PHOENIX (Reuters) – A U.S. Border Patrol agent and an Arizona jailer trapped in a sting operation have been arrested on charges they conspired to help traffickers smuggle drugs from Mexico, authorities said on Friday.

Ivhan Herrera-Chiang, 29, a Border Patrol agent in Yuma, Ariz., and Michael Lopez-Garcia, 28, a corrections officer at the Arizona State Prison Complex in San Luis, Ariz., were arrested on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – Bells tolled, girls in white dresses danced and Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords led a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on Sunday, one year after a shooting spree that killed six people and left her gravely wounded.

Giffords, still recuperating from the head wound she suffered in the shooting, topped off a daylong series of anniversary tributes and remembrances by attending a candlelight vigil with her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly.

TUCSON, Ariz (Reuters) – Bells tolled, girls in white dresses danced and clergymen offered up prayers in Tucson on Sunday, one year after a shooting spree that left six people dead and 13 others wounded, among them Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Giffords herself, still recuperating from the head wound she suffered in the shooting, was expected to top off a daylong series of tributes and remembrances by attending a candlelight vigil with her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wounded in a deadly mass shooting on January 8 last year, visited a Tucson area park on Saturday as survivors and residents prepared for the somber anniversary on Sunday.

A gunman toting a semiautomatic pistol pumped bullet after bullet into a crowd gathered for a congressional outreach event outside a Tucson supermarket a year ago.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – Congressional staffer Ron Barber was standing in a receiving line next to U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords at her first outreach event of the year when the gunman opened fire at point-blank range.

Moments later he was lying in a pool of his own blood on the sidewalk when Giffords and fellow aide Gabe Zimmerman fell beside him outside the Tucson area grocery store.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – Congressional staffer Ron Barber was standing in a receiving line next to U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords at her first outreach event of the year when the gunman opened fire at point-blank range.

Moments later he was lying in a pool of his own blood on the sidewalk when Giffords and fellow aide Gabe Zimmerman fell beside him outside the Tucson area grocery store.

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A prominent veteran of the Navajo Code Talkers, who confounded enemy combatants in World War Two by using the Navajo language as a battlefield cipher in the South Pacific, has died, a veteran’s association said on Wednesday.

Keith M. Little, 87, served in the Marine Corps 4th Marine Division in the Pacific and was president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association.

By Tim Gaynor

(Reuters) – U.S. Hispanics disapprove of President Barack Obama’s stepped up deportation program by a two-to-one margin, although support for the Democrat over top Republican rivals remains strong, according to a new study.

The Obama administration deported a record 396,000 unauthorized immigrants last year, up about 7 percent on 2008, the last year Republican George W. Bush was in office.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) – America’s toughest immigration crackdown was meant to drive illegal workers from Alabama.

But after two employees with foreign automakers Mercedes-Benz and Honda were stopped by police in recent days, it is giving many pause for thought. The companies have poured billions of dollars of investment into the state.

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – Border police in Nogales, Arizona, uncovered a drug smuggling tunnel from Mexico, the latest in a spate of illicit passageways found under the border in recent days.

The U.S. Border Patrol said the 319-foot long tunnel was discovered on Monday. It measured three feet wide by two feet tall, and ran for 100 feet into Mexico at a depth of about 20 feet.