Employees remaining when the end came and their start dates:

Baker, Wayne 06/27/06

Barrett, Elsa 04/14/82

Bermudez, Arnie 12/18/06

Boice, Jennifer 08/22/83

Bracamonte, Renee 01/29/04

Brazzle, Ken 09/17/85

Brosseau, Carli 12/31/07

Brownstone, Lorrie 09/09/96

Buckley, Dan 08/03/87

Bustamante, Mary 08/29/78

Caccamise, Michael 01/22/03

Cañez, Val 01/04/93

Carlock, Judy 05/26/80

Chavez, Dianna 03/02/98

Chesnick, Mike 12/04/95

Clemens, Bill 07/26/93

Denogean, Anne 11/01/93

Douglas, Gawain 03/10/03

Duffy, Garry 03/26/01

Dunham, Kristina 03/05/07

Echavarri, Fernanda 05/05/08

Evans, Mark 01/22/07

Fimbres, Gabrielle 01/07/85

Fischer, Alan 03/26/07

Flick, A. J. 10/11/93

Gallegos, Xavier 02/17/74

Gargulinski, Ryn 01/14/07

Gimino, Anthony 12/27/04

Graham, Chuck 03/11/74

Grammer, Geoff 02/20/07

Grzasko, Rose-Mary 09/01/86

Harris, Randy 04/25/94

Higgins, Polly 02/17/00

Horton, Renee Schafer 09/24/07

Johnston, Bruce 05/21/73

Kimble, Mark 12/16/74

Kornman, Sheryl 09/28/99

Lee, Bryan 12/31/86

Luber, Diane 11/01/04

Lum, Jennifer 03/27/06

McVay, MJ 06/02/98

Medina, Francisco 08/02/99

Moredich, John 08/13/00

Olivas, Rogelio 08/06/90

Petruska, Dave 02/07/77

Poole, B. 08/04/98

Pugno, Monica 08/03/06

Rivera, Steve 08/14/87

Rochon, Joel 05/06/74

Ross, Otto 08/29/08

Rowley, Heidi 01/06/03

Sagara, Eric 05/26/02

Schmelzle, Michael 07/17/99

Schwalbach, Paul 08/27/79

Smith, Dylan 05/16/05

Stanton, Billie 04/29/04

Stauffer, Tom 01/15/07

Suarez, Raymond 08/28/08

Teibel, David 07/13/81

Todd, Jan 07/12/93

Truelsen, Michael 07/11/94

Truelsen, Teresa 03/18/96

Vitu, Teya 11/24/00

Watt, Mary 08/06/07

Weber, Warren 01/02/01

Weis, P.K. 03/14/73

West, Jennifer 04/28/08

Wyckoff, Jim 11/16/72

UA biologist Michael Worobey and 10 other scientists from around the world have posted their research on swine flu on an Internet "wiki" site.

As it turns out, the recent strain of swine flu has made people sick for far longer than many scientists have thought.

By studying the genes of the virus, University of Arizona biologist Michael Worobey and 10 other scientists from around the world have traced the outbreak’s rather humble beginnings to September, months before the media began reporting on the outbreak in Mexico.

Though new to humans, this strain of swine flu evolved from a variety of influenza viruses already well-known to researchers, Worobey and his colleagues determined this week.

“We’ve kind of shown conclusively that these are pig viruses,” Worobey said Thursday.

The UA professor and other scientists – some from as far away as the United Kingdom and Hong Kong – have published their findings online on a “wiki,” a Web site on which users can post and edit information.

“It’s like being in the same office,” Worobey said. “You’re able to critique and learn from stuff really quickly.”

Typically, scientists might sit on this kind of information and publish it later in an academic journal, the biologist said of the online group’s swine flu research. Worobey and his band of virus hunters thought providing real-time information might help epidemiologists avert a potential catastrophe.

Health officials in Arizona have confirmed 130 cases of swine flu – 22 in Pima County.

Nationwide, the virus has infected nearly 900 people in 41 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Epidemiologists have diagnosed nearly 2,400 people in 24 countries with swine flu, the World Health Organization reported Thursday.

In the event of a pandemic, WHO officials warned that as many as 2 billion could contract the virus.

From his reading of the data, however, Worobey doubts this iteration of swine flu poses such a dire threat.

Worobey, who has taught at UA since 2003, has spent much of his time studying the HIV virus that can cause AIDS. In 2007, he published findings that showed the HIV virus in the U.S. as early as 1969 – more than a decade before scientists had thought.

Worobey draws a common conclusion from his HIV and flu studies: “Epidemics take a long time to build up from the first case.”

Worobey and his colleagues will continue tracking the swine flu, trying to predict how it might evolve in the coming months.

“Everything we’ve seen so far is that it’s evolving the same way as the seasonal flu,” Worobey said.

———

Read the report:

To check out the research conducted by Worobey and his colleagues, go to http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/groups/influenza/.

