Blackout hits much of Venezuela, gov't blames fire

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A blackout hit a large swath of Venezuela on Thursday, darkening street lights, shutting down the Caracas subway and forcing President Hugo Chavez's government to resort to temporary rationing measures.

The power outage affected the capital of Caracas and 12 states stretching across the northern half of the country, Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said.

The state oil company said some activities were interrupted at its refineries, including units partially halted at the Jose heavy crude upgrading complex in eastern Venezuela. But it said operations were expected to be back to normal by early Friday.

A forest fire apparently caused the outage …