The casino owner, Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, known as Pepe, jumped bail in Iowa in 1994 and disappeared, and has since been linked to violence and corruption in Mexico. A State Department cable in 2009 said he was suspected of orchestrating the assassination of a business rival and making illegal campaign donations to Mexican officials.

When The New York Times asked the Obama campaign early Monday about the Cardonas, officials said they were unaware of the brother in Mexico. Later in the day, the campaign said it was refunding the money raised by the family, which totaled more than $200,000.

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The U.S. closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday, citing rising violence, a day before Moscow was due to dispatch high-level envoys to Syria for talks with one of the Kremlin’s last allies in the region, besieged President Bashar al-Assad.

But with the Syrian army renewing assaults on rebel positions on Monday, there seemed to be little chance that the Russian officials would be able to avert a deepening of the conflict, which the United Nations said had killed 5,400 even before bloodshed reached new levels in recent weeks.

Western leaders stepped up their criticism of the Kremlin, which was … Read More

Other changes as part of an annual update to immunization schedules included a recommended hepatitis B vaccine to the protect the livers of adults up to age 60 who have diabetes and a vaccine against whooping cough for pregnant women.

The updates, agreed upon by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report of February 3.

The HPV vaccine has been approved for girls since 2006 but the CDC had not expressly urged it for boys, though boys were included among those who could receive it to prevent certain cancers and genital warts.

The deal was signed in Doha, Qatar, by Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who said last month he plans to step down from his post.

“The Palestinian reconciliation is no longer a Palestinian interest but also an Arab interest,” Abbas said.

“Both parties are serious in moving forward to fold the page of strife between both parties and to strengthen the Palestinian national unity government,” according to Meshaal.

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Netanyahu: PA President must choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized on Monday the agreement reached between Hamas and Fatah, according to which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will head a unity caretaker cabinet.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that wants to destroy Israel and is supported by Iran,” Netanyahu said at a Likud meeting. “Israel had made great efforts to advance the peace process. If Abbas realizes what was signed in Doha it shows that he is choosing to abandon the path of peace and join with Hamas, without Hamas accepting the minimal conditions of the international community.”

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A staggering 297 cops – with an average age of just 44 – have been diagnosed, according to figures obtained by The New York Post.

The data shows almost three times the number of officers are applying for cancer-related disability pensions than before the tragedy.

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association squared off against Monsanto.

The case, at the moment, goes off on a legal issue of whether the organic farmers have standing to bring a declaratory judgment action against Monsanto. Simply, the question is whether the organic farmers have suffered harm which allows them to get their case before a court for a possible trial.

The case involves 96 plaintiffs claiming that “Society stands on the precipice of forever being bound to transgenic agriculture and transgenic food. Coexistence between transgenic seed and organic seed is impossible because transgenic seed contaminates and eventually overcomes organic seed.”

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In an executive order, Mr Obama said he was freezing all Iranian government assets held or traded in the US.

On Sunday, Mr Obama said the US and Israel were “in lockstep” in their policy towards Iran.

Concerns have grown in Israel and the West that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, although Tehran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

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“We in the Norwegian movement will not sit and see that we are made a minority in our own country,” the anti-Islam fanatic told a packed courtroom in only his second public comments since the attack in July.

“The attacks on the government headquarters were preventive attacks on people committing cultural destruction of Norwegian culture and Norwegian ethnicity,” he said and demanded to be released immediately.

The 32-year-old has admitted detonating a fertilizer bomb that killed eight people at a government building in Oslo in July and hours later committing a shooting spree at an island camp for the Labour Party youths, killing 69.

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If Roger Jones has his way, that freezing dread that knifes through a driver the moment he sees the overhead flash of a traffic camera will become a thing of the past.

But he’s facing quite an uphill fight against officials hungry for the cash the cameras sweep in and police who are convinced they make the roads safer.

Anyone in California snapped violating a red light pays a fine of $480, and according to the traffic-watch site TheNewspaper.com, no other jurisdiction anywhere has a tab that high. The second-highest fine in the United States is $250, and it is usually more like $100.

The Legislature passed two bills in the past two years that would have reduced the fine or limited the cameras’ use, but both were vetoed. When he killed the most recent measure, Gov. Jerry Brown said the matter should be left to local jurisdictions.

Volunteers count caucus ballots for the second straight day at Clark County GOP headquarters in Las Vegas Sunday, Feb. 5.

Las Vegas Sun

The voting ended half a day ago. The networks have called the race. The GOP presidential candidates have delivered their speeches and left the state.

And, still, party officials in Nevada’s largest county continue to count the vote.

“We are going to get this right,” Clark County Chairman David Gibbs told the Las Vegas Sun today. “If it takes us a little bit of time to get it rights, we are going to take the time.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was declared the victor of the Nevada caucuses Saturday evening, based on results from the rest of the state and entrance polls conducted by major media organizations.

With 70 percent of the vote counted, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was in second place, with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul trailing in third by just shy of 1,000 votes.

After working until 4 a.m. Sunday, a handful of a volunteers resumed working through boxes of paper ballots this morning, verifying the vote count done at each precinct nearly 24 hours ago.

County party officials were unwilling to release the numbers from the precinct counts until each ballot was certified. And they are doing it all by hand.

“We want to make sure the count at the precinct was accurate,” Gibbs said.

With just half of the vote counted, officials have already discovered some discrepancies. In some precincts, the number of ballots did not match the number of voters who signed in to participate in the caucus.

Gibbs said the ballots in those precincts are being set aside so officials can decide how to deal with the problem. He declined to estimate how many votes were in question.

State party secretary Jim DeGraffenreid said they are still determining “the facts” and then will decide how to proceed, but acknowledged the ballots from those precincts may be dumped from the results.

“That is a possibility,” he said.

The mismatched prompted U.S. Rep. Ron Paul’s campaign to complain about a “lack of process and poorly run locations.”

A lawyer for Romney’s campaign is watching the count and observers from other campaigns have been invited.

RELATED:

Las Vegas Sun: Nevada State GOP Chair Resignation Effective 12:01am Today

Anjeanette Damon – @AnjeanetteDamon

To make things even better for the #nvgop, Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian’s resignation took effect at 12:01 a.m. Status of the chair up in air.

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Story at the Las Vegas Sun: Vote count in GOP caucus continuing in Nevada’s largest county

8 Precinct Vote Totals Missing From Iowa Caucuses : NPR