TUESDAY

BNI BREAKFAST MEETING: Business Networking International, a referral organization, provides a positive, supportive and structured environment for business people to grow their businesses through word-of-mouth marketing. Since 1985, BNI members have exchanged millions of referrals, which have resulted in excess of $2.5 billion of business. Group meets every Tuesday. When: 7-8:30 a.m. Where: Bluepoint Kitchen & Bar, 2905 E. Skyline Drive Price: $12 (includes breakfast) Info: 615-4373, bniarizona.com/gold.shtml Directions: at La Encantada Mall

DESERT STARS TOASTMASTERS: This nonprofit organization, which gives its members the opportunity to develop and improve their public speaking abilities through local club meetings, training seminars and speech contests, meets every Tuesday. Visitors welcome – no cost or obligation. When: noon-1 p.m. Where: University Of Arizona Science and Technology Park, 9000 S. Rita Road, Building 9040, Room 2216 Info: desertstars.freetoasthost.com

SUNRISERS TOASTMASTERS TUESDAY MORNINGS: This highly motivated club, which focuses on public speaking and leadership skill-building, encourages self-discipline, perseverance and experimentation. Practice public speaking in a supportive, evaluation-based environment. RSVP to Vice President of Membership Guy Kuawu at 791-2711. When: 6:15-7:15 a.m. Where: American Lung Association of Arizona Offices, 2819 E. Broadway Price: Minimal dues Info: sunrisers.freetoasthost.org/

WEDNESDAY

CONQUISTADOR TOASTMASTERS: Whether you’re speaking to the board of directors, your customers, your co-workers or your kids, Toastmasters can help you do it better. Learn and practice in a friendly, comfortable environment with people who are there for the same reason you are – to become better communicators. Group meets every Wednesday. Visitors welcome – no cost or obligation. When: 7-8:30 p.m. Where: Arizona Small Business Association, 4811 E. Grant Road, Suite 261 Info: conquistadors.freetoasthost.org

ROADRUNNERS TOASTMASTERS: This club’s mission is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence. Group meets every Wednesday. When: 6:30-8 a.m. Where: Comfort Suites, 7007 E. Tanque Verde Info: 546-0046, roadrunnerstoastmasters.com

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OPEN HOUSE: The School of Public Administration and Policy is hosting an open house. Learn how a master’s of public administration degree from the School of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Arizona can enhance your career. Free parking is available across the street from the Eller College of Management. Please RSVP to cjw@email.arizona.edu with the date you would like to attend. When: 6-7:30 p.m. Where: Eller College of Management, 1130 E. Helen St. Room 208A Price: free Info: publicadmin.eller.arizona.edu

SCORE BUSINESS COUNSELING: Free one-on-one counseling to small-business owners or to anyone contemplating starting a new business, provided by SCORE counselors. Sessions are held 9 a.m.-noon Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment. Where: Oro Valley Public Library, Study Room, 1305 W. Naranja Drive Oro Valley Price: free Info: 229-5300, orovalleylib.com

TRAYERS INSURANCE GROUP’S TUCSON BUSINESS CONNECTION: This Tucson’s Premier Charity Business Networking Mixer will bring more than 300 Tucson area business people together to network and raise money for Renewal Centers Counseling Services. When: 5-7:30 p.m. Where: Pearl, 445 W. Wetmore Road Price: $20 suggested donation Info: 229-1415, TBCNetworking.com

THURSDAY

EMS MONTHLY LUNCHEON: The Entrepreneurial Mothers Association provides opportunities for self-employed moms to enhance their professional and personal development, and offers support, resources and referrals. Group meets on the first Thursday of every month for lunch, speakers, door prizes and networking. E-mail Rochelle at rbrowne@gotucson.com for details. When: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Where: Old Pueblo Grille – Alvernon, 60 N. Alvernon Way Price: $15 Info: 400-7723 www.emausa.org

SATURDAY, MAY 9

SCORE BUSINESS COUNSELING: Free one-on-one counseling to small-business owners or to anyone contemplating starting a new business, provided by SCORE counselors. Sessions are held 9 a.m.-noon Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment. Where: Oro Valley Public Library, Study Room, 1305 W. Naranja Drive Oro Valley Price: free Info: 229-5300, orovalleylib.com

Find more business listings online at tucsoncitizen.com/events.

PHOENIX – The state budget crisis threatens a program that helps Arizona farmers prevent contamination in lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens, advocates say.

The Arizona Leafy Green Products Shipper Marketing Agreement, also known as Arizona Leafy Greens, is administered by the Arizona Department of Agriculture. It started in September 2007 after California experienced two E. coli outbreaks traced to lettuce and spinach.

“We take food safety very seriously as an industry,” said C.R. Waters, a Yuma farmer who serves as the program’s chairman.

Funded by voluntary assessments to member growers and shippers, the program, which took in about $78,000 this year, sets safety standards for growing leafy greens and brings inspectors from California to assess how farms are meeting those standards.

