined twins’ incomplete split usually happens about two weeks later.

Where the split stalls will define the resulting anatomies.

Sometimes the twins are joined at the head. They can be born side by side or facing.

The condition is rare. The University of Maryland Medical Center says fewer than one in 200,000 live births are conjoined twins.

Their prognosis is usually not good. Only 35 percent of those born survive the first day.

• • •

Lacey was there on Aug. 13, 2008, when Alex and Angel were born, strong and healthy.

They had two beating hearts, and four healthy lungs. They had the proper number of kidneys and bladders, arms and legs. They cried loudly.

But the news was not all good.

Alex and Angel were joined from their chests all the way to their bottoms.

Their pelvises were fused, their phalluses were fused, and their livers were fused.

Their kidneys did not function ideally, their lower intestines were entwined and their hips were splayed at bad angles.

That day, Lacey knew that separating the two boys would be complicated. He also knew he could do it.

The surgery began at 7:30 in the morning. The start revealed exactly how slow and painstaking the work would be.

Because the boys were so small, and their bodies so combined, the anesthesiologists could only work on one at a time.

Although in some ways the boys were one body, medically they were two.

For three hours doctors, nurses and scrub techs worked. Pop music played on a radio.

At the end of the surgery, the boys would be on their own tables.

At 10:48 a.m., surgeons Michael Ritchey, Mike Nguyen and Kathy Graziano would do something that had never been done before. They separated the boys’ combined phalluses and started to rebuild one for each boy, leaving each with his own urethra.

For two hours, the loudest sound in the room was the methodical beep of the boys’ heart monitors. Sometimes they beeped in unison. Sometimes they were a little bit off.

They were never far apart.

At 12:15 p.m., Lacey prepared for the next step: cutting apart the skin, fat and muscle that held two bodies together.

“So far, no surprises,” he said. “But of course we are now entering the more variable part of the procedure.”

Everybody in the room knew it.

Eyes darted from Alex and Angel to their monitors. Voices took on a nervous tone.

The boys were re-draped and repositioned. The equipment tables were switched out for new tools.

An electrical surgical unit looks like a soldering pen. It uses finely calibrated charges to cut through skin and tissue. It is better than a scalpel because it cauterizes as it cuts, burning the tissue closed to reduce the bleeding.

Lacey asked that the music be turned off. Then he picked up the electrical surgical unit and began to cut.

He followed Alex and Angel’s twisted contours to cut through skin and muscle. Smoke rose up from the boys, and an acrid smell filled the room.

The two bodies were coming apart.

At 1:09 p.m. came the next step, the livers. This was where Lacey expected he might find a surprise.

He hoped the organs would be mostly distinct, with independent blood supplies coming in and separate tracts for bile coming out.

But that would be the best-case scenario.

He started cutting.

“If at any point you guys have any concerns,” he said to the doctors and nurses around him, “you let us know.”

Lacey held an argon-beam coagulator and made the fine cuts into the livers.

The organs looked healthy. Just some shared tissue. The two began to separate. It was working.

At 1:29 p.m., he looked up from Angel and Alex and said: “The liver is divided.”

“Many of the things we were worried about have been good news,” he said through his mask. “So we are in a very good mood at this point.”

• • •

Even before the boys were born, Lacey knew they would be a lot of work.

He didn’t foresee how he would be so taken by them.

Lacey has four children, all boys. He is also married to an identical twin, and works every day with her sister.

That may explain some of why he fell so hard for the boys.

When Alex began to cry, Angel raised his tiny hand to rub his brother’s tear-stained cheek.

Alex and Angel’s parents have not played a consistent role in their lives.

The couple’s relationship is sometimes troubled; Ashley is busy taking care of her two other children. Much of her life remains in Kingman.

The staff at Phoenix Children’s filled the void. Particularly Lacey.

“These boys are impossible to walk away from,” he would say.

But on the day of the surgery, all that would be gone.

“I will be completely disassociated from my feelings,” he said as he prepared for the surgery. “There is a task at hand.”

• • •

Only when they saw inside the boys did doctors see what was wrong. It was 5:32 p.m.

“We have known there are four kidneys and they drained into bladders,” Lacey said after an hour of looking inside the boys. “What we had no way of knowing, until today, was this.”

One of Alex’s two kidneys drained to his own bladder. The other drained to Angel’s.

Angel’s kidneys were the same way. The systems were shared and confused.

Lacey, Ritchey, Graziano and Nguyen decided what to do.

They would cleave each bladder in half. They would swap the halves so each set of kidneys aligned.

