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By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Alicia Chang, Ap Science Writer � 2 hrs 28 mins ago

TUCSON, Ariz. � Doctors treating U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said Monday the congresswoman was responding to verbal commands by raising two fingers of her left hand and even managed to give a thumbs-up.

Giffords, 40, is in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Tucson's University Medical Center after she was shot through the head Saturday during a meet-and-greet with voters outside a supermarket. Two patients were discharged Sunday night. Eight others, including Giffords, remained hospitalized.

Recent CAT scans showed no further swelling in the brain, but doctors were guarded.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said her neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Lemole. "That swelling can sometimes take three days or five days to maximize. But every day that goes by and we don't see an increase, we're slightly more optimistic."

After Saturday's operation to temporarily remove half of her skull, doctors over the past two days had Giffords removed from her sedation and then asked basic commands such as: "Show me two fingers."

"When she did that, we were having a party in there," said Dr. Peter Rhee, adding that Giffords has also managed to give doctors a thumbs-up and has been reaching for her breathing tube, even while sedated. "That's a purposeful movement. That's a great thing. She's always grabbing for the tube."

Giffords family is by her side and is receiving constant updates from doctors. On Monday, two well-known doctors with extensive experience in traumatic brain injury arrived in Tucson to help consult on Giffords' case.

By ALICIA CHANG, , Ap Science Writer
17 mins ago

TUCSON, Ariz. � One of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' doctors declared Tuesday she has "a 101 percent chance of surviving," as she made more progress, moving both arms and breathing on her own for the first time � just three days after a bullet shot through her brain.

Doctors emphasize she is in for a long recovery, and her neurosurgeon repeated his cautionary phrase of "she's holding her own."

But there was no denying what was clearly good news.

Giffords, a three-time Democrat, remains in critical condition at Tucson's University Medical Center where she was operated on Saturday after being shot during a meeting with constituents outside a Safeway supermarket. The attack killed six and injured 14 others. Six remained hospitalized.

Doctors previously reported Giffords raised two fingers of her left hand and gave a thumbs-up when responding to verbal commands. Now they say she is moving her arms.

Although her condition has remained virtually unchanged the past few days, doctors were hopeful.

"She has a 101 percent chance of surviving," said trauma chief Dr. Peter Rhee said. "She will not die. She does not have that permission from me."

And while she can breathe on her own, Giffords still has a breathing tube in place as a precaution, said her neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Lemole.

In their briefing Tuesday, doctors also reversed themselves in describing the path of the bullet. They now believe she was shot on the left side of the forehead, with the bullet exiting the back.

They previously thought she had been shot in the back of the head. They came to the new conclusion after reviewing X-rays and brain scans and consulting with two outside physicians with experience treating combat victims who were brought in on Monday.

Giffords is lucky the bullet did not cross into both sides, or hemispheres, of the brain, which can leave lasting damage, her doctors have said.

As doctors continued to monitor Giffords' recovery, details emerged about the care she received when she was rushed by ambulance to the hospital.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Randall Friese was the first to treat Giffords.

"I immediately went over to her bedside and began to coordinate her care," he said.

That meant going through a checklist much like what a pilot would do before taking off. Doctors checked to make sure there weren't any other bullet wounds, put in a breathing tube and assessed her mental state.

Despite not knowing if Giffords could hear him, Friese said he took her hand and told her that she was in the hospital and that doctors would take care of her.

"Then I said, 'Squeeze my hand, Mrs. Giffords.' And she did," recalled Friese.

He asked her several more times to press his hand and she responded.

By Alicia Chang, Ap Science Writer 10 mins ago

TUCSON, Ariz. � Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is opening both eyes, moving both legs and arms and is responding to friends and family. Her doctors call it a "major milestone" in her recovery. "We're hoping that she crosses through many more," said her neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Lemole.

Her remarkable recovery five days after being shot through the head has provided a much-needed dose of jubilation after a tragic week that left the nation in mourning.

Giffords and 18 others were shot Saturday when a gunman opened fire at a meet-and-greet she was hosting outside a supermarket in her own hometown. Six people died, including a 9-year-old girl whose funeral was Thursday.

The three-term Democrat first opened her eyes on her own Wednesday evening while surrounded by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, and close friends from Congress.

Her left eye, which was unbandaged, started to flicker and she struggled a bit to widen it.

"Gabby, open your eyes, open your eyes," her husband urged her.