Waters said members of Arizona Leafy Greens look with worry at fund sweeps lawmakers have made to address the state’s budget deficit. Those sweeps already have cut money from the Agriculture Department’s Iceberg Lettuce Research Council, Grain Research and Promotion Council and Arizona Citrus Research Council, which also are funded by growers.

“The fund sweeps for the 2010 and future budgets are the biggest threat to the viability of the program,” Waters said. “People will be hesitant to put money into a fund if it’s going to be used for something other than its intended purpose.”

Arizona growers provide 75 percent of the leafy green produce consumed in the United States and Canada from November through March. The $1 billion industry employs about 20,000 workers.

Arizona Leafy Greens helps ensure quality and safety by making sure animals don’t get into or feed too close to fields and by monitoring water and soil.

Waters said that in addition to protecting the public, Arizona Leafy Greens helps maintain confidence in the food supply and protects the agriculture industry.

“If there’s an outbreak, people will just quit buying that product,” Waters said.

Kurt Nolte, director of the Yuma County Cooperative Extension, operated by the University of Arizona, said safety standards set by Arizona Leafy Greens protect consumers. He said that sweeping the funds would be unfortunate because the program gets its money from the agriculture industry.

“This is not taxpayer money that might get swept,” Nolte said.

Will Rousseau, chairman of Arizona Leafy Greens Communications Committee, said a fund sweep would be nothing more than an indirect tax increase.

“If the funds were swept away, the industry would be forced to replenish the funds with the risk they would be swept away again,” he said.

———

Arizona Leafy Greens

• Full Name: Arizona Leafy Green Products Shipper Marketing Agreement

• Focus: Industry program striving for safety in production of lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens.

• Components: Sets standards for safe productions, ensured through audits by government-certified inspectors.

• Launched in September 2007 after two E. coli outbreaks traced to leafy greens grown in California.

• Administered By: Arizona Department of Agriculture

• Funding: Assessments to member growers and shippers – about $78,000 this year.

———

On the Web

Arizona Leafy Greens:

www.azlgma.gov

Supreme Court will hear case from 2003 about Safford girl

SAFFORD – Eighth-grader Savana Redding was scared and confused when an assistant principal searching for drugs ordered her out of math class, searched her backpack and then instructed an administrative aide and school nurse to conduct a strip search.

“I went into the nurse’s office and kept following what they asked me to do,” Savana, now 19, recalled of the incident six years ago that she said still leaves her shaken and humiliated. “I thought, ‘What could I be in trouble for?’ ”

That morning, another student had been caught with prescription-strength ibuprofen and had told the assistant principal, Kerry Wilson, that she’d gotten the pills from Savana. The nurse and administrative assistant, both women, were alone with Savana in the nurse’s office when they asked the girl to take off her shoes and socks, then her shirt and pants. The two women then asked Savana to pull open her bra and panties so they could see whether she was hiding any pills. None was found.

Drug searches, along with drug tests for students in athletics and other extracurricular activities, have become common in schools across the nation. But the search of Savana at Safford Middle School on Oct. 8, 2003, ignited a legal dispute that has landed before the U.S. Supreme Court – and could transform the landscape of drug searches in public schools.

Tuesday, the nine justices will hear Safford officials’ appeal of a lower court decision that said the administrators violated Savana’s constitutional rights and should be held financially responsible.

Attorneys for the Safford school district, about 80 miles east of Tucson in the Pinaleno Mountains, portray the school as “on the front lines of a decadeslong war against drug abuse among students” and defend the search of Savana as necessary.

They echo the concerns of administrator groups nationwide who say increasingly younger students are experimenting with drugs and are abusing prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

They cite a 2006 Office of National Drug Control Policy report that said more than 2.1 million teens abused prescription drugs in 2005 and youths ages 12 to 17 abused prescription drugs more than any other illicit drug except marijuana.

If the Supreme Court upholds the search, it will give administrators broad discretion on drug searches across the board.

“If they decide that this was justified, then anything goes,” said Sarah Redfield, a Franklin Pierce Law Center professor who follows court rulings on student searches.

Calling the ibuprofen a “relatively harmless medication,” Redfield said that “this was not a search for a weapon or potential threat. If they do say you can do this one, I can’t imagine what search won’t be allowed.”

Yet, if the court strikes it down and also holds school administrators financially responsible, as Savana Redding and her mother want, the decision could produce a new wariness among administrators.

Francisco Negron, general counsel of the National School Boards Association, which is siding with the Safford officials, said if the high court holds district officials liable it will restrain administrators who need flexibility to deal with problems.

“I don’t think it (a strip search) is the preferred method,” Negron said, “but it may be in certain circumstances.”

The case, coming to the justices a day after the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine school shootings, occurs in a broader context of schools trying to balance student freedom with discipline. In some cases, administrators are resorting to “zero-tolerance” rules that impose strict punishments for a variety of transgressions.

“After Columbine, schools became more rigid,” Redfield said. “But we did have some backlash against zero-tolerance policies, and there are now less absolute policies in schools.”

