Gun violence survivors, veterans and concerned citizens will deliver petitions to the Concord office of Senator Kelly Ayotte on Thursday, calling on her to stop bowing to the NRA and vote for legislation to close the "Terror Gap" in our system and keep guns away from potential terrorists. In April, Ayotte voted with the Washington gun lobby and against thewho support life-saving background checks when she voted against bipartisan background check legislation sponsored by NRA A-rated Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey. In doing so, Ayotte's vote would do nothing to keep guns away from potential terrorists.

Under current law, suspected terrorists on the FBI's No Fly List can't board an airplane, but they can still legally purchase guns and explosives.This glaring loophole in our gun laws, called the "Terror Gap," could be fixed by ensuring the Department of Justice has the authority to bar gun sales to those onterrorwatch lists. There are currently bills pending in Congress that would close the Terror Gap, including legislation by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY), which would give DOJ discretion, subject to judicial review, to block firearms and explosives sales to international and domestic terrorist suspects.

Since 2007, the Washington gun lobby has blocked efforts to keep guns out of the hands of suspectedterrorists, opposing numerous bills seeking to close theTerrorGap. The latest data on the Terror Gap is available , and Granite Staters who want to sign the petition to urge Senator Ayotte to vote to close the Terror Gap can visit

Event details are below.

Concord

What: Granite Staters to Deliver Petitions Calling on Senator Ayotte to Stop Bowing to Gun Lobby, Vote to Keep Guns Away from Potential Terrorists

Who: John Cantin, gun violence survivor and veteran

Where: New Hampshire State House - 107 N Main St, Concord, NH 03301

When: Thursday, May 30, 1:00 PM

About Mayors Against Illegal GunsSince its creation in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15 members to more than 950 mayors from across the country. We have more than 1.5 million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country. The bipartisan coalition, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, has united the nation's mayors around these common goals: protecting communities by holding gun offenders accountable; demanding access to crime gun trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat gun trafficking; and working with legislators to fix weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns. Learn more at

MEDIA CONTACTErika Soto Lamb:or 646-580-5281Alex Katz:or 617-721-3779

SOURCE Mayors Against Illegal Guns

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who take the epilepsy drug valproate during pregnancy are three times more likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder, suggests new research based on close to 700,000 babies born in Denmark.

Previous studies have found more birth defects and lower intelligence among children of mothers who took valproate, but the new work represents the "strongest evidence to date" of a link between the drug and autism, according to an editorial published with the study on Tuesday.

The results don't prove the generic drug, also sold as valproic acid, causes autism. But researchers were able to account for a number of underlying factors - such as the age and health of the mothers and the babies' fathers - that make the study more convincing, Christopher Stodgell said.

"This finding isn't necessarily a brand new finding, but it's an important finding in that (researchers studied) really a much larger population, and they also looked at some other underlying drivers," said Stodgell, who studies the origins of autism at the University of Rochester Medical Center but wasn't involved in the new research.

Women "need to be very diligent about what the effects are if they're taking valproic acid," he told Reuters Health.

About one in 88 children has an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those conditions range from autism itself to less disabling ones such as Asperger's syndrome.

For the new study, researchers tracked 656,000 kids born in Denmark between 1996 and 2006. Using a large prescription drug database, they found that just under 6,600 of the mothers of those children had epilepsy and 508 women took valproate while pregnant.

By 2010, 4.4 percent of the kids whose mothers had taken valproate during pregnancy were diagnosed with any ASD, including 2.5 percent with autism.

In contrast, 1.5 percent of all babies in the study had an ASD and 0.5 percent had autism, the study team reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Mothers' underlying epilepsy didn't fully explain the link, according to Jakob Christensen from Aarhus University and his colleagues. In addition, autism rates were higher among children of women who used valproate during pregnancy than those who had previously used the drug but stopped before conceiving.

CONSIDER RISKS, BENEFITS

"Valproate is an effective drug, but it appears that it is being prescribed for women of childbearing potential at a rate that does not fully consider the ratio of benefits to risks," wrote Dr. Kimford Meador and David Loring from Emory University in Atlanta, in a linked editorial.

Valproate could affect maturation of a fetus's brain, Christensen suggested, including the signal-sending neurotransmitters.

Women who may become pregnant "certainly should discuss with their doctor if there are alternative treatments that would be reasonable," he told Reuters Health.

For those with certain syndromes or generalized epilepsy, there aren't necessarily other good options. Stopping valproate in that case isn't a good idea, Christensen said.

