Trouble reading XML/RSS files, any help appreciated!

Code:
function output_from_feed(){

    

        // feed to get

        $xml=("http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=codeigniter");

        $data['attribution'] = 'twitter';



        // try to read twitter's rss feed

        if(!$handle = fopen($xml, 'r'))

        { 

            // couldn't open the file

            

            // could not open file, so revert to an old file on local file system

            $xml='http://www.mysite.info/assets/twitter.xml';

            // tell us where xml comes from

            $data['source'] = '&lt;!-- source: own site --&gt;';

            

        }

        else

        {

            // could open the file :D

            

            // get the contents of twitters xml feed

            $contents = stream_get_contents($handle);

            // close the file handler

            fclose($handle);

            

            // save twitters xml file to local file system

            

            // select file to save to

            $myFile = "./assets/twitter.xml";

            // open file, with write permission

            $fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");

            // write contents to the file

            fwrite($fh, $contents);

            // close file handler

            fclose($fh);

            

            // tell us where xml comes from    

            $data['source'] = '&lt;!-- source: from twitter --&gt;';

        }



        // now parse the file

        $xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();

        $xmlDoc->load($xml);

        // select tags which are entries

        $params=$xmlDoc->getElementsByTagName('entry');

        

        // format the feed.

        $data['thefeed'] = '';

        $k = 0;

        // loop those entries

        foreach ($params as $param)

        {

            // grab the tweets title and the date it was published

            $item_title=$params->item($k)->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

            $item_date=$params->item($k)->getElementsByTagName('published')->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

            

            $data['thefeed'] .="\n <li>".$item_title." published:".$item_date."</li>";

            $k++;

        }    

        // now print those tweets :D

        $this->load->view('get_news', $data);

    }