ROSEMOUNT, Minn. – It's been two years since Justina Hausmann's father died when a Minneapolis freeway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River, long enough for some people to ask how she's getting on with life.
"It's not like you stop thinking about it. I think about him every day," said Hausmann, 18, as she sat with her mother in their living room. Mementoes of her father, Peter Hausmann, are scattered around the room.
Two years after the world's attention focused on the spectacle of a busy interstate bridge falling apart, killing 13 people, even Minnesotans have largely moved on. A new bridge has been open in its place since last September, the 145 injured have mostly recovered and only a limited public observance is planned for Saturday's anniversary.
Flags will fly at half-staff and a moment of silence will be held at 6:05 p.m., the time of the accident. But a proposed memorial has drawn little of the funds it needs, the project lacks full city clearance and the final design is still being tweaked.
For the people whose loved ones died that day, it's a struggle to move on.
"It works because it has to," Justina Hausmann says of her family's daily challenges.
"It doesn't get easier," says her mother, Helen Hausmann.
Justina, the oldest of four children, has had to do more as her mother struggled. Helen, a Kenyan immigrant who met her husband when he was a missionary in her village, "depended on him like a kid depends on a grown-up," Helen said. "When he died, I was helpless."
Helen never worked outside the home, never learned to drive. The family has relied on charity and help from friends and their church, and like all survivors, a settlement from the state.
While Minnesota has settled with the bridge victims, other lawsuits are still pending, included several by victims who accuse an engineering firm that studied the bridge of negligence. The state itself filed its own lawsuit against URS Corp. this week, saying the San Francisco-based company should have found the crucial flaw that led to the collapse.
URS spokesman Ron Low on Friday pointed out state officials previously praised the work of URS, and said the company would defend itself vigorously from the state's effort to recover more than $37 million it paid to survivors.
Even with her share of that settlement, Helen Hausmann worries about having enough money to send all four kids to college.
Still, she says she can be thankful for the 20 years that Peter was in her life.
That's the kind of time that Betsy Sathers didn't get. She and her husband, Scott Sathers, were married just 10 months when he died on his drive home from work.
Sathers said the first few months afterward were horrible. But eventually she decided she couldn't put aside some plans that she and Scott had made. The couple wanted to start a family, and Sathers is now adopting a child from Haiti.
"You know, it's not what I would have planned," Sathers said of raising a baby alone. "But since this tragedy occurred, you figure out new ways to make what you want in your life to happen."
Lisa Jolstad realized she needed a change of scenery to get on with her life.
Her husband, Greg Jolstad, was a member of the construction crew working on the bridge when it collapsed. Last August, after a year marked by dark feelings and legal struggles with her husband's family, Jolstad picked up and moved to South Carolina.

"I just had to come out of whatever I was in," Jolstad said. In January, she will remarry.

"He encourages me to talk about Greg and he likes to hear my memories," Jolstad said.

She's not the only survivor who lost a spouse and is now remarrying. Ron Engebretsen lost his wife of 33 years, Sherry, in the collapse.

As Engebretsen prepares for his September wedding, he recalls a conversation with Sherry in which they gave each other permission to pursue happiness if the other died.

"We didn't choose this happening to us, but you do have a choice of how you respond to tragedy," Engebretsen said. "What you had in the past was good, but there's things out there for you if you can push forward with life."

BIRMINGHAM (AFP) –
England were 56 for one in reply to Australia's first innings 263, a deficit of 207, at tea on the second day of the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston here on Friday.

England captain Andrew Strauss was 33 not out and Ravi Bopara 23 not out.

England lead the five-Test series 1-0.

GENEVA (Reuters) –
Teaching new mothers how to breastfeed could save 1.3 million children's lives every year, but many women get no help and give up trying, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Less than 40 percent of mothers worldwide breastfeed their infants exclusively in the first six months, as recommended by the WHO. Many abandon it because they don't know how to get their baby to latch on properly or suffer pain and discomfort.

"When it comes to doing it practically, they don't have the practical support," WHO expert Constanza Vallenas told a news briefing in Geneva, where the United Nations agency is based.

This is a problem in both rich and poor countries, she said, calling for more assistance in hospitals, health clinics and communities for new mothers who need information and help.

Pregnant women should also be made aware of the risks they face from both seasonal flu and the new H1N1 pandemic, the WHO said, calling as well for more attention to influenza symptoms in the vulnerable group.

Expectant mothers should get top priority for antiviral drugs like Tamiflu, ideally administered within 48 hours of the onset of illness, WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told reporters.

