hBagpipers, others recall Minn. bridge collapse

hBagpipers, others recall Minn. bridge collapse

MINNEAPOLIS — It was another perfect summer day — so similar to and yet so different from that day a year ago when the Minneapolis freeway bridge fell.

On Aug. 1, 2007, there was crashing and panic and disbelief and horror. On Friday, there were songs and doves and tears and hugs. And then silence, to remember the moment a year ago when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring more than 140.

Minnesotans came together for two memorial ceremonies in Minneapolis to mark the anniversary. Hundreds gathered in Gold Medal Park and marched to the whine of bagpipes, above, to the Stone Arch Bridge, just up the Mississippi from the bridge that fell. A new bridge, still under construction, already stands in its place. The red firetruck from Fire Station 11 — the first rescuer on the collapse scene — led the procession.

Suit against Grace, CNN

OCALA, Fla. — A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claims CNN’s Nancy Grace pushed the mother of a missing toddler to suicide through aggressive questioning.

CNN and Grace argued the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Melinda Duckett’s family would “severely chill” journalists’ coverage of missing-persons cases. But U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges denied their motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Duckett, 21, was on Grace’s show after her son Trenton went missing from her apartment in August 2006. Grace grilled the woman, accusing her of hiding something because Duckett did not take a lie-detector test and answered vaguely regarding her whereabouts.

Duckett fatally shot herself before the network aired the pre-taped interview. The family claims Grace’s intense questioning caused severe emotional distress that led to the suicide.

Beheading suspect in court

TORONTO — A man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada made his first court appearance Friday, while police offered no motive for the savage attack against a 22-year-old carnival worker.

Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton, Alberta, has been charged with second-degree murder. He shuffled into the courtroom Friday in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba with his head bowed and feet shackled.

Dismembering suspect: I was high on cocaine

GOIANIA, Brazil — The Brazilian man accused of dismembering a British teenager and stuffing her torso in a suitcase told The Associated Press on Friday that he doesn’t remember most of what happened the night she died because he was high on cocaine.

“I don’t remember much,” Mohamed D’Ali Carvalho Santos said in an interview through the bars of his jail cell. “I had used too much drugs.”

Swimmer shootings

NIAGARA, Wis. — A gunman suspected of opening fire on a group of young swimmers gathered along a riverbank was arrested Friday after he emerged from woods near the scene where three teenagers were slain and a fourth person was wounded.

Scott J. Johnson, 38, was dressed in camouflage when deputies confronted him following an all-night manhunt. He dropped his assault rifle as officers approached.

Solar eclipse in China

XI’AN, China — Finally, China had an act of nature it could celebrate.

After an Olympic year of freakish natural disasters, crowds of Chinese watched a total solar eclipse along the country’s ancient Silk Road on Friday, one week before the start of the Summer Games in Beijing.

On Friday evening, the eclipse — once a bad omen for China’s imperial rulers — was cheered by a country eager for any auspicious sign before the games.

Associated Press