Smiling Giffords photos posted on Facebook
HOUSTON, June 12 (UPI) -- An Arizona photographer says the best part about his series of photos of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was seeing her smile.
"It was very inspiring to see how much she had recovered in 4 1/2 months," photographer P.K. Weis of SouthwestPhotoBank.com said in a written statement. "I was excited to see her and to see her smile."
Weis' images posted on Giffords' Facebook page Sunday were the first taken since she was nearly killed in a January shooting in Tucson.
The photos were taken May 17 and showed a smiling Giffords wearing glasses and short hair.
CNN said Facebook fans quickly began sending in messages of support.
"She looks remarkably good!" said Facebook poster Jeffery Haas.
Giffords will leave a Houston rehabilitation center by the end of the month, an aide said.
She has been going through therapy at TIRR Memorial Hermann in the Texas Medical Center since Jan. 26 and will continue her rehabilitation as an outpatient, the Houston Chronicle said.
Donna Brazile: Weiner's credibility gutted
WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) -- A renewed call for the resignation of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., was made Sunday by Donna Brazile, vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week" news program, Brazile said the scandal that's erupted over Weiner's admission to sending explicit pictures of himself to several women rendered him a lame political entity in Congress.
Brazile said Weiner's "effectiveness as a lawmaker is now diminished by this scandal," and he can't maintain his role of fighting the Republicans' budget proposals.
"His constituents deserve a full-time member who is focused on jobs and the economy, not somebody focused on whether or not he exposed himself or overexposed himself to someone on the Internet," she said.
Brazile's condemnation came a day after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who heads the Democratic National Committee, said it was time for Weiner to resign.
A spokesman for Weiner said the congressman has requested a short leave of absence from his duties to seek professional counseling.
Erdogan retains reduced majority in Turkey
ANKARA, Turkey, June 12 (UPI) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party won a third term Sunday, but with a reduced majority.
With 99 percent of the ballots counted, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won 50 percent of the vote, yielding 326 seats in Parliament, the BBC reported.
The qualified victory is 41 seats short of the two-thirds majority the party would need to amend the Turkish Constitution unilaterally, the BBC said.
The secular Republican People's Party won 26 percent of the vote, and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party garnered 13 percent.
"The people gave us a message to build the new constitution through consensus and negotiation," Erdogan told supporters in Ankara.
He said his party would "discuss the new constitution with opposition parties."
More than 50 million people were eligible to cast votes in Sunday's election.
Arizona firefighters count on weather
ALPINE, Ariz., June 12 (UPI) -- The huge Wallow fire in the Arizona mountains covered nearly 444,000 acres Sunday, but firefighters said they are hopeful the weather will work in their favor.
The fire chewing through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest was last listed at 6 percent containment and remained a threat to structures in the area south of Alpine.
The White Mountain Independent in Show Low said Sunday fire crews had a good day Saturday with productive back-fire operations and air drops of water that included two drenchings by a DC-10 air tanker near Greer.
Winds Saturday pushed the flames back toward previously burned areas, and it was hoped similar conditions Sunday would slow the fire's advance.
While firefighters worked to contain the fire, utility crews were toiling to repair damaged power lines that KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, N.M., said had knocked out electricity service to thousands of people in the state.
