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)

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Speakers at Martin Luther King Day celebrations warned on Monday of the dangers of harsh political rhetoric in the wake of a mass shooting in Arizona that killed six and left a congresswoman gravely wounded.

The speakers including civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis and Attorney General Eric Holder said the attack last Saturday outside a supermarket in Tucson highlighted the relevance of King's philosophy of non-violence.

"A senseless rampage in Tucson, Arizona, reminded us that more than 40 years after Dr. King's own tragic death our long struggle to end suffering and to eradicate violence goes on," Holder told a congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King was pastor.

"But today, once more, we can see the stars," said Holder. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. Monday was the 25th national holiday to celebrate his birth in 1929.

Jared Loughner, 22, is charged with five federal counts, including murder and the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords over the rampage. Giffords was shot in the head and gravely wounded. In all, six people were killed and 13 wounded.

"If Doctor King could speak to us today he would tell us that we should always be kind to each other. He would tell us that we must learn how to disagree without being hostile and violent," said Lewis.

Lewis is considered a hero of the struggle against racial segregation in the South in part because as a student leader in 1965, state police breaking up a peaceful march in Selma, Alabama, for voting rights, beat him so badly they fractured his skull.

"He (King) would say to us today that words can be harmful and dangerous," Lewis said.

STATE OF THE UNION

None of the main speakers at the annual service made an explicit link between political rhetoric and the shooting but the attacks formed a somber backdrop to the service.

"Today we are all a citizen of Tucson," said Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia.

The highly-charged event is a highlight of Atlanta's calendar, drawing politicians from across the spectrum as well as leaders from major religions.

It gained significance as a national event because Ebenezer is located on the same street where King was born. But amid calls for unity some speakers also used the occasion to promote King's social gospel with its message of equality and fairness.

Such appeals, delivered to the delight of an overwhelmingly African American audience, often come in the form of thinly-veiled endorsements of Democratic Party policies and at the expense of Republicans.

"We have got to stop giving tax breaks to the wealthy while we break the backs of the poor and middle class," said King's son, Martin Luther King, in a keynote speech in which he also called for a moratorium on home foreclosures.

In a witty, passionate speech, Reverend Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Ebenezer, appealed to Republicans and Democrats in Congress to agree to sit together during President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech on January 25 rather than sit separately in party blocs.

"Maybe after Arizona what our children need to see is they need to see us sitting together," Warnock said, arguing in a reference to King, that the symbol would have a larger social meaning.

"How do we tell Bloods and Crips to reconcile when ... Republicans and Democrats can't sit together," he said, referring to street gang names. "Are they (Congress) members of rival gangs or are they servants of the people."

(Editing by Greg McCune)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Alaska's crude oil pipeline resumed operations on Monday, restoring the flow of about 12 percent of U.S. oil production nearly a week and a half after the line was shut due to a leak.

A bypass line to circumvent the leak was completed earlier on Monday and operators are expecting to ramp up throughput to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) within 24 hours, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co said in a statement.

A spokesman said it would take days to reach its average operating rate, which was 640,000 bpd in December.

Producers including BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil got permission to resume normal output on Monday afternoon, and will gradually increase output over the coming days, said Alyeska spokeswoman Michelle Egan. She said the line was drawing down inventories to ramp up output on Monday.

Oil futures rose slightly in early Tuesday trading. ICE Brent for March added 22 cents to $97.65 a barrel.

The leak, discovered on January 8, had forced Alaska's oil producers to slow output to a trickle, helping drive oil prices to near $100 a barrel, their highest in two and a half years. Prices fell by more than half a percent on Monday, the biggest one-day decline since before the line was shut.

"Crews completed work on the bypass piping at Pump Station 1 and at 4:04 a.m. Alaska time notified the Operations Control Center that it could prepare for restart," Alyeska said in the statement. "The OCC initiated forward flow of crude oil at 10:18."

The 800-mile (1,280-km) line was fully shut down from January 8 to January 11 while crews worked to build a bypass line.

