The condition of shot US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has improved again with doctors upgrading her status from critical to serious after a procedure to remove her from a ventilator was successful.
Ms Giffords responded from the moment she arrived at the emergency room, at first just squeezing a doctor's hand. Then she raised two fingers. She opened her unbandaged eye shortly after President Barack Obama's bedside visit last Wednesday.
Doctors decided to upgrade her condition because the tracheotomy done a day earlier was uneventful, hospital spokeswoman Katie Riley said. A feeding tube was also put in on Saturday, and doctors speculated that they might soon know if she could speak.
Few people survive a bullet to the brain - just 10 per cent - and some who do end up in a vegetative state. It is even more rare for people with gunshot wounds to the head to regain all of their abilities, and doctors have cautioned that the full extent of Ms Giffords's recovery remains uncertain.
Ms Giffords and 18 others were shot when a gunman opened fire at a meet-and-greet she was hosting outside a supermarket in her own hometown. Six people died, including the congresswoman's popular community outreach director, Gabe Zimmerman.
At funeral services for Mr Zimmerman yesterday, Mr Kelly told the some 700 people gathered that his wife was inspired by his idealism and warmth, according to the Arizona Republic. "Gabby and I spoke often about Gabe. She loved him like a younger brother," Mr Kelly said. "I know someday she'll get to tell you herself how she felt about Gabe."
Meanwhile, a week after the Tucson supermarket massacre, more details emerged about one of shooting victims who police said became distraught and was arrested during a televised town hall meeting.
James Eric Fuller (63), who was shot in the knee on January 8th, objected to comments from Trent Humphries, leader of the conservative Tea Party political movement in Tucson, during taping of a town hall meeting organised for an ABC News special programme on the aftermath of the shootings.
Mr Fuller took a picture of a local Tea Party leader and yelled "you're dead" before calling others in the church a bunch of "whores," authorities said. Deputies called a doctor and decided he should be taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation, said Pima County sheriff's spokesman Jason Ogan said.
In media interviews and on the internet, Mr Fuller, a former limousine driver and census worker, has said he worked hard to get Ms Giffords re-elected in her conservative-leaning district. He was going over questions he had prepared for the congresswoman, when the shooting began, he said in an interview with the television show Democracy Now.
He was shot in the knee and back and drove himself to the hospital, where he spent two days.
"I didn't know how to calm myself down," he said on the TV show, "so I wrote down the Declaration of Independence, which I memorised some time ago. And that did help to organise my thoughts."
He also lashed out at conservative Republicans for "Second Amendment activism," arguing it set the stage for the shooting.
The man Fuller is accused of threatening, Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries, said he was worried about the threat, and the dozens of other angry e-mails he has received.