By DAVID BILLER and TRISHA THOMAS

ROME (AP) — Firefighters worked to rescue a worker trapped for hours beneath rubble in a medieval tower that partially collapsed during renovation work in the heart of Italy’s capital Monday, critically injuring another worker.

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Rescuers faced a complex task as they tried to use a first-floor window to get near the trapped worker, who officials said was alive. But they were forced to retreat on telescopic aerial ladders in a cloud of debris as the structure continued to give way. Another approach on two ladders was also aborted, and a drone sent up in their stead.

As dusk approached, firefighters lifted on a crane used giant tubes to suck rubble out of the second-floor window. They continued the work late into the night.

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told reporters Monday evening that the worker is speaking to rescuers and using an oxygen mask. He added that rescuers are working with extreme caution in “a very delicate extraction operation” to avoid further collapses.

Three workers were rescued unharmed after the initial midday collapse, said firefighter spokesperson Luca Cari. Another worker, age 64, was hospitalized in critical condition; RAI state TV reported he was conscious and had suffered a broken nose.

No firefighters were injured in the ongoing operation.

The Torre dei Conti was built in the 13th century by Pope Innocent III as a residence for his family. The tower was damaged in a 1349 earthquake and suffered subsequent collapses in the 17th century.

Hundreds of tourists had gathered to watch as firefighters used a mobile ladder to bring a stretcher to the upper level of the Torre dei Conti during the first rescue attempt. Suddenly, another part of the structure crumbled, sending up a cloud of debris and forcing firefighters to quickly descend on the ladder.

The first collapse struck the central buttress of the structure’s southern side, and caused an underlying sloped base to fall. The second damaged part of the stairwell and roof, cultural heritage officials said in a statement.

Queen Paglinawan, 27, was attending to a client in a gelato parlor next door when the tower first started coming apart.

“I was working and then I heard something falling, and then I saw the tower collapse in a diagonal way,″ Paglinawan, 27, told The Associated Press as yet more rubble crashed down.

The tower, which has been closed since 2007, is undergoing a 6.9 million euro (nearly $8 million) restoration, that includes conservations work, the installation of electrical, lighting and water systems and a new museum installation dedicated to the most recent phases of the Roman Imperial Forum, officials said.

Before the latest phase was started in June, structural surveys and load tests were carried out “to verify the stability of the structure, which confirmed the safety conditions necessary” to proceed with work, including asbestos removal, officials said. The current work, carried out at a cost of 400,000 euros ($460,000), was just about complete.

Italian prosecutors arrived at the scene as the rescue operation was underway, and were investigating possible charges for negligent disaster and negligent injuries, Italian media reported. It is common in Italy for investigations to begin while an event is ongoing and before possible suspects are identified.

German student Viktoria Braeu passed by the scene during the firefighters’ initial rescue attempt.

“We were just at the Colosseum … and we were just walking to get some food. … And then we were like, ‘It’s probably not long until it’s going to go down,’ and then it just started erupting,” said Braeu, 18.

Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni shared her hopes for a successful rescue on Monday evening.

“My thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to the person currently fighting for his life under the rubble and to his family, for whom I sincerely hope that this tragedy will have a positive outcome,” Meloni said in a statement.

“​I would like to thank all the law enforcement officers, firefighters, and rescue workers who are intervening with courage, professionalism, and dedication in this extremely difficult situation.”

AP reporters Colleen Barry in Milan and Silvia Stellaci in Rome contributed

Voters in St. Paul’s mayoral election can rank all five candidates on Tuesday in order of preference and expect to learn the winner before they go to bed Tuesday night.

After the votes come in for the mayor’s race, Ramsey County Elections will use ballot reallocation software for the first time since the capital city first implemented ranked-choice voting in 2011, guaranteeing same-night results.

“We could not be more excited about this improvement,” said Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota. “It’s been in use around the country for several years, and had not been approved for use in Minnesota until St. Paul did it first.”

In the past, for certain city council races in which no candidate received 50% of the vote after the first ballot count, the public would have to wait two or three days to learn the outcome as officials gathered on the Thursday after the election to begin a manual ballot count and reallocation process.