It restarted briefly last week at a rate of less than 400,000 bpd to avoid freeze-up and storage problems along the line and in the oil fields, but it temporarily shut again on Saturday to allow workers to install a 157-foot (48-meter) bypass line that will route oil around the leaking section.

During the second shutdown, oil producers on the North Slope were asked to reduce output to 24 percent of normal rates, then 16 percent and ultimately 12 percent.

The leak that forced the initial shutdown appears to be in a below-ground pipe encased in concrete, said Alyeska and the state and federal agencies responding to the problem. But that will still be investigated, the Unified Command said in a statement.

The total recovery estimate from Pump Station 1 is about 317 barrels of oil, or 13,326 gallons, the Unified Command said. Oil produced during the shutdown period was routed into storage tanks at Pump Station 1.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen and Joshua Schneyer in New York; Editing by Ted Kerr and Martin Golan)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The astronaut husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords said in his first television interview that his wife still faces months of recovery but is a "really, really tough woman."

Capt. Mark Kelly, a NASA space shuttle commander who rushed to Giffords' side after she was shot in the head during a January 8 rampage in Arizona, told ABC News that he was realistic about challenges facing his wife.

"Gabby's got a long road ahead of her," Kelly said in an interview set to air on the ABC News program "20/20" on Tuesday.

"We know that the recovery from these kind of injuries isn't measured in days and weeks," he said. "It's more like weeks and months. And so she's got a long, tough road ahead of her. But, you know, she's a really, really tough woman."

Giffords, who was struck in the head by a single bullet was upgraded from critical to serious condition on Sunday, after doctors said they had removed her from a ventilator and that the danger from brain swelling had passed.

Surgeons said during a press conference on Monday that the congresswoman was recovering well from a pair of weekend operations and could be released from the hospital to begin rehabilitation in the coming weeks.

Kelly told interviewer Diane Sawyer that Giffords, 40, had recovered enough to give him a 10-minute neck rub from her bed in the Intensive Care Unit.

" so typical of her. She's in the ICU. You know, gone through this traumatic injury. And she spent 10 minutes giving me a neck massage," he said.

Kelly also said he would be willing to meet with the parents of 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the college dropout charged in the shooting spree.

"Gabby has two stepdaughters, and I have children. And they must, I'm sure they love their son. And they must be, you know, as distraught over this as all of us are," he said.

Loughner is charged with five federal counts in connection with the shooting, including the attempted assassination of Giffords.

(Writing by Dan Whitcomb, Editing by Greg McCune)

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' medical condition was upgraded from critical to serious on Sunday, eight days after she was shot through the head by a gunman at close range.

Doctors said they upgraded Giffords' condition because she was no longer attached to a ventilator. Surgeons on Saturday replaced a breathing tube that ran down her throat with a tracheotomy tube inserted through a hole in her neck into her windpipe.

"The congresswoman continues to do well. She is breathing on her own," said a statement released on Sunday by the University Medical Center in Tucson. "Yesterday's procedures were successful and uneventful."

Doctors said Giffords had been breathing essentially on her own for days but had remained hooked up to a ventilator in part as a safeguard against infection.

The hospital said they planned no further updates on Giffords' condition until a news conference scheduled for 11 a.m. local time on Monday.

Doctors also have fitted Giffords with a feeding tube, a practice not uncommon for patients in intensive care with brain injuries.

Giffords, 40, had been the only patient in critical condition from the January 8 shooting that left 12 other people wounded. Six more gunshot victims died in the rampage. One patient was discharged on Saturday, leaving two others hospitalized in good condition.

Doctors have expressed satisfaction with the pace of Giffords' recovery. In recent days, she has opened her eyes and is tracking the movement of objects in her field of vision. She also is responding to simple commands, such as raising her fingers and wiggling her toes.

