Mayor cites need for new bridge over Mississippi

SIKESTON, Mo. -- The mayor of Sikeston is calling for a "bridge summit" in September to discuss the need for a new Mississippi River bridge from near the Southeast Missouri town into Kentucky. Mayor Mike Marshall said this week that the bridge failure in Minnesota was "a wake-up call to our area." He noted that bridges crossing the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at Cairo, Ill., are "twice as old, twice as long and twice as dangerous as the bridge that failed in Minneapolis." At a meeting Monday, members of the city council unanimously approved inviting Missouri and Kentucky lawmakers for the bridge summit.

-- From wire reports