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.

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.

Authorities recovered nearly two dozen surveillance tapes from both inside and outside the Arizona Safeway grocery store where Jared Lee Loughner went on a wild shooting spree, and the footage is graphic and disturbing.

Sources who have viewed the tapes told the Washington Post that Loughner is seen shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the face, above the left eye, from just two or three feet away.

PHOTOS: The Six People Killed In The Tucson Shootings

“He walks up, goes bang. It’s very clear,” a source said.

“He is maybe 24 to 36 inches away. You can see her go straight down.”

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.

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.

Actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Sophia Bush are both connected to victims in the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and 14 injured, RadarOnline.com has learned.

PHOTOS: The Six People Killed In The Tucson Shootings

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the 40-year-old congresswoman who was in a medically-induced coma after the Saturday shooting, was first cousins with Gwyneth's late father, director Bruce Paltrow.

Jared Loughner, whose shooting rampage in the parking lot of a Tucson supermarket killed six people and injured 14 others, will make his first appearance in a federal court in Phoenix on Monday at 4 pm ET/2 pm MT, to face charges he attempted to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

PHOTOS: The Six People Killed In The Tucson Shootings

PHOTOS: Jared Lee Loughner Is The Suspected Shooter

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Loughner's been characterized as social outcast whose esoteric political beliefs put him on the fringe. As of Monday morning, he was officially charged with a count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress; two counts of killing an employee of the federal government; and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee, with more charges expected on the way.