lindbergh and her dog both died. >>> now to arizona where doctors say congress gabrielle giffords is doing so much better she could only be days away from getting out of the hospital and into rehab. also today, a congressional aide was honored in a memorial and word that the man arrested for the rampage may be tried in san diego. >> reporter: for the first time since the rampage saturday before last, the parents of jared loughner left their home in tucson. >> you have a statement to make today? >> reporter: this after a report in the "washington post" that their son's federal trial might be moved to california, but the justice department rejected that possibility and vowed to keep him in arizona. while doctors treating congresswoman gabrielle giffords say they won't have to keep her in the hospital much longer and could soon be ready for rehab. >> it could be days to weeks. it's a matter of getting all that information from our therapists. >> reporter: she went through two more surgeries over the weekend and was upgraded from critical to serious and according to her husband, was able

right -- lindbergh? right. a gift from the sea which may be a title more of you are familiar with than the other books we've talked about. that was, again, a total coincidence that he met lindbergh and got her manuscript. a little dubious because, of course, her husband had been one of the leading allies of hitler before the war and had made a great point of, you know, not entering the war and so on. and he was so strong in his youth that he finally described it as himself even with -- [inaudible] thought he'd gone too far which he had, of course. >> so, but and this is a lesson about publishing, it seems to me, that two exiles, two refugees from the nazis end up publishing the essays of the wife of a famous american anti-semite. >> well, it is a curious story, and i don't know the full background behind it. of course, by then, you know, everyone had forgotten lindbergh's politics, and she hadn't overtly shared them. i don't know what her inner most thoughts were. but indirectly she helped pay for the publishin

but a second driver who struck lindbergh again just left. nbc bay area's cheryl hurd is live in concord with a story that caught even her by surprise. cheryl? >> reporter: it caught me by surprise because i went to the area trying to figure out what happened to this woman and her dog. i did that. but in the process, i met a man and his wife who had been working for the past two years to feed their community. >> candy, canned foods, water. >> reporter: john coward is a retired city worker. by admission, no angel, he made a lot of money selling drugs and blue a lot of money using them. but then he found his passion, feeding homeless people who happen to live in this middle-class neighborhood. >> we get problems with people not wanting to feed in their neighborhood. they've got to be head. >> reporter: he and his wife also knew the woman who was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. >> we had been feeding her off and on. she comes and goes. >> reporter: when she came for food, she always had her dog, samantha, with her. police believe she

and for todd lindbergh, a friendship and good cheer." what is that about? >> my mother and father are both writers and my mother wrote a book in 1976. >> what is yo mom's name? >> midge decter. "rid cal children." my father who was a write are named norman podhoretz wrote a book in 1967 called "making it," which is dedicated to me and my sisters. the dedication says, "to whom this is in man ws a letter." so my dedication says, this is in no way a letter, a letter to you. >> where does the writing come from? >> i don't know. where does writing come from? it comes from very, very far back. most writers are -- start scribbling when they're little kids, especially that one. god, he scribbled from the time he could form letters. and you usually start out wanting to be a poet because that's the easiest. you can write poems without knowing anything. and norman wrote poems longer than i did. i got over that very quickly. and i don't know where it comes from. >> three daughters. do they write? >> yes. they do. >> what kind of things do they write? >> well, one has b

europe in the spring of 1910 he received such a welcome in new york city as was not exceeded until lindbergh in the 1920s. >> rose: and he loved every moment. >> power became him. adulation became him. he loved celebrity. but he did even at that height of fame want to spend the rest of his life as a literary gentleman and retire to sagamore hill. and the pathos, the tragedy of which i speak, of which johnson speaks in that prologue is the fact that he was pulled back into politics rather against his will and is compelled to run against the presidency and at the height of their campaign in 1912 got a bullet in his chest which very nearly killed him and from the moment that bullet impacted on his ribs and landed within a fraction of an inch in of his heart, his life went into a slow and fairly inevitable tragic decline. >> rose: that was because it took a toll of his energy and spirit? >> oh, it had its physical effect but what i'm talking about is the arc of a great life. if you're writing an shakespearean tragedy you will always have the moment of hubris about three quarters of the way throu

you know, interestingly, there was no federal kidnapping offense until after the lindbergh kidnappings. at that time, actually authorities found themselves unable to handle that case the way they would have liked to. that was the genesis of kidnapping statistic utds. it's a significant crime in the federal scheme of things. a range of ten years to life in prison. >> jurisdictions, there are a few at play here right now. that could complicate things. >> it could. but i think what you're going to see happen is this. the child was kidnapped here in new york city. so new york might look at it, new york has some statute of limitations problems, the way theirs is set up. statute of limitations basically means there's a time period within which you have to be prosecuted. usually starts from the day of event. simple illustration, an armed robbery takes place on the street, from that day and time, the statute it starts to run. the reason i think you'll see it in the federal system is the statute of limitations hasn't run. because she was under 18 at the time and this was a continuing offense.