Recovering Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is planning to “climb a mountain.”

Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, told the Arizona Republic on Sunday that his wife is slowly improving, as he sees progress "every few days."

PHOTOS: Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords With Her Family

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords continues to make remarkable progress.

The Arizona Democrat, 40, uttered her first words this week in the Houston hospital she's rehabbing in, asking for a piece of toast, RadarOnline.com has learned.

It’s the first she’s spoken since she was shot in the head last month by Jared Loughner in the Tucson rampage that left six people dead. The congresswoman's aide C.J. Karamargin said she's been communicating "more and more each day," a development her doctors say is a milestone in her recovery from the shooting.

Astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is headed to space this April to be the commander of the final shuttle ride for Endeavour, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Giffords is the Arizona congresswoman shot in the head at close range by Jared Loughner in the January 8 shooting rampage Tucson that left six people dead.

Kelly, 46, is expected to formally announce his mission Friday afternoon at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, the same city where Giffords, 40, is undergoing rehab for the injuries she suffered in the shooting.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman shot in the head at close range in the Tucson shooting rampage earlier this month, has been upgraded from serious to good condition, RadarOnline.com has learned Wednesday.

A chair for Giffords was noticeably left empty and displayed during President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night. Politicians wore  black-and-white lapel ribbons in memory of the six people who died January 8 after the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, went on his rampage in Tucson, Arizona.

Jared Lee Loughner made his second appearance in court since the January 8 shooting spree that left six people dead and entered a plea of not guilty on Monday.

The 22-year-old faces charges of the attempted assassination of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the attepmpted murder of her two aides; he will be charged for the other killings in state court.

PHOTOS: Jared Lee Loughner Is The Suspected Shooter

Loughner’s hair has grown out and his sinister “smirk was back on his face,” according to CNN.  He entered the courtroom in Phoenix, Arizona 10 minutes before the judge came into the room and was looking around, smiling and chuckling a little bit.

Two high-profile suspects will appear in court Monday -- the woman accused of kidnapping a baby from a New York hospital more than two decades ago, and the 22-year-old man who nearly killed Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting spree earlier this month.

Appearing in a New York courtroom will be Ann Pettway, who's accused of donning a phony nurse's outfit to kidnap baby Carlina White in 1987 from Harlem Hospital.

The now-23-year-old Carlina, who was raised as Nejdra Nance, recently reunited with her birth family. She's implicated North Carolina native Pettway -- who turned herself into authorities Sunday -- as her kidnapper.

Sarah Palin Wednesday broke her silence about the shooting massacre in Tucson, calling out the media for their “blood libel” in tying her to the tragedy that left six people dead and another 14 wounded.

Watch the video on RadarOnline.com

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Palin absorbed major criticism for a graphic posted on her website mapping out her political opponents -- one of them being shooting victim, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- using targets with cross-hairs to mark each one.

Deranged shooter Jared Loughner’s family blocked FBI agents from gaining entry to their home, RadarOnline.com has learned.

The family - who have still not made a public statement about the shooting in which six people died - put on 4-by-4 double-thick plywood that blocked access to the front porch of their north Tucson home.

PHOTOS: The Six People Killed In The Arizona Shooting

At about 12:25 p.m., agents began banging on the blockade, yelling, "This is the FBI. Let us in."

Several FBI agents were then seen going around the back of the house before they were allowed access via the front of the property.

The parents of Jared Loughner, whose shooting rampage in the parking lot of a Tucson supermarket killed six people and injured 14 others, are expected to release their first public statement Tuesday about the tragedy, but their next door neighbor describes them as being "devastated" in the wake of the incident . 

Wayne Smith said that Randy and Amy Loughner have been holed up in their Tucson home since their 22-year-old son's Saturday rampage, in which he allegedly attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Smith tells KPHO TV that Loughner's mother has been in bed, crying non-stop  since Saturday. "It's really bad right now," he says.

Arizona shooter Jared Loughner had an "evil smile on his face like The Joker from Batman", his college math teacher told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive new interview Monday.

Ben McGahee -- who taught Loughner at Pima Community College last summer -- believed that the 22-year-old was high on drugs in his class and represented a threat to his other students.

McGahee was so alarmed about Loughner's behavior that he alerted the college Dean and counselors when he discovered that Loughner had scribbled the words ‘Mayhem Fest’ on one of his math tests.