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• ROME (AP) -- Six Russians were killed and two others were injured after their snowmobile slammed into a fence and flipped over into a ditch during a night run down an Italian ski slope.
• RAI state radio reported early Saturday that the crash occurred on an unlit slope late Friday on Mount Cermis in northeast Italy.
• The Russian consul general in Milan, Alexei Parmonov, said on Russian state television that he was in contact with Italian investigators, who he said suspect the crash was caused by excessive speed. They also were checking the possibility of a mechanical malfunction.
• Parmonov identified the four men and two women who died in the crash. Five of them and also one of the injured men were tourists from Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia near Sochi, which is preparing to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics.
• One of the dead women and the other injured man worked in Italy in the tourist industry.
• ___

• CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez can take the oath of office for his next term before the Supreme Court at a later date if the ailing leader isn't fit to be sworn in next week, his vice president said.
• Vice President Nicolas Maduro sent the strongest signal yet that the government may seek to postpone Chavez's inauguration as the 58-year-old president fights a severe respiratory infection more than three weeks after undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba.
• Maduro's position in a televised interview on Friday night generated new friction between the government and opposition over the swearing-in, which the constitution says should occur next Thursday before the National Assembly. Some opposition leaders have argued that if Chavez doesn't make it back to Caracas by that date, the president of the National Assembly should take over as interim president.
• Such brewing disagreements are likely to be aired on Saturday when the congress, which is controlled by a pro-Chavez majority, convenes to choose its presi

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