Romney Declares War On Trump, Rubio Struggles In Florida

Mitt Romney delivered a sweeping broadside against Donald Trump on Thursday, laying into the Republican presidential front-runner with a sharper attack than any of the party's 2016 contenders have made against the billionaire business mogul.

"Here's what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud," Romney said. "His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat."

Romney said that "dishonesty is Donald Trump's hallmark," pointing to his "bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics."

There's irony in Romney's speech: Just four years ago, he courted Trump's endorsement -- even after Trump had led the "birther" controversy against President Barack Obama, insisting that Obama release his birth certificate to prove he is an American citizen.

Syria Goes Dark

Shortly before the reports of the outage, the ministry said on its Facebook page Thursday that militants had hit part of a power-generating station with rockets in the western city of Hama. The Syrian government hasn't said whether this attack was linked to the nationwide outage; the ministry said maintenance workers were fixing the damage.

Syria's power infrastructure has been damaged during the war, accounting in part for frequent outages even in areas that it still serves.

DOJ grants immunity to ex-Clinton staffer who set up email server

Bryan Pagliano, a former Clinton staffer who helped set up her private email server, has accepted an immunity offer from the FBI and the Justice Department to provide an interview to investigators, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday.

The FBI has been asking for Pagliano's cooperation for months as dozens of investigators pored over thousands of Clinton emails in a secure room on the fourth floor of FBI headquarters.

The probe shifted into a new phase recently as investigators completed the review of the emails, working with intelligence agencies and the State Department to determine whether they were classified.