NPR News

From the day Florida announced it would flout Republican National Committee rules by holding a winner-take-all primary prior to the permitted April 1 start date, it was predictable that a loser of that contest was certain to complain.

Now, Newt Gingrich's campaign has announced he will complain.

Spokesman R.C. Hammond told reporters Thursday that the campaign is sending a letter to the Florida Republican Party asking it to comply with the RNC rules that require contests held prior to April 1 to allocate delegates proportionally.

The Republican lawmaker who has been leading a yearlong investigation into the failed gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious acknowledged Thursday that the probe has turned up no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder approved the idea.

Thirty years ago, one of the bloodiest episodes in modern Middle East history unfolded as an anti-government uprising began in the Syrian city of Hama, and was met almost immediately with overwhelming government force.

Over the course of February 1982, an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people died in the city that was not only cut off from the rest of Syria, but the outside world as well. When it ended, Syrian President Hafez Assad said, "What's happened in Hama has happened. And now it's all over."