The Washington Post By Associated Press, Published: March 4 | Updated: Tuesday, March 5, 9:33 AM

CARACAS, Venezuela — A severe new respiratory infection has hit cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez and his condition is “very delicate,” Venezuela’s government says.

A brief statement read on national television by Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas late Monday carried the sobering news about the charismatic 58-year-old socialist leader’s deteriorating health.

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Los Angeles Times - Matt Pearce, 3/04/13

On Monday, workers exposed the sinkhole, seen in an image taken from video, that swallowed a Florida man in his home Thursday evening. (WFTS-TV / March 4, 2013)

Demolition crews in Seffner, Fla., on Monday knocked down walls of the house where Jeff Bush, 37, was living before a sinkhole swallowed his bedroom on Thursday night.

The hole was not visible outside the home before an 80-foot excavation arm knocked down the walls and revealed the chasm, which experts thought extended dozens of feet into the earth, where Bush's body is thought to remain.

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March 4

Los Angeles Times - 3/02/13, Marisa Gerber

Police tape surrounds a home where a sinkhole opened beneath the bedroom of Jeff Bush in Seffner, Florida, on Friday, March 1. Sinkholes caused by acidic groundwater corroding the limestone or carbonate rock underground are common in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Florida officials said Saturday evening they hadn't found the body of the man swallowed by a sinkhole two days earlier, and planned to stop looking.