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"Muslim in Washington, DC: "I'm not scared to die! I will kill you! I will blow people up and the Metro!"" SNIPPET: ""Three blocks of Wisconsin Avenue Northwest were cleared of cars and pedestrians. Adjacent buildings and restaurants were evacuated..." "DC Security Scare Becomes Federal Case," by Bob Barnard for MyFoxDC, October 8 (thanks to Heidi): WASHINGTON, D.C. - A man who was arrested in a security scare in Northwest D.C. on Tuesday night threatened to blow up the Friendship Heights Metro station, according to a criminal complaint in the case. It was a chaotic scene Tuesday night in Friendship...

A man accused of beheading his wife at the television station they founded to counter stereotypes of Muslims is likely to claim emotional distress was behind the killing in hopes of avoiding a murder conviction. Muzzammil Hassan, 45, is scheduled to be tried in January on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan. A psychiatric defense would allow jurors to find him guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter, according to Hassan's attorney, who made his plans known during a pretrial conference Friday. Muzzammil Hassan had been served with divorce papers a week before his...

A computer belonging to alleged al Qaeda suspect Najibullah Zazi showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City, law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com. As the 24-year-old was being questioned for a fourth straight day by FBI agents about his alleged ties to al Qaeda, law enforcement officials said the Denver man's computer showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City. Zazi, 24, was scheduled to be questioned for a fourth straight day today by...

TAJI — Iraqi Army (IA) Field Engineer Soldiers partnered with U.S. Soldiers to train on Mabey and Johnson Bridge emplacements at the Iraqi Army Engineer School here, July 3-13. Like most training the IA receives, a “train the trainer” approach was taken. Students from previous classes can now help new students learn these skills. The IA Engineer School trains 400-500 Engineers each rotation. The 50th Multi Role Bridge Company (MRBC), which supports 555th Engineer Brigade, assists this effort by instructing groups of 20 to 30 IA Engineers during ten-day blocks of classroom and hands-on bridge training. The combined IA and...

Washington Congressman Brian Baird says the states revenue projections for a toll on the new 12 lane Columbia River Crossing are innaccurate. By Christine Alexander Tuesday, April 14, 2009 As the plans for a new Interstate Bridge progress Washington Representative Brian Baird (D-Vancouver) is concerned that toll projections from the Washington Department of Transportation and the Columbia River Crossing are not realistic and will not create$1.35 billion in revenue. "The toll piece will probably not generate as much money as they indicated. In fact they will probably need more tolls because the Federal and State shares will probably be less."...

Gruesome killing poses another test for US Muslims ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer February 21, 2009 The crime was so brutal, shocking and rife with the worst possible stereotypes about their faith that some U.S. Muslims thought the initial reports were a hoax. The harsh reality of what happened in an affluent suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. — the beheading of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan and arrest of her estranged husband in the killing — is another crucible for American Muslims. Here was a couple that appeared to be the picture of assimilation and tolerance, co-founders of a television network that aspired...

Muzzammil “Mo” HASSAN, the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV Muzzammil “Mo” HASSAN, the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, a Buffalo, NY based Islamic television Network he helped pioneer in 2004 amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light, reportedly admitted to police that he beheaded his wife at the television station yesterday afternoon.The victim was identified as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, who just last month, filed for and received an order of protection against her husband. According to police, HASSAN walked into the Orchard Park police station shortly after...

CHAMCHAMAL — Partnering is not a new concept to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but the practice is expanding in relation to projects in Iraq, and that is helping to fuel the success of reconstruction efforts. In November 2007, the Gulf Region Division's district, which operates within Iraq's seven northern provinces, initiated a partnering agreement in Sulaymaniyah for a $27.4 million project to design and renovate an existing fort into a correctional facility in Chamchamal. The project included more than 20 partners from several organizations, including, the Department of State's Regional Reconstruction Team, the office of the Iraqi prime...

JALALABAD AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Jan. 26, 2009 – U.S. soldiers are building roads to remote areas in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province that are opening doors to a better way of life for local Afghans. Afghan security forces, local residents and U.S. soldiers lay planks for a bridge in the Lal Por district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jay Bessey  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team are improving accessibility into the province’s Lal Por district by building a bridge and improving three miles of road. Prior to...

The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals. In his report titled, "The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure," prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal , hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems. Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review,...

