How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby



The rebels wore orange-blaze hunting caps. They spoke on walkie-talkies as they worked the floor of the sweltering convention hall. They suspected that the NRA leaders had turned off the air-conditioning in hopes that the rabble-rousers would lose enthusiasm.


The Old Guard was caught by surprise. The NRA officers sat up front, on a dais, observing their demise. The organization, about a century old already, was thoroughly mainstream and bipartisan, focusing on hunting, conservation and marksmanship. It taught Boy Scouts how to shoot safely. But the world had changed, and everything was more political now. The rebels saw the NRA leaders as elites who lacked the heart and conviction to fight against gun-control legislation.

And these leaders were about to cut and run: They had plans to relocate the headquarters from Washington to Colorado.

“Before Cincinnati, you had a bunch of people who wanted to turn the NRA into a sports publishing organization and get rid of guns,” recalls one of the rebels, John D. Aquilino, speaking by phone from the border city of Brownsville, Tex.

What unfolded that hot night in Cincinnati forever reoriented the NRA. And this was an event with broader national reverberations. The NRA didn’t get swept up in the culture wars of the past century so much as it helped invent them — and kept inflaming them. In the process, the NRA overcame tremendous internal tumult and existential crises, developed an astonishing grass-roots operation and became closely aligned with the Republican Party.

Today it is arguably the most powerful lobbying organization in the nation’s capital and certainly one of the most feared. There is no single secret to its success, but what liberals loathe about the NRA is a key part of its power. These are the people who say no.

They are absolutist in their interpretation of the Second Amendment. The NRA learned that controversy isn’t a problem but rather, in many cases, a solution, a motivator, a recruitment tool, an inspiration.

Gun-control legislation is the NRA’s best friend: The organization claims an influx of 100,000 new members in recent weeks in the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The NRA, already with about 4 million members, hopes that the new push by Democrats in the White House and Congress to curb gun violence will bring the membership to 5 million.

The group has learned the virtues of being a single-issue organization with a very simple take on that issue. The NRA keeps close track of friends and enemies, takes names and makes lists. In the halls of power, it works quietly behind the scenes. It uses fear when necessary to motivate supporters. The ultimate goal of gun-control advocates, the NRA claims, is confiscation and then total disarmament, leading to government tyranny.

“We must declare that there are no shades of gray in American freedom. It’s black and white, all or nothing,” Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at an NRA annual meeting in 2002, a message that the organization has reiterated at almost every opportunity since.

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Six arrested in new India bus gang-rape case






AMRITSAR, India: Six men have been arrested over the rape of a passenger on a coach in India, police said Sunday, weeks after the gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi sparked nationwide protests.

The victim had boarded the service to her in-laws' home in the northern state of Punjab when she was abducted Friday and driven to a district bordering the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, local police officer Raj Jeet Singh said.

Five men joined the driver and conductor, who had taken her by motorbike to an unknown address, and took turns to rape the victim before dropping her off near her in-laws' village on Saturday morning, he said.

"Six men have been arrested on allegations of having raped a 29-year-old woman... after forcibly taking her to an unknown location on the night of January 11," the policeman told AFP, adding that a seventh suspect was being hunted.

"The lady, after being kidnapped, was raped brutally throughout the night by the seven accused," he said.

"After raping the victim throughout the night, one of the accused dropped her near her in-laws' house the next morning where she narrated the whole incident to her two sisters-in-law."

He said the extent of her injuries had yet to be established.

The attack is disturbingly similar to the December 16 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi, where five men are on trial in a case that has fuelled anger across India over the treatment of women.

Partap Singh Bajwa, a local Congress Party politician, blamed the police for not enforcing stringent checks on buses operating in the state.

"It all happened due to laxity of police as they never bother to check out the buses moving on national highways during night time," Bajwa told AFP.

Protesters across India have called for the police to be more vigilant and sensitive to the growing incidence of sexual assault against women, after details emerged of the New Delhi attack.

Police and prosecutors have outlined how the alleged rapists picked up the student and her male companion in a school bus which they had taken for a joyride after drinking heavily.

The bus would have had to cross numerous police checkpoints at that time of night but at no stage was the vehicle pulled over by officers.

After getting into an argument with the woman's male companion, the group allegedly beat him up and raped the victim in the back of the bus while driving around Delhi for some 45 minutes.

