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GOP targets Clinton, Rand Paul wins CPAC straw poll
• OXON HILL, Md. (AP) -- She was not on the speaking program, but Hillary Rodham Clinton had presence at the nation's largest annual gathering of conservative activists on Saturday, as high-profile Republicans launched a dual effort to attack the prospective Democratic presidential candidate and improve the GOP's longstanding struggle with women voters.
• It was the closing act of a Republican summit that highlighted acute challenges for a party that hasn't won a presidential election in a decade.
• The GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, offered a message to all women, a group that has backed Democrats in every presidential election since 1988: "Women, don't let them use you -- unless you choose to be their political pawn, just their piece of accessory on their arm."
• The Republican firebrand was among just a handful of women featured on the main stage during the Conservative Political Action Conference, which offers an early audition for GOP officials weighing a 2016 presidential run and a platform for leading conservatives to put their stamp on the evolving Republican Party. Thousands of conservative activists, opinion leaders and Republican officials flocked to a hotel just across the Potomac River near Washington.
• Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul won the conference's presidential preference straw poll, a symbolic victory that reflects his popularity among conservatives who typically hold outsized influence in the GOP's presidential selection process.
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Fire Dept.: 30-40 people hurt as stage collapses at S. California high school
• ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- A stage at a Southern California high school collapsed during a student event and 30-40 people were rushed to hospitals with mainly minor injuries, authorities said.
• Police, firefighters and medics responded to a call shortly before 11 p.m. PST Saturday after the stage gave way at Servite High School, according to the Anaheim Fire Department.
• The dispatch supervisory office told The Associated Press that 30-40 people were transported to hospitals.
• Most of the injuries are minor and none is life threatening.
• The office said it's not immediately clear if the injured are students.
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