Nation in brief

3 workers dead, 5 injured in crane collapse at Ohio bridge

TOLEDO, Ohio - A crane collapsed onto a construction site at an interstate bridge Monday, crushing a semitrailer truck and killing three workers, fire officials said.

Five other injured workers, including one in critical condition, were taken to St. Vincent Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Gloria Enk said. Authorities said no one else was trapped, and no motorists were injured.

Traffic had been open on Interstate 280 when the crane collapsed about 2:30 p.m. and fell between the northbound and southbound lanes on the highway's approach to the bridge, Toledo fire Capt. Robert Krause said.

The crane was being used in a $227-million project to build a new six-lane freeway bridge.

The 2-million-pound, 315-foot-long steel crane was moving but wasn't lifting any construction materials at the time it collapsed, said Joe Rutherford, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation. The cause of the collapse was under investigation.

The interstate was closed in both directions after the collapse.

RICHMOND, Va. - The Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution Monday urging Congress to allow states to decide whether to display monuments of the Ten Commandments similar to the one that caused a judicial stalemate in Alabama.

The measure passed 70-30 along party lines after Democrats attempted to kill it by sending it back to committee. Delegate Robert Brink, D-Arlington, called the resolution "an embarrassment to the House, to the General Assembly and to the commonwealth."

Republicans said the measure was necessary to protect the sovereignty of states when it comes to public expressions of religious faith.

The resolution now moves to the Senate.

BOONE, Iowa - A plant that processes bills and magazine subscriptions sent workers home Monday after a suspicious white powder fell out of an envelope, authorities said.

Tests were being conducted on the powder at the Communications Data Services site in central Iowa, but Jim Saunders of the Department of Public Safety said there were no reported injuries and "there appears to be no threat" to employees or the public.

A woman who sorted the mail and handled the envelope at the Boone plant was sent to a hospital as a precaution and the work area was closed off, Des Moines fire Inspector Brian O'Keefe said. The woman, whose name was not made public, was later released.

CDS officials said late Monday that 35 of their employees went through the decontamination process as a precaution.

The CDS plant, which has about 350 employees, handles more than 2-million pieces of mail every month for more than two dozen different publishers. Most mail is sorted by machine, but some pieces are opened by hand.

Luther said new procedures and training were put into place in the last two weeks after the discovery of poisonous ricin powder at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON - President Bush pardoned a former mayor of Plano, Texas, who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 1996, the Justice Department announced Monday.

David B. McCall Jr., who is battling cancer, served six months in prison for his role in fraudulent loans at the Plano Savings and Loan Association, which failed in the mid 1980s.

McCall and four other men, including another former Plano mayor, were indicted in August 1995 on allegations they created a web of transactions designed to transfer troublesome loans from one institution to another.

Authorities said they wanted to hide difficulties from bank examiners and relieve borrowers of the need to repay the loans.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright