Tucson

AURORA, Colo. - As a shattered community mourns its dead and struggles to move on, a thorny question faces the people of Aurora: What should be done with the site of one of the worst mass shootings in the nation's history? For some, the pain is too raw, and they want the Century 16 movie theater razed. Others say that tearing down the building would be a victory for the shooter who opened fire at a packed screening. There is no easy answer. When mass killings occur in public spaces - Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson - communities must balance honoring the dead with the business of carrying on with life.

Prices at Arizona spas and hotels usually dip in summer as temperatures rise. Miraval Resort & Spa in Tucson is no exception. The all-inclusive retreat is discounting room rates by about half this summer -- but only if you reserve by Thursday.  The deal: Prices for the 72-Hour Summer Sale start at $249 a night per person, based on double occupancy (excluding tax and resort fee) for stays on Sundays through Wednesdays only. Included are casita-style rooms, all meals and snacks (except alcohol)

TUCSON -- On the day the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Arizona's law to combat illegal immigration, Arizonans reflected on what the controversy over the law had meant for the state. “It makes me sad,” said Brittny Mejia, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “I don't like what's happening in the state.” Kathleen Hertenstein, who teaches English as a second language at the university and has lived in Tucson for 20 years, said the law certainly had tarnished the state's reputation in the eyes of many.

The search for a missing 6-year-old girl continued in Tucson on Tuesday as authorities canvassed her neighborhood again and began a search in a city landfill. Isabel Mercedes Celis was reported missing Saturday when her family went into her bedroom to wake her up around 8 a.m., officials said. Police were called at 8:14 a.m. and were not able to determine whether the girl was kidnapped or if she had wandered off on her own, they said. Within minutes, a widespread search began involving the U.S. marshals and the FBI. A dislodged window screen turned up during the weekend investigation, though authorities would not disclose what window it came from.

A 6-year-old girl disappeared Saturday from her home in Tucson, launching a widespread search involving the U.S. Marshals and the FBI. First-grader Isabel Mercedes Celis was not in her room when her parents went to wake her up around 8 a.m. Saturday at their east Tucson home, said Tucson police spokeswoman Sgt. Maria Hawke in a telephone interview with The Times. Her family last saw her in her bedroom at 11 p.m. Friday. The neighborhood of single-family homes sits west of a shopping mall and east of a Catholic church.

Two illegal immigrants were shot to death by camouflaged gunmen northwest of Tucson in an incident evoking a pair of 2007 attacks, Arizona authorities said Wednesday. One of the victims was identified as Gerardo Perez-Ruiz, 39, of Toluca, Mexico. The second man remained unidentified but was thought to be from Guatemala. They were among a group of 20 to 30 people riding in the bed of a Chevy truck on Sunday when men with rifles ambushed them, Pima County Sheriff's Deputy Dawn Barkman said in an interview.

Reporting from Tucson — The Dodgers sent a part of their team to the Phoenix suburb of Surprise on Friday to face the Kansas City Royals. Another group traveled more than two hours from the team's spring-training complex to Tucson, where the Chicago White Sox were waiting for them. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier were in the second group. So were fellow starters Dee Gordon, Juan Rivera, Mark Ellis and A.J. Ellis. Veteran reserves Tony Gwynn Jr. and Jerry Hairston Jr. also made the 130-mile trip.

Si se puede leer. Yes we can read. Tucson's ethnic studies quandary just won't go away. Months after the school board suspended its Mexican American studies program rather than lose more than $14 million in state aid, a caravan of writers and activists brought an "underground library" to town. The small but substantial collection of books by Mexican American, Chicano and other minority authors was banished from Tucson classrooms after the board's January vote. "We wanted to hand these love letters in the form of books to these students," said Tony Diaz, a literature professor at Houston Community College, who led the weekend protest.

The Tucson school district may have ended its controversial ethnic studies program months ago, but the protests over it continue. A Houston writer launched a particularly dramatic one this week, with a "librotraficante," or book-smuggling, caravan that's traveling through the West. Literature professor Tony Diaz and about 30 supporters departed from Houston on Monday carrying hundreds of books, the Arizona Republic reported . They plan to stop in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, and Albuquerque and Mesilla, N.M., to pack more books and supporters onto their bus. Their final destination: Tucson, where a battle over the school district's Mexican American studies program has been ongoing since last year.

Tucson shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner can be forced to take antipsychotic drugs while prison doctors try to make him sane enough to stand trial in the attack last year on then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday. Loughner's violent behavior at a prison hospital in Missouri justified his forced medication, even though a pretrial detainee might normally have the right to refuse unwanted drugs, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling.