Gabrielle Giffords tours European physics lab

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, NASA astronaut and commander of mission STS-134, visit the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Payload Operations and Command Center at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva on Wednesday, July 25, 2012.
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, NASA astronaut and commander of mission STS-134, visit the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Payload Operations and Command Center at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva on Wednesday, July 25, 2012.

— Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was touring the European particle physics laboratory Wednesday as part of her first trip abroad since being shot in the head in January 2011.

Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, was involved in installing a $2 billion cosmic-ray detector for the Geneva-based European Center for Nuclear Research on the International Space Station in May 2011.

That mission came just months after Giffords, a lawmaker from Arizona, was shot by a gunman in a rampage that killed six and wounded 13.

Giffords said little but appeared alert and cheerful at a news conference Wednesday in Geneva that highlighted the astronauts’ work. A day after an outing in the French Alps, Kelly said his wife was doing well, but they declined to answer more questions.

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