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(Continued from page 38)
• Companies that remain traditional pharmacies would continue to be overseen mostly by state pharmacy boards.
• ___
Investigation finds 30 minute radio blackout preceded deaths of 19 Arizona firefighters
• PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) -- Shortly before 19 elite firefighters perished in a raging Arizona wildfire, commanders thought the crew was in a safe place. No one had heard from the Granite Mountain Hotshots for 33 minutes. The crew didn't contact commanders, and commanders didn't radio them.
• Then it was too late.
• A three-month investigation into the June 30 deaths released Saturday did not determine if the tragedy was avoidable, while outlining a series of missteps by the crew and commanders and revealing the more than half-hour of radio silence that occurred just before the firefighters were overwhelmed by flames.
• It's not certain why the crew left what was believed to be a safe spot on a ridge that the fire had previously burned and, apparently seeking another safe location, unknowingly walked to their deaths in a basin thick with dry brush. At the time they died, an airtanker was circling overhead, confused about their location.
• "There is much that cannot be known about the crew's decisions and actions" because of the gap in communications, the report concluded.
• ___
Amid Putin's harsh crackdown, Sochi's gay scene thrives ahead of Winter Olympics
• SOCHI, Russia (AP) -- A man named Ravil catapults onto the dance floor and starts stomping out the lezginka, the arrogant rooster strut of the Chechen national dance.
• Ravil's spontaneous performance is made even more unusual by the fact he's in one of the two gay clubs in Sochi, the southern Russian town that will host the Winter Olympics amid Vladimir Putin's harsh crackdown on gays. The morality campaign -- centered on a law banning homosexual "propaganda" -- has threatened to overshadow the games as it provokes an international outcry.
• Paradoxically, Sochi is a far cry from the conservative lifestyle that the president is trying to promote.
• At club Mayak, for example, the dancers are as diverse as the city itself: a Muslim who is a former market butcher, an Armenian who owns a strip club in a nearby (Continued on page 40)
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