The next phase of student searches and discipline could depend in part on how the court rules in Safford Unified School District v. Redding.

Defining students’ rights

In 1985, the Supreme Court for the first time specifically applied the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches to students, in a case involving a New Jersey freshman whose purse was searched after she was caught smoking in a bathroom.

The justices upheld the search, yet emphasized that students have legitimate expectations of privacy and judges should balance schools’ interest in enforcing rules to protect all students with individual students’ privacy rights.

Since then, the court has heard few challenges to student searches. Cases that have come before the justices during the past two decades have involved general random searches for drugs, not situations in which individuals were targeted.

In 1995 and 2002 rulings, the Supreme Court upheld drug testing of urine – considered a type of “search” – for students involved in athletics and other extracurricular activities.

In those cases, the justices in the majority emphasized the importance of deterring student drug use.

Safford officials take that tack in their arguments against April Redding, who sued on behalf of her daughter.

When the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 6-5 against the Safford officials, it expressed skepticism about the student tip that Savana had pills and said: “At minimum, Assistant Principal Wilson should have conducted additional investigation to corroborate (the) ‘tip’ before directing Savana into the nurse’s office for disrobing.”

Now that her case has become so public, Savana has heard from hundreds of people, mostly students expressing support. She is taking some classes at a community college and trying her hand at creative writing. After the strip search, Savana never returned to Safford Middle School. She transferred to other schools but never obtained her high school degree.

She hopes to pass a GED test and become a counselor.

As for the search in the nurse’s office, she often wonders whether she should have protested rather than follow the school officials’ orders.

Said Savana: “I think about it every day.”

One of the men charged in a 2007 kidnapping case here involving a former beauty queen and law student pleaded guilty Tuesday to several charges.

David Wayne Radde, 44, told Superior Court Judge Richard Nichols he had a minor role in a kidnapping incident Dec. 8, 2007, allegedly involving a former local beauty queen, Kumari Fulbright, 27.

Radde’s attorney, Barbara Catrillo, said Radde could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, depending on whether the sentences are concurrent or consecutive. Sentencing was set for June 15 at 9 a.m.

In 2007, Tucson police said the victim, an ex-boyfriend of Fulbright, was bound and held captive for more than eight hours while she allegedly tried to intimidate him into returning jewelry she claimed he stole. The victim is in a Massachusetts prison on an unrelated felony charge.

Catrillo said Tuesday Radde pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and to drug charges he faced after his arrest in the kidnap case: possession of heroin and cocaine for sale and possession of methamphetamine. He also pleaded guilty to two weapons possession charges.

Officers found the drugs in Radde’s home when they went to arrest him in the kidnap case. He had an M11 submachine gun and a Glock handgun in his possession at the time of his arrest, Catrillo said. Radde, a convicted felon, was not permitted to own guns, she said.

Catrillo said Radde did not know Fulbright and was trying to help a friend, Robert A. Ergonis, 45, “intimidate” the alleged kidnap victim.

“He wanted to aid Mr. Ergonis. He had never met Ms. Fulbright before,” Catrillo said.

“He was assisting a friend in what turned out to be a kidnapping,” she said Tuesday.

“It’s significant that Mr. Radde didn’t have any real information he could share about Ms. Fulbright or her involvement in this matter,” Catrillo said.

Fulbright, a second-year law student at the University of Arizona at the time of the incident, faces charges of aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery. She posted bond, dropped out of law school and moved to Texas to await trial. Fulbright was Miss Pima County in 2005.

Ergonis remains in the Pima County Jail on $500,000 bond.

No trial dates for Ergonis and Fulbright have been set.

Another defendant in the case, Larry Bruce Hammond, 40, pleaded guilty in May to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in exchange for his testimony in the Fulbright and Ergonis trials.

Hammond will be sentenced after he testifies against Fulbright and Ergonis.

The Attorney General’s Office is handling the case because there was a conflict of interest in the Pima County Attorney’s Office. A friend of Fulbright was an intern for the county attorney at the time of Fulbright’s arrest.

MOSCOW – President Dmitry Medvedev’s first meeting with Barack Obama brought Russia a shot of prestige, upbeat headlines about nuclear-arms cuts and a powerful signal that Moscow has the ear of the new U.S. president.

Obama also got a boost from the talks, which set a constructive new tone after years of growing acrimony between the U.S. and an assertive Russia. The price tag for both sides so far: virtually zero.

Their joint vow to reduce the two biggest nuclear arsenals on the planet cast a softer light on Russia, which has worried Europe with recent natural-gas supply cutoffs and threats to put missiles on its borders. The same goes for the United States, which is seeking to shake off its boorish image abroad.

Unlike Cold War summits, the talks in London on Wednesday, a day before the G-20 summit, had little of the atmosphere of a zero-sum struggle with one side emerging the victor. Both presidents can claim progress while also asserting that they stood their ground – but that means persistent disputes may soon test the strength of a newfound bond that is still more style than substance.

