GENOA, Italy — As more bodies were pulled Wednesday from a mountain of jagged concrete and twisted steel left by a highway bridge collapse that killed 39, prosecutors focused on possible design flaws and past maintenance of the heavily used span, and politicians squabbled over blame.
Motorists, meanwhile, recounted miraculous escapes and the horror of seeing others plunge over the edge.
As a second night descended on the site where part of the Morandi Bridge plunged some 150 feet, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declined to say how many people might still be buried in the debris where about 1,000 rescue workers searched for victims.
The collapse occurred about midday Tuesday, the eve of Italy’s biggest summer holiday, when traffic was particularly busy on the 51-year-old span that links two highways — one leading to France, the other to Milan — from this northwestern port city.
WASHINGTON — For years, Omarosa Manigault Newman stood at Donald Trump’s side, making her deeply unpopular with African-Americans who see her as a sellout for aligning herself with a president who has hurled one insult after another at black people.
Her falling out with Trump and her decision to call him a racist as she sells her new book — and in turn, his calling her a “dog” — have not been enough for many African-Americans to invite her back to the family. Too little, too late, many said.
“Her tell-all mea culpa won’t win her any brownie points with most blacks,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of the book “Why Black Lives Do Matter.” “Their loathing of Omarosa is virtually frozen in stone. She’s still roundly lambasted as a two-bit opportunist, a racial sellout and an ego driven hustler.”
Few in the black community immediately rushed to defend Manigault Newman after she wrote a book titled “Unhinged” about her time in the White House. It paints a damning picture of Trump, claiming without evidence that tapes exist of him using the N-word as he filmed “The Apprentice” reality series, on which she co-starred.
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Six months ago, Christine Hallquist was leading one of Vermont’s rural electric cooperatives, her transgender status causing nary a ripple as she took part in policy debates about renewable energy and the reliability of the electric grid.
Now, after winning Vermont’s Democratic nomination to run for governor, she’s basking in the glow of her status as the nation’s first transgender political candidate to win a major party gubernatorial nomination .
She’s got a lot to learn, and a lot of money to raise. Hallquist knows that to defeat incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott, she’s going to have to explain to Vermonters how she can do a better job of developing the state’s rural economy, ensuring people have access to health care and quality education.
But she recognizes the symbolism of her candidacy and her victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
“The whole world is looking at this as a historic moment for a transgender candidate, but that’s not what Vermont looked at,” Hallquist, 62, said shortly after clinching the nomination. “Vermonters looked at, ‘What’s Christine and her team going to do for Vermont?’”
HELENA, Mont. — Republicans on Wednesday condemned a poster by Pearl Jam that shows the White House in flames and a bald eagle pecking at a skeleton they say is meant to depict President Donald Trump.
The National Republican Senate Committee compared it to the now-infamous photo of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a fake decapitated Trump head.
The rock group’s Twitter account says the official poster from Monday’s concert in Missoula, Montana, is a collaboration between bassist Jeff Ament and Bobby Brown, an artist also known as Bobby Draws Skulls.
The “Rock2Vote” concert aimed to encourage young people to vote in the November midterm elections and support Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who is from Ament’s hometown of Big Sandy.
Ament was unapologetic in an emailed statement Wednesday.
From Associated Press