Kelly told her to give him a thumbs-up if she could hear him. She did more than that. She slowly raised her left arm.

President Barack Obama, who had just left her bedside to speak at a tribute for the shooting victims, announced the news to the thousands gathered in the University of Arizona arena � and to the world.

The arena erupted in thunderous applause. There were tears. And hugs.

First lady Michelle Obama embraced Kelly, sitting beside her.

Giffords' movements left her friends astonished.

"It felt like we were watching a miracle," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was at the bedside. "The strength that you could see flowing out of her, it was like she was trying to will her eyes open."

At a news conference Thursday at Tucson's University Medical Center, Lemole smiled when asked if it was a miracle. Then, he spoke carefully, as those trained to operate on the most delicate of organs do. He knows all too well the setbacks that could lurk.

"Miracles happen everyday," he said. "In medicine, we like to very much attribute them to either what we do or others do around us. But a lot of medicine is outside of our control and we're wise to acknowledge miracles."

He called her movements a "leap forward." Her doctors said her progress was not completely unexpected, but still remarkable.

Giffords was still in critical condition, with part of her skull removed to allow for brain swelling.

Few people survive a bullet to the brain � just 10 percent � and some who do end up in a vegetative state.

The fact that Giffords is alert and moving "puts her in the exceptional category," Lemole said.

The doctors figured Giffords would open her eyes soon enough and were pleased that it coincided with Obama's visit. She can now keep them open for up to 15 minutes at a time.

Trauma chief Dr. Peter Rhee said Giffords acts like a bleary-eyed person just waking up.

Giffords yawns, rubs her eyes and tries to focus, he said. Doctors don't yet know if she can recognize her surroundings, but there are signs her eyes are beginning to track movements.

She is receiving physical therapy, which includes dangling her legs from her bed while propped up by nurses. Doctors hope to have her sit in a chair by Friday.

They also hope to remove her breathing tube � what they called the next milestone.

Kelly has remained by her side the whole time, doctors said. He is scheduled to command NASA's last space shuttle flight, but that's uncertain now. NASA announced a fill-in commander Thursday just in case.

The latest progress is a far cry from last week, when a shocked nation braced for the worst, holding candlelight vigils outside the hospital and Giffords' Tucson office.

But as the days ticked by, doctors shared signs of improvement. There was a glimmer of hope early on: Giffords was able to squeeze a doctor's hand in the emergency room.

Giffords survived the gunshot wound for many reasons. The path of the bullet, quick and quality medical care, and a stroke of luck meant the difference between life and death, say her doctors and brain experts.

Doctors think the bullet pierced the front of Giffords' head and exited the back, slicing the left side of the brain, which controls speech abilities and muscles on the right side of the body.

They did not explain why her right eye was bandaged.

Had the bullet damaged both sides of the brain or struck the brain stem, which connects to the spinal cord, the outcome would likely be worse � extensive permanent damage, vegetative state or death.

"So far, she's passed with flying colors of each stage" of her recovery, said neurologist Dr. Marc Nuwer of the University of California, Los Angeles, who is not involved in the congresswoman's treatment.

It is too early to tell the extent of damage, but experts say it is rare for people with gunshot wounds to the head to regain all of their abilities.

Damage to the brain's left side can result in memory loss, difficulty reading and hand-eye coordination problems. Her doctors have not been able to determine whether Giffords can speak, since she still has a breathing tube.

"Her full-time job now for the next year is working on her recovery and rebuilding her life around her disability, whatever it may be," said Dr. Stephan Mayer, professor of clinical neurology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who has no role in Giffords' care.

January 14, 2011
For Giffords, Tucson Roots Shaped Views
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and WILLIAM YARDLEY

TUCSON � Gabrielle Giffords grew up in an old house filled with old things at the edge of a city being remade by the new. While strip malls and subdivisions were rising everywhere else, her rambling brick residence was surrounded by 18 arid acres of cactuses and mesquite trees and decorated with Mexican art and Southwestern relics.

When she gave up her big-city dreams in New York to come home and run her family�s tire business, she passed on a new condominium or house in the suburbs, instead moving into an adobe duplex in an old neighborhood with shade trees, where crime might be higher but people knew who lived down the street.

And when Ms. Giffords, now a congresswoman, married an astronaut years later, she borrowed her Vera Wang wedding dress, served dinner on plates made of biodegradable sugar cane, had a cook make tortillas on the spot and invited fellow lawmakers to the working farm where she said her vows.

