Giffords 'Improving;' Temperatures In Northeast Are Frigid

Good morning.

If you're just getting your day going, our early posts were about who's going to be in the Super Bowl (it will be Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh) and the "Palestine Papers" that were leaked to Al Jazeera and seem to show that Palestinian negotiators in recent years have offered significant concessions that weren't accepted by Israel.

As for other stories making headlines, they include:

— Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: The Democratic congressoman's condition "is improving at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, but officials at the Houston hospital did not provide any updates on the building of fluid in her brain, according to a statement issued on Sunday afternoon," the Houston Chronicle writes. She was shot and critically injured Jan. 8 by a gunman who attacked a meet-and-greet event she was holding with constituents in Tucson, Ariz. Six people died. Thirteen others, including Giffords, were shot.

— Frigid temperatures:"Bay State residents woke up this morning to what was forecast to be the most frigid temperatures in years and braced for another possible significant snowfall midweek," theBoston Globe reports.

From Albany, N.Y., the Times-Union writes that "if you were planning to step outside today, you may want to reconsider. As of Sunday night, the low temperature in the Albany region on Monday was projected to be 16 degrees below zero — one degree shy of the 17 degrees below zero record for Jan. 24 set in 1948."

According to Weather.com, "very cold temperatures are expected across the Northeast today, with dangerously cold wind chills possible this morning for much of New York and New England."

— Blasts in Iraq: The BBC writes that "two separate car bomb attacks targeting Shia pilgrims in the Iraqi city of Karbala have killed 25 people and injured almost 70, officials say. The first blast killed seven people and injured 18 at a terminal filled with buses carrying pilgrims to Karbala. Hours later, another blast on the southern outskirts of the holy city left 18 people dead and 50 injured."

— Jack LaLanne: "The fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. Jack LaLanne was 96." ( The Associated Press)

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