In that process, elections workers would eliminate the weakest vote-getter in the race — the candidate with the fewest votes — and physically move their ballots onto stacks of ballots pertaining to the other candidates, based on second-choice picks. After redistribution, they would then do a fresh count to see if anyone had broken 50% of the vote.

The hand count and ballot reallocation process sometimes continued in that fashion for hours and resumed the next day. No St. Paul mayoral election to date has triggered a hand count, but several multi-candidate council races have required reallocation in that manner because no candidate surpassed 50% of the vote on the first ballot.

This year will be different. Ramsey County Elections will use “RCTab” software to reallocate votes Tuesday night, thereby determining an unofficial winner on the same night. The open source software was available free to St. Paul and Ramsey County.

Every ballot generates an electronic cast vote record, or “cvr” digital image, within the machine system, which is then imported into the software. The software creates an auditable report after each round of reallocation, and paper ballots are also preserved and available for audits and recounts.

The cvr data will also be available for review on the Ramsey County Elections website on Election Night.

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Ramsey County Elections held a demonstration and accuracy test of the new software on Oct. 23, and “it was so fast,” said Massey, who published a video of the count on her social media feed.

It’s “a big departure from before, a big improvement,” Massey said. “Now it will all be automated, and we should see results on Election Night.”

Bloomington, Minneapolis, Minnetonka and St. Louis Park also will use ranked-choice voting on Election Day. In those cities, if no candidate meets the threshold based on first-choice ballots, tabulation will resume the next day using a manual spreadsheet method. “It goes very fast, but it’s not automated,” Massey said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, a soulful mezzo-soprano who provided backing vocals on such 1960s classics as “Suspicious Minds” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” and was a featured singer with the Grateful Dead for much of the 1970s, has died at 78.

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A spokesperson for Godchaux-MacKay confirmed that she died Sunday at Alive Hospice in Nashville after having cancer. Godchaux-McKay and other Grateful Dead members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Born Donna Jean Thatcher in Florence, Alabama, she had yet to turn 20 when she became a session performer in nearby Muscle Shoals, where many soul and rhythm and blues hits were recorded, and also was on hand for numerous sessions at the Memphis-based American Sound Studio. Her credits included Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” and songs with Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs and Cher.

In the early 1970s, she and pianist/then-husband Keith Godchaux joined the Grateful Dead and remained with them for several tours and albums, including “Terrapin Station,” “Shakedown Street” and “From the Mars Hotel.” Godchaux appeared on numerous songs, whether joining with Jerry Garcia on “Scarlet Begonias” or writing and taking the lead on “From the Heart of Me.”

The Godchauxs left the Dead in 1979, with hopes of forming their own group, but Keith Godchaux died the following year from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Donna, who married bassist David MacKay in 1981, continued to tour and record over the following decades.

Her albums include “Back Around” and “Donna Jean and the Tricksters.” In the 1970s, she and Keith Godchaux released “Keith & Donna.”

In addition to David MacKay, survivors include sons Kinsman MacKay and Zion Godchaux and two siblings, Gogi Clark and Ivan Thatcher.

By MELANIE LIDMAN and JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Until last week, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was the Israeli army’s top lawyer. Now she is behind bars and at the center of a scandal rocking the country after a bizarre sequence of events that included her abrupt resignation, a brief disappearance and a frantic search that led authorities to find her on a Tel Aviv beach.

The soap opera-worthy saga was touched off last week by Tomer-Yerushalmi’s explosive admission that she approved the leak of a surveillance video at the center of a politically divisive investigation into allegations of severe abuse against a Palestinian at a notorious Israeli military prison.

The video shows part of an assault in which Israeli soldiers are accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee.

By leaking the video last year, Tomer-Yerushalmi aimed to expose the seriousness of the allegations her office was investigating. Instead, it triggered fierce criticism from Israel’s hard-line political leaders. After Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned under pressure last week, her critics continued to heave personal insults.

She left a cryptic note for her family and abandoned her car near a beach. That led to fears she may have taken her own life and prompted an intensive search that included the use of military drones.

She was found alive at the beach Sunday night, at which point more vitriol against her was unleashed.

“We can resume the lynch,” right-wing TV personality Yinon Magal, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X with a winking-face emoji.