�The D.C. people were wearing high heels that would sink into the dirt,� said Ilana Addis, a friend from high school. �The Tucson people knew not to do that.�

And Ms. Giffords, very deliberately, is a Tucson person.

�If you live in a place and you stay there forever, you�re known as a good old Joe,� said John Hosmer, a former high school teacher of Ms. Giffords�s. �But if you leave, even for just a little while, and then come back, you kind of have a little piece of magic about you,� he said. �There�s something special about going away and coming back to your roots.�

Yet the city Ms. Giffords grew up in was changing rapidly, from the wide open desert town it had been when her grandfather � the son of a Lithuanian rabbi � sold retread tires to motorists in the 1950s, to the oasis for retirees, East Coast transplants and Mexican immigrants that made it a symbol of 1980s sprawl. Tucson was learning to compromise, and as Ms. Giffords moved into civic life and politics, so would she.

Over the past week, as the nation has followed her first tentative steps toward recovery from the would-be assassin�s bullet that ripped through her brain, Ms. Giffords, a Democrat, has become perhaps America�s best-known member of Congress. Her political views have come into the spotlight, too, setting off debate among outsiders about their seeming contradictions. But here in Tucson, it is clear how much her views have been shaped by this place.

From a culture that embraces independence, Ms. Giffords, 40, voted against Representative Nancy Pelosi in her symbolic quest to remain House speaker in the new Congress, instead casting a vote for Representative John Lewis, the civil rights leader. A fluent Spanish speaker with a Mexican half-brother, Ms. Giffords fought hard for legislation that would have granted citizenship to students who are illegal immigrants, but she also wants the tough border security favored by many in her Republican-leaning district.

She is a champion of solar energy, important to the Tucson economy. She opposes the death penalty, but backs gun rights. A victim of two home burglaries, she owns a 9-millimeter Glock.

�We are, in Tucson, a very diverse community in so many ways � socioeconomically, ethnically, religiously � and other parts of the state or region can be put into a box more easily than Tucson is,� said Bill Nugent, a close friend of Ms. Giffords�s. �Tucson, above all, has had to learn to compromise and to be compassionate and responsive to people, mostly because of their differences.�

�That is part of Gabby�s upbringing,� he said, adding, �She�s not going to take the strict party message.�

A Place to Start Over

Tucson is the kind of place where people come to reinvent themselves, and so it was with Ms. Giffords�s family. Her grandfather, the rabbi�s son, began life as Akiba Hornstein and moved here in the 1940s from New York. As Gif Giffords, a name he adopted to avoid anti-Semitism, he founded El Campo Tire and Service Centers.

He was an adventurer and a bit of a huckster; he and his wife, Ruth, once drove off to Panama in their 1957 stick-shift to promote Dunlop tires. He made a brief foray into politics, running unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the State Senate. But longtime residents here remember him mostly as a colorful character on radio and television in the 1950s, hawking his tires in spots that doubled as philosophical expositions.

�It�s a good, good evening,� was Mr. Giffords�s familiar greeting.

Decades later, as the company�s 27-year-old new president, Ms. Giffords carried on the tradition, starring in television commercials that perhaps not coincidentally gave her just the name recognition she needed as she prepared for her first run for political office. �She was a natural,� said Gina Brandt, the advertising executive who produced them.

Ms. Giffords grew up on North Soldier Trail outside the city center, in the Tanque Verde Valley, where cottonwood trees rise along a dry riverbed. There were no sidewalks, no corner stores, not even a next-door neighbor. She began mucking out horse stalls at age 8 in exchange for riding lessons, and eventually got a horse of her own. She named it Buck-Stretcher, the El Campo slogan.

�She loved her horse and her horseback riding, and that actually takes a lot of time,� said Cathy Nichols, a close high school friend. �She rode alone.�

In a city that was becoming increasingly transient, Ms. Giffords�s parents were fixtures. Her father, Spencer, raised as a practicing Jew, ran El Campo Tire and was elected to the Tanque Verde school board. Her mother, Gloria, a Christian Scientist originally from Kansas and nicknamed Jinx, is a painter and art conservator who worked on preserving Tucson�s historic Spanish art and missions.

