The Warrior Games were held this past week in Colorado Springs.

“I couldn’t stop screaming or crying,” said 18-year-old Ana, the oldest sibling.

Ana, her parents and two brothers, Noe, 7, and Ezequiel, 12, huddled together.

But first, with seconds to spare, father Paul Zapata grabbed a mattress to cover them.

“Once I put the first mattress over them, I was like, this isn’t enough,” he said.

So he dragged in a second mattress, and jumped in the tub too.

“And then we started praying,” Ana said.

They sang a prayer in Spanish.

“Dios esta aqui. Tan cierto como el aire…”

The prayer translates to: God is here, as sure as the air.

“That’s the way we calm down,” said mother Ruth Zapata. “We felt like he was right there.”

And then, it happened.

“I heard glass breaking,” Ana said.

Paul Zapata said what happened next was incredible.

“Feeling the walls shake and the tub under you is feeling like it is going to lift up anytime,” Paul Zapata recalled.

“I started more crying, screaming,” Ana said.

“The mattresses felt like they were trying to leave us. But no, we kept holding,” Ruth Zapata said.

Somehow, they held on as the twister ripped their house apart.

“And then it’s over and we’re okay and we’re thankful that we’re alive because in that moment, I thought we were goners. I thought it was going to take us.” Ruth Zapata said.

Many of their neighbors were hurt – some killed. But the Zapatas made it out of that bathtub, without a scratch.

“Thank God we’re here, we’re alive,” Paul Zapata said.

Now in a Red Cross shelter, with barely the clothes on their backs, they say they’re overwhelmed by the support.

“Strangers have called. I’d like to thank each and every one of you all,” Paul Zapata said. “Thank you.”

In an instant, one family’s lives were changed forever.

“We’re not going to forget this,” Ruth Zapata said. “We’re not going to forget what God did for us in that moment. And I even told my son, my 7-year-old and 12-year-old, don’t. Because God gave us another chance to live.”

Lynne Woodman of KeyBank tells The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer  that there have been more than 5,100 donations to what has been named the Cleveland Courage Fund. She says donations have come all 50 states and several foreign countries.

The money will go into four trust funds established for the victims.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – along with Berry’s 6-year-old child born in the house – were freed from the house on the city’s west side last week.

Ariel Castro, the man accused of kidnapping and raping them, remains jailed under a suicide watch.

Melissa Torrez said her little girl was playing in front of her apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico with several other children when she says some teens told her the girl was taken.

Torrez said she immediately got in her car and was able to find the car the teens described.

She says she chased that car for several miles, and soon after accidentally crashed into it.

“He got down from the vehicle, he threw his arms up at me like I don’t know what he meant and I was on the phone with the cops and I got out. We were standing face to face and I guess he saw me waving the cops down and then he ran,” Torrez said.

Imelda Rocha Cobarrubias was taking a break at Ruiz Foods when all of a sudden, her daughter walked in. She hadn’t seen Tania’s face in two years.

Army Specialist Cobarrubias serves her country in Germany. This is her first leave home.

Spc. Cobarrubias says she enjoys eating food from Dinuba’s Ruiz while she’s overseas. She returns to duty in about a month.

The new selection process will include recommendations and review from a Special Honors Advisory Committee that will include Kennedy Center board members, artist committee members and former honorees Chita Rivera and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Members of the Special Honors Advisory Committee will serve a term between three and five years long and will create a list of 10-20 nominees for awards consideration. These nominees — which will include honoree recommendations submitted by the general public through a new  website – will then be divvied up into slates that “will provide balance and diversity across the various performing arts disciplines,” announced a press release regarding the revised selection process.

Following the announcement of the 2012 honorees last September – who included entertainment personalities including actor Dustin Hoffman, the surviving members of rock band Led Zeppelin and television host David Letterman – Latino groups including the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) and the National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts (NHFA) began lobbying for revised selection process that would avoid any inadvertent discrimination against Latinos.

The Kennedy Center Honors recognizes lifetime achievement to entertainers who have contributed to American culture through their art. However, since the first awards were bestowed in 1978, only two of the more than 180 artists honored since have been Hispanic.  Placido Domingo (2000) and Chita Rivera (2002) have been recipients of the Honors and to date, the only Latinos to have received such recognition.

“This revision will broaden input into selecting the Honorees while continuing to ensure the Honors remains the preeminent award for cultural achievement in the United States,” said Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein.

Kennedy Center trustee and standing board oversight committee member Giselle Fernandez said that the organization should be praised for its swift revision of its selection process, stating “I applaud the Kennedy Center board for moving so thoughtfully and swiftly with this review … [I] hope this review becomes a model for other organizations across the country.”

