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• Twenty-seven up, 27 down. Again.
• Seattle's Felix Hernandez threw Major League Baseball's third perfect game of the season Wednesday -- a record -- joining San Francisco's Matt Cain and the White Sox's Philip Humber, who also tossed his gem at Safeco Field.
• That means six of the 23 perfectos in baseball history have come since 2009. Little wonder this is being called the Decade of the Pitcher.
• Still not impressed? It gets better. Hernandez's gem was the sixth no-hitter this season. One more and major league pitchers will have tied the seven set in 1990 and matched a season later.
• There's only been one year with eight no-hitters. Want to guess? Here's a hint: Chester Arthur was president.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's new promise to restore the Medicare cuts made by President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law could backfire if he's elected.

• The reason: Obama's cuts also extended the life of Medicare's giant trust fund, and by repealing them Romney would move the insolvency date of the program closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.
• Instead of running out of money in 2024, Medicare says its trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 without the cuts. That could leave a President Romney little political breathing room to finalize his own Medicare plan.
• The Romney campaign says there's no problem with the candidate's pledge.
• "The idea that restoring funding to Medicare could somehow hasten its bankruptcy is on its face absurd," said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
• ___

• MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (AP) -- Civil war in neighboring Syria is tearing

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