A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

22,000 Lose Power MOSCOW (MT) -- More than 22,000 people were left without electricity in the Volgograd region on Saturday night after electricity lines froze in a cold snap, Interfax reported. ""Workers are working around the clock until electricity is connected again,"" a regional spokesman told Interfax on Sunday. Temperatures fell below minus 13 degrees Celsius in the southern region over the weekend. 3 Miners Killed MOSCOW (AP) -- Three miners were killed in a methane explosion in a Kemerovo coal mine Saturday, officials said. There were 57 men working at a depth of about 170 meters in the Siberian mine, said a duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry. The officer, who did not give his name, said three were killed. Interfax later cited the national mining authority as saying 13 miners had been hospitalized and 39 others brought to the surface.

The last pieces of a legendary collection, the nine Imperial Faberg? Easter eggs from tsarist Russia acquired over a lifetime by publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes, are to be sold at Sotheby's in New York in April.

Vitaly Nikolayenko, one of the country's best-known bear researchers and a man who spent 25 years living with the enormous brown bears of the wild Kamchatka Peninsula, has been found dead in a bear mauling.

The Bush administration was determined to oust Saddam Hussein long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS television in an interview that was to be aired Sunday night.

U.S. President George W. Bush is planning a permanent science base for astronauts on the moon and, in what would be an even greater leap for mankind, human voyages to Mars, according to senior administration officials.

A speedboat transporting Albanians trying to sneak into Italy was shipwrecked in rough seas, killing 21, officials said Saturday. Police arrested two Albanians on suspicions they organized the illegal transport.