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captured in a mug shot soon after the January 2011 shooting. Six people had died and 13 others were wounded, including his intended target, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
• He was not the man who rocked back and forth in court in May 2011 before blurting out, "Thank you for the free kill. She died in front of me. Your cheesiness."
• The changes in Loughner's behavior while being treated and medicated at a federal prison in Springfield, Mo., led a judge to declare the 23-year-old competent Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns gave his blessings to a plea agreement that spares prosecutors and victims a potentially lengthy trial and appeal and allows Loughner to escape the death penalty.
• The judge called Loughner "a different person in his appearance and his affect than the first time I laid eyes on him."
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration's principles for a post-Assad Syria are clear: security, sectarian harmony, no tolerance for extremists.
• But the U.S. faces a hard sell with Syria's fighters after refusing to back them militarily and watching them squabble for months over how to reshape their country the day after President Bashar Assad's regime crumbles, as expected.
• With government defections on the rise and the rebels gaining advantage in Aleppo and Damascus, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined her vision Tuesday of how Syria should move forward in the event of a sudden regime change.
• "We have to make sure that the state institutions stay intact," Clinton told reporters in Pretoria, South Africa. "We have to think about what we can do to support a Syrian-led democratic transition that protects the rights of all Syrians. We have to figure out how to support the return of security and public safety and how to get their economy up and going."
• Washington is urging a gradual approach to transition that would keep water, electricity and other public services running -- and ensure that women, minorities, independents and government officials without blood on their hands get a say in Syria's future.
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