Giffords survival chance at ‘101 %’

Giffords survival chance at ‘101 %’

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.”

Floods spreading through Australia

BRISBANE, Australia

For weeks, the flooding in eastern Australia has been a slow-motion disaster, with drenching rain devastating wide swaths of farmland and small towns. Now, rivers are rising in Brisbane, the country’s third-largest city, forcing people to flee both suburbs and skyscrapers. Flooding that has unfolded since late November across the waterlogged state of Queensland turned suddenly violent Monday, with a cloudburst sending a raging torrent down the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane. Hundreds had to be rescued by helicopter Tuesday.

WikiLeaks to rush documents’ release

LONDON

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange vowed Tuesday to step up his site’s release of secret documents while he fights extradition to Sweden, as his lawyers argued that sending him to Stockholm could land him in Guantanamo Bay or even on U.S. death row. That claim, regarded by many legal experts as extremely unlikely, is part of a preliminary defense argument released by Assange’s attorneys ahead of a court hearing next month.

Seat belts urged for small planes

WASHINGTON

Federal safety officials urged Tuesday that aircraft owners be required to retrofit small planes with shoulder-lap seat belts, but stopped short of calling for the installation of air bags. A three-year study of small-plane accidents released by the National Transportation Safety Board found several cases in which air bags prevented serious injuries or fatalities. But investigators said that since only about 7,000 planes have air bags, there haven’t been enough accidents yet to judge whether they should be required on all planes.

O.J. was innocent, Bailey contends

YARMOUTH, Maine

Evidence of O.J. Simpson’s innocence was held back in the 1995 trial in which he was acquitted in the murder of his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles, one of his former lawyers says in a new document. In the 20,000-word document, F. Lee Bailey tells of four people who could have bolstered Simpson’s case but never testified.

FDA helps get execution drug

Records show the Food and Drug Administration helped Arizona and California get a quick overseas source of a hard-to-find execution drug even as the agency declared it wouldn’t regulate or block the imports. A shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the U.S. Ohio has an execution scheduled for next month and has hinted it could run short after Feb. 17.

Associated Press