At a news conference following the summit Thursday, Medvedev said he and Obama made some progress in resolving tensions but did not make “strong progress on the most complicated questions.”

Obama pledged to support Moscow’s World Trade Organization membership bid, which could help end what Russia sees as the embarrassment of being the largest economy outside the WTO. Obama also said he would seek U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, something Moscow has long wanted from Washington.

And in a nod to the Kremlin’s self-image as a chief guardian of global security, Obama also acknowledged Russia’s proposal for a new trans-Atlantic security arrangement – a key Medvedev initiative that former President George W. Bush’s administration pointedly ignored.

For his part, Medvedev pleased Obama by joining the U.S. in calling for clarity from Iran on its nuclear program and warning North Korea against a planned rocket launch. In the past, Russia has cast the U.S. as part of the problem on the Korean peninsula, and backed Iranian denials that it is seeking nuclear weapons.

But at least publicly, Medvedev made no commitment to increase pressure on Iran. He did not promise to support harsher sanctions in the U.N. Security Council over Iran’s nuclear activities or rule out further weapons sales to Tehran.

His signal of support for the U.S. effort in Afghanistan was also short on detail. He did not say Moscow would press Kyrgyzstan to call off its eviction of American forces from an important air base, for instance, or help the U.S. find a new Central Asian staging area for Afghan operations.

There was no sign of a Russian retreat on the divisive disputes that dragged ties to a post-Cold War low last year. Moscow remains adamantly opposed to the potential deployment of a missile shield in Eastern Europe, and is likely to use the issue as leverage in the talks the presidents agreed to set in motion on a replacement for the START I nuclear arms treaty.

Obama has displayed less enthusiasm than Bush for the proposed U.S. missile shield, but he did not tip his hand on the issue Wednesday, and made no visible concessions on other matters, either.

Russia opposes any further eastward expansion of NATO, and remains starkly at odds with the U.S. on Georgia following its war with the ex-Soviet republic last August. The Kremlin has made clear it will not consider U.S. calls to retract its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia or withdraw forces from the separatist regions at the heart of the war.

Underscoring the persistent animus, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko on Thursday warned the U.S. against helping the “aggressor” Georgia rebuild its military.

The main ingredient in Russia’s recipe for success was the same as in the era of Soviet-American superpower summits: its nuclear arsenal.

By trumpeting efforts to reach a new nuclear arms reduction deal before the last major Cold War pact expires in December, Russia reminded the world – as well as the audience at home – of the might that still sets it apart.

“The leaders of two major world powers,” was how the state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta described Obama and Medvedev in its front-page story Thursday about the meeting, which it deemed “quite successful.”

Moscow correspondent Steve Gutterman has covered Russia since 2002.

R. Chavez

As part of the Cesar Chavez Week celebration, Richard Chavez, brother of the late civil rights activist, visited Tucson on Thursday to participate in various events.

A couple of dozen Pima Community College students gathered at the patio of the Desert Vista Campus, 5901 S. Calle Santa Cruz, to listen to Richard Chavez speak and the Mariachi Club of Pima perform just before 6 p.m.

“I’m so honored to see you all honoring my brother and his legacy,” 79-year-old Richard Chavez said. “There isn’t one day that goes by that I don’t think about my brother and all the work he did.”

Cesar Chavez was the Arizona-born founder of the United Farm Workers.

He died at age 66 in 1993.

Cesar Chavez was a civil rights, farm worker, and labor leader; a religious and spiritual figure; a community servant and social entrepreneur; a crusader for nonviolent social change; and an environmentalist and consumer advocate, according to the Cesar Chavez foundation.

“My brother said 20 years ago that it was not good enough for the government to improve our wages, but he said we needed better education for our children,” Richard Chavez said. “And now we’re getting there. We’re on our way.”

University of Arizona student Angel Sanchez, 25, introduced Chavez to the crowd and said his visit to the campus was to recognize the legacy of Cesar Chavez.

“We need to educate others on (Cesar Chavez’) work, but focus on the present and what we can do now,” Sanchez said.

The Cesar Chavez Week celebration culminates in a march Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. at Pueblo Magnet High School, 3500 S. 12th Ave.

The march continues to Rudy Garcia Park, at the southeast corner of East Irvington Road and South Sixth Ave., where at noon there will be music, food and a speech by Richard Chavez.

Woman poses as pregnant girl; should agency report purported sexual abuse?

An anti-abortion group’s hidden-camera video is raising questions about whether Planned Parenthood facilities in Arizona are meeting their legal duty to report sexual abuse of minors.

Planned Parenthood Arizona says its commitment to the health of women remains its guiding principle. It calls the videos “edited propaganda.”

In the videos, a girl tells employees she is a teen, pregnant by an older man.

Under state law, health-care providers must file a report when they suspect abuse, such as a sexual relationship between an adult and an underage teenager.

