Pre-Olympics blackout
The week's news at a glance.
Athens
Athens and surrounding areas lost power for several hours this week, just a month before the city is to host the Olympics. Trains stopped, traffic lights went out, and air conditioning shut down across the city in the middle of a 104-degree day. Hundreds of people were trapped in hot, stuffy elevators. Greek officials insisted that the Olympic venues were stocked with enough generators to weather any outage that might occur during the Games. “It was mainly due to mismanagement,” said Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas.
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