The revised selection process will be effective immediately and will be implemented for use in selecting the 2013 Kennedy Honors recipients.

“If more people come to this country, the demand for housing will be higher,” says Andrew Winkler, the Director of Housing Policy for the American Action Forum, and the author of the study. He based his findings on home ownership by age group in the last two years. The number of future homeowner is a conservative number, Winkler explains, because the projections are for foreign-born immigrants and do not account for the 11 million undocumented who already live in the United States.

The important thing to remember, says Winkler, is that the areas hardest hit by the housing bust are the areas with most immigrants like California, Texas, and Nevada so adding new homeowners in those areas would be beneficial for the entire economy.

“Since there is low inventory, immigrants buying more homes will have several economic benefits,” says Wrinkler, “Not only will there be more construction, and job creation, but when you buy a home, you buy furniture, you paint, all things that add to the economy recovery.”

His argument is that the failure to pass immigration reform will be a loss of economic opportunity to build stronger communities. Right now, immigrants face a lot of barriers to be able to buy a home so once given the right documentation and legal status, Wrinkler says, then more immigrants will try to obtain the American dream and buy a home.

A recent report from the University of Southern California found almost 36 percent of the increased demand for U.S. homes this decade is generated by immigrants.  Though the number is down 39 percent the last decade, the report projects  the majority of the growth will come from foreign-born buyers in six states: California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Michigan.  In California alone, immigrant buyers will be 71 percent of growth in owner households in this decade.

“Immigrants will be key to the housing market for decades to come,” said Mark Zandi, economist with Moody’s Analytics to USA Today.

Yesterday, marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Rodriguez, hundreds gathered in the mostly Dominican neighborhood of upper Manhattan to name a street after him — 159th street to 218th street in New York City’s famous Broadway was officially named “Juan Rodriguez Way.”

“The significance is overwhelming,” says Dr. Ramona Hernandez, director of CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. “It’s what allows us to be part of the memory and legacy of this country. “That sign on that street will hopefully get a lot of people looking at it and asking ‘Who is that fellow?’ We are changing the history books.”

So, who was that fellow?

Anthony Stevens-Acevedo, assistant director of CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, says there is very little information on Rodriguez and no image available of him, but there is absolute consensus among historians that Juan Rodriguez came to the U.S. on a Dutch ship. Scant written sources about him describe him as a black or mulatto from a Spanish colonial society — making him an ancestor of blacks and Latinos in New York.

Dr. Hernandez says usually street namings are just a symbolic gesture, but in this case it was an actual event bringing hundreds of people, including Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and two New York playwrights. Instead of the predicted rain, she says there was a very Caribbean sun in the sky.

“There were children from several schools, there were senior citizens, people with canes, young people, professionals, people I have not seen in five years — this became the event everyone wanted to attend,” she says. “It was hard to contain the tears…it was hard, very hard because of the emotion involved here.”

New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez agrees. He says Juan Rodriguez, who came from what once was the colony of Hispaniola — which is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic — is a model for immigrants of all nations who come to the U.S. for a better life.

“With this event, we are honoring the long history of immigration to this wonderful city, keeping in mind that we are all immigrants from somewhere and we all have a place in New York’s history,” says the councilman.

Dr. Hernandez hopes that the years of work to uncover the history of Juan Rodriguez is used in years to come.

“We hope our comprehensive effort finally leads to a mentioning of Juan Rodríguez some day in New York City’s public school education materials, so that our children once and for all have access to this fascinating story,” she says.

“It was about 2 years ago since I got laid off,” job seeker Samuel Delacruz said, “So it’s been two, two and a half years here since I had a job.”

Over the past five years, the number of recent graduates with jobs – and even more so, with jobs that match their hiring level – has plummeted.

Twelve percent more high school graduates are unemployed than in 2007 – 22 percent more are undermployed. For college graduates, unemployment is three percent higher, and underemployment has doubled. A packed job fair Tuesday afternoon made the job crisis visibly clear.

“There’s a lot more people looking for jobs, and they’re higher educated than me,” young job seeker Morgan Allerton said.

Experts say fewer people than normal quit jobs over the past five years – and that more experienced workers are taking lower paying jobs just to get something. This leaves little left for entry-level applicants. But some employers say there is an upside to fresh faces.

“They come in understanding the latest technology,” Ken Holley from Sandia Labs said. “They’re all tied to LinkedIn, they’re all on Facebook, they know how to communicate easier and faster than we did.”