"Pregnant women, when they get flu, are at risk and they should see a doctor," she said. "It adds to the risk and it is really essential for pregnant women to seek medication."

U.S. health experts have said that pregnant women should also be first to get vaccines against the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, with caregivers for infants second.

The WHO recommends that babies start breastfeeding within one hour of their birth, and ingest only breast milk for the first six months, avoiding water and other drinks and foods.

This can give children vital nutrients and strengthen their immune system to fight diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia. Formula milk does not provide the same immunity and local water can be contaminated or unsafe in many parts of the world.

Raising to 90 percent the global breastfeeding rate for infants to six months would save an estimated 13 percent of the 10 million under-age-5 deaths a year, Vallenas said.

In a statement released to mark World Breastfeeding Week, August 1-7, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said it was also important that mothers in disaster zones be given the support they need to continue or restart breastfeeding.

"During emergencies, unsolicited or uncontrolled donations of breast milk substitutes may undermine breastfeeding and should be avoided," Chan said, arguing abandoning breastfeeding could put vulnerable child lives at extra risk. "The focus should be on active protection and support of breastfeeding."

(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

TOKYO (AFP) –
The exiled leader of China's Uighurs said Wednesday nearly 10,000 of her people were detained or killed this month in ethnic unrest and appealed for the United Nations to investigate their fate.

Rebiya Kadeer, the US-based head of the World Uighur Congress, also said she was "perplexed" at the muted US response to the violence as she spoke during a visit to Japan that has drawn angry protests from Beijing.

Citing local sources and speaking through an interpreter, she said almost 10,000 people "disappeared" in one night on July 5 when authorities cracked down on the unrest in the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang.

"Where did those people go?" she said. "If they died, where did they go?"

Kadeer, 62, said Chinese police opened machine-gun fire at Uighur people after dark once the electricity was turned off, and that the following morning large numbers of Uighur men had gone missing.

"Uighur people who were there must have been either killed or taken away," she told a Tokyo press conference. "The next morning, the streets were cleaned and the bodies of ethnic Han (Chinese) were left in the streets."

Kadeer said she had asked Japanese lawmakers during a meeting Wednesday to push for a UN investigation.

"I want to urge the international community to dispatch an independent, third-party investigation mission to investigate what happened," she said.

"If China can confidently say that the Uighur people are at fault, then open up the area, tell the third-party commission what really happened."

Beijing accuses the mother-of-11 and grandmother of being a "criminal" and a separatist who instigated the unrest -- which the government says left 197 people dead, most of them Han Chinese killed by angry Uighur mobs.

China has said police opened fire to prevent further bloodshed, killing 12 "mobsters," according to state media reports, and that more than 1,400 people were detained for their involvement in the unrest.

Kadeer said she was not involved in fomenting the riots, which came after Uighur protests over violent clashes at a factory in southern China.

"If China says I did it, I want them to show evidence," she said. "If the international community judges it as evidence, I would acknowledge that."

Kadeer instead charged that "the responsibility lies with the authorities who changed what was a peaceful demonstration into a violent riot".

"For Uighurs, taking part in demonstrations is like committing suicide."

Kadeer -- who was jailed in China from 1999 to 2005 and now lives in exile in a suburb of Washington -- was on a three-day visit in Japan.

China said on Wednesday that it had summoned Japan's ambassador in Beijing to protest Kadeer's visit to Tokyo.

In Washington, China's vice foreign minister Wang Guangya on Tuesday said his side had asked the United States to "restrain and prevent" anyone from using its soil to conduct "separatist activities against China".

He also said Beijing had "expressed our appreciation for the moderate attitude of the United States so far" to the Xinjiang unrest.

Kadeer said she was "perplexed and disappointed" by the US response, saying it had been "somewhat cold".

But she added: "I do not believe the United States will remain quiet. I believe it will respond in an appropriate way."

China has also complained to Australia over a planned visit next week by Kadeer, the foreign affairs department in Canberra said Wednesday.

Kadeer is due to attend the August 8 launch in Melbourne of the documentary "10 Conditions of Love", which depicts her life story and which prompted Chinese attempts to have it pulled from the city's film festival.

Kadeer on Tuesday drew support from the Dalai Lama, who told an audience in Warsaw that Kadeer shared his belief in non-violence and was not seeking a separate state.

Speaking on the Xinjiang situation, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said: "Using force, this will never bring genuine harmony. Harmony must come based on trust, and trust you cannot bring by a gun."