Discovery leaving space station for the last time

Actor William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk on the original "Star Trek" TV series, paid tribute to space shuttle Discovery's voyages over the decades. He said the shuttle has boldly gone and done what no spacecraft has done before.

This is the final flight for Discovery, the most traveled spaceship ever. It will be retired after this mission and sent to a museum. It's due to land Wednesday.

Shatner introduced Monday's wake-up music for the six shuttle astronauts. The song was "Theme from Star Trek." It was the runner-up in a pick-the-wake-up-music contest sponsored by NASA. The No. 1 vote-getter will be beamed up Tuesday.

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Saudi Arabia: Demonstrations won't be tolerated

The warning was another attempt by Saudi Arabia to get ahead of the unrest that has swept the Arab world in recent months. Last week, the government announced an unprecedented economic package worth an estimated $36 billion that will give Saudis interest-free home loans, unemployment assistance and debt forgiveness.

The Interior Ministry statement said the kingdom bans all demonstrations because they contradict Islamic laws and society's values, adding that some people have tried to go around the law to "achieve illegitimate aims."

Security forces were authorized to act against anyone violating the ban, the statement said.

The demonstration followed Friday prayers in the eastern town of Hofuf when the Shiites demanded the release of detainees, including Tawfiq al-Amer, a Shiite cleric who was arrested last week after he called for a constitutional monarchy.

On Feb. 24, a group of influential intellectuals urged King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's 86-year-old monarch, to adopt far-reaching political and social reforms. They said Arab rulers should learn from the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and listen to the voice of disenchanted young people. The group includes renowned Islamic scholars, a female academic, a poet and a former diplomat.

While oil-rich Saudi Arabia has been mostly spared the unrest in the Middle East, a robust protest movement has risen up in its tiny neighbor, Bahrain, which like others around the region is centered on calls for representative government and relief from poverty and unemployment.

A Facebook page calling for a "March 11 Revolution of Longing" in Saudi Arabia has begun attracting hundreds of viewers. A message posted on the page calls for "the ousting of the regime" and lists demands including the election of a ruler and members of the advisory assembly known as the Shura Council.

There are no government figures in Saudi Arabia that provide a national income breakdown, but analysts estimate there are more than 450,000 jobless. About two-thirds of the population is under 29 — and many of them chafe under the harsh religious rules that keep the sexes largely segregated.

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Giffords shows more progress in recovery

The Democratic congresswoman has been undergoing extensive therapy in the nearly two months since she was shot at a political event in Tucson, and has been receiving frequent visits from her astronaut husband Mark Kelly as he trains to be the commander of the next shuttle mission.

Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said Thursday that the congresswoman also gets regular, detailed updates about the work being done at her offices in Tucson and in Washington. She gets the updates from her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, who is splitting her time between Houston, Washington and Tucson.

Among Giffords' other visitors has been Stephanie Aaron, her rabbi and good friend. Aaron described Giffords' progress to The Associated Press on Thursday after a visit to the hospital over the weekend.

She said Giffords sang Don McLean's "American Pie" with husband Mark Kelly and his two daughters, and that she knew the words better than the three of them. Musical therapy is an important part of her recovery as doctors use song in attempt to improve her brain function, along with physical, occupational and speech rehabilitation.

Aaron said Giffords also chanted a Hebrew healing prayer with her, although the congresswoman didn't know the words beforehand.

Aaron said she would tell Giffords the words, and the two would chant, with Giffords getting frustrated at times.

"I would just stop, hold her hand and say, 'Gabby, it's OK. Just breathe.' And we would sit together and just breathe," Aaron said. "And what very much uplifted me was when I was leaving ... she got tears in her eyes and she hugged me. I said, 'Gabby, what do you need to remember?' And she said, 'Breathe.'"

She said when she first arrived at Giffords' hospital room, she brought the congresswoman a giant card made by students at the middle school she attended. Inside it was a T-shirt attached to the card, and printed on the shirt was a photo of the students with Giffords and Kelly when they visited Washington, D.C.

"She reached out and pulled the shirt off and held it to her heart and had a big smile, and she touched the picture of Mark," Aaron said. "It was very moving."

Aaron said that she left the hospital for a while to bring Giffords some of her favorite foods — matzo ball soup and cheese blintzes. She said Giffords happily ate the meal.

"I'm very encouraged and hopeful for the future," Aaron said.

Kelly will be the commander of Endeavour when it launches in April, and his identical twin brother Scott is the current leader of the International Space Station crew.

President Barack Obama called the astronauts on Thursday to wish them his best. Before signing off, he told Scott Kelly that he spoke to his brother a couple days ago.

"It sounds like Gabby's making incredible progress," the president said, "and we're just thrilled for that."

Giffords was shot on Jan. 8 in a rampage outside a Tucson grocery store that injured 12 others and killed six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl who was born on Sept. 11, 2001.

Jared Loughner is charged in federal court in the assassination attempt against Giffords that killed six people. Authorities described him as a mentally unstable college dropout who became obsessed with carrying out violence against Giffords for reasons that are unclear.

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Associated Press Writers Ramit Masti-Plushnick and Marcia Dunn contributed to this report.

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