Cost to fix Michigan sinkhole estimated at more than $78M

Cost to fix Michigan sinkhole estimated at more than $78M

FRASER, Mich.

The cost to fix a broken sewer line that caused a football field-sized sinkhole north of Detroit is estimated at more than $78 million, Macomb County’s new public works chief says.

The project’s cost could rise above $100 million if more work is done to improve the rest of the sewer line, public works chief Candice Miller told Macomb County commissioners Friday. The repairs could take about a year to complete.

The sewer collapse was discovered after homeowners heard noises Christmas Eve and noticed their house was sinking.

Officials temporarily evacuated nearly two dozen homes because water and gas service had to be shut off. Nineteen families have since been allowed to return. Three homes were eventually condemned.

IS launches new assault on besieged eastern city in Syria

BEIRUT

Islamic State militants launched their biggest assault in a year on government-held areas of the contested city of Deir el-Zour on Saturday, attacking from several fronts and triggering intense fighting in the eastern region bordering Iraq, the Syrian government and opposition activists said.

Syrian state TV said three people were killed and nine were wounded in IS rocket attacks on several neighborhoods of the city.

Intense fighting broke out between Syrian troops and the extremist group’s fighters both inside the city and around the vicinity of a nearby military airport controlled by government forces.

Iraq makes swift territorial gains against IS in Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq

Iraqi forces have won a string of swift territorial gains in Mosul in the fight against the Islamic State group after months of slow progress, with a senior officer Saturday laying claim to a cluster of buildings inside Mosul University and another edge of a bridge.

Iraqi forces now control the eastern sides of three of the city’s five bridges that span the Tigris River connecting Mosul’s east to west. Warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed the city’s bridges late last year in an effort to isolate IS fighters in the city’s east by disrupting resupply routes.

At Mosul University, senior commanders said Iraqi forces had secured more than half of the campus Saturday amid stiff resistance.

Marchers brave cold, rain for MLK march in DC

WASHINGTON

Despite rain and cold weather, marchers filled several blocks in Washington on Saturday as they rallied in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march that was at times also a rally against President-elect Donald Trump.

Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton had organized Saturday’s “We Shall Not Be Moved” march and rally ahead of Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. But Trump, whose inauguration will take place in less than a week, was also on marchers’ minds.

Holding umbrellas and bundled against temperatures in the mid-30s the crowd chanted “No justice, no peace” and “We will not be moved” but also “We will not be Trumped” and “Love Trumps hate.”

Protesters also gathered Saturday to support immigrant rights at rallies around the U.S., including in Washington, denouncing Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric

Associated Press