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the dead were under the age of 10.
• The attacks sparked outrage from American and other international leaders, and renewed concerns about the relevance of a month-old international peace plan that has not stopped almost daily violence.
• Sunday's shelling hit neighborhoods in the central city of Hama and the rebel-held town of Rastan north of Homs, the Local Coordination Committees and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
• The two groups also

reported clashes between troops and rebels in Hama, in the Damascus suburb of Harasta and in the capital's central Midan district. They said a bomb struck a security vehicle in the capital's upscale district of Mazzeh -- near a military airport, according to the LCC.
• ___

• President Barack Obama faces new warning signs in a once-promising Southern state and typically Democratic-voting Midwestern states roughly five months before the election even as he benefits nationally from encouraging economic news.
• Obama's new worries about North Carolina and Wisconsin offer opportunities for Republican Mitt Romney, who must peel off states Obama won in 2008 if he's to cobble together the 270 electoral votes needed to oust the incumbent in November.
• Iowa, which kicked off the campaign in January, is now expected to be tight to

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