Confronted with a struggling transportation fund, lawmakers in Texas soon are expected to wage battle on various methods to help generate $14 billion for roads and bridges throughout the state. Another bill is intended to sideline the planned Trans-Texas Corridor. A report released this week from the Texas Department of Transportation says that the state will need to come up with $313 billion by 2030 for road and bridge maintenance and for congestion solutions. The report’s unveiling happened a couple of weeks before the Texas Legislature is set to convene its 2009 session. Lawmakers say they already were committed to...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 3, 2008 – Afghan and coalition forces celebrated with local villagers Dec. 1 at a ribbon-cutting for a new low-water bridge near Kandahar city. The Commando Bridge will provide easier access to areas around the city, including a bazaar, a school under construction and a nearby highway. A rainstorm several months ago flooded the creek that the new bridge spans, making travel through the area difficult, and Afghan army officials approached coalition forces about the need for a bridge. The project was funded through the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program, which allows leaders to fund projects that meet...

Go ahead. I already find myself perpetually crooked over the table, living in this city. I should have rock-hard abs as often as I bend over. Mr. Bloomberg, I only ask that you are quick about it, so that I might go back to walking around Brighton Beach, Brooklyn on my never-ending mission to locate signs written in English. You have hurled a large medicine ball of saliva at the people of New York, shoving that huge middle finger of yours in the faces of the electorate by eliminating term limits – because only you could save the Apple from...

Joe Biden has blasted Palin on the Bridge to Nowhere. But what he fails to mention is that he actually voted to let Alaska have it. We'll explain that ahead. "Keeping Them Honest" tonight, we examine Joe Biden's record on earmarks and some bridges of his own. Biden has some other bridges of his own that he has to account for, however. Special investigations unit correspondent Drew Griffin is also Keeping Them Honest. GRIFFIN: But hold on, Senator Biden. Keeping him honest, we decided to check on 116 reasons in Delaware that one Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska may not...

There is rising criticism that the Machang Bridge, which opened in July at the cost of millions of won, is only enriching speculative capitalists with tax money. They say that throughout the country, roads built through private investment are becoming white elephants where investors eat tax money via rough traffic predictions and contracts with excessive profit guarantees. The province of South Gyeongsang spent 380 billion won (US$337 million) in budget outlays and 190 million won in private capital to build the Machang Bridge linking Changwon and Masan. For the next 30 years, the earnings from the bridge tolls will be...

Spc. Roberto Giron of the 74th Multi Role Bridging Company works to teach an Iraqi combat engineer how to properly set bridge panels during the unit’s training session held at Camp Taji. The training of the Iraqi army combat engineer is just another step in helping the country sustain itself in the future. Photo by Spc. Michael Behlin. CAMP TAJI — Getting Iraq to the point of being able to sustain itself in all operations is an important factor in today’s war on terrorism. With the country being able to govern, defend, and sustain itself, the U.S. military presence has...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, July 28, 2008 – The Konar River runs for 150 kilometers and serves as a natural border between eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Although the villages along the eastern and western banks of the river are part of Konar, the river reinforces cultural and political alliances between Afghans on the eastern shore and tribesmen across the border in Pakistan. The people on the eastern side have had very little connection to the provincial government. The Bar Sholtan Truck Bridge under construction in the Shigal district will give Afghan and coalition forces access to the most problematic...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, July 25, 2008 – Multinational Division Baghdad engineers with the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team journeyed to the Grand Canal Bridge in Taji Qada, northwest of Baghdad, on July 22 to monitor repair progress. Construction workers from a local construction company weld steel that is going to be used to fix the hole in the northbound lane of the Grand Canal Bridge in Taji, northwest of Baghdad, July 22, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Lyndsey R. Dransfield, Multinational Division Baghdad  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The bridge, which spans a portion...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

Rotting holes in steel support beams, enormous rust patches, small splits in steel girders and broken bracing are evident all along the underside of the John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge, the heavily traveled Interstate 95 span that crosses the Merrimack River between Amesbury and Newburyport. A just-released state safety report filed in the wake of last year's disastrous collapse of the similarly designed Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis gave the 57-year-old Whittier Bridge "poor" ratings due to deterioration. On a 10-step ranking system, the rating is just two steps above the point where engineers consider closing a bridge due to safety...

