Strengthening security at the nation’s airports



In pursuit of safeguarding the public, Liddell, a federal security director based in Syracuse, has written a book that is now used to train TSOs. It’s called the “National Standardization Guide to Improving Security Effectiveness.” Tasks at each duty area have been inventoried and cataloged, and the “knowledge, values and skills” associated with the airport security jobs have been identified under what Liddell describes as a systems approach to training.


As important as it is to use X-ray machines and explosive trace-detection equipment and to have the correct rules and procedures in place, Liddell said transportation security relies on the skills of the people responsible for it.

“People performance is the cornerstone,” he said. “When I set out to improve things, I look at the people. I look at their proficiency, their skill in doing something and how well they’re doing that job.”

Even when people have the skills to do their jobs, they don’t necessarily do them well each time, especially when conditions can vary with each day and every passenger. To keep performance high, TSOs are tested covertly at unexpected times. A banned item will be sent through a checkpoint and the reaction and activities that take place are monitored.

Whether or not TSOs spot contraband, everyone at that checkpoint during the test participates in an “after-action” review. “It’s the learning experience that’s relevant,” Liddell said. “We’re doing a review of actual performance and you can always improve.”

Liddell is sensitive to the pressure that airport security personnel face. TSOs have the tough of performing multiple tasks under constant camera surveillance and public scrutiny, often interacting with tired or irritated travelers. The testing and training helps them continually up their game.

Thirty airports around the country that helped test the training system and now use a version of it. Paul Armes, federal security director at Nashville International Airport, was interested in creating such a system with a colleague when they both worked in Arizona, but it “never got traction.”

When he learned about what Liddell was doing, he was eager to participate. “Typical of Dan, he built it himself and practiced it so he had hard metric results, and then he started reaching out to some of us, working with his counterparts around the country to get a good representative sample,” Armes said. “He sees things others don’t see sometimes and he has the capability to drill down into the details.”

Liddell began the “pretty long process” of analyzing how people were performing at checkpoints in 2009. He sat down with subject-matter experts to produce the task inventory he now uses. In 2010, he improved the review and reporting process that occurs after covert tests events and instituted the security practices he refined at the other New York airports he oversees, including Greater Binghamton, Ithaca and four others. “I love breaking it down,” he said. “I’ve got a quest for improvement.”

In a less sneaky version of the television show, “Undercover Boss,” Liddell went through the new-hire training program for his employees to understand as much as he could about the jobs and the training provided for them, he said.

If pursuing knowledge is in Liddell’s genes, it may be because his parents were both in education. His father was a high school principal and his mother was a fifth-grade teacher. His teaching manifested itself instead in the training realm, where he strives to educate security employees as effectively as possible, inside the classroom and out.

“It’s always a challenge to meet that right balance of really great effectiveness and really great efficiency,” he said. “There are always challenges. It’s what gets me up in the morning, trying to improve.”



This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Go to http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/fedpage/players/ to read about other federal workers who are making a difference.

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Passion in US lower house immigration debate






WASHINGTON: US lawmakers debated plans on Tuesday to build a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants who remade their lives in America but found themselves at the heart of a fierce debate.

President Barack Obama and a group of Republican and Democratic senators have submitted plans for reform, but as the House of Representatives took up the issue, there were signs the bipartisan facade is coming under strain.

While from the Democratic side of the aisle, a rising Hispanic-American political star made an impassioned plea to fix a broken system, more senior Republicans warned against pushing too fast for change.

"Immigration is more than a political issue. It's who we are," said Julian Castro, the charismatic young mayor of San Antonio, Texas who had a star turn last year on the stage of the Democratic National Convention.

"Immigrants have made ours the greatest country in the world," he told a packed House Judiciary Committee hearing. "Doing nothing is not an option."

But Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the committee, warned against a "rush to judgment" -- despite concerns among his Republican colleagues that they have lost the support of a generation of Hispanic and Asian voters.

"I think we can all agree that our nation's immigration system is in desperate need of repair and it is not working as efficiently and fairly as it should be," he told the first of several hearings on the issue.

Goodlatte warned his panel "needs to take the time to learn from the past so our efforts to reform our immigration laws do not repeat the same mistakes."

The burst of activity on Capitol Hill marks the best chance in years to craft legislation to tighten border security, improve employment verification and bring some 11 million illegal immigrants out of limbo.

A 2007 effort spearheaded by then-president George W. Bush failed.

Obama and top Republicans are for once in agreement that political and demographic trends have suddenly shifted to offer the best chance for serious reform in a generation.