Then they would stitch the halves back together.

It was an improvisation, but it worked.

At 7:21 p.m., it was time to begin the final separation of Alex and Angel. At 7:48 p.m., Dr. Lacey made the final cut.

He looked up and spoke softly.

“That’s it.”

Ten minutes later, Alex and Angel were on separate tables. They were three feet away from each other – the farthest they had ever been apart.

Nurse Kathy Abbott transfers conjoined twins Alex and Angel Mendoza to the operating table for anesthesiologist Dr. Casey Lenox (left) for their separation surgery at Phoenix Children's Hospital Thursday.

Alex and Angel Mendoza before surgery

PHOENIX – Although surgeons told Ashley Frank they had successfully separated her twin baby boys, she still couldn’t believe her eyes the first time she saw them.

“It wasn’t real. You can’t even tell they were ever together really,” Frank said. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”

Five-month-old conjoined twins Alex and Angel Mendoza were resting in separate beds Friday at Phoenix Children’s Hospital after 18 hours of surgery.

The twins were born in August at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix and were joined from just below their sternums all the way down through their pelvises.

Frank, of Kingman, and the boys’ dad, Johnny Mendoza, said they felt extreme relief and happiness that the babies survived the procedure.

Frank said she was looking forward to watching them no longer attached.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how they do being separated now because they’re so used to being together and having somebody to slap in the face,” Frank said with a laugh.

A team of doctors and nurses began operating on the twins Thursday and the surgery lasted into early Friday as surgeons reconstructed tissue in the abdomen and pelvis area where the babies had been joined.

Pediatric surgeon Stuart Lacey said the babies’ shared liver was the most worrisome obstacle to their ability to survive.

“There are ways that the liver could be joined that would’ve made them inseparable,” Lacey said.

Lacey said surgeons also had to determine if either baby was carrying out bodily functions for both because of a shared blood supply.

He credited radiologists’ intense study of 3-D images of the boys. The imaging demonstrated for surgeons that each baby could carry his own weight.

Doctors said the twins still have a long road ahead of recovery and rehabilitation. More reconstructive surgeries were expected.

Lacey said it was too early to predict how highly functional the babies would be in the next few years.

“They have very much normal bodies and abilities from the chest up. They are very alert, obviously, very smart little boys with wonderful little personalities. In the very most important ways, they’re going to be fine,” Lacey said.

Frank, who is in her early 20s, hopes that her sons will get to play ball like any other child.

She also has two daughters, ages 1 and 2.

———

Slide show of birth

To see a slide show of the boys’ birth, go to www.azcentral.com/photo/News/Breaking

Arizona had the fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation in 2006, trailing Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and Arkansas, a new federal report says.

Arizona’s birth rate for mothers ages 15-19 was 62 births per 1,000 population, according to the report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

The national teen birth rate in 2006 was 41.9.

Mississippi’s birth rate – the highest in the nation – was 68.4.

New Hampshire, with a rate of 19 per 1,000, was the nation’s lowest.

About 435,000 of the nation’s 4.3 million births in 2006 were to mothers ages 15 through 19. That was about 21,000 more teen births than in 2005.

More than a year ago, a preliminary report on the 2006 data revealed that the U.S. teen birth rate had risen for the first time in about 15 years.

The new numbers, though, provide the first state-by-state breakdown.

Arizona’s teen birth rate in 2006 was higher than in 2005, when the birth rate was 58.2, but lower than in 1991, when the rate was 79.7.

Since 1991, the teen birth rate in the United States has dropped 34 percent, the report states.

The birth rate for teens 15 to 17 years old in Arizona in 2006 was 34.4 per 1,000 population, sixth-highest in the nation.

The rate per 1,000 for teens 18-19 years old in Arizona was 108.7, fourth-highest in the nation, behind the Virgin Islands, Arkansas, Mississippi and Nevada.

The states with the highest birth rates for teens ages 15-19 have large proportions of black and Hispanic teenagers, groups that traditionally have higher birth rates, experts noted.

The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have rates at roughly half the national average.

The new report is based on a review of all the birth certificates in 2006. Significant increases in teen birth rates were noted in 26 states, including Arizona.

“It’s pretty much across the board” nationally, said Brady Hamilton, a CDC statistician who worked on the report.

Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.

There is debate about that, however. Some conservative organizations have argued that contraceptive-focused sex education is still common and that the new teen birth numbers reflect it is failing.