Giffords, a Democrat representing Tucson and southern Arizona, was elected in November to her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, a college dropout from the area, has been detained as the lone gunman suspected in the rampage. He is charged with five federal felony offenses, including attempted assassination of a member of Congress.

Federal authorities are planning to move Loughner's trial to San Diego because of extensive pretrial publicity in Arizona, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing federal law enforcement sources.

They cited publicity and the sensitivity of the case in Arizona, where one of those fatally shot was John Roll, the state's chief federal judge, the Post said.

The new chief judge, Roslyn Silver, will make the final decision about any venue change, but one law enforcement official told the Post, "it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time."

The rampage sparked a national debate about whether the vitriolic tone of partisan politics in the United States in recent years had contributed to the suspect's motivations.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sargent Shriver, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate and brother-in-law of former President John F. Kennedy, has been admitted to a hospital in suburban Washington, a hospital spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The spokeswoman for Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, confirmed Shriver was in the hospital but declined to provide any additional information.

Shriver, 95, suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

Shriver was the first director of the Peace Corps, created during the Kennedy administration. He helped his wife, Eunice Kennedy, who died in August 2009, create the Special Olympics for mentally disabled children and adults in 1968.

Shriver helped launch President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and was briefly a presidential candidate in 1976.

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's daughter, journalist Maria Shriver, is married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California.

(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Peter Cooney)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – A mass of unusually moist Pacific air swept the northern Rockies on Sunday, dumping wet snow in the mountains and heavy showers in the valleys as forecasters warned of increased avalanche hazards in several states.

The threat of heavy runoff in the Pacific Northwest from the same warm, wet front also prompted the National Weather Service to post flood advisories across several counties in Washington state and southern Oregon.

Rainfall in the Northwest was expected to total between 1 to 3 inches, while icy roads made driving difficult in parts of the Rockies.

Rain freezing on highway surfaces forced the closure of a section of Interstate 94 northeast of Billings in south-central Montana, according to the state Department of Transportation. And freezing rain driven by high winds made for treacherous travel conditions on I-90 in southwest Montana near Bozeman.

Forecasters from Montana, Idaho and Washington state said avalanche hazards were high where accumulations of heavy, wet snow was making steep slopes unstable.

They cited the elevated risk of natural or human-caused avalanches in back-country areas of western Montana, central Idaho near the ski resort of Sun Valley, Mount Hood in Oregon and the Olympic and Cascade ranges of Washington state.

Conditions were especially grim in the mountains east of Flathead Lake near Glacier National Park, where avalanches last weekend killed one snowmobiler and trapped several others. That fatality brought the avalanche death toll in the Rockies so far this season to six.

Avalanche danger also prompted the Idaho Transportation Department to shut down 12 miles of a state highway between the state capital Boise and Sun Valley.

In the Idaho Panhandle, the U.S. Forest Service issued a high alert for avalanches for upper elevations of the inland Northwest -- which also includes eastern Oregon and eastern Washington -- except on groomed ski runs.

Moisture rolling through the Northern Rockies Sunday afternoon was at the highest levels recorded in mid-January for the past 30 years, said Jessica Nolte, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Missoula, Montana.

"It's 250 percent above what would normally be observed," she said.

What was rain in parts of Montana and Idaho was falling as snow in northwest Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park, where forecasters predicted as much as a foot of snow.

The same storm was expected to dump up to 16 inches of snow near the exclusive resort town of Jackson, Wyoming by early Monday evening.

(Additional reporting by Wendell Marsh in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Reuters) – Nebraska's 17-year-old Teresa Scanlan was named Miss America Saturday becoming the youngest winner ever in the pageant's history after a night of being judged for poise, talent, fitness and knowledge.

Scanlan wowed the judges wearing a stunning white evening gown and tickling the ivories on piano with rousing rendition of "White Water Chopped Sticks" in the talent competition.

In the final question, she was asked about the leaking of confidential government information by website WikiLeaks and whether U.S. security or the people's right to know sensitive information was more important.

