LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Congressman Gabrielle Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, says he is certain his wife recognizes him and is making her awareness of his bedside presence known more than a week after she was shot through the head.

While doctors at University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, said over the weekend that Giffords remained mostly incommunicative, Kelly said his spouse is connecting with him through small, but distinct gestures.

"If I hold her hand, she'll play with my wedding ring," Kelly, a NASA space shuttle commander, told ABC News in his first television interview since his wife was gravely wounded in a shooting rampage on January 8.

"She'll move (the ring) up and down my finger. She'll take it off. ... She'll put it on her own finger. She'll move it to her thumb. And then she can put it back on my finger," he said.

Kelly's full interview was set to air on Tuesday night on a special edition of the prime-time program "20/20." ABC News released excerpts in advance. Portions also aired on ABC's "Good Morning America," "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline" broadcasts.

"The reason why I know that that means she recognizes me is because she's done that before," Kelly said. "She'll do that if we're sitting in a restaurant. She'll do the same exact movements."

Kelly told Sawyer in his interview that Giffords, 40, even managed to give him a 10-minute neck rub, "and I keep telling her, 'Gabby, you're in the ICU. You know, you don't need to be going this.'"

He added with a chuckle, "I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do that to somebody else. And she's looking me in the eye."

Kelly's anecdotes seemed at odds with the level of function described over the weekend by doctors, who said they had seen little sign of Giffords interacting despite upgrading her overall medical condition from critical to serious following removal of a breathing tube that ran through her mouth and down her throat.

That ventilator hose was replaced on Saturday with a tracheotomy tube inserted through her neck and into her windpipe but still leaves her unable to speak.

"She cannot socialize," Dr. Randall S. Friese, associate medical director of the hospital, told reporters on Monday.

Still, doctors said they were extremely pleased with Giffords' progress and that the next key milestone she faced would be her discharge from the hospital, marking her graduation from recovery to rehabilitation.

Giffords, a Democrat just elected to her third term representing Tucson and southern Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives, was one of 19 people struck by gunfire at a meet-and-greet with constituents.

Six people were killed and 13 others wounded, Giffords being the most seriously hurt. A 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, is in federal custody charged as the lone gunman in the attack.

Kelly acknowledged that his wife still has a difficult road ahead of her but called her a "really, really tough woman."

He also told Sawyer that he had worried for his wife's safety in the past and that they had discussed death threats she had received prior to the shooting.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Bohan)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sargent Shriver, who spent four decades in public service as a member of the Kennedy family, the first director of the Peace Corps and a key warrior in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, died on Tuesday. He was 95.

Shriver, who had suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his final years, was surrounded by his five children and 19 grandchildren when he died in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., his family said in a statement.

Shriver, the Democratic substitute nominee for vice president in 1972 and briefly a presidential candidate in 1976, was an advocate for the poor and powerless who helped launch President Johnson's War on Poverty. He became the driving force behind social programs such as Head Start, Legal Services and VISTA.

Shriver, known as Sarge, helped his wife, Eunice Kennedy, who died on August 11, 2009, create the Special Olympics for mentally disabled children and adults in 1968. The Special Olympics, now run by their son Timothy, serves 1.4 million athletes in 150 countries.

It was Shriver's marriage in 1953 to Eunice, daughter of diplomat and businessman Joseph Kennedy, that inducted him into the legendary Kennedy family and its generations of politicians and activists.

Late in life he became a famous in-law on the other side of the political fence when his daughter, television journalist Maria Shriver, married actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who later became a Republican governor of California.

Despite his own achievements and interests, Shriver "was willing, at times, to dim his own bright star to accommodate the whole shimmering constellation of Kennedys," his biographer, Scott Stossel, wrote.

Shriver coordinated the crucial Wisconsin and West Virginia presidential primary campaigns for brother-in-law John Kennedy in 1960, and after the election he headed the search for administration appointments and staffers.

PEACE CORPS

Once Kennedy took office, Shriver prepared a report on how to spread peace and understanding between the United States and other nations by forming a volunteer corps that would work to improve the quality of life in other countries.

The report led Kennedy to sign an executive order creating the Peace Corps, a program that came to symbolize the idealistic activism of the 1960s, and Shriver became its first director.

