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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

International Outcry Grows Over Detroit Water Shutoffs

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Friday, July 25, 2014   

DETROIT - Call it a "special delivery" from Canada for Detroiters.

A convoy carrying hundreds of gallons of tap water and activists from the Council of Canadians crossed the border Thursday afternoon in an effort to draw attention to the city's ongoing water shutoff saga.

Priscilla Dzuibek, a member of the Detroit-based People's Water Board, said she finds it both sad and ironic that the residents of a city in the Great Lakes State are suffering through a water crisis.

"Water is a human right," she said. "People cannot live without water for more than three days - and we're sitting here in the middle of 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water."

The city of Detroit has shut off thousands of residential taps in the past few months in a ramped-up effort to collect what it says is nearly $90 million in overdue water bills. Earlier this week, the utility suspended shutoffs for 15 days to educate customers on how to make payment plans.

Dzuibek said her group is simply calling on the city to enact the Water Affordability Plan, which would base a family's water bills on a percentage of their income.

"The plan was approved by our elected city council," she said, "and we would like that plan to be implemented so that our public water is affordable to all of our residents."

The city insists it has not shut off water to anyone who has demonstrated a genuine financial hardship - but protesters say the shutoffs have hurt the most vulnerable city residents. The water issue gained international attention last month, after activists appealed to the United Nations for assistance.


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