The overall work is good, what I am seeing that stands out is all the smoothing that comes across as blur. for a newspaper with will fly but I would not send this to a magazine. try a program like portrait professional or a plugin like imagemonic Portraiture.
these will give you even skin tone and if you are really wanting to learn retouching
get world renouned retoucher Meghan Farell's video lecture. I think she has one of the best way to retouch.
I was turned onto this video when it first came out and I still preview it when I get rusty.
Photo Retouching in Adobe Photoshop