After it was revealed that one of Tomer-Yerushalmi’s phones had disappeared, right-wing politicians and commentators began to accuse her of staging a suicide attempt as a way to destroy potential evidence.

The extraordinary episode shows two years of devastating war have done little to heal a country that was deeply divided even before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. It also makes Tomer-Yerushalmi the latest in a long line of top security officials who have either left office or been forced out, most of them to be replaced by people considered loyal to Netanyahu and his hardline government.

Anger over leak distracts from severe abuse at heart of case

At a court hearing Monday, the judge said Tomer-Yerushalmi’s detention would be extended until Wednesday on suspicion of committing fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice. While the investigation into her actions continues, she is being held at a women’s prison in central Israel.

Israeli media reported that former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomesh was also arrested in connection with the leak investigation. The prime minister’s office has refused to comment on Solomesh’s arrest.

The fury over the leaked video reveals the depth of polarization in Israel — and at least for the moment, keeps the media and the public focused on the leak and not the allegations of abuse.

The assault occurred on July 5, 2024, at the Sde Teiman military prison, according to the indictment against the accused soldiers. The AP has investigated allegations of inhumane treatment and abuse at Sde Teiman that predate those in the surveillance video.

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That video, which has been aired by Israeli news, shows soldiers taking a detainee into an area they cordoned off with shields in an apparent attempt to hide their actions. The indictment said the soldiers assaulted the Palestinian prisoner and sodomized him with a knife, causing multiple injuries.

A medical staffer familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety said the detainee arrived at a civilian hospital in life-threatening condition with blunt trauma to the abdomen and the chest and fractured ribs.

He said the detainee underwent surgery for a perforated rectum and was released back to Sde Teiman days later. The staffer said it was the most extreme abuse case he was familiar with from Sde Teiman.

When military police came to Sde Teiman in July to detain the soldiers suspected of abuse, they scuffled with protesters opposed to the arrests. Later, hundreds of violent protesters broke into the detention center.

In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi wrote that she had exposed evidence of the abuse to counter the idea that the military was unfairly targeting its own soldiers. That idea was creating a danger to the military’s law enforcement, she said, citing the break-in.

She wrote that the military had a “duty to investigate when there is reasonable suspicion of violence against a detainee.

“Unfortunately, this basic understanding — that there are actions which must never be taken even against the vilest of detainees — no longer convinces everyone,” she wrote.

The Palestinian detainee who was the subject of the alleged abuse in the video was released back to Gaza last month as part of an exchange between living hostages and Palestinian prisoners, according to documents from the military prosecutor’s office obtained by the AP.

The case is still pending before the military court.

A web of legal issues

Three separate legal issues must be sorted out as part of Israel’s investigation into what happened at Sde Teiman, said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Jerusalem-based think tank Israel Democracy Institute.

The first is the allegation that Israeli soldiers tortured Hamas fighters while they were in detention. The second is whether Israeli civilians, including members of parliament, tried to disrupt the investigation by breaking into the military base where the soldiers accused of the actions were being held. The third is whether the military attorney general allegedly committed a host of offenses, including fraud, to undermine the investigation into how a video purporting to show the abuse was leaked to the media.

The intense rhetoric over the past few days is reminiscent of what it was like in Israel immediately before the Oct. 7 attack that launched the war in Gaza, Plesner said. At the time, the public was deeply divided over Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the judiciary.

The concern for a few hours Sunday night about Tomer-Yerushalmi’s fate should serve as a “stop sign” to the Israeli public — and especially to commentators who derided her personally, Plesner said.

“It was very sad to see how the internal discourse can bring about such potentially tragic outcome on a personal level,” Plesner said.

It felt especially symbolic, he said, that Tomer-Yerushalmi was in court while the Israeli government held its official memorial ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Many regard the assassination as Israel’s lowest point in terms of divisions and incitement among the Israeli public, and worry that the dramatic events of the weekend foreshadow Israel’s return to a similar period of internal strife.

“It was very sad to see how the internal discourse can bring about such potentially tragic outcome on a personal level,” Plesner said. “There’s a way how to debate our differences in a democratic society.”