Scaffolding collapse leaves 5 workers dead

Scaffolding collapseleaves 5 workers dead
NEW YORK -- Stopping only to listen for survivors' screams, firefighters cut through the twisted planks and poles left when a building facade and adjoining scaffold collapsed, leaving five construction workers dead.
Eleven others were injured in the collapse at the 20-story Manhattan office building Wednesday, city officials said.
Rescue workers armed with flashlights worked late into the night to clear debris from the 20-foot pile of rubble. The loose bricks, broken wooden planks and bent metal poles were pulled from the pile and spread along neighboring streets within hours.
Crews had to be called from the World Trade Center disaster site, about two miles south, said Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, who spoke at the scene with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday.
As some 250 rescue workers hunted for victims, they stopped periodically to listen for tapping signals from survivors. But they eventually removed all the trapped victims.
The construction crew was replacing bricks and working on windows when the facade tumbled into the courtyard of the building, authorities said.
Proof of man's deathprompts anthrax scare
PHILADELPHIA -- Tired of the red tape involved in proving her son dead, a woman sent a plastic bag containing some of his ashes to the company processing his student loans.
The baggie and accompanying letter arrived at Sallie Mae's office in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Oct. 12 as concern was growing about anthrax-tainted letters.
"We treated it as it was an anthrax scare. It was a gray powdery substance," said company vice president Joseph Bailey.
The 25-year-old college student died of a drug overdose in Georgia, leaving behind about $35,000 in federal student loans, Bailey said. The loans are discharged if Sallie Mae or the lender receives an original or raised-seal copy of the death certificate.
The woman, from Washington state, first contacted Sallie Mae about the death May 17 but apparently became frustrated that the loans had not been discharged, Bailey said. He refused to name her.
"She wasn't mad. It was just a bizarre response," Bailey said.
Police and hazardous materials teams were called to the company, which has 800 employees and handles over 100,000 pieces of mail a day at its office about 100 miles north of Philadelphia. Several workers went to their doctors for tests.
A funeral director later confirmed the bag, with about two teaspoons of white-and-gray flecked ashes, contained human remains. The company planned to return the remains to the woman.
FEC: Clinton campaigndidn't violate law
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission dismissed a fund-raising complaint against Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign, despite a finding by the agency's counsel that accounts established by the Democratic Party to benefit the campaign appeared illegal.
The six-member commission also dismissed similar complaints against the 2000 campaigns of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and then-Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo. FEC Acting General Counsel Lois Lerner also had found they appeared illegal.
"I said at the time of the filing that the lawsuit was baseless and frivolous," said Jim Jordan, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He said the FEC decision "has confirmed that judgment."
The leaders of Common Cause and Democracy 21 blasted Wednesday's ruling.
"The commissioners have given a green light for any candidate to get around the law, and shake down corporations, labor unions and wealthy people for unlimited contributions -- as long as they bother to launder the money through a party committee," Common Cause President Scott Harshbarger said.
10 dead in tunnel fire
AIROLO, Switzerland -- Extreme heat thwarted attempts by firefighters today to tackle a blaze that turned the world's second-longest road tunnel into a deadly inferno, killing at least 10 people.
Officials said they've started recovering the bodies of nine men and one woman from the road and vehicles. The victims all suffocated, said Romano Piazzini, police chief of Ticino state.
He said the toll would rise once rescuers reached vehicles trapped by the collapse of the roof in a 100-yard stretch of the tunnel in southern Switzerland.
The fire, which broke out Wednesday in the Gotthard Tunnel after a head-on truck crash, closed one of Europe's most important North-South road routes indefinitely.
Associated Press