The container ship that caused the deadly collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was refloated Monday and has begun slowly moving back to port.
The Dali has remained at the collapse site since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns on March 26, killing six construction workers and snarling traffic into Baltimore Harbor.
The ship appeared to start moving shortly after 6 a.m. as crews started to maneuver it out of the wreckage. It started and stopped a few times before slowly backing away from the collapse site.
Officials said it would move at about 1 mph on the roughly 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) trip, a fraction of the speed it was traveling when it lost power and crashed into the bridge. Pieces of the bridge’s steel trusses protruded from its bow, which remained covered in concrete from the collapsed roadway.
Officials have said they plan to unload the ship’s containers and complete some short-term repairs while it’s docked in Baltimore.
Monday morning’s high tide had been expected to bring the best conditions for crews to refloat and start moving the ship, according to a statement from the Key Bridge Response Unified Command.
Several tugboats were escorting the Dali on its path to the marine terminal. The work is expected to last at least 21 hours...
Clearing thousands of tons of steel, moving the Dali, opening the channel and, subsequently, Baltimore's port in roughly 60 days is a major accomplishment of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and all those who've been working tirelessly to get this major port reopened and goods flowing. Re-building the Francis Scott Key bridge is expected to take up to 4 years.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, along with the country's foreign minister and others, were found dead Monday morning hours after their helicopter crashed in dense fog in a mountainous region of the country's northwest, state media reported. Raisi was 63.
The crash comes at hugely a tumultuous time for the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi, under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month. Under Raisi, Iran has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, further escalating tension with the West as Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast such as Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Raisi was also in power through years of major protests against Iran's ruling Shiite Muslim theocracy, of which he was a key member, over the country's ailing economy and women's rights.
All of those factors make the moment more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country, but Iranians were quickly reassured that life would go on as it has by the country's real top power, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Under the Islamic republic's governing system, the president is not the ultimate decision maker, and all other government officials, along with the military and all law enforcement agencies, answer ultimately to Khamenei, who at 85 has ruled over the country since 1989.
Given that power structure, CBS News' Seyed Bathaei in Tehran said it was unlikely that Raisi's death would spark any political crisis.
Under Iran's constitution — in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the ruling Islamic clerics to power — the vice president will assume Raisi's role until new elections are held within 50 days. But only candidates approved by the ruling clerics are eligible, so there's little chance of a major change in the course of Iran's policies or politics...
Any instability in the region is bad at any time, but particularly so now during the Israel-Hamas war. Conspiracies flourish and bad actors take the opportunity to act badly. Meanwhile, the Iranian people will continue to suffer under their evil theocracy.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed bills meant to ensure access to contraceptives and close tax loopholes for Confederate heritage groups Friday night, continuing a record-breaking veto spree that also nixed measures to ban guns from psychiatric hospitals and remind parents to store weapons out of their children’s reach.
Acting on bills that the General Assembly sent back to his desk in April without his proposed amendments, Youngkin signed seven and vetoed 48, taking his veto total for the year to 201 — more than the 120 that the previous record-holder, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, issued over four years as governor.
Youngkin’s moves solidify his record as a hard-right Republican, something often obscured by the governor’s upbeat image and ability to avoid taking action on Democratic priorities until this year, Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said Saturday. Before Democrats assumed full control of the General Assembly in January, a Republican-held House blocked many of the Democratic-controlled Senate’s bills from reaching his desk.
“I told many people that after this session, we would find out where the governor really stood, because he’s been so opaque, trying to maintain his friendly, suburban, moderate, basketball dad image,” he said. “But now we know.”...
Yes, we've known for some time that this ambitious charlatan who presented himself as a "moderate Republican" (spoiler alert: no such thing) was simply another in a long line of media- savvy slickers who over- populate right- wing politics in search of power. Virginia only allows one 4- year term for its governors, but expect Glenn- with- two- n's to run for office again. Next time, shame on voters if they get fooled again.
