Gabby Giffords

WASHINGTON -- A Senate plan to expand the background-check requirement for gun purchases faced a narrowing path to success Tuesday, as advocates for stricter laws sought to scrape together the last few votes they need from among a dwindling number of undecided senators. To overcome procedural hurdles, the gun control bill and any major amendments to it will require 60 votes for passage. By Tuesday afternoon, the compromise on background checks negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.)

Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords visited the White House on Friday as President Obama signed into law her bill that clamps down on ultralight planes used in drug smuggling. The Democratic congresswoman has retired to focus on her recovery, but colleagues gave her legislation unanimous approval in an emotional send-off last month. “This bill gives our nation's law enforcement expanded authority to combat illicit drug trafficking on our northern and southern borders, and being able to sign it next to my friend Gabby Giffords gives me enormous pride,” Obama said Friday in a statement at the bill signing ceremony.  “The fact that it passed unanimously shows just how much Gabby is respected by her colleagues in Congress in both parties,” he said.

The retirement of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords brought an outpouring of warm wishes from colleagues of the popular congresswoman -- and launched a scramble for an upcoming special election to determine whether Democrats will be able to hold the Arizona seat. By law, the Arizona governor must call a special election within five months, setting up a possible spring primary and summer election for the 8th District seat that has Republican leanings -- for now. Come November, when the seat would again be contested, newly drawn district lines give it a more Democratic tilt.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords plans to attend the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour Friday—a re-entry into the public sphere that will likely kick off a fresh round of speculation about the Arizona Democrat’s political future. Giffords now can speak in short sentences—longer ones frustrate her—and writes left-handed, according to a new report on the progress she has made since she was grievously wounded by a gunman in January. A story in the Arizona Republic says that the while brain-injured congresswoman remains in a wheelchair, she can stand on her own and is slowly re-learning to walk.

President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, the first of his second term, won't be long remembered. It didn't offer much in the way of new ideas. It was short on memorable lines - except, perhaps, his demand for congressional action on gun control because Gabby Giffords and the families of Newtown "deserve a vote. " But those are all good things. They tell us that after four years in the White House and a hard-won reelection, Obama has recalibrated his ambitions to match the moment.

It is hard to have a reasoned discourse about guns when one side of the discussion seems to be dominated by people ready to hole up in an Idaho survivalist camp to await the arrival of the black U.N. helicopters filled with Kenyan commandos coming to disarm America.  President Obama has given Vice President Joe Biden the task of surveying a wide range of interested parties to formulate a remedy for the horrific gun violence that bedevils American...

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords, who was critically injured in a shooting two years ago, on Friday was named this year's recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award for her work to reduce gun violence. Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona, has been undergoing rehabilitation after being shot in the head during a public appearance in Tuscon on Jan. 8, 2011. Six people died, including District Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords' staffers; and the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager and Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green.

It was a VIP guest list that few Broadway productions could dream of. Former President Clinton and former secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid a visit Tuesday to "Ann," the one-woman biographical play about former Texas Gov. Ann Richards that is running on Broadway. The former first couple was joined by Gabrielle Giffords, the former U.S. representative, and actress Meryl Streep. The group posed for a picture that can be viewed here . FULL COVERAGE: 2013 Spring arts preview "Ann" stars Holland Taylor as Richards, the tough-talking, liberal politician who became governor of Texas in 1991.

Six months ago today, on Dec. 14, Americans reacted with horror to the slaughter of 20 children and six school employees at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Suddenly, gun safety legislation was front and center everywhere, including Washington. Then in April, a recalcitrant Senate succumbed to pressure from gun manufacturers and the NRA's leadership and failed to pass even the most modest measure, a bill to extend background checks to gun shows and Internet sales. The president was angry, the families of victims frustrated, and the moment for gun control seemed lost.