Other factors include the escalating cost of some types of birth control and their unavailability in some communities, said Stephanie Birch, who directs maternal and child health programs for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

Glowing media portrayals of celebrity pregnancies don’t help, either, she said. “They make it out to be very glamorous,” said Birch, who cited a calculation by Alaska officials that teen births were up 6 percent in that state in 2006.

A variety of factors influence teen birth rates, including culture, poverty and racial demographics.

Staff writer Heidi Rowley contributed to this article.

———

ON THE WEB

The CDC report: www.cdc.gov/nchs

Mary Ann Niewald walks into the room, stands over the child, and quiets herself.

She looks over her shoulder to confirm the baby’s name on the nurse’s chart. It is Hannah.

Then she gently picks up the infant.

“Oh, you’re such a sweet baby,” Niewald whispers.

Hannah moves slightly inside her tight wrapping, exhales lightly, and falls back asleep.

Niewald gazes at the child and smiles adoringly.

They are two people at the opposite ends of life. A five-pound baby and a 73-year-old woman.

But it is impossible to tell who is helping the other more.

Across the world on Christmas day, people will hear the story of how a child was born and inspired people to lead better lives.

Niewald is reminded of that every week.

She is a volunteer “cuddler” at Banner Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Mesa.

She holds children who are in the hospital for extended stays.

“It changes my whole life, holding these babies,” Niewald said. “It has changed my outlook. Loving these babies fills my whole world with love.”

A proven aid

For decades, researchers have shown that hospitalized babies who are held more get healthier faster.

A study published in a 2003 Journal of Pediatric Psychology is representative of most. It showed that preterm infants who were held and stroked gained weight faster and slept better.

A 1975 study in Child Psychiatry and Human Development found that premature babies who received extra stroking for 10 days were more alert.

More recent studies have questioned if it is cost effective to have nurses hold and stroke babies. With volunteers, that’s not an issue.

After training and background checks, the volunteers start holding babies where they are needed in the hospital.

They can calm a child who is uncomfortable, hold a baby whose parents are busy that day, or simply provide a human touch for an infant who spends too much time being poked and prodded.

So the volunteers hold the babies to help the babies heal.

And yet seemingly all of the volunteers say it is not the babies who benefit the most.

Why they do it

Donny Closson, 42, drives from Anthem once a week to volunteer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

He is a father of three who witnessed the good these volunteers do during the time he spent in hospitals when his wife delivered their three sons.

A former recreational skydiver, he says helping a child is like jumping out of an airplane.

“Once you leave an aircraft, and you are falling to earth, nothing else in your life matters. All the garbage just goes away. This is like that,” he said.

“When I leave here, I am centered differently.”

As a developmental specialist at Banner Children’s Hospital, Mary Ann Sawyer, a registered nurse, sees the mutual benefit for the children and the holders.

“It gives the baby a moment of normalcy in the middle of all this clinical stuff,” she said. “For the cuddlers, it is amazing. I see a really positive energy. It’s filling their cup as they fill the baby’s cup.”

And the change is not just in the moment for the volunteers.

Sue Hess, 70, of Tempe, has been holding babies for nearly three years.

“Loving these babies has a calming effect on me,” she said standing outside a child’s room. “And when I leave the hospital, and I see people, I say, ‘You too were once a baby.’ That is good. We all need that.”

Then a nurse approached her.

“C-pod needs a friend,” the nurse said.

“What’s his name?” asked Hess.

“Cameron.”

“Oh, I know him,” said Hess. “That’s a good baby. I have some love for him.”

Not alone

Sometimes it is not possible to see result from holding or spending time with a child.

A few months ago, a child-life specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital asked Closson to read to a child.

Closson said he was told the child was in a coma with no brain activity.

“I was a little bit surprised, it’s not what I expected,” Closson said.

But he went to her room and read to her.

Her status unchanged, Closson still goes to her room and reads to her on his volunteer shifts.

“It’s different. I don’t see the smile with her. I don’t see the reflection of what it means,” he said. “But I feel the same. It’s beneficial. She is not alone for the time that I am with her.”

PHOENIX – Isabella remains the most popular name for girls born in Arizona, while Anthony has moved up to the top spot for boys.

Isabella was also No. 1 last year, the state Department of Health Services said. Other girls’ names in the top five are Sophia, Emma, Emily and Mia.

Anthony was fourth in 2007, but was the most popular boys name in 2008, followed by Angel (ahn-hell), Daniel, Michael and David.

The top name for boys in 2007 was Angel.

The Department of Health Services collects data from birth certificates filed with its office of Vital Records. This year, the department saw a drop in births in Arizona, from 96,552 to 93,355.