Clinton reacts to Arizona attack

Dr Lemole, left, said Ms Giffords’s reactions showed “a purposeful level of consciousness”

The US congresswoman shot in a gun attack in Arizona is still in a critical condition in hospital but showing good signs, her doctor says.

Dr Michael Lemole said Gabrielle Giffords’s condition did not change overnight but that was “a good thing”.

A Mass for the six dead and Ms Giffords and more than a dozen others wounded in Saturday’s attack was planned for Tuesday in Tuscon, Arizona.

Jared Loughner, 22, is charged with the attack. He waived bail on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, Dr Lemole told NBC Ms Giffords’s brain was “working at a higher level” and she was responsive to commands.

Meanwhile, the White House has announced that President Barack Obama will attend memorial service on Wednesday evening at a basketball arena in Arizona.

He will address the crowd, and the service will include a Native American blessing, a moment of silence and a poetry reading.

And as the debate over personal security for US Congressmen – who typically have little or none – heated up in Washington DC, the US Senate sergeant-at-arms told US television he opposed lawmakers arming themselves against potential threats.

“I don’t think introducing more guns into the situation is going to be helpful,” Terrance Gainer said.

But he acknowledged that there had been 49 threats against US Senators over the past year, an increase on previous years.

The man suspected in Saturday’s attack, Mr Loughner, made his first court appearance on Monday in Phoenix.

He was charged with five federal crimes – the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, the first degree murder of two federal employees and the attempted murder of two federal employees – and may face additional state charges.

Mr Loughner walked into the courtroom in Phoenix, Arizona’s capital city, wearing handcuffs and in a prison uniform, with a cut on the right side of his head.

He was remanded to custody pending trial after US Magistrate Judge Lawrence Anderson ruled he was a danger.

Judge Anderson scheduled a preliminary court appearance for 24 January.

Mr Loughner is represented by Judy Clarke, a prominent defence attorney who represented an infamous parcel bomber and the man convicted of setting a bomb at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. He did not contest the detention order.

The attack occurred on Saturday during an open-invitation meeting at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, which Ms Giffords had arranged for constituents.

Ms Giffords, 40, was shot from close range by the gunman, who then began shooting into the crowd. Among the dead were a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge.

It is unclear whether the US justice department will seek the death penalty against Mr Loughner, should he be convicted.

Ms Clarke is known as a staunch opponent of capital punishment who successfully evaded the death penalty for Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber parcel bomber, and Eric Robert Rudolph, a militant anti-abortion activist convicted in the Olympics bombing and bomb attacks on abortion clinics.

A total of 19 people were shot.

Flags across the US were flown at half mast on Monday, and Mr Obama said the nation was “grieving and shocked”.

Bill Badger: ‘I held Arizona gunman by throat’

Lawmakers paid tribute to Ms Giffords and other victims of the mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol building, and in Tucson, small groups gathered in public spaces, in offices and in shops and stopped in silence for a minute.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, a gun control advocate from the state of New Jersey, announced plans on Monday to introduce legislation that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips, like the one used in Saturday’s attack.

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