They also sexually assaulted the woman with a rusting metal bar, leaving her with severe intestinal injuries, before hurling her out of the vehicle. She died in a Singapore hospital 13 days after the attack.

- AFP/ck



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Look forward to Rahul leading Congress in Lok Sabha polls: Manish Tewari

NEW DELHI: "He is our leader and we look forward to him leading us into battle in 2014," information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said today when asked about Rahul Gandhi's role in the next year's Lok Sabha elections.

He also said the party would not be averse to new political tie-ups in some states in the next general elections.

To a query whether Congress would project Rahul Gandhi as the leader in the next polls amidst the possibility of Narendra Modi being talked about as BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Tewari said there is an institutionalized arrangement, the diarchy between the Congress president and the PM in place at this point of time that has "worked very successfully for the last nine years".

In addition, he said, there have been demands and they have been there for a while that Rahul Gandhi should be taking a far more proactive role both in the affairs of the party as well as in the affairs of the nation-state per se.

"He is our leader and we look forward to him leading us into the battle in 2014," he said.

On the question of alliances, Tewari said, "Yes we will attempt to keep our friends and allies together. I don't see a difficulty with that and wherever there is a need and ground level feedback from Congress units that some kind of alliance options needs to be explored, I don't think we will be averse to that."

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious













Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.


"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."


The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.


"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"


In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners


Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.








Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video









Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.


"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."


Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.


Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."


Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.


Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.


She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.


"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.


"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."


Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.






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Jay Rockefeller, likely the last of a political dynasty



Political bloodlines, he had.


But the great American electoral dynasty that abruptly announced its end Friday, or at least signaled what looks to be a long, long pause, always evoked more. That name on the ballot — Rockefeller — meant money. It meant epic-scale success. It meant everything.

And it meant that Jay Rockefeller wasn’t ever going to be just some Democratic senator from West Virginia. Rockefeller, who said Friday that he would not seek reelection in 2014 after nearly three decades in the Senate, was always going to be the oil titan John D. Rockefeller’s great-grandson, too. One of the heirs to a legendary fortune.

“He’s proud of being a Rockefeller. He talks about his uncles and his grandfather, about that legacy. It’s an important part of who he is and how he thinks about himself,” Rockefeller’s longtime political adviser, Geoff Garin, said in an interview. “He found a way to be a Rockefeller that was about serving people.”

Dynasties like these roll across American political history. Not just Rockefellers, but Adamses and Kennedys and Bushes. A nation formed to escape power granted as a birthright still embraces power that follows the contours of a family tree. Voters even expect it, and so do political scions.

“It’s so predictable!” said Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution senior fellow emeritus and author of the book “America’s Political Dynasties.” “It’s daddy’s business and increasingly it’ll be mommy’s business, too.”

For Hess, each dynasty takes on a different aura. There were the “crafty” Roosevelts, headlined by a couple of presidents — Franklin Delano and Theodore — and his favorites, the Tafts, whose standout, William Howard, was about the “nicest” guy ever to occupy the Oval Office, in Hess’s estimation, and who also managed to become chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The Rockefellers were almost incidental dynasty builders, Hess said. “That generation — the robber barons, if you want to call them that — wasn’t interested in politics. Politics was something you could marry into.”

Indeed, John D. Rockefeller’s only son married the daughter of Nelson Aldrich, a prominent Republican senator of the late 1800s and early 1900s who wielded tremendous influence over monetary policies. Their son, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, became governor of New York and was Gerald R. Ford’s vice president. Another son, Winthrop Rockefeller, became governor of Arkansas.

“My great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, worked at it very, very hard. There’s an ethic in the Rockefeller family of hard work,” Jay Rockefeller wrote in an e-mail late Friday. “It’s expected that everybody work hard. And there has been a tradition of public service.”

John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV entered politics unconventionally, drawn into that sphere by his experiences as a volunteer for VISTA (the precursor of Americorps) in Emmons, W.Va., a small coal mining town. “Coming to West Virginia was life-changing for him,” Garin said. “West Virginia exposed him to a whole new world that broadened his world; and in a lot of respects it gave his career a defining purpose.”

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Cycling: Armstrong "to admit doping" in Oprah interview






LOS ANGELES: Lance Armstrong plans to admit to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that will be taped on Monday at the disgraced cyclist's home in Austin, Texas, USA Today reported.

