Poll washout means grim news for Republicans

In other contests across the country, several cities picked mayors and seven states considered ballot initiatives, including California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has bet his sinking political capital on passing four initiatives.

In New York, Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg sailed to re-election after spending as much as $100 million of his own fortune to defeat Democrat Fernando Ferrer.

With control of both chambers of the US Congress and 36 governorships at stake in 2006, the off-year election results offered grim news for Republicans looking for clues to next year’s political climate and the long-term effect of Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, now the lowest of his presidency. —Reuters

‘Intelligent-design’ school board ousted

DOVER (Pennsylvania): Voters on Tuesday ousted eight of nine members of a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an ‘‘intelligent-design’’ alternative to teaching evolution. The ousted school board was the first in the US to implement the teaching of intelligent design in science classes, a move which has been challenged in a federal court by a group of Dover parents. The parents’ group says the concept is a religious belief and therefore may not be taught in public schools, because the US Constitution forbids it. They also argue that the theory is unscientific and so has no place in science classes. REUTERS