Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords reached another milestone in her recovery yesterday when doctors at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center replaced a section of her skull that was destroyed when she was shot in the head earlier this year.

Dr. Dong Kim, director of Mischer Neuroscience Institute at Memorial Hermann Hospital, said at a press conference today that the three-and-a-half-hour surgery went well and a post-surgical CT scan showed that “everything looks great.”

Although doctors had saved the portion of Giffords’ skull that was removed when she underwent surgery after being shot in the head on Jan. 8, they decided to use a ceramic substitute rather than her own bone. The implant was built to fit a model of Giffords’ skull that was created using CT scans.

“It’s porous,” said Kim. “Over the next several months, her own bone cells will migrate into this porous material and will lay down calcium. So if in two years, somebody gets a CT scan, you can see the newborn bone having formed.”

Doctors also inserted a permanent shunt underneath Giffords skin that runs from the left side of her head down into her abdomen to that excess brain fluid can drain away from her brain. Kim said the shunt, which is equipped with a valve to automatically regulates the device, would not be visible.

“You can’t see it from the outside,” he said. “Many patients in the U.S. have shunts. It’s something you can have for the rest of your life and it doesn’t impede anything.”

Giffords’ husband, NASA Cmdr. Mark Kelly, said in an interview with the PBS Newshour that he was happy to hear the good news while he continues his mission aboard the International Space Station.

“She’s doing really well,” Kelly said. “Everything went as planned. Her neurosurgeons are very happy.”

Dr. Gerard Francisco, the chief medical officer at TIRR Memorial Hermann’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, said that Giffords would return to TIRR and continue her rehabilitation program in a few days.

The repair of her skull means that Giffords will no longer have to wear a helmet to protect her brain while undergoing physical therapy.

Pia Carusone, Giffords’ chief of staff, said that Giffords would be happy to be rid of the helmet.

“She hates the helmet,” Carusone said. “She tells us that every day. … Someone wrote 5-17-11 on the helmet as the final date. That’s it. So it was an exciting week for her. She’s been looking forward to this for awhile.”

Now there are two women getting ready to retire that won't move to Pima County, even though they love the hiking and birds? What have we done to our collective reputation as a county?

Another highlight from the recent Star comments by Cynthia Ann:

We have been visiting Tucson almost every year since 1985.We are avid birders and hikers and love the flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert. Now that we are getting ready to retire, we have made 2 trips to Pima County to look at real estate. We have been looking for a burnt adobe with a pool and stable. All the retirement advice books tell you to subscribe to the local paper to get a feel for the local issues. Boy, has that been a big surprise. The stories about Clarence Dupnik in the ADS is just one of a long list of reasons why Tucson and Pima County would not be a good place for us to retire. We're Democrats from a blue state on the east coast, but we wouldn't fit in with your politics. Better to be a snowbird and not get involve with local issues.

[HT to commenter JoelFriday]

We covered the opening of Pulse Tucson in March, but unfortunately, the economics of the bar business haven't been kind to the ownership. They have a full schedule through Sunday, which looks to be their last night.

From their website:

Hello Everyone,

I feel it is necessary to write this letter to my friends, family and everyone who loves me.

Just over 8 weeks ago, I took possession of a bar and with tons of help from amazing people, we turned it into PULSE Tucson night club & show lounge. From the beginning, all we wanted to do was to give the community a choice of going somewhere beautiful, safe, clean and fun. I believe we achieved that! Plus, having one of the most diverse, amazing teams of employees that a man could ever ask for, we have started making a name for ourselves.

Unfortuatley, I have taken on something that I cannot sustain. With the monthly expenses being as high as they are & with some very expensive unforeseen repairs to the building, all of my working capital is now gone. This venture has nearly ruined me financially and has taken a toll on me emotionally. And, I cannot continue spending money that I do not have.

Yes, a portion of the community has been here to support us and enjoy what we have brought to them, but it is not enough and there is no more time. I wish things could have been different, but nothing in this world is guaranteed.

Having a home for all of the entertainers to come and hone their craft was an amazing thing to be able to offer. A place where ALL entertainers were welcomed and treated with respect. A place where the love just poured over everyone. A place where drag queens, drag kings, women, men, gay, lesbian, straight, bi, trans, queer, questioning & ally could all come and feel at HOME.

I know there are going to be some "haters" out there who are happy that Pulse Tucson could not make it. But, I am not defeated, I am going to come back even stronger than I was before. You cannot keep me down. I will always be here for my community...the WHOLE community.

There were 2 bar owners who made me feel completely welcomed into the bar community. They were Danny Scott from WOODY'S at 3710 N. Oracle Rd.(facebook is WOODYSTUCSON). And then Eddie Baeza from BRODY'S Tavern at 2449 N. Stone Ave. I would like to ask that the community support them, because they are friends of PULSE Tucson and friends of mine for life.