November's election saw Obama re-elected with 70 percent backing from Hispanic American voters -- many of whom have friends or relatives seeking papers.

It shook Republicans into realizing that their tough stance on immigration had driven Hispanics away from the party, and party luminaries like Senator Marco Rubio have come out strongly in favor of immigration reform.

But differences remain, particularly in the contentious issue of how to accommodate the millions who entered the country without permission, or who came in legally but overstayed their visas.

The issue bubbled over in the hearing room when about eight protesters stood up with fists raised, and chanted "undocumented and unafraid!" for about 30 seconds before walking out.

Castro said a pathway to citizenship, similar to the one proposed by the bipartisan group of senators last month, was crucial in order to bring 11 million undocumented immigrants "out of the shadows and into the full light of the American dream."

Republican Goodlatte pushed back, seeking to carve a possible compromise option short of full citizenship for those who entered illegally or stayed beyond their visa.

"Are there options that we should consider between the extremes of mass deportation and a pathway to citizenship for those not lawfully present in the United States?" Goodlatte asked.

Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a former immigration lawyer from California, conceded the system was dysfunctional, but that "partial legalization, as some are suggesting, is a dangerous path."

She argued that merely providing undocumented workers with legal status but no way to work towards full citizenship could create a "permanent underclass," while kicking the undocumented out en masse would trigger economic chaos.

With up to 90 percent of the estimated two million migrant farm workers in the country illegally, "you could do e-verify and find out they're not properly here and American agriculture would collapse."

Obama addressed the immigration issue Tuesday as well, hosting meetings with more than two dozen progressive leaders and business executives.

Steve Case, co-founder of America Online, said he was encouraged by the discussion at the White House.

"The president and his team listened to numerous proposals, outlined many of their own and expressed a desire to build a bipartisan consensus regarding comprehensive immigration reform," Case said.

-AFP/ac



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Railways seeks Cabinet nod for two key links to Chhattisgarh

NEW DELHI: In a bid to ensure connectivity to coal fields to ensure fuel supply to power plants, railways has sought Cabinet approval for construction of two crucial rail links in Chhattisgarh. Both these projects have been pending for long.

The proposed rail links —122-km Gevra Road-Pendra Road and 63-km Raigarh (Mand colliery)-Bhupdeopur stretches — is part of an ambitious project aimed at ensuring smooth movement of freight, including coal.

The Cabinet's approval has also been sought for doubling of 248-km-long Palanpur-Samakhiali link, which will help industries in Gujarat's Kutch area to transport goods in time.

The project is expected to cater to immense potential of bulk traffic from port as well as from the Kutch region.

For Chhattisgarh projects, railways had signed MoU with state government and South Eastern Coalfields for construction of about 300 km of rail network.

The projects — East Corridor and East-West Corridor — would come up at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore. The East Corridor will be about 180 km, stretching from Bhupdeopur-Gharghoda-Dharamjaygarh upto Korba and the 122-km-long East-West Corridor will be from Gevra Road to Pendra Road.

The move came at a time when coal ministry had warned of severe shortage of the mineral for thermal power plants across the country, if railway links to connect coal fields in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are not completed within next three years.

The Mand Raigarh coalfield also holds a potential of 100 metric tonnes per annum.

The coal ministry has been arguing that it would not be possible for the Coal India Limited (CIL) to achieve either the targeted production of 615 million tonnes of coal by 2016-17 or any incremental coal production during the 12th Five Year Plan if the rail tracks in coal-producing states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha are not put in place within the next three years.

It was pointed out that western states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat will suffer if the proposed railway line in Chhattisgarh does not materialize.

The delay in getting clearances for these rail lines has left the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) worried. According to sources, the PMO has given direction to fast track the construction of these railway tracks.

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Life Found Deep Under Antarctic Ice For First Time?


For the first time, scientists believe they have collected life-forms from deep under the Antarctic ice.

Last week, a team found and collected microbes in a lake hidden under more than a half-mile of ice. (Related: "Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice.")

Among other things, the discovery may shed light on what lies under the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

The newfound life-forms have little connection to life on the earth's surface and many apparently survive by "eating rocks," team member Brent Christner said in an interview from the U.S. McMurdo Station, after spending several weeks working at a remote field site at Lake Whillans.

That may explain how life on other celestial objects—such as on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn—survive in the absence of available carbon.

"The conditions faced by organisms in Lake Whillans are quite parallel to what we think it would be like on those icy moons," Christner said.

