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Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has shown some signs she is able to understand despite being in a critical condition after being shot in the head by an apparently deranged gunman.
Giffords, a 40-year-old Democrat, is in a critical condition but is able to follow simple commands, such as holding up two fingers when asked by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, doctors at University Medical Centre in Tucson said.
ONE News correspondent T J Winick said there were reports tonight the congresswoman also gave the peace sign.
Doctors have expressed cautious optimism that Congresswoman Giffords, who was shot in the head, would recover.
The US government today charged 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner with attempted assassination in the Arizona shooting rampage.
Loughner has been charged with two counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress and two other counts of attempted murder.
Prosecutors said other charges could be filed.
Giffords has had half of her skull removed to allow for potential swelling that is always a concern with traumatic brain injuries.
The single bullet travelled the length of her brain on the left side, hitting an area that controls speech.
Given the devastating wound, doctors said they were uncertain about the extent of brain damage she may have suffered. Giffords has been put into a pharmaceutical coma but was being awakened frequently to check her progress.
"There are obvious areas of our brain that are less tolerant to intrusion," said Dr Michael Lemole.
"I don't want to go down the speculation road but at the same time we're cautiously optimistic," he said.
Loughner is due to appear in court in Phoenix at 2pm local time (4am tomorrow NZT), the Justice Department said, as reports emerged of a troubled man who posted several anti-government rants on YouTube and his MySpace page and who had recently been asked to leave his local college for disruptive behaviour.
According to his classmates, his grip on reality seems to have come undone in the past year.
He was asked to leave his community college in Tucson and was asked by campus police not to return because of several outbursts until he received clearance from a mental health counsellor, but he never did that.
Instead, he went to a sporting goods store in November and got the 9mm Glock handgun that authorities say he used in the mass shooting yesterday.
He allegedly opened fire at close range while Giffords was attending a political meeting in a supermarket parking lot. The shooting of Giffords and 19 other people - six of whom were killed - has fuelled debate about extreme political rhetoric in the United States after an acrimonious campaign for congressional elections in November.
US federal judge John Roll, who was on his way to church, a nine-year-old girl and a pastor were among the six people killed. Fourteen people were wounded.
Investigators said in the charges they found several notes in an envelope inside a safe at Loughner's residence with the hand-written phrases "I planned ahead" and "My assassination," along with the name "Giffords" and what appeared to be Loughner's signature next to it.
He was also apparently planning his own suicide after the attack and asked his friends on his MySpace page to understand why he did what he did.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told a news conference public officials should be on alert, but there was no information to suggest a further specific threat.
Mueller said "hate speech and other inciteful speech" presented a challenge to law enforcement officials, especially when it resulted in "lone wolves" undertaking attacks.
Gun violence is common in the United States but political shootings are rare.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said a wounded woman, identified by CNN as Patricia Maisch, had grabbed away an ammunition magazine from the gunman as he tried to reload after shooting into the crowd.
He managed to fit in another magazine but it jammed and he was tackled by two men.
The violence shocked politicians in Washington.
Some Democrats said a climate of political vitriol might have played a role.
"We are in a dark place in this country right now and the atmospheric condition is toxic," Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver told NBC's Meet the Press programme.
But Jon Kyl, a Republican senator from Arizona, cautioned against a rush to speculate.
"We really don't know what motivated this young person, except to know he was very mentally unstable," Kyl said on the Face the Nation show on CBS.
The father of the slain nine-year-old girl said she was born on September 11, 2001 - the day of the hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington.
"She came into the world on 9/11 and then at nine years old she leaves it all on this terrible day."
President Barack Obama called on Americans to observe a moment of silence today to commemorate the victims of the shooting.
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