This week is our final week that PULSE Tucson will be open, so if you want to come see what we have done and support me for the last time in this location, please come have a burger, a drink and a bunch of laughs.

Always,
Larry Moore AKA Lucinda Holliday, Tucson, Arizona's Queen of Comedy

It certainly seems like Newt Gingrich's campaign could be over by the end of next week, but can we just agree to keep the guy around just because he has a press secretary who uses lines like “a lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught”? Rick Tyler fired off a stirring defense of his boss to the Huffington Post that could have been a speech from Friday Night Lights which illustrator Jon White turned into comic form. Mostly, I'm just trying to spend 2011 enjoying the unintentional comedy Republican presidential candidates provide before freaking out over the prospect of one of the them winning.

The crew of the Endeavour space shuttle is busy installing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 today. If you want to know how the AMS-2 goes about hunting for antimatter or dark matter through the analysis of cosmic rays, you can find details here.

Here's a bulletin from NASA:

The initial wake up call to the crew of space shuttle Endeavour was at 10:56 p.m. EDT, and the day's wake up song was uplinked about 30 minutes later because of a communications drop out. The song “Luna” by Jose Serrano was played for Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff. The artist is a friend of his and wrote the song especially for this mission.

The fourth day of the mission will focus on the installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a particle physics detector. The AMS is a 2-ton ring of powerful magnets and ultrasensitive detectors built to track, but not capture, cosmic rays in a search for various types of unusual matter. The 15,251-pound instrument will be connected to the outside of the International Space Station, tilted a bit so it will not interfere with any of the station's mechanisms and storage platforms. It will be operated remotely from Earth and should not require any attention from astronauts in orbit.

Dorothy Parvaz, who earned a master's degree in journalism at the UA in 1997, talks about her recent detention while working for Al Jazeera in Syria:

I was standing in two fist-sized pools of smeared, sticky blood, trying to sort out why there were seven angry Syrians yelling at me. Only one of them - who I came to know as Mr Shut Up during my three days in a detention center, where so many Syrians 'disappeared' are being kept - spoke English.

Watching them searching my bags, and observing the set of handcuffs hanging from the bunk bed wedged behind the desk in the middle of the room, I guessed that I was being arrested - or, at the very least, processed for detention.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Shut up! SHUT UP!" said Mr Shut Up.

I'd arrived there moments before, dragged by a handful of hair from a car where I'd been wedged between two armed men. They'd tried to convince me that they were taking me to my hotel, but, of course, I knew that there was no way plain-clothed security personnel would be kind enough to escort me to my accommodation.

I did, however, manage to resist being forced to wear a blindfold, figuring that if they were going to shoot me, they really didn't need a reason to do so.

After about 20 minutes, we pulled off the highway and through two checkpoints. By this point, the rather handsy security guard to my left had pulled my scarf over my eyes.

Armed guards opened a gate to what seemed like a military compound, filled with dozens of men, all plain-clothed, lurking in an atmosphere suited only to cracking skulls - so heightened was the sense of impending violence.

Welcome to mini-Guantanamo; perhaps one of many in Syria where protesters and bystanders alike have been swept up in the wide net cast by an increasingly paranoid government since the start of anti-government protests several weeks ago.

Story and an interview with Parvaz here.

On page 23 of our May 19 issue, we picture a beautiful horse with a caption about the Arizona Paint Horse event on Saturday and Sunday, May 21 and 22, at Pima County Fairgrounds.

Due to the spread of Equine Herpevirus 1 (EHV-1) throughout the West, Pima County has suspended equestrian activities. Therefore, this event has been cancelled.

For more information from today's daily, click here.

• Photo by Flickr user Lord Jim

As someone with a long history in evangelical Christian culture and who still heads to church when I get the motivation together, the whole Family Radio May-21st-as-the-Rapture debacle is a little bittersweet. I enjoy mocking the absurdities of religious culture nearly as much as anyone, but on the other hand, it almost seems too easy.

After noticing our post about Pima County Democratic Party chairman Jeff Rogers delivering some smack talk about the GOP candidates for mayor and Tucson City Council, Pima County Republican Party spokesman Sam Stone called to let The Range know that GOP mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky has passed the minimum number of signatures to qualify for the ballot and has set a date to deliver them on May 31.

Stone assures us that Ward 4 candidate Tyler Vogt and Ward 2 candidate Jennifer Rawson will also have more than enough sigs to qualify by the June 1 deadline.

“Considering that the Democratic Party and their mayoral candidate is an attorney, we’re not going to give them any more time than necessary to file a lawsuit,” Stone says.

On Day 3 of its mission in space, Endeavour docks with the International Space Station. I think it's pretty cool stuff, but I like watching my Roomba dock with the charger after an hour a vacuuming the kitchen. YMMV.