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trymen -- or get killed themselves.
• "I couldn't go because the army is supposed to protect people, but all this army does is protect Assad," said Hamza, now a wispy-bearded 19-year-old with thick biceps from his work at sea. He fled Syria this year to Tripoli, a city on Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Unable to work, he lives in hiding in a small apartment here with six other draft-dodgers.
• Young Syrians have long avoided the draft by traveling abroad, cooking up medical excuses or using connections and bribes to get their names off the rolls. But anti-regime activists in and outside Syria say the number has shot up during the 15-month conflict that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people.
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In Mass., the only state with an individual mandate, few are forced to pay insurance penalty
• BOSTON (AP) -- It's the single most contentious element of President Barack Obama's health care law: the requirement that nearly everyone have insurance or face a financial hit.
• But in Massachusetts, the only state with a so-called individual mandate, the threat of a tax penalty has sparked little public outcry since the state's landmark health care law was signed in 2006 by the governor, Mitt Romney.
• Romney, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pushed for the mandate saying it would discourage "free riders," those who can afford health coverage but instead rely on emergency rooms for free care and drive up insurance premiums for everyone else.
• "What we are mandating is that individuals have personal responsibility either to pay for their own health care bill or to receive insurance," Romney said at the time.
• As a presidential candidate, Romney has tried to draw a line between his law and Obama's, in most instances saying that states and not the federal government should decide whether to impose the requirement.
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Sandusky jurors include Penn State senior, retired professor, ticket-holder; 9 of 12 selected
• BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) -- Most of the men and women who may render a verdict in Jerry Sandusky's child sexual abuse case have been chosen, and their ranks reflect the strong role Penn State plays in its surrounding community.
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