"It's also a risk if you have seizures, both for the mother and the unborn child. (Stopping medication) is not a thing that you take lightly," he said.

"Even those that are exposed to this drug, there's still a good chance - more than a 95-percent chance - that their child will never develop signs of autism."

The study didn't take into account whether women drank during pregnancy, or if they took folic acid - which has been tied to a lower risk of some birth defects.

Christensen said there are steps pregnant women on valproate can take to lower any risks to their baby, such as using the lowest possible dose and dividing it up during the day.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online April 23, 2013.

Police spokesman in Baghlan province, Jawed Bashrat, says the bomber was on foot and targeted the leader of the provincial council as he was walking into the building on Monday morning.

Bashrat says civilians and provincial council members are among the casualties, though he doesn't have an immediate figure for the dead and wounded.

Insurgents seeking to weaken the Afghan government have been carrying out attacks and assassinations intended to intimidate both officials and civilians ahead of next year's withdrawal of most international troops.

No surprises, no drama and no drivers getting bumped.

On a day devoid of tension and rumors, all nine drivers who made attempts on the second and final day of Indianapolis 500 qualifications made it into the 33-car field, led by two young Americans Josef Newgarden and Graham Rahal who easily had the two fastest cars on the track.

"I don't want to sound too confident, but I knew we would be fine," Newgarden said after delivering the day's best qualifying run at 225.731 mph. "I think we would have been OK yesterday if we would have had another shot at it."

The lone twist might have come if Mexico's Michel Jourdain Jr. actually made a qualifying attempt to get in the race. But after failing to top 220 mph in practice, the discouraged Jourdain had his car towed back to Gasoline Alley.

That left it up to Newgarden, the Tennessee native, and Rahal, the son of a former 500 winner, to captivate the fans.

Newgarden's chance came after he failed to get a second shot to make it in Saturday when he sitting in qualifying line as the gun sounded at 6 p.m. He had to wait another 18 hours and this time, he left no doubt that he belonged. His qualifying speed from Sunday would have been good enough for 21st, the outside of Row 7, if it happened a day earlier. Instead, he'll start 25th, the inside of Row 9.

Rahal struggled all week and not just because he was using a Honda engine. The nine drivers in the first three rows of the three-car, 11-row grid are all powered by Chevrolets. The top Honda qualifier was Canadian Alex Tagliani, the 2011 Indy pole-sitter. He'll start 11th, the middle of Row 4, after going 227.386.

Rahal, who drives for his father, Bobby, couldn't quite get his car right. But when it mattered Sunday, Rahal easily made it in with an average speed of 225.007 to claim the No. 26 starting spot the middle of Row 9.

"I've certainly had better (weeks), I've certainly had some that were more challenging," Rahal said after locking up his sixth straight Indy start. "But there have been some mysteries behind a lot of our speed problems. I think the first few days people thought we were being extremely slow, but really we were just being really conservative."

They were the lucky ones.

Conor Daly, Buddy Lazier and Katherine Legge spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to get more speed if they had to re-qualify their cars.

Daly had a tough week. After flying back from two races in Spain, the airline lost his HANS device, and after Thursday's crash A.J. Foyt's crew had to rebuild Daly's car. They were working overtime again Saturday night after Daly's first qualifying attempted was derailed by puffs of smoke coming out of the rear end of the No. 41 car. But the 21-year-old rookie from suburban Indy returned to the 2.5-mile oval Sunday and put his car on the inside of Row 11 with an average of 223.582.

"I have to thank the crew for all they've done," Daly said. "I think they had the car apart at least 15 times after the crash and the problems we had (Saturday)," Daly said. "We got the engine back at about 8:30 last night and they worked late getting it back in."

The first nine drivers all qualified on their first attempts, assuring race organizers of a full field. Nobody else even made an attempt.

Jourdain Jr. tried everything. Nothing worked, making it the second straight bumpless Bump Day.

His decision not to go out eased the tension for Legge, who was hired Saturday by Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and was sitting in line ready to re-qualify when Jourdain's car was towed back to Gasoline Alley. The British driver will start on the outside of Row 11 after going 223.176.

The day's biggest scare came with about 30 minutes to go in practice when Team Penske driver Will Power tapped the wall with his right rear tire. The yellow flag came out briefly but Power was not injured.

Fans still had plenty to root for.