They spent family vacations taking road trips across the border to Sonora, collecting art and books in tiny towns. (Ms. Giffords also has an older sister, Melissa, and an older half-brother, Alejandro, a son from her father�s first marriage, who lives in Mexico City but spent his high school years in Tucson with his father�s new family.)

�Her dad is this sort of bald, crotchety, crusty, tough-minded businessman, and her mom is artsy, chatty, constantly telling stories, talking, hugging,� said Jonathan Paton, a Republican who befriended Ms. Giffords after he ran against her and lost. �I think that Gabby in a lot of ways has those two personalities inside her. People who underestimate her � and I did � don�t see that tougher side that she gets from her dad.�

Even as a teenager, Ms. Giffords seemed destined for someplace bigger. Sharp and sure of herself, with a penchant for leather jackets and clunky Doc Marten shoes, she would sit in the front row of her Advanced Placement history class at University High School, an elite public school for gifted and talented students.

When Mr. Hosmer, the teacher, gave an incorrect date for the Treaty of Utrecht, she had no qualms about correcting him. �She was an 18-year-old girl who was really a 40-year-old woman,� he said. �She had a lot of internal self-confidence.�

She was not a student council type, though she did register to vote promptly at 18 � as a Republican, because it was her mother�s party. �She didn�t have strong feelings one way or the other,� Ms. Nichols said. (In the late 1990s, she switched her affiliation to Democrat.) She spent a high school semester in Spain, and chose Scripps College, a tiny, all-female institution in California.

As a double major in Latin American studies and sociology, Ms. Giffords pulled together the various strands of her life into her intellectual pursuits. Spurred by an interest of her mother�s, she spent a year after graduation as a Fulbright scholar in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, studying Mennonites.

�She was like an anthropologist in training,� Kim Welch, her Scripps thesis adviser, said.

After a brief stint in San Diego, Ms. Giffords left for Cornell University to pursue a graduate degree in regional planning � an endeavor partly motivated, said her close friend Ms. Nichols, by the growth and rapid expansion of her hometown. She cut a striking figure in snowy Ithaca, N.Y., in her Western garb and cowboy boots; when she was done, she landed in Manhattan as a consultant for Price Waterhouse.

�It seemed like the beginning of a grand and glittering adventure in the big city: posh apartments, pointy-toed shoes, and maybe even my first martini,� Ms. Giffords recalled in a 2009 commencement address to Scripps College. �But then an unexpected call came from my father.�

In failing health and eager to retire, Spencer Giffords wanted to keep El Campo Tire in the Giffords family. Ms. Giffords�s homecoming in 1996, which she has called �one of the most powerful transformations� in her life, had not been in her plans. But her friends are convinced that the tug of Tucson would eventually have brought her back.

�I think that she really did miss Tucson and sort of the horseback-riding, motorcycle-driving freedom that is out here in the West,� Mr. Paton said, adding, �There was probably a sense of relief about being able to go home.�

A New Direction

Ms. Giffords threw herself into the tire business and civic affairs. But Spencer Giffords did not get his wish; three years after his daughter took over, El Campo was sold, a victim of competition from big chains. The company Gif Giffords founded 50 years earlier was consolidated into a real estate concern.

By that time, Ms. Giffords already had designs on a new life, in politics.

She had �frustration with how things were working� in Arizona, Ms. Nichols said, on issues like health care and small business taxes.

Julia Liss, a Scripps professor, said, �She really was somebody who took life seriously; life was about doing things that mattered.�

She won a seat in the Legislature in 2000. Five years later, when she was a state senator, The Tucson Citizen�s business magazine named her its woman of the year. A relentless campaigner and prodigious fund-raiser, she greeted constituents with hugs instead of handshakes. Most people already knew her, or of her family.

�There�s still a very small town feel here,� said the magazine�s former editor, Teresa Truelsen. �Everybody thinks of her as their own.�

When she ran for Congress, to fill the seat of Jim Kolbe, a Republican who was retiring, in 2006, she began actively seeking Republican support. When she won, she kept on some of Mr. Kolbe�s staff. As Mr. Paton, her one-time Republican opponent, said, �She was very disciplined about meeting the people she needed to meet.�

The outreach came in handy; several prominent Republicans threw their weight behind Ms. Giffords during her tight race with a Tea Party-backed candidate last year, when she took criticism for supporting President Obama�s health care overhaul. Among them was John Wesley Miller, a longtime homebuilder who said his decision was based partly on Ms. Giffords�s pragmatic Western outlook.