"What we found tells us a lot about extreme life on Earth," and how similar life beyond Earth might survive.

Making a Living in Ice

A 50-member U.S. team broke through to the 20-square-mile (50-square-kilometer) subglacial lake on January 28, and had two days of 24-hour sunlight to bring up samples before the borehole began to close. A day of reaming the hole was followed by two more days of sample collection.

The scientists are now returning with a four-day haul of lake water, lake bottom sediments, and hundreds of dishes of living organisms that are being cultured for intensive study in the United States.

An early task will be to make sure the newfound microbes were not introduced while drilling through the ice into the lake, which involved a hot-water drilling technique designed to greatly reduce or eliminate any contamination that might come from other kerosene-based drilling technology, Christner said.

Christner said that a commonly used dye was added to the water to illuminate the DNA of the microscopic organisms, and a substantial green glow told scientists that microbes were indeed present. Many of the organisms are likely chemolithotrophs, which rely on inorganic compounds of iron, sulfur, and other elements for nourishment.

Montana State's John Priscu, chief biologist of the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) program, said lab work at the drill site determined that microbial cells were present—and that they were alive. (Take an Antarctic quiz.)

"I believe it is safe to say that subglacial lake beneath the Whillans Ice Stream supports a microbial assemblage that is growing within this dark and cold habitat" of 31 degrees Fahrenheit (-0.5 Celsius), he wrote in an email.

DNA sequencing in the U.S. "will tell us who they are and, together with other experiments, tell us how they make a living."

Hidden Lakes

The U.S. team is one of three digging into what is now known to be a vast system of lakes and streams deep below the surface of Antarctica. (See "Chain of Cascading Lakes Discovered Under Antarctica.")

A British team attempting to drill into much deeper Lake Ellsworth had to return home in December because of equipment failure, but a Russian team is also at work now retrieving a core of water from Lake Vostok.

With much fanfare, the Lake Vostok core was pulled up last year from more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below the frigid surface. Vostok is much deeper and larger than any other Antarctic lake, and both it and Ellsworth lie under much colder ice and are believed to have less deep subsurface water flowing in and out than does Whillans.

The existence of subglacial lakes and streams in Antarctica is a relatively new discovery, and the size of this wet world under the ice has only been grasped in recent years. (See Antarctic pictures by National Geographic readers.)

Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a principal investigator of the Whillans team, first described Lake Whillans in 2007.

Using satellite data, she and her colleagues discovered a periodic rising and falling of the ice surface above the Whillans Ice Stream between 2003 and 2006, and concluded that a lake was likely underneath.

The dynamics of Antarctic ice has taken on a much greater significance in the era of global warming, since some 90 percent of Earth's fresh water sits on the continent.

Although the lakes themselves are not affected by warming, how they interact with the region's ice is important to predicting the future behavior of the ice sheets.

For instance, understanding whether the ice is moving more quickly toward the surrounding ocean is a key goal of the WISSARD project, which is part of a larger U.S. National Science Foundation project to understand the ice movements, glaciers, and biology of the ice sheet of West Antarctica.

More Work to Be Done

For Christner, a specialist in Antarctic biology at Louisiana State University, the work has only just begun. (Also see "Pictures: 'Extreme' Antarctic Science Revealed.")

Two labs were brought to the Whillans site by a caravan of trucks from McMurdo: One to perform a quick analysis of the lake water, and the other to examine sediment.

Christner's team is charged with culturing samples in dishes so they can be studied more extensively later. He said some of the microbe species, including bacteria and archaea, may be unique, but many may well be found elsewhere—at great ocean depths and deep underground.


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Sierra's Family Selling Photos to Cover Funeral, Kids













The family of Sarai Sierra, an amateur New York photographer slain while on a trip to Turkey, put her photos up for sale today and quickly sold enough photographs to pay forher funeral, the woman's brother said today.


The photos remain on sale and the profits will now be going to her two young sons, the family said.


Sierra, 33, was found bludgeoned to death near a highway in Istanbul on Saturday. Her iPhone and iPad, the tools she used to share her photos with her thousands of Instagram followers were reportedly missing.


The Staten Island mother of two traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. It was Sierra's first overseas trip, and she kept in contact with her family the entire time, they said, sharing stories of her journey and posting photos online.



"Sarai's passion for photography and love for capturing the beauty we see in culture, architecture and scenery was her reason for traveling to Istanbul," her brother, David Jimenez, wrote on a website set up to sell his sister's photography.