There was Newgarden, the hotshot 22-year-old who drives for Sarah Fisher, a local favorite; Rahal, the 24-year-old with the familiar last name; and Daly, the new kid on the block with deep ties to the speedway. They also wanted to see if Lazier, the 1996 race winner, would qualify for the first time since 2008. He didn't make it onto the track until late this week, struggled to find speed and got bumped Saturday. He came back Sunday and was the first driver to qualify, getting his father's No. 91 car into the field with a run at 223.442. He'll start 32nd.

The Laziers will be one of three father-son teams starting next week's race joining the Rahals and Michael and Marco Andretti. Organizers believe that is a track record and it's already causing quite a stir.

"The Rahal name, it's a nice perk around here," Graham Rahal said before adding fuel to his budding rivalry with the younger Andretti. "I certainly don't get the pressure that an Andretti does, by any means. How many father-son combos have won it? I think one, right? Andretti can't do that, so, that would be one more that we'd get on them."

Other notable facts about this year's field include:

Scotland's Dario Franchitti and Brazil's Helio Castroneves will try to become the first foreign-born four-time winners in Indy history. Three Americans A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears have won four times. This will be the first time since 1987 that two three-time winners will start the race. Castroneves qualified eighth. Franchitti will start 17th.

Britain's Pippa Mann and Brazil's Ana Beatriz, of Dale Coyne Racing, will be the first women teammates in Indy history. Mann will make her first start since being injured in the 2011 crash that killed Dan Wheldon and will start 30th. Beatriz will start 29th.Legge and Switzerland's Simona de Silvestro also qualified, giving the race four women starters.

Carlos Munoz, who qualified second Saturday, will be the first rookie to start on the front row since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000. Both are from Colombia, and Munoz is leading the Firestone Indy Lights series in points.

Daly will be the youngest rookie to start the 500 since Rahal in 2008.

"He was, like, getting under the ropes a little bit, " Nelson's widow, Peggy, recalled Saturday of that moment during the 1946 San Francisco Open. "Byron said, 'Kid, could you move back under the ropes a little ways?' And Ken goes home and tells his mom, I met the greatest man today, Byron Nelson, and he spoke to me."

Venturi died Friday, in the middle of tournament week for the Byron Nelson Championship.

Venturi overcame dehydration to win the 1964 U.S. Open and spent 35 years in the booth for CBS Sports. He died at age 82, 11 days after being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

When CBS came on the air Saturday for third-round coverage of the Nelson, the first 15 minutes of the broadcast were a tribute to Venturi, who retired as the network's lead golf analyst in 2002.

Jim Nantz, whose 54th birthday was on the same day his longtime partner and friend died, said it was "not going to be easy" to broadcast this weekend.

The death of Venturi came a month and a day after broadcaster Pat Summerall died, also at age 82.

"It's been an unbelievable month to lose guys like that," said Lance Barrow, the longtime CBS producer for golf and NFL broadcasts. "It's a sad day."

Barrow likened Venturi's lengthy career as a broadcaster to Nelson's surely unmatchable record of 11 consecutive tournaments won.

"There will be no one ever in sports television again that will have the run that Ken Venturi had," Barrow said. "And will not come close to it, as an analyst in any sport, much less golf."

Tiger Woods issued a statement Saturday saying that Venturi's recent Hall of Fame induction was a "fitting tribute to a special person in our game."

"He was a good man and the voice of golf for so many years," said Woods, who isn't playing the Nelson this week. "He will be remembered for what he did on the golf course and for his personality in the broadcast booth. "

Ten years after Venturi was trying to get a picture of Nelson, he was a top amateur teamed with Harvie Ward against Nelson and Ben Hogan in what has since become known as "The Match."

Peggy Nelson said that was an amazing day for the players, and that Byron Nelson, who died in 2006 at age 94, and Venturi would sometimes talk about different shots each of them hit that day.

She characterized their friendship as precious and talked about what it was like "to see Byron's face light up whenever he thought of him" or when Venturi would call.

"I think that if Byron could have, he would have adopted Kenny," Peggy Nelson said. "Kenny's values were so strong and so wanting to help people as much as he could, because he knew that he was a very blessed man in the game of golf and that he was blessed to have so many friends like Byron and Mr. Hogan, and being close to both of them."

Barrow said Venturi tried to do everything Nelson taught him, from never charging for a golf lesson "because Byron Nelson said don't do that" to also checking in with the pro shop at a golf course before playing a round.

"This was a great thing that Byron Nelson told him, always go in and ask the pro who holds the course record. And if it's a pro, don't ever break it because that pro is there every day. You're only there for a few days," Barrow said. "That's what Venturi was like."