�She�s a conservative with a conscience,� Mr. Miller said.

Her marriage in 2007 to Capt. Mark Kelly, an astronaut, created some intrigue, both here and in Washington. They met in 2003 on a trip to China (he was married and she was seeing someone) and Ms. Giffords was obviously smitten. A year later, he was divorced and they were dating. At their wedding, the huppah, the traditional Jewish canopy, was carried down a grassy aisle to the strains of a mariachi band.

�Gabby waited a long time to marry because she just never found the right guy,� said Marc Winkelman, one of the huppah carriers.

They have a long-distance marriage; Captain Kelly makes his home in Houston, where he has two daughters, while Ms. Giffords splits her time between Washington and Arizona. The result is what Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat and a close friend of Ms. Giffords�s, calls �a constant state of newlywed.�

On the night before she and 18 others were shot, 6 of them fatally, Ms. Giffords arrived here from Washington and was picked up at the airport by one of her closest friends, Raoul Erickson.

They stopped at her condominium, near her district office, decorated with the same kind of lively folk art � she once kept a motorcycle painted in Southwestern images � as her childhood home had been. Then Ms. Giffords suggested they go for an evening bicycle ride, as they often did. They rode 10 miles � Mr. Erickson objected at first, saying it was too cold, but Ms. Giffords persuaded him � with the congresswoman snapping their picture with a cellphone along the way.

�I know nothing about her politically,� said Mr. Erickson, who met Ms. Giffords in the 1990s, when he helped upgrade the computer system at the tire business, �but I know that when we�re out, she�ll stop and help anybody.�

When she first ran for Congress in 2006, opponents tried to cast Ms. Giffords as an outsider who had gone to college in California and lived in New York. The campaign responded by reminding voters that Ms. Giffords was a �third-generation Southern Arizonan,� and branding her as �an Arizona original.� Ms. Giffords appeared in a commercial on horseback, with the desert and mountains behind her.

�I love this place!� she declared from the saddle.

January 16, 2011


This article is by Michael Luo, Sam Dolnick and Jennifer Medina.

TUCSON � On a day when Representative Gabrielle Giffords�s condition was upgraded to serious from critical, her husband, Mark Kelly, spoke publicly for the first time on Sunday. He left his wife�s hospital bedside to take the stage at a memorial service for Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide who was killed in the shooting rampage that left Ms. Giffords grievously wounded.

Mr. Kelly told the several hundred mourners gathered in the courtyard at the Tucson Museum of Art that he had just come from the hospital and that his wife was �improving a little bit each day. She�s a fighter.�

�I know someday she�ll get to tell you how she felt about Gabe herself,� Mr. Kelly said.

His wife loved Mr. Zimmerman �like a younger brother,� he said, and was inspired by �his idealism, his strength and his warmth.�

At almost the exact same time, about a half-hour�s drive east, another shooting victim � Dorwan Stoddard, 76, known as Dory to friends � was eulogized at a church filled with hundreds of mourners.

�There are no monuments to Dory, there are no streets named after him,� said the Rev. Mike Nowak, his pastor. �He was just an ordinary man. He did not become a hero that day � he was a hero every day of his life.�

At University Medical Center, officials said on Sunday that Ms. Giffords�s condition was upgraded because she was no longer on a ventilator. Doctors announced on Saturday that they placed a tracheotomy tube in Ms. Giffords�s throat as a precautionary measure.

�The congresswoman continues to do well,� a spokeswoman said in a statement. �She is breathing on her own. Yesterday�s procedures were successful and uneventful.�

Jared L. Loughner, the man charged in the shooting that left six dead and 13 wounded, is in the custody of federal marshals at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix, which houses almost 1,100 prisoners about 25 miles north of downtown.

According to an official familiar with the prison, Mr. Loughner, who federal records say is registered as inmate No. 15213-196, is being held in �segregation� for his own protection. Prisoners in segregation are closely monitored, the official said, and generally spend 23 hours of the day alone in their cells and have an hour or so a day for exercise and showering.

Mr. Loughner, 22, has no contact with other prisoners, said the official, who added that the prison�s past inmates included Salvatore Gravano, the Mafia informer and hit man known as Sammy the Bull.

The funerals on Sunday marked the fourth and fifth for victims of the shooting, leaving just one remaining, that of Dorothy Morris, 76, whose husband, George, remains hospitalized after the shooting. A date has not yet been set, said Bill Royle, a family friend, because it depends in part on Mr. Morris�s recovery.