Among the photos for sale are Istanbul sunsets, and shots of Sierra's beloved New York City.






Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family











New Clues in Death of Missing American Mother Watch Video









Sarai Sierra's Body Found: Missing New York Mom Found in Turkey Watch Video









Body Found in Search for Missing Mother in Turkey Watch Video





By this afternoon, Jimenez put out another message saying, "Hey Instacanvas, Thank you for all the support in purchasing Sarai's pictures. Quick update, all expenses for Sarai's funeral have been paid for! From here on out any picture of hers that you purchase will NOT be going towards her funeral. All funds will be going to her children. Thank you for your support. David"


Sierra had been scheduled to arrive home at Newark Liberty International Airport on Jan. 22. When her husband, Steven Sierra, called the airline, he was told his wife never boarded the flight from Istanbul.


Steven Sierra and Jimenez traveled to Istanbul to aid in the search.


An intense two week search for for Sarai Sierra ended when her battered body was found.


An autopsy was completed Sunday, but results aren't expected for three months. Turkish officials however said Sierra was killed by at least one fatal blow to her head.


A casket holding the Staten Island mother was taken to a Istanbul church Monday where it remains as Sierra's family makes arrangements to bring her home.


Turkish police hope DNA samples from 21 people being questioned in the case will be key to finding the perpetrators, state media reported. A motive is not yet clear.


"They're still investigating so they might think it might be a robbery, but they're not sure," said Betsy Jimenez, Sierra's mother, said Monday.


The family also faces the heartbreaking task of telling Sierra's two sons, ages 11 and 9, that their mother is dead.



The boys have been under the impression that their father has gone to Turkey to bring their mother home - alive.


"It's going to be the hardest thing he's ever going to have to do in his life," said Rep. Michael Grimm, (R-NY) who added that the Staten Island family isn't sure when Steven Sierra will be able to bring his wife's body home.


ABC News' Josh Haskell contributed to this report.



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IMF, Afghanistan agree path to fresh aid






WASHINGTON: The IMF said Monday it had reached agreement with Afghanistan on the reform path needed to unlock the next aid instalment for the war-ravaged country.

The International Monetary Fund granted Afghanistan a US$133.6 million line of credit in November 2011 to help the country through the withdrawal of foreign military forces in 2014.

But to date the IMF has only disbursed two instalments of about US$18 million each.

Following a two-week mission in Afghanistan, an IMF team reached "understandings" with the Afghan authorities on a reform path to allow fresh aid to be disbursed, the IMF said in a statement.

The disbursement is contingent upon "the implementation of key structural benchmarks for submission of laws to parliament and strengthening banks' capital," the IMF said.

It said the Afghan authorities had agreed on the need to tighten monetary policy, in part to protect the country's international reserves position.

The authorities also saw the need to increase revenues by strengthening customs measures and prepare to implement a value-added tax (VAT) in 2014, the IMF said.

According to the global lender, the Afghan authorities reiterated their commitment to complete "quickly" the winding down of former private bank Kabul Bank, the centre of a scandal that had delayed the original IMF loan for a year.

The bank, once Afghanistan's largest, had to be taken over by the central bank in late 2010 amid accusations that powerful former executives siphoned off more than US$900 million, some of which was used to buy luxury properties in Dubai.

"The economic outlook for Afghanistan is broadly positive," the IMF said, adding that growth and inflation were better than expected in 2012.

The mission will prepare a report for the IMF executive board "following the implementation of the remaining key structural benchmarks," it said.

The board, which represents the Fund's 188 members, decides approval of aid disbursements.

- AFP/jc



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Andhra Pradesh CM’s busy day in Delhi triggers Telangana rumours

NEW DELHI: A flurry of meetings that chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy had with top Congress leaders here on Monday once again triggered speculations that the UPA government is keen on an early solution to the Telangana issue. While Kiran Kumar avoided the media after the meetings, sources claimed that apart from the separate state imbroglio, several state-related issues were discussed.

The leaders whom the CM met included Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and indications are that he would stay on in the national capital for one more day on Tuesday. For the first time, the CM held a one-on-one meeting with the Congress chief that lasted for an hour and the two of them were later joined by Sonia's political secretary Ahmed Patel. "Telangana, including the timing of the announcement and what should precede it, figured prominently in the talks," claimed the sources.

Soon after landing in Delhi, the CM drove down straight to the residence of AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and was closeted with him for over an hour. During the day, Kiran also met Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, AICC treasurer Motilal Vora and senior leader Digvijay Singh. The CM also called on President Pranab Mukherjee in the afternoon.