But the question of accountability is unclear. The videos are based on a fabrication. The women in the videos are adults, not young teens, and they’re not pregnant.

“A prosecutor in our sex-crime bureau reviewed the recordings,” said Mike Scerbo, a public-information officer with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. “The videos are disturbing, but we cannot comment further on potential activities this office, or any other law-enforcement office, may take.”

Lila Rose, a college student, is the founder of Live Action, which describes itself as a “youth-led movement dedicated to advancing life rights.”

In 2008, Rose started the Mona Lisa Project, which has recorded meetings between activists – with fabricated stories – and Planned Parenthood workers in other states.

The goal of the project is the “criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood.”

The tapes, and an aggressive media campaign by Live Action, have thrust Rose into the national media scene.

She was recently featured on the “O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News as well as several conservative radio talk shows.

Rose, 20, a junior at UCLA, says she is opposed to abortion but is equally disturbed at what she says is the treatment of the young women or girls who go to the clinics.

“The Mona Lisa Project focuses on the young girls,” Rose said. “Their abuse is being ignored.”

On the tapes

In July, Rose and another young woman visited the Margaret Sanger Clinic, 2255 N. Wyatt Drive, in Tucson and posed as a 15-year-old girl who is pregnant and her best friend.

They also went to Planned Parenthood facilities in Phoenix.

In the Phoenix video, Rose and her friend start at a clinic on Seventh Avenue where a Planned Parenthood worker, her face obscured, tells the women that they will need to see a counselor.

Rose and her friend then describe the father of the child as being “a lot older than me.”

They want to know if there will be a lot of questions if he pays for an abortion.

“No,” the Planned Parenthood worker is recorded as saying. “We don’t ask a lot of questions.”

The worker then sends the young women to a second facility on Seventh Street.

There, they speak with a clinician who says, “I mean everything is confidential here, you know what I mean?”

Both the Phoenix and Tucson visits were recorded by a hidden camera. The recordings were posted on the Live Action Web site.

The recordings, edited by Rose and her colleagues at Live Action, give the impression that workers at Planned Parenthood clinics may be more concerned with keeping their patient’s circumstances confidential than with notifying police about suspected sexual abuse of a minor.

If so, that could be a violation of Arizona Revised Statute 13-3620, which states that any person who has the responsibility for care or treatment of a minor and suspects abuse “shall immediately report or cause reports to be made of this information to a peace officer or to Child Protective Services.”

For a 15-year-old, a sexual relationship with a person older than 18 would be illegal under any circumstances.

Group responds

Planned Parenthood Arizona initially released a statement about the videos.

It said it “takes allegations of this nature very seriously.”

“We are conducting an internal review and will come to a conclusion that is fact based and not based on edited propaganda video,” the agency said.

After the review, Cynde Cerf, director of communication and marketing for Planned Parenthood Arizona, said that, at the first Phoenix facility, the young women were talking to a front-desk worker, not a medical professional.

At the second meeting, the women, still posing as 15-year-old girls, met with a clinician who may have been more practiced at providing medical care than counseling.

“I think she was clumsy in explaining how the practice works,” Cerf said. “At the same time, she was still following the procedures that were set up at the time.”

The worker in the tape from the second facility no longer works for Planned Parenthood. She left of her own accord months before Planned Parenthood knew about the recordings.

Procedures have changed since the video was recorded last July. The changes were put into place before Live Action started posting their videos. Now, clinicians are trained in how to talk to all patients.

Also, young women or girls who appear to possibly be victims of a crime are told upfront that Planned Parenthood has a legal obligation to share any suspicions to law-enforcement authorities.

These clinicians are also responsible for the reporting of any suspicions. Previously, that was likely to be a counselor’s role.

Cerf said that, from Feb. 1 to March 20, Planned Parenthood Arizona reported 24 cases of suspicions of abuse. Those reports came from the organization’s 20 facilities in the state.

No investigation

Planned Parenthood Arizona is not under investigation by the Arizona attorney general or Maricopa or Pima counties’ attorneys.

Rose is disappointed that there are no criminal investigations under way by any law-enforcement agencies.

“They better figure it out fast,” Rose said. “Because young girls are going into these clinics all the time.”

Cerf said suggestions that her organization does not care about young women is absurd:

“Our entire mission it to protect women. It’s everything we are about.”

SANTA FE, N.M. – The mystery surrounding the buried location of a time capsule marking Santa Fe’s 350th anniversary more than four decades ago has been solved: It was never underground.

The committee planning the city’s 400th anniversary celebrations later this year had been searching for the location of the 150-pound steel tube from 1960, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported in Friday editions.

But it turns out that the time capsule never was.

The New Mexican said one of its reporters in 1964 discovered the unfilled tube in a back room of an office machine business, being used “as a shelf for empty plastic bottles and other useless objects.”

Mayor Leo Murphy told the paper in the story more than 40 years ago that the project was abandoned because he was too busy trying to pay for bills incurred from the city’s 350th anniversary.

