Baggage screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport missed one out of every four fake bombs or weapons inspectors tried to sneak past checkpoints in recent tests.

Security screeners at the New Jersey airport's nine checkpoints most often missed phony explosive devices hidden in carryon bags sent through X-ray machines, the newspaper reported.

The checkers at Newark, one of the airports breached by terrorist hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, also failed to detect guns concealed in carryon bags sent through X-rays or carried under the clothing of testers who walked through metal detectors, the report said.

The airport's overall failure rate was 24.8 percent in covert tests conducted between June and September by the federal Transportation Security Administration, which hires the screeners and oversees the nation's airport security.

The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press.

Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees.

The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined.

[...]

The event planning company, MarCom Group Inc. of Fairfax, Va., was paid $85,552 for its work and given an additional $81,767 for plaques, $5,196 for official photographs, $1,486 for three balloon arches and $1,509 for signs.