WASHINGTON — The Texas Department of Transportation, long viewed as hyperpartisan and arrogant by some members of the state's congressional delegation, has been trying to soften its image by reaching out to lawmakers of both parties in the nation's capital. But while state transportation officials are having some success in easing the personal animus, they still face a stiff challenge in selling their policy agenda to the state's elected officials in Washington. Many Texans on the Potomac cringe at the agency's embrace of toll roads, the controversies surrounding the Trans-Texas Corridor and TxDOT's resistance to many of the highway earmarks...

If the British and French can design and build spectacular bridges at a modest or at least reasonable cost, why can’t we? Or maybe we can, but we haven’t tried it lately, at least not in Oregon. The question comes up because Peter DeFazio, our man in Washington, is chairman of the highways and transit subcommittee in the U.S. House. His committee will write the next highway bill, probably by the end of 2009. And when DeFazio led his colleagues on a fact-finding trip to Europe, he saw the viaduct at Millau. It’s the most spectacular bridge he has ever...

HARRISBURG -- With a section of a Pittsburgh bridge dropping 8 inches and an Interstate 95 support pillar cracking in Philadelphia, Gov. Ed Rendell is turning up the heat under the Legislature to provide infrastructure repair funds more quickly. Mr. Rendell sent a letter to all 253 legislators yesterday urging quick passage of a $240 million "supplemental debt authorization." His program of borrowing would enable state officials to fast-track repairs on some of the state's 6,000 bridges classified as structurally deficient, along with fixing ailing highways, repairing "state-owned, high-hazard dams" and beginning flood mitigation projects. Also yesterday, Mr. Rendell called...

Senior executives of the Texas Department of Transportation can expect some heavy grilling from state legislators when the state Legislature convenes next January, state Rep. Jim McReynolds said Friday. Speaking to the monthly First Friday luncheon of The Chamber, Lufkin-Angelina County, McReynolds said many legislators, especially those from rural East Texas, are unhappy with TxDOT leaders over the Trans- Texas Corridor project and how it has incorporated plans for an Interstate 69 through the region. McReynolds said he attended all four of the TxDOT hearings on the TTC held in his district, which included one in Diboll, and "never heard...

Not one of the 11 East Texans who approached the podium at Wednesday's hearing on Interstate 69 voiced support for the planned highway. "This is highway robbery, and we should not pursue this project," said David Simpson, a Longview resident and fifth-generation Texan. "This process has bypassed the Constitution. It has bypassed the U.S. Congress, and I'm opposed to it because of the unconstitutional way that it has been pushed through." The public hearing, held at Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center, was a chance for residents to comment and ask questions about Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. The corridor would extend...

It's not often that an individual makes such a significant and undoubtedly lasting impact on a state as big as Texas, but my long-time friend and Chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson, certainly did. As most of you know, Ric died suddenly last month at age 55. It is true that as the state's transportation policymaker, he was a controversial figure. But, it has been my experience that people with visionary instincts and those who prefer to think outside the box are often considered different and unconventional. The world has a long legacy of resisting new ideas, even...

Combat engineers with Company E, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga., set up an armored vehicle-launched bridge in Arab Jabour during Operation Acheron, Jan. 10. Photo by Sgt. Luis Delgadillo, Multi-National Division-Central. FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Opening a new passage in southern Arab Jabour, Coalition Forces moved and set up an armored vehicle-launched bridge and cut 200 meters of new road, Jan 10. The new road is drivable and the bridge makes a 35-foot gap passable for vehicles. Connecting roads from Patrol Base Hawkes to vital canal roads in...

COLTON, N.Y., Oct. 30 — The bridge that carries Route 56 over the Raquette River here is so ordinary that it has no name, only a number, 1027260. But for now it is a bridge like no other, studded with instruments like a cardiac patient, giving up secrets that may explain how to keep others from falling. Bridges are big, dumb pieces of steel and concrete, and mostly out of mind, until one collapses, as the Interstate 35W bridge did in Minneapolis on Aug. 1. Even now, three months later, no one is sure why that happened, but it has...

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, has introduced the Toll Road Prohibition Act, the latest bill designed to prevent tolling on federally built highways. HR 3802, introduced Oct. 10, would require states and cities to repay the U.S. government all federal funds used for construction of highways, bridges or tunnels, along with “reasonable interest,� before introducing tolls. “The American people should not be required to pay for the same highway twice, once through their tax dollars and again through new tolls on federal interstate highways,� Boswell said. The legislation would not prohibit the states from entering into public-private toll agreements, but...

Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar, bowing to political reality, unveiled a bare-bones bridge repair and reconstruction bill Tuesday without a 5-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax increase. The move by the influential chairman of the House Transportation Committee appears to end debate on Capitol Hill over a national gas tax hike in response to the Interstate 35W bridge tragedy in Minneapolis. Oberstar, saying "fixing bridges is more important than fighting the White House and the Senate," is now proposing a $2 billion federal bridge program, a far cry from the $25 billion initiative he had hoped to pass with a stepped-up gas tax,...

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved $1 billion on Monday to speed repair and replacement of America's crumbling network of bridges, six weeks after the Interstate 35W span collapsed in Minneapolis. The Senate approved the funds on a 60-33 vote as the Senate began debate on a $104.6 billion measure funding transportation and housing programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. "Our bridges are deteriorating far faster than we can finance their replacement," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., lead sponsor of the bridge-repair funds. "More than one in every four bridges on U.S. highways is rated as deficient." If approved,...

A new overpass bridge collapsed in the southern city of Karachi on Saturday, killing at least four people and crushing vehicles under mounds of debris, officials said. Mayor Mustafa Kamal said officials were using heavy machinery and bulldozers to try to rescue injured people trapped in vehicles when the 330-foot-long curved section of the overpass crashed onto a road below. Azhar Faruqi, the city police chief, said authorities had taken two bodies to a hospital, while another two bodies could be seen inside a crushed car. At least five people were injured. The cause of the accident was not immediately...

HYDERABAD, India: The police continued to find and defuse bombs throughout the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Sunday, a day after a pair of synchronized explosions ripped through two popular gathering spots, killing at least 42 people and wounding scores of others. State and national officials are calling the blasts in Hyderabad, a city with a history of Muslim-Hindu tensions, acts of terrorism. After the attacks, the police defused 19 more bombs - all fitted with timers and placed in plastic bags - at bus stops, movie theaters, road intersections and pedestrian bridges. The police said each of the...

Some things in politics seem to be inevitable--and one of them is that any road or bridge tragedy will be followed by an argument to raise the gasoline tax. That's what is now happening in the wake of the terrible Minnesota bridge collapse, but that state's transportation and tax record shows precisely why voters are skeptical. The gas tax pleas are coming from the usual suspects, in both Washington and St. Paul. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who runs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently stood beside the wreckage and recommended an increase in the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax,...

Toll roads will not solve Texas' roadway woes, state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, told the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors on Tuesday. The state must take care of its infrastructure needs, and Eltife said he has always supported indexing the gasoline tax to inflation to ensure funding to handle those needs. "I think we need to get back to the basics in this state and pay for road and bridge improvements," he said. "We ought to index the gas tax to inflation, we should build our own roads," Eltife said. "The toll roads are a piece of...

Democratic calls for raising the federal gas tax to pay for national bridge repairs are wrongheaded, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said Thursday at a transportation forum in Irving. "We cannot adopt every bridge in America," said Ms. Hutchison, R-Texas. "We have to be very, very careful that the federal government not become the genesis [of the funding] for all of the nation's bridges and for all of its highways." Transportation officials in Austin and Washington have warned that the gas tax revenues supporting the Federal Highway Trust Fund will have a $4 billion deficit by 2009 unless new sources...

JACKSON, Miss., Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A Mississippi subcontractor made an appearance in court on charges of hiring illegal aliens for bridge construction sites. Jose S. Gonzalez, the owner of the Tarrasco Steel Co., appeared in federal court following his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Northern District of Mississippi ICE agents arrested the 32-year-old as part of an ongoing investigation into charges he hired illegal alien workers from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico at construction sites throughout the Gulf Coast region. Tarrasco Steel is a subcontractor that provides steel rebar and installation services to highway bridge construction projects. In...

Bridge Politics Unless we change the way we fund our highways, infrastructure will continue to crumble. Jim Peron | August 8, 2007 Politicians are drawn to tragedy like flies to pie. Take the Minneapolis bridge collapse. You have to wonder what makes this a federal responsibility. The typical excuse is that the state can't afford such pricey projects, so it behooves the federal government to step in to help. Whatever Minnesota's spending constraints, the state can apparently afford to spend hundreds of millions for corporate welfare to Carl Pohlad, the owner of the Minnesota Twins, for a new baseball stadium....