“Those were days of confusion, days of chaos,” he had told the New Mexican. “I was more interested in getting some friends to sign a note with me to cover the deficit the celebration ran up than I was in what happened to the capsule.”

The capsule was supposed to be filled with items “pertinent to Santa Fe’s 350th anniversary celebration” in 1960. The city was believed to have been founded in 1610. Historians later discovered evidence that it was founded in 1607 or earlier.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – So President Obama thinks he bowls like a competitor in the Special Olympics?

He’s obviously never met Kolan McConiughey, a mentally disabled man considered one of the nation’s top Special Olympics bowlers, with five perfect games to his credit. He’d like to go to the White House and show the president a thing or two about how to roll strikes.

“He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily,” McConiughey said Friday.

His challenge to Obama followed the president’s offhand remark on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” Thursday comparing his famously inept bowling to “the Special Olympics or something.” Recognizing his blunder, Obama apologized to the chairman of the Special Olympics before the show aired.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday said the president believes that the Special Olympics are “a triumph of the human spirit.” Gibbs added that Obama understands that the athletes “deserve a lot better than the thoughtless joke that he made last night.”

During an interview with The Associated Press, McConiughey, 35, quickly rolled several strikes with his left-handed hook in a short demonstration of his prowess at Colonial Lanes in Ann Arbor. In addition to five perfect games since 2005, McConiughey has also had an 800 series and carries a 212 average. He laughed as he joked about the popular president’s apparently poor game.

“I’d tell him to get a new bowling ball, new shoes and bring him down to the lane,” said McConiughey, who speaks with a serious stutter. “Keep his body straight, his arm straight and keep his steps straight. He has to practice every single day.”

Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver was quick to respond to the president’s apology.

“He expressed his disappointment, and he apologized in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Obama, Shriver said, wants to have some Special Olympic athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.

Still, Shriver said: “I think it’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down to people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes.”

Shriver is the son of Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics and has championed the rights of the mentally disabled.

His sister, Maria Shriver, wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a longtime Obama supporter, said laughing at the president’s comments “hurts millions of people throughout the world.”

“People with special needs are great athletes and productive citizens,” Shriver said.

After a White House meeting with the president, Schwarzenegger was asked about Obama’s remark and said he knew the president’s heart.

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could announce as soon as Monday his much-anticipated plan to get toxic assets off the books of the country’s struggling banks, administration and industry officials said.

The plan will use the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to make the resources of the government’s $700 billion financial rescue fund go further, the officials said Friday.

Geithner is being forced to tap the Fed and the FDIC for support because the prospects for getting additional money from Congress for the bailout effort have dimmed significantly given the recent uproar over millions of dollars in bonuses provided to troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc., the largest recipient of government support.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about Geithner’s plan, said it will have three major parts.

One program will use the bailout fund to create a public-private partnership to back purchases of bad assets by private investors.

A second portion of the plan will expand a recently launched program being run by the Federal Reserve called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF. That program is providing loans for investors to buy assets backed by consumer debt in an effort to make it easier for consumers to get auto, student and credit card loans. Under Geithner’s proposal, this program would be expanded to support investors’ purchases of banks’ toxic assets.

The third part of the Geithner plan would utilize the resources of the FDIC, the agency that guarantees bank deposits, to purchase toxic assets.

When Geithner announced the administration’s overhaul of the financial rescue program on Feb. 10, he only mentioned using the bailout funds to support the private-public partnership, and he was vague on the details of how that program would work.

The initial proposal was widely panned by investors, who were disappointed in a lack of specifics. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 380 points on the day the original program was announced.

Geithner’s new plan would tap the resources of the Fed and the FDIC to attack what many analysts see as the major failing of the bank rescue effort so far, the failure to rid banks’ of more than $1 trillion in bad loans and other toxic assets weighing down their books.

WASHINGTON – Democrats may want to start thinking about a bailout for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, who finds himself on the defensive amid the financial meltdown.

As a five-term Democrat who blew out his last two opponents by 2-1 margins in a blue state that President Obama won handily, Dodd, D-Conn., should be cruising to re-election in 2010. Instead, he’s feeling heat from a Republican challenger eager to make him a poster boy for the tumult in the housing and financial markets.

A recent poll showed former Rep. Rob Simmons running about even with Dodd, a former national Democratic Party chairman.

As head of the banking panel, Dodd, 64, has become a convenient target for voter anger over the economic crisis.

“The fact that we have been beaten up, beaten around the head for the last eight or nine months on a regular basis has contributed to it as well,” Dodd said.

Some of the worst blows came amid the furor over $165 million in bonuses American International Group Inc. paid some of its employees while receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout money.

After first denying it, Dodd admitted he agreed to a request by Treasury Department officials to dilute an executive bonus restriction in the big economic stimulus bill that Congress passed last month. The change to Dodd’s amendment allowed AIG to hand out the bonuses and sparked a blame game between Dodd and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Dodd was guarded Thursday when asked about Geithner.

