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was checked every 30 minutes, but was not on suicide watch, Smith said. She said suicide watch entails constant observation.
• Castro was also watched closely in Cuyahoga County Jail in the several weeks after his arrest and before his case was resolved by a guilty plea, with logs noting his activity every 10 minutes. He was taken off county jail suicide watch in early June after authorities determined he was not a suicide risk.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is facing a tougher examination of its plans for military intervention in Syria, squaring off against tea party Republicans and other skeptical House members a day after gaining Speaker John Boehner's critical endorsement and finding significant support in the Senate.
• With President Barack Obama in Europe, his top national security aides were to participate Wednesday in a series of public and private hearings at the Capitol to advance their case for limited strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime in retaliation for what the administration says was a deadly sarin gas attack by his forces outside Damascus last month.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee could vote on authorizing the use of force as early as Wednesday. The panel's top members drafted a resolution late Tuesday that permits Obama to order a "limited and tailored" military mission against Syria, as long as it doesn't exceed 90 days and involves no American troops on the ground for combat operations.
• "We have pursued a course of action that gives the president the authority he needs to deploy force in response to the Assad regime's criminal use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, while assuring that the authorization is narrow and focused," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Bob Menendez, R-N.J., who drafted the measure with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel's senior Republican.
• "We have an obligation to act, not witness and watch while a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in plain view," Menendez said.
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