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Nation in brief
Compiled from Times wires 50 mph winds whip CaliforniaLOS ANGELES -- Wind gusted to 50 mph across California for a second day Tuesday, spreading dozens of fires in the Sierra Nevada and causing power outages from San Francisco to San Diego. At least one home was damaged by the wind-stoked fires. Hospitals had to use backup generators in some areas. Thousands of people woke up without electricity Tuesday in Los Angeles, Oakland and the San Diego area, and darkened traffic signals and wind-blown debris challenged commuters. In space . . .ASTRONAUTS HOOK UP GIRDER: Astronauts used cranes to attach another expensive piece of latticework to the international space station Tuesday, and then a team of spacewalkers went out to wire it up. "Yee-haw!" spacewalker John Herrington shouted as he hopped onto the $390-million girder. "Life is good." Herrington, the first American Indian in space, and his spacewalking partner, Michael Lopez-Alegria, installed clamps, removed locks and connected electrical cables between the new segment and the rest of the space station. SATELLITE LOST IN RUSSIAN LAUNCH: The world's largest communications satellite, launched on a Russian rocket, was lost Tuesday after it went into the wrong orbit, the Russian space agency said. It was the biggest setback yet to Russia's satellite-launching program, which Moscow has seen as a potential cash cow for its depressed space industry. The failure follows the Oct. 15 explosion of an unmanned Soyuz-U rocket, also carrying a satellite, half a minute after liftoff. In politics . . .DEMOCRAT LEADS IN POLL: Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana holds a commanding lead over Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell in the nation's last undecided Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday. Landrieu leads Terrell 50.4 percent to 33.9 percent, according to the telephone poll of 600 registered voters by Southern Media & Opinion Research conducted Nov. 19-21. The margin of sampling error was 4 percentage points. The runoff is Dec. 7. GOP DROPS MAINE APPEAL: The Republican Party dropped an appeal to the Maine Supreme Court on Tuesday, clearing the way for the evenly divided state Senate to decide a disputed election for its final seat. The 35-member Senate is split at 17 seats for each party.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