Scanlan saw the leaks as a matter of espionage and said: "When it comes to the security of our nation, we have to focus on security first and then people's right to know ... We can't let things like that happen, and they must be handled properly, and I think that was the case."

The first runner-up, who will take Miss America's place in the case Scanlan can't perform her new role, was Miss Arkansas Alyse Eady.

Among other noteworthy contestants was Miss Delaware, Kayla Martell, who made it into the semifinals. Martell suffers from a disease, alopecia areata, that caused her to lose all her hair at age 10, and she competed in a wig.

This year marked the 90th pageant in the history of Miss America. The organization runs achievement programs and is a major provider of scholarship assistance for young women. In 2010, the group and its state and local affiliates helped give out more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance.

FROM 53 TO 1

Fifty-three women were chosen from states and territories across the country in local contests before they headed to Las Vegas and the final pageant Saturday.

As Miss America, Scanlan will take the next year to travel the United States and raise awareness about eating disorders.

Miss America 2010, Caressa Cameron from Virginia, 22, was a goodwill ambassador for the Children's Miracle Network, and she spent the year helping raise awareness for HIV/AIDS.

In the week ahead of Saturday's competition, contestants were judged in preliminary events for evening wear, fitness and swimsuits and answer questions in an interview.

From those events, 11 semifinalists were chosen to compete Saturday night. Joining them were four other contestants -- two picked by online voting and two others by the remaining young women in the pageant.

The 15 semifinalists were narrowed Saturday in contests that again include evening wear, fitness and swimsuits, talent and a final on-stage question for the top five women. Then, the top five were ranked to get to the new Miss America.

This year, seven panelists judged contestants in the final round as they answered their question in 20 seconds. The judges -- including TV talk show co-host Joy Behar, "Dancing With the Stars" professional dancer Tony Dovolani, and "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry, among others -- watched for confidence, knowledge and quick thinking in formulating an answer.

Joining Miss Nebraska and Arkansas among the five finalists were women from Hawaii, Washington and Oklahoma.

The show included a rousing opening musical number by all 53 contestants, and it was hosted by TV personalities Brooke Burke and Chris Harrison.

(Writing by Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Eric Beech)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday to maintain the "spirit of common cause" that arose from grieving over the Arizona shootings and use it to solve the nation's problems.

Legislative work in Washington came to a halt this week while lawmakers and citizens from both parties mourned the victims of a gunman who went on a rampage in Arizona on January 8, killing six people and wounding 13, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

Obama gave a well-received speech at a memorial service for the victims on Wednesday in Arizona and he revived the theme of national unity in his weekly radio and Internet address.

The president lauded lawmakers who came together to pay tribute to Giffords and the other victims earlier in the week.

"As shrill and discordant as our politics can be at times, it was a moment that reminded us of who we really are -- and how much we depend on one another," Obama said.

"While we can't escape our grief for those we've lost, we carry on now, mindful of those truths."

Obama said the country had to carry on out of necessity and work to create jobs, improve the economy, "shore up" the budget and bring down the deficit.

"These are challenges I believe we can meet. And I believe we can do it in a way worthy of those who sent us here to serve," Obama said.

"So as business resumes, I look forward to working together in that same spirit of common cause with members of Congress from both parties -- because before we are Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans."

Republicans control the House of Representatives and have greater strength in the Senate this year after making big gains in November congressional elections.

House Republicans' postponed for a week their effort to repeal Obama's signature healthcare law while Congress mourned the shooting victims. The House is expected to resume action next week and vote on a repeal, which is expected to stall in the Senate.

In the weekly Republican address, Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona urged lawmakers not to let the attacks discourage them from doing their jobs.

Giffords was meeting with constituents outside a supermarket when the gunman opened fire.

"While we may not agree on everything, members of Congress are bound together by a sacred oath to support and defend the Constitution," Flake said.

"And so it is our duty to uphold our oath, to listen and to represent. We will not let this inhumane act cow us into doing otherwise."

(Editing by Vicki Allen)