All these meetings took place amid the mounting pressure from the TRS and TJAC for an early decision on statehood issue. The TJAC has given a call to target the T-ministers and has also threatened a social boycott of the ministers to pressure them to resign from the cabinet in protest against the delay in the announcement of T by the UPA government.

A close aide of the chief minister said Kiran Kumar presented a report to the central leadership on the party's performance in the elections to the primary agricultural cooperative societies. "This is the first time the CM has come with some encouraging news on the electoral front as the ruling party under him has won with a thumping majority in these elections at a time when even the party leaders were not hopeful of a good show," he said.

According to other sources, Azad questioned the CM about the manner in which the P Shanakr Rao episode was handled as well as the situation in Hyderabad in the wake of the arrest of MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi in the hate speech case and the growing tension between the Congress and the MIM.

In the meantime, Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah also landed in Delhi on Monday. The Congress sources said Rosaiah too might be consulted on the Telangana issue on Tuesday.

In another development, Union tourism minister K Chiranjeevi met AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi. Two aspirants for the post of PCC president, ministers Ponnala Lakshmaiah and Kanna Lakshminarayana are also in Delhi amid speculations that they are vying for the post of PCC president in case Botsa Satyanarayana is shifted. After the CM, Botsa is expected to be summoned to Delhi for consultations on Telangana.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Boy Safe, Kidnapper Dead as Ala. Standoff Ends













A week-long Alabama standoff in which a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.


"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.


The agent said negotiations with the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.


"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."


The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.


Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.






Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo











Alabama Hostage Crisis: Boy Held Captive for 7 Days Watch Video









Hostage Standoff: Drones Fly Over Alabama Bunker Watch Video









Police Officials Thank Hostage Taker for Taking Care of Child Watch Video





"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."


PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations


Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.


"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.


Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.


Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.



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Reid details positions in gun debate



“Everyone acknowledges we should do something with background checks,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”


While Reid pronounced his support for expanding background checks on gun purchases, he said he was undecided about proposed bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“I didn’t vote for the assault weapons last time because it . . . didn’t make sense,” Reid said. Nonetheless, Reid said he plans to “take a look” at the latest proposal. And imposing new restrictions on high-capacity magazines is “something we definitely have to take a look at,” he said.

Reid’s support for expanding background checks is a boost to the gun-control measure that appears to stand the best chance of garnering broad support on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of senators has been working on a proposal to expand background checks, and polls show that most Americans support mandating background checks for all gun sales. Under current law, sales involving licensed gun dealers require background checks, but those between private citizens do not.

By comparison, it’s been much more difficult for gun-control advocates to build consensus around a proposed assault weapons ban, which a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced last month. It’s not just Republicans who are likely to oppose the ban; Democrats facing reelection in conservative states next year could face intense criticism from gun rights groups over a vote in favor of the measure, which might prompt some f them to oppose it.

The nation’s largest gun rights group, the National Rifle Association, staunchly opposes universal background checks. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre warned on “Fox News Sunday” that requiring universal checks would lead to “a “universal registry of law-abiding people.”

Reid is the recipient of a “B” rating from the NRA, a better mark than most Senate Democrats. “I know Wayne LaPierre; he’s always been extremely pleasant to me,” Reid said, but “just because they resist it doesn’t mean we can’t do things.”

As the gears turn in Congress, President Obama will make his latest push for stricter gun control laws in a Monday appearance in Minneapolis, where he will meet with local leaders and law enforcement officials and deliver remarks. The president last month unveiled a sweeping slate of new gun control proposals including a call for Congress to pass laws requiring background checks and banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The White House released a photo Saturday of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David last summer. The president was recently asked by the New Republic magazine whether he had ever fired a gun. “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” the president responded, prompting an outpouring of questions about whether the White House could validate the comment.

On Capitol Hill, the renewed gun-control debate officially kicked off last week, when the Senate Judiciary Committee called witnesses to testify at a hearing. LaPierre appeared before the committee, as did former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who survived a 2011 assassination attempt that nearly took her life.

Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, recently announced the formation of a group designed to counteract the influence of the NRA. On Sunday, Kelly kept up his push for new gun control measures, citing December’s mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school as a reason to take urgent action.

“This is about public safety. We had 20 first-graders die in their classrooms because we don’t have sufficient gun violence legislation in the country,” Kelly said on “Fox News Sunday.”

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