World/Nation

• Spacecraft for tourists explodes during test

MOJAVE, Calif. - A winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth's atmosphere exploded during a test flight Friday over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot in the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo blew apart after being released from a carrier aircraft at high altitude, said Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the explosion.

One pilot was found dead inside the spacecraft and another parachuted out and was flown by helicopter to a hospital, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

The crash area was about 120 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and 20 miles from the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the mid-morning flight originated.

British billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, has been the front-runner in the fledgling race to give large numbers of paying civilians a suborbital ride that would let them experience weightlessness and see the Earth from the edge of space. Branson was expected to arrive in Mojave on Saturday, as were investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.

• Judge rejects Maine's attempt to restrict nurse

FORT KENT, Maine - A Maine judge gave nurse Kaci Hickox the OK to go wherever she pleases, handing state officials a defeat Friday in the nation's biggest court case yet over how to balance personal liberty, public safety and fear of Ebola.

Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere ruled that Hickox must continue daily monitoring of her health but said there is no need to isolate her or restrict her movements because she has no symptoms and is therefore not contagious.

The judge also decried the "misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information" circulating about the lethal disease in the U.S.

After the ruling, a state police cruiser that had been posted outside Hickox's home left, and she and her boyfriend stepped outside to thank the judge.

Hickox, 33, called it "a good day" and said her "thoughts, prayers and gratitude" remain with those who are still battling Ebola in West Africa.

• Early voters already top 15M as Tuesday looms

WASHINGTON - Early votes soared past 15 million across 31 states on Friday, an outpouring that is giving hopeful Republicans as well as nervous Democrats cause for optimism heading into the final weekend of a campaign with control of the Senate, the U.S. House and 36 governorships at stake.

Republicans pointed to a strong early-vote performance in Iowa as evidence that Joni Ernst was a step ahead in her bid to capture a Senate seat for the GOP. "I feel real good about it," said Gov. Terry Branstad, campaigning with the party's Senate hopeful as he sought a new term for himself, as well.

But in Georgia, Democrats said a strong early turnout by African-Americans in the counties around Atlanta was a good sign for Michelle Nunn, running for a seat long outside the party's reach.

As candidates headed into a final weekend of campaigning, Democratic hopes of holding a Senate seat in Arkansas appeared to be fading, and Republicans already appeared assured of gains in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana. They need to gain six to come away with the election's biggest prize - control of the Senate during President Barack Obama's final two years in office.

Strategists in both parties agreed privately that races in Louisiana and Georgia were probably headed for runoffs, and several Republicans expressed concern about Kansas, where polls showed Sen. Pat Roberts was in a tough race to keep a seat held by Republicans for decades.

• West bedeviled by lack of good options in Syria

With the U.S.-led assault on the Islamic State group, the world community is acting in Syria, but not in the Syrian civil war. When it comes to the issue that has undermined the region - the survival or fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad - there is still no plan.

And that means the West's goal to defeat the militants of IS may also be doomed to fail.

Syria's four-year civil war has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions in what began as a movement to replace Assad with a more democratic state. As the government's control weakened, militants rallying around Islamic slogans carved out a vast safe haven for themselves - recruiting, training and building fighting capacity. From Syria this year, they then struck deep into Iraq, with devastating effect, and now also threaten Lebanon.

Yet any concerted effort to oust Assad and restore stability to Syria does not appear to be on the horizon.

What emerges instead from the actions and words of Western policymakers is a glum resignation that there is nothing that can be done about Assad for now, and the fight is only with the Islamic State.

- The Associate Press