“This is obviously a matter that obviously should have been dealt with differently, but we are where we are,” he said.

Republicans branded Dodd’s reversal “astonishing and alarming” and fingered Dodd as the top recipient of campaign cash from AIG employees over the years.

The GOP is slamming Dodd, claiming he is cozying up to Wall Street insiders, raking in bundles of their campaign cash, shirking his banking panel duties and running for president as the economic crisis erupted in 2007.

He’s also under investigation by a Senate ethics panel for mortgages he got from Countrywide Financial Corp., the big lending company at the center of the mortgage crisis.

Dodd struck a defiant tone in his home state Friday, telling a Connecticut audience that he’s more concerned about fixing the nation’s ailing economy than saving his own job.

Voters are sick and tired of the torrent of negative politics, he said.

“I’m going to do my job,” Dodd said. “Politics will take care of itself, one way or the other in the final analysis. And I’ll either once again earn the respect and confidence of the people of this state, or I won’t.”

A takedown of a national party figure such as Dodd would be a coup for Republicans eager to rebound from their recent congressional losses.

“This is a state we will be actively participating in,” said Amber Wilkerson, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Republicans are also turning a spotlight on Dodd’s longtime friendship with Edward Downe Jr., a former director of the Bear Stearns investment firm who was snared in an insider trading scandal. Dodd owned a condo with Downe in a fashionable Washington neighborhood but bought out Downe’s share in 1990 after learning Downe was under investigation. Downe eventually pleaded guilty to trading inside information.

During the final days of the Clinton administration, Dodd wrote a letter supporting a pardon for Downe. “Mr. President, Ed Downe is a good person, who is truly sorry for the hurt he caused others,” Dodd wrote. The pardon was granted.

Dodd complained that the GOP is repackaging old stories.

“They’re trying to weave things together that have been reported on widely over the years,” Dodd said. “They are taking some items that are frankly, old news, routine transactions, and trying to make more out of it.”

Dodd has acknowledged participating in a Countrywide VIP program, which he said he thought referred to upgraded customer service. He denied asking for or receiving any special treatment when he refinanced his homes in Washington and East Haddam, Conn., in 2003.

“There was no sweetheart deal,” Dodd said.

He faced criticism in his home state for not releasing details of his mortgages until several months after the controversy surfaced last summer. He concedes his sluggish response was a mistake.

The Countrywide controversy came after a failed presidential bid by Dodd that soured many Connecticut voters because he was out of state campaigning so much.

Dodd moved his family to Iowa for several weeks before the caucuses, adding to the home-state backlash.

Simmons is a former CIA officer who served three terms in Congress representing a Democratic-leaning district. He’s a fiscal conservative who split with his Republican Party on issues such as abortion rights and raising the minimum wage. He lost by 83 votes to Democrat Joe Courtney in 2006.

In a hypothetical 2010 matchup, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Simmons with 43 percent of the vote and Dodd with 42 percent, a statistical dead heat.

Democrats said they’re confident Dodd will rebound in the coming months. They note he has strong support among party activists in the state as well as nationally. Simmons could face a tough primary fight if other Republicans jump in, Democrats add.

“Senator Dodd will be fine when all the dust settles,” said Nancy DiNardo, chairwoman of the Connecticut Democrats. “People are just really upset with everything that’s happening” with the economic crisis.

Police are searching for a man who shot another man at a Diamond Shamrock gas station Thursday afternoon.

The victim, who was not identified by police, was taken to a hospital by Tucson Fire Department medics with “non-life-threatening injuries,” said Officer Linda Galindo, a Tucson police spokeswoman.

She did not have a description of either man.

She said the suspect fled the scene at Valencia Road and Campbell Avenue in a white Ford Mustang.

The confrontation began as a “verbal altercation that escalated into a shooting,” Galindo said.

No one else was hurt, she said.

Police got a 911 call from the gas station at 4:42 p.m. Galindo said. The victim was taken from the scene at about 5:25 p.m.

A Raytheon worker told the Citizen she was at the Diamond Shamrock getting gas when she saw a gunman fire multiple shots and flee.

The woman, whom the Citizen is not naming because she was a witness to the shooting, said the confrontation seemed to be between the two men.

Police were investigating Thursday evening and Galindo said no more details were available.

By Sheryl Kornman, Arianna Hermosillo

PHOENIX – State agencies have projected how they would respond to budget cuts of 5, 10, 15 and 20 percent, listing cuts including mass layoffs of university professors to shutting down Department of Public Safety aviation units.

Agencies submitted reduction plans at the direction of Gov. Jan Brewer’s budget director, but Brewer’s office stresses that the submissions don’t represent a plan or proposal.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said Brewer and her staff will use the details on possible effects of budget cuts as a tool while preparing a budget proposal and working with lawmakers on ways to close the big budget gap.

Brewer’s budget office made the submissions available for inspection in response to public records requests by media organizations.