Sen. Tim Johnson has been conscious at times since his emergency brain surgery last week, his spokeswoman said Monday. But he is currently being sedated so he can rest.
The South Dakota Democrat has made it through the first 72 hours since the Wednesday evening brain surgery, spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said, a benchmark that doctors consider a good sign for recovery. The senator remains in critical but stable condition, she added.
Addtional nation/world news briefs:
NEW YORK
Sen. Clinton indicates she’s near a decision
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday offered the broadest indication yet that she was close to a decision on entering the 2008 Democratic presidential field.
“I want to make sure the decision is right for me, my family, my party and my country,” Clinton said on NBC’s “The Today Show,” where she was promoting the re-release of her book, “It Takes a Village.”
The former first lady said she knew more than any other potential candidate how hard it was to be president.
“I saw it in an up-close-and- personal way for eight years,” she said. She reiterated that she would disclose her decision after the first of the year.
KIRKSVILLE, Mo.
7 may have died from CO poisoning
Investigators said Monday they were looking at the possibility that seven people found dead in an apartment were killed by carbon monoxide.
The victims – including a woman and her two young children – were discovered Sunday after a 911 caller reported a “strange odor.”
Police Chief Jim Hughes said a Fire Department carbon-monoxide detector gave a high reading but had not located the source of the gas. The home heating system was functioning properly, but a van parked in the garage was taken for analysis, he said.
HOUSTON
Astronauts finish folding solar array
Two spacewalking astronauts finished folding up a stubborn, accordionlike solar array Monday, resolving the only complication in space shuttle Discovery’s otherwise smooth mission to the international space station.
Shuttle astronauts Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang managed to get the last section of the 115-foot array folded into a box about five hours into the 6 1/2-hour spacewalk.
SEOUL, South Korea
Scientist reports cloning female dog
A South Korean scientist claimed Monday that he succeeded in cloning a female dog after last year’s breakthrough of creating the world’s first cloned dog, which was male. An Afghan hound, named Bona, was born June 18 using cloning technology, said Lee Byeong-Chun, a veterinary professor at Seoul National University. Two more of the same breed were born later, he said. DNA tests showed that the three are clones, he said.
