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the pinger locator may be effective at a longer range than designed.
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• LUHANSK, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's Security Service said Wednesday that 56 people held inside the agency's local headquarters in the eastern city of Luhansk by pro-Russian separatists have been allowed to leave.
• The Luhansk security services building was among several government offices seized by pro-Moscow groups Sunday in an escalation of protests against the interim government in power since the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
• On Tuesday, security services said separatists inside the building, armed with explosives and other weapons, were holding 60 people hostage. It was not immediately clear if the 56 allowed to leave were among that number, or how many people were still being held.
• Serhiy Tyhipko, a lawmaker associated with the previous Ukraine government and who is now in opposition, said he was able to enter the seized building Tuesday night and claimed there were no hostages inside. He urged Kiev to take note of the protesters' demands.
• "The authorities are not listening to the southeast. People are putting forward certain demands, but nobody hears (them) and doesn't want to react," Tyhipko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Medicare paid a tiny group of doctors $3 million or more apiece in 2012. One got nearly $21 million.
• Those are among the findings of an Associated Press analysis of physician data released Wednesday by the Obama administration, part of a move to open the books on health care financing.
• Topping Medicare's list was Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, whose relationship with Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., made headlines last year after news broke that the lawmaker used the doctor's personal jet for trips to the Dominican Republic. Medicare paid Melgen $20.8 million.

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