In an article posted on its website on Friday night, USA Today cited "a person with knowledge of the situation" as saying Armstrong plans to admit for the first time to doping throughout his career, but that he probably will not get into great detail about specific cases and events.

The announcement that Armstrong had agreed to an interview, to air on Winfrey's OWN cable TV network on Thursday, had sparked widespread speculation that he might finally confess to being a drug cheat after years of strenuous denials.

It will be Armstrong's first interview since he was stripped in October of his seven Tour de France titles after the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said he helped orchestrate the most sophisticated doping programme in sports history.

Armstrong's years of dominance in the sport's greatest race raised cycling's profile in the United States to new heights and gave him a unique platform to promote cancer awareness and research.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised almost $500 million (375 million euros) since its creation in 1997.

But in the aftermath of the allegations, several top sponsors dropped Armstrong and the ultimate ignominy came on November 14 when his name was dropped from the charity he founded, which now is known as the Livestrong Foundation.

- AFP/al



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Jharkhand Mukti Morcha seeks more time to form government

RANCHI: Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on Saturday sought more time for the formation of an alternative government in the state.

JMM chief Shibu Soren, his son Hemant Soren and other leaders met governor Syed Ahmad at 11.30am.

"We had requested the governor to give us some more time for formation of the government in the state," said Hemant Soren while talking to reporters here.

Hemant Soren returned here Friday night after meeting Congress leaders in Delhi. He said that the Congress would decide about the formation of an alternative government.

The 28-month BJP-led Arjun Munda government fell after JMM withdrew support Jan 8. The Munda cabinet had recommended dissolution of the state assembly.

The state Congress unit has yet to get concrete assurance from the Congress high command, say party sources.

Jharkhand Congress legislators and leaders are in favour of the formation of the alternative government.

JMM has been exploring the possibility of forming a government in the state with Congress backing.

Jharkhand Congress legislators, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and some independents could support an alternative government led by the JMM.

If such an agreement were to be arrived at, the Congress, RJD and independents, along with the JMM could attempt a coalition comprising 41 legislators.

Of the 82 legislators in the state, 37 are in favour of fresh polls.

The 37 include 18 of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), six of All Jharkhand Students' Union (AJSU), two of Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and 11 of the Jharkhand Vikas Morch-P (JVM-P).

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning













The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's weekly flu report. This week, 24 states reported high illness levels, 16 reported moderate levels, five reported low levels and one reported minimal levels, suggesting that the flu season peaked in the last week of December.


"It may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a Friday morning teleconference. "Trends only in the next week or two will show whether we have in fact crossed the peak."


The flu season usually peaks in February or March, not December, said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. He said the season started early with a dominant H3N2 strain, which was last seen a decade ago, in 2002-03. That year, the flu season also ended early.


Click here to see how this flu season stacks up against other years.






Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP Photo













Increasing Flu Cases: Best Measures to Ensure Your Family's Health Watch Video







Because of the holiday season, Frieden said the data may have been skewed.


For instance, Connecticut appeared to be having a lighter flu season than other northeastern states at the end of December, but the state said it could have been a result of college winter break. College student health centers account for a large percentage of flu reports in Connecticut, but they've been closed since the fall semester ended, said William Gerrish, a spokesman for the state's department of public health.


The flu season arrived about a month early this year in parts of the South and the East, but it may only just be starting to take hold of states in the West, Frieden said. California is still showing "minimal" flu on the CDC's map, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.


Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.


"It's not surprising. Influenza ebbs and flows during the flu season," Frieden said. "The only thing predictable about the flu is that it is unpredictable."


Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said he was expecting California's seeming good luck with the flu to be over this week.


"Flu is fickle, we say," Schaffner said. "Influenza can be spotty. It can be more severe in one community than another for reasons incompletely understood."


Early CDC estimates indicate that this year's flu vaccine is 62 percent effective, meaning people who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to need to see a doctor for flu treatment, Frieden said.


Although the shot has been generally believed to be more effective for children than adults, there's not enough data this year to draw conclusions yet.


"The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it's still by far the best tool we have to prevent flu," Frieden said, adding that most of the 130 million vaccine doses have already been administered. "We're hearing of shortages of the vaccine, so if you haven't been vaccinated and want to be, it's better late than never."



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