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Engineer Warned of ‘Major Structural Damage’ at Florida Condo ComplexA consultant in 2018 urged the managers to repair cracked columns and crumbling concrete. The work was finally about to get underway when the building collapsed. Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab below the pool deck and “abundant” cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building. The engineer’s report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set...

The partially collapsed Florida condo building, which has left at least four dead and 159 people missing, was flagged as having “major structural damage” in 2018, according to reports. A lack of proper drainage on the pool deck of Champlain Towers South condo, which sits above the building’s parking garage, was the source of the “main issue,” wrote engineer Frank Morabito, according to the Miami Herald. Years of standing water had seriously damaged the concrete structural slabs below the deck, a problem Morabito warned would be “extremely expensive” to fix. “Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause...

"Authorities are responding to Champlain Towers following a collapse of the 12-floor residential complex. There are reports of people screaming under the rubble. More to follow!"

SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- A U.S. naval ship collided with a South Korean fishing vessel in the East Sea on Tuesday during its training mission, defense authorities here said. "There was an accident involving the U.S. cruiser USS Lake Champlain and the South Korean fishing ship 502 Namyang in the waters south of Ulleung Island at around noon today," a military official said. But there was no report of any casualties from the accident involving the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, he added. As part of the Carl Vinson Strike Group, the cruiser is participating in joint drills with South Korea's...

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America's founding myth tells of the Puritans landing in wild, uncharted lands. Yet a French explorer had already mapped the territory in exquisite detail. NEW ENGLANDERS GROW up imbibing certain creation myths, most of which relate to how unbelievably historic we are. It all started here, and entire businesses -- the vending of tricorne hats, for example -- depend on the tight control of information relating to the beginnings of America -- the Revolution, and the Salem witch trials before that, and at the dawn of time, the Pilgrims, hacking their way into the forest primeval. Everything trails in their...

ATLANTA — A man with a rare and exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis likely entered the United States at the Champlain Port of Entry. That is according to a story in the online version of the Montreal Gazette today. In a press conference today, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said the Georgia man is infected with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis, also called XDR-TB. “We have no suspicion that this patient was highly infectious, in fact medical evidence would suggest that his potential for transmission would be on the low side, but we know it (the...

Diver Dennis O'Neil of Plattsburgh, N.Y., poses with a piece of a cannon muzzle which he discovered during a dive Friday, June 30, 2006, in Peru, N.Y. Divers have spent the last seven years combing the bottom of Lake Champlain in search of 'battlefield scatter' from the crucial 1776 Battle of Valcour near Peru. O'Neil has made about 100 dives during the project. PERU, N.Y. - Gen. Benedict Arnold led a "wretched, motley" crew of sailors on Lake Champlain against a far superior British fleet near here on Oct. 11, 1776. The rebels lost. But their dogged fight delayed...