On this cool, sunny day, it seemed as though this reeling community, despite the tears, had finally begun to slip back into a semblance of its former rhythms, as the horde of news media that descended upon the city finally began to pack up and leave.

Grocery carts trundled through the aisles at the Safeway where the shooting occurred, though shoppers continued to pause and reflect in front of a makeshift memorial outside. The neighborhood where Mr. Loughner lived with his parents, Randy and Amy, was quiet on Sunday afternoon, with nary a satellite truck in sight.

About 300 people gathered at a midtown park on Sunday morning and marched about two miles to Ms. Giffords�s district office in what organizers called a �walk for peace� to honor the victims of the shooting.

The event was the brainchild of Amanda Lopez, 23, and Amanda Hutchison, 20, who had been grappling with how respond to the rampage, ultimately coming up with the idea of the peace walk.

Some marchers carried babies in slings or pushed strollers, others walked their dogs. To avoid politicizing the event, the organizers decided not to allow anyone to hold signs, but distributed yellow ribbons to commemorate the victims.

�It�s time for people to reflect, for the city of Tucson and the rest of the country to come together and reflect,� said Yvette Patterson, 42, who was among the marchers. �It�s important that we really see the humanity in each other. If we don�t start to lower our barriers, maybe we could get torn apart.�

When the crowd reached a collection of tributes outside Ms. Giffords�s office, a woman began singing �Amazing Grace.� Others in the crowd softly sang along.

The effects of the shooting, like pebbles in a pond, continued to ripple on Sunday, as one of the 13 people wounded spent the day in a mental health center by police order.

The wounded person, J. Eric Fuller, 63, a military veteran, was arrested on Saturday after disrupting a forum being taped for broadcast by ABC News. He was said to have blurted out �You�re dead� to Trent Humphries, the founder of the Tucson Tea Party, who was speaking.

Mr. Fuller had showed flashes of anger, railing against the �Tea Party crime syndicate� in an interview with The New York Times in the early days after the shooting.

He was being held for a 72-hour mental health evaluation, said Jason Ogan, a spokesman for the Pima County sheriff�s office.

The sheriff�s office forwarded charges of threats, intimidation and disorderly conduct against Mr. Fuller to the county attorney�s office, Mr. Ogan said.

At Mr. Zimmerman�s funeral, Mr. Kelly, an astronaut who is supposed to lead the crew of the shuttle Endeavour this spring on its final mission, spoke for several minutes. He was one of a long train of speakers that included childhood friends, relatives and staff members in Ms. Giffords�s office.

As Ms. Giffords�s director of community outreach, Mr. Zimmerman helped prepare for the �Congress on Your Corner� event at the Safeway on Jan. 8. He arrived early, as he often did. When Ms. Giffords was shot, Mr. Zimmerman, 30, was standing nearby and lunged to help her.

He was remembered on Sunday as a passionate idealist, able to put anyone at ease, dedicating his life to helping others.

He proposed to his girlfriend last summer while on a 5 a.m. run through the mountains. He was addicted to diet sodas. He was so good with angry callers that his nickname in the office was �The Constituent Whisperer.�

Ron Barber, another of Ms. Giffords�s aides who was shot in the attack, took the stage with the help of a walker. He said Mr. Zimmerman was a genius at connecting with people from across the political and social spectrums.

�He had the integrity, he had the heart, he had the personality,� Mr. Barber said.

The story of Mr. Stoddard, mourned at the day�s other funeral, has become part of the tragedy�s lore. When the gunfire erupted, Mr. Stoddard knocked down his wife, Mavy, and threw his body on top of hers to protect her. Mrs. Stoddard was shot three times in the leg but was released from the hospital last week.

As the service was about to end, Mrs. Stoddard went to the microphone, wearing a red jacket and sitting in a wheelchair. Her hands shaking but her voice strong and firm, she said: �I am the woman who was married to this man. He loved God, and he loved me, and spoiled me rotten.�

A wave of laughter went through the audience. �The journey will be very, very difficult, but he died for me, and I must live for him,� she said.

�I will survive,� she added. �We will not let that gunman take that away.�

By Susan Montoya Bryan And Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press 3 mins ago

TUCSON, Ariz. � Fresh from a sunny outing that brought a smile, Gabrielle Giffords is moving to a Houston rehab center where her husband hopes the "fighter" continues on the path to a full recovery.