Shriver continued to lead the Peace Corps after Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and helped to jump-start the War on Poverty before developing the plans for and directing the Office of Economic Opportunity, which provided a range of training, services and grants to the poor.

In that post, Shriver started programs such as Head Start, Job Corps, VISTA, Legal Services, Upward Bound, the Neighborhood Youth Corps and Community Action Program.

Shriver was ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970 and on his return to the United States traveled the country on behalf of Democratic congressional candidates in the 1970 election.

In 1972, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern chose Shriver as his running mate after his first choice for the job, Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton, was revealed to have undergone electric shock therapy to treat depression.

McGovern and Shriver lost to incumbent President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew in a landslide.

Shriver was part of a crowded Democratic presidential field in 1976 in a race won by Jimmy Carter, who eventually defeated President Gerald Ford to win the White House.

"Over the course of his long and distinguished career, Sarge came to embody the idea of public service," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Former President George W. Bush said Shriver left a "remarkable legacy of service."

"Mr. Shriver was a kind and compassionate man who dedicated his life to serving others. He represented the very best of America in all his endeavors," Bush said in a statement.

A Maryland native and Yale law school graduate, Shriver founded a group opposed to U.S. involvement in World War Two but later joined the Navy and renounced his anti-war stance.

After the war, he managed Joseph Kennedy's Chicago Merchandise Mart for 12 years and helped organize Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson's unsuccessful Democratic presidential campaign in 1952.

Shriver began his public service in 1955 in Chicago, where he served as head of the Board of Education for five years and directed the Catholic Interracial Council, a group established for the desegregation of the city's schools.

Shriver and wife Eunice had five children. After he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Maria wrote a book, "What's Happened to Grandpa," to explain the disease to children.

(Additional reporting by Jo-Anne Allen, editing by Cynthia Osterman)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly two-thirds of U.S. doctors surveyed fear healthcare reform could worsen care for patients, by flooding their offices and hurting income, according to a Thomson Reuters survey released on Tuesday.

The survey of more than 2,900 doctors found many predict the legislation will force them to work harder for less money.

"When asked about the quality of healthcare in the U.S. over the next five years, 65 percent of the doctors believed it would deteriorate with only 18 percent predicting it would improve," Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, said in a statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives began debate on Tuesday on efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul of the U.S. healthcare industry. Repeal of the bill is likely to fail in the Senate.

Also on Tuesday, the Health and Human Services Department released a study predicting that up to 129 million Americans under 65 who have a pre-existing health condition would risk losing health insurance or be denied coverage if the bill is repealed.

Polls show consumers are divided about the impacts of healthcare reform and the House debate has presented an opportunity for many groups to make their arguments for or against it.

REIMBURSEMENT CONCERN

Thomson Reuters researchers and physician services company HCPlexus surveyed 2,958 doctors of varying specialties from 50 states plus Washington, D.C. via fax.

The survey found that 65 percent of the doctors predict healthcare quality will decline over the next five years, 18 percent say it will improve and 17 percent believe it will remain the same.

Most -- 74 percent -- believe the changes will make their reimbursement less fair, according to the survey, available at http://www.HCPlexus.com/survey.

HHS has predicted that 32 million Americans who do not currently have health insurance will receive it under healthcare reforms. When asked where most of these newly insured people would get care, 55 percent of the doctors said a nurse practitioner or physician assistant would provide care.

As for patients, 57 percent of doctors predicted the impact of the changes will be negative, 27 percent said they would be positive and 15 percent forecast a neutral effect.

"The National Physicians Survey tells us that physicians have not been enlisted in the healthcare reform process," said David Shrier, chief executive officer of HCPlexus.

"The message they've taken from healthcare reform appears to be 'Do more with less.' Doctors are telling us they feel disenfranchised and overburdened," Shrier added in a statement.

Doctors were also asked about electronic medical records, a major initiative of HHS and of healthcare reform.

There, opinions were split, with 39 percent saying electronic medical records would help patients, 37 percent saying the effect would be neutral and 24 percent saying they would hurt care.

"Our present survey suggests that greater attention should be paid to understanding the present opinions of the health care provider constituency before proceeding down a path of reform. Without the physicians supporting change it will be difficult to accomplish," the report concludes.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)