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 8 — Investigators have found what may be a design flaw in the bridge that collapsed here a week ago, in the steel parts that connect girders, raising safety concerns for other bridges around the country, federal officials said on Wednesday. The Federal Highway Administration swiftly responded by urging all states to take extra care with how much weight they place on bridges of any design when sending construction crews to work on them. Crews were doing work on the deck of the Interstate 35W bridge here when it gave way, hurling rush-hour traffic into the Mississippi River...

The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers on the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring illegal immigrants on projects in three states. Some had improper welding certification. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, at his office in Greenville Thursday, according to a news release. Tarrasco Steel was hired as a subcontractor for rebar installation services to major bridge projects in Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The federal government considers those bridges as critical infrastructure, and they were part of routine inspections of facilities that if damaged could pose a threat...

The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers on the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring illegal immigrants on projects in three states. Some had improper welding certification. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, at his office in Greenville Thursday, according to a news release. Tarrasco Steel was hired as a subcontractor for rebar installation services to major bridge projects in Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The federal government considers those bridges as critical infrastructure, and they were part of routine inspections of facilities that if damaged could pose a threat...

Tuesday, August 7, 2007 It took a collapsing bridge in Minnesota to alert people across the country to the fact that many other bridges in many other places have been allowed to deteriorate without adequate maintenance. If this were just a matter of poor political leadership at various levels of government, we could at least hope for better leaders in the future. But the problem goes deeper than that. It is not just the people but the incentives that are responsible for the neglect of infrastructure, while tax money is lavished on all sorts of less urgent projects. In other...

In the Military there is a long standing tradition that you do not march soldiers over a bridge in step. When marching and approaching a bridge the command of Route Step, MARCH is given. This command keeps the soldiers marching in formation, but every soldier is allowed to march at her/his own step. Although this is widely practiced in the Army, I found very few who knew the reason why. What could have possibly prompted this tradition? Submitted by Bruce Brantley No Rating Solution: (Hide) The reason is the possibility of the bridge collapsing. There are many stories of bridges...

As of 2005, 155,144 of the nations 592,473 bridges (26.2%) were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete - see how bridges in your state are ranked.

Nearly a fifth of America's roads are now considered in poor shape and about one-in-four bridges is rated "structurally deficient." The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the cost to fix these problems is a staggering $460 billion. The tab grows far larger when you add in the hundreds of billions to build the new transportation infrastructure that's needed to handle the country's growth. Part of the problem is that big increases in state and local spending for politically popular programs, especially Medicaid and education, as well costly public employee pensions and benefits, have crowded out infrastructure -- even as...

Arkansas was a State that used to have some of the worst highways in the nation. When Mike Huckabee was Governor in Arkansas, under his leadership, a major restoration of the highway system took place. The Club for Growth is complaining that a 4-cent tax on diesel fuel was assessed to fix the roads in Arkansas. However, over 80% of the voters in Arkansas supported that measure. Today, Arkansas has some of the best roads in the nation. In light of what happened with the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, we can appreciate Governor Huckabee for his leadership...

It’s not clear why a major section of the nation’s interstate highway system collapsed Wednesday night over the Mississippi River in Minnesota, causing a still unknown number of fatalities and indefinitely severing an important transportation link. But one thing has been all too clear for decades: America is neglecting its vital physical infrastructure, and the bill is coming due. As a nation, we’ve long borrowed from our future; everybody knows about the inevitable Social Security and Medicare crises that will happen in the next three decades as the number of retirees expands in relation to the number of workers. Far...

Though inspections rate more than 70,000 bridges nationwide structurally deficient, a top transportation official Friday called the deadly failure of a Mississippi River bridge an "anomaly" and said motorists shouldn't fear for their safety. "I don't believe that they should be worried at all," National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark Rosenker said while visiting the bridge wreckage in Minneapolis. Rules in place for 30 years "have improved the conditions and the standards that in fact these things are being inspected on," he said. "But with that said, as a result of this catastrophic disaster, we're going to be looking at...

The cause of Wednesday's bridge collapse in Minneapolis isn't yet known, but that hasn't stopped the tragedy from reigniting the debate over the condition of U.S. "infrastructure," which has to be the ugliest word in the English language. It's even uglier when Congress and the building lobby use it as an excuse to spend more without rethinking their own contributions to the problem. Nobody denies that our roads and bridges are feeling the stress of age, more drivers and heavier truckloads. It's possible that the I-35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi was the result of such stress, specifically from the...