University Medical Center staffers took the wounded congresswoman to a deck at the hospital Thursday, where she breathed in the fresh air and felt the sun, trauma surgeon Peter Rhee said.

"I saw the biggest smile she could gather," Rhee said. "We are very happy to have her enjoying the sunshine of Arizona."

Early Friday morning, a handful of people strolled through the memorial area outside the hospital, where candles flickered and a throng of TV cameras were focused as Giffords prepared to leave.

She has been making progress nearly every day in her recovery from a bullet wound to the brain.

Doctors ticked off other markers of her continuing improvement: She scrolled through an iPad, picked out different colored objects and moved her lips. They are unsure whether she is mouthing words, nor do they know how much she is able to see.

Her husband, Houston-based astronaut Mark Kelly, believes she has tried to speak and can recognize those around her.

"I can just look in her eyes and tell," Kelly said at a final briefing Thursday at the Tucson hospital. "She is very aware of the situation."

On Friday morning he tweeted: "GG going to next phase of her recover today. Very grateful to the docs and nurses at UMC, Tucson PD, Sheriffs Dept....Back in Tucson ASAP!"

Kelly said he hopes she'll make a full recovery.

"Congresswoman Giffords is a fighter," her aide C.J. Karamargin said Friday on CBS' "Early Show. "She's as tough as nails. She's communicated with her husband in positive ways," he added, calling it a sign that she'll be "back very soon. There's no question about it."

The doctors who will help her offered a more sober outlook.

"Not everyone always gets 100 percent restoration, but we help them to get to a new normal," said Carl Josehart, chief executive of the rehab hospital that will be the Arizona congresswoman's home for the next month or two.

Giffords is expected to be moved on Friday morning, traveling by ambulance to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base with an escort from a group of motorcycle riders from a Veterans of Foreign Wars post who know her.

Kelly; Rhee; Giffords' mother, Gloria; an intensive care unit nurse and Giffords' chief of staff will be among those on the medical flight to William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

From there, she will be moved by helicopter to TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital. U.S. Capitol police arrived Thursday afternoon to set up extra security measures at the 119-bed facility that is part of the massive Texas Medical Center complex.

Dr. Gerard Francisco, the hospital's chief medical officer, will coordinate her care.

"It's going to be a very big team that will address different impairments, but they will have to work together," he said.

First, they'll check her vital signs � make sure her blood pressure and heart rate are good. Then specialists ranging from physical and occupational therapists to speech therapists and psychologists will give a slew of tests to see what she can and cannot do.

The strength of her legs and her ability to stand and walk. The strength of her arms, and whether she can brush her teeth or comb her hair. Whether she can safely swallow on her own. How well she thinks and communicates � not just her ability to speak but also to understand and comprehend, Francisco said.

It's unclear if she is able to speak. And while she is moving both arms and legs, it's uncertain how much strength she has on her right side; the bullet passed through the left side of her brain, which controls the right side of the body.

Giffords will stay at Memorial Hermann until she no longer needs 24-hour medical care � the average is one to two months. Then she can continue getting up to five hours a day of physical and other rehab therapies on an outpatient basis, Josehart said.

"It's hard to speculate on the trajectory or course that any one patient will have," he said.

Despite the steady progress, Giffords has a long road to recovery. Doctors are not sure what, if any, disability she will have.

Sometimes, areas of the brain that seem damaged can recover, said Mark Sherer, a neuropsychologist at the rehab center.

"Some of the tissue is temporarily dysfunctional, so the patient appears very impaired very early on after the injury," but may not be permanently damaged, he said.

A gunman shot Giffords and 18 other people Jan. 8 as she met with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. Six people died and the others wounded. All survivors, except Giffords, have been released from hospitals.

The suspect in the attack, Jared Loughner, 22, of Tucson, is being held in federal custody.

"The last 12 days have been extraordinarily difficult for myself, my family, but not only us," Kelly said. "I think it's been very difficult for the city of Tucson, southern Arizona and our country.

Kelly added that Giffords would be proud of the way Tucson has responded. Memorials continued to grow Thursday outside the hospital, in front of her office and at the scene of the shooting.

"I know one of the first things Gabby is going to want to do as soon as she's able to is start writing thank you notes," he said.

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Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Houston. AP aerospace writer Marcia Dunn contributed to this story from Cape Canaveral, Fla.