of the fans there in the southeastern united states dealing with the cold and the snow. we start with a weather note, ali. hundreds, hundreds of auburn fans who have tickets to tonight s game have been stuck in the birmingham, alabama airport wondering if they re even going to get their chartered flights out. the airport has been closed. not sure if it has reopened. it is a waiting game close to expiring, because kickoff is now less than six hours away. the flight is about four hours from here. but those are very expensive tickets. we do know that auburn university has shut down today the viewing parties on campus have been canceled. it s 55 degrees and as you can see severe clear here. we will stay on top of it with you. enjoy yourself out there. we ll all be watching with you tonight. all right. there is ironic news today out of arizona about an e-mail message sent by representative gabrielle giffords. the night before she was shot. time now for a political update from cnn politi
spirits, considering. they are doing well. her husband spent the night here last night, and so the doctors, as you saw, were very optimistic. again, they removed a piece of her brain to allow for it to move and have a little bit of freedom so that the swelling is contained and they are very pleased with that procedure. and its results so far, ali. right. and that s why this is important, right, jessica, because the swelling peaks between two and three days after the initial gunshot, the initial wound to her head? the way they put it, they said it s the third to fifth day post-op ration. so she was shot saturday. post-op day one was sunday, today is post-op day two. tomorrow would be day three. the doctor, said, the surgeon said, he has seen swelling as far as ten days post-op. but that s rare. it s usually contained condition three to five days so soon enough they would know if she s out of the woods. jessica, thanks very much. you re staying on top of that and the others who are
today s your money segment. on the top of the list, oil flow has been cut by 95% in the 800 mile long transalaska pipeline after operators discovered a leak near prudhoe bay saturday night. christine romans tells us what that s likely to mean for gas prices. we ve seen increased oil prices and increased prices at the pump. there s a lot of oil that goes through this pipeline. there is. it s about 15% of american crude oil output through this. you ve got all these energy analysts trying to figure out when that will be up and running. one analyst saying it s a very minor leak but it takes a lot of inspection to get it back going again. you know, it s owned and operated by bp, by the way, so nobody wants to make a mistake hear and cause any kind of a problem. so maybe the next couple of days you ll have the oil offline from here. you know, ali, energy supplies are stressed around the world. you ve got some of these other countries coming up very
increase, we re slightly more optimistic. the shooter, jared lee loughner, is due in federal court in phoenix three hours from now. he s a community college dropout who supposedly jotted down notes about his plans for a quote, assassination. so far he s charged with five counts of murder, and attempted murder based on attacks against federal officials. the deal includes a community the dead people include a community outreach aide to congresswoman giffords and a federal district judge john roll. four other people were killed on saturday, including a 9-year-old girl and two people in their 70s. cnn s ted rowlands is at the phoenix courthouse. jessica yellen is at the university medical center in tucson. they are our two at the top. jessica, let s start with you. from the beginning, giffords surgeons said they were very optimistic about her recovery but that we are in a critical period right now. that s right, ali. he said we re not out of the
loughner got a gun unusual to you? well, ali in america it s not unusual for anybody to be able to get a gun and bullets. it s a fact of life that either you can get one legally or illegally. as far as the suspect, he got one legally. he was not a prohibited possessor. which means he didn t have a felony conviction in the state of arizona or on his record. that would have prohibited him getting that weapon or the extended magazine he used. when you go buy a gun it s often instant, but there s a check that goes through. i guess it checks against the national database. which should alert someone if this man had a record of having some sort of mental illness. the fact that he was asked to leave pima community college, withdrew of his own volition after concern about mental illness, that wouldn t have made it onto that federal database that is checked when you go buy a gun, am i correct? that s correct. they re really two distinct and separate issues between your