Baltimore (AP) — Attorneys are asking a federal judge to prevent crew members on the cargo ship Dali from returning to their home countries amid ongoing investigations into the circumstances leading up to the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
Eight of the Dali’s crew members were scheduled to debark the ship and return home as early as Thursday, according to emails included in court filings Tuesday. The roughly two dozen total seafarers hail from India and Sri Lanka.
That would mark the first time any of them can leave the ship since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns shortly after leaving Baltimore on March 26.
In the court filings, attorneys representing the City of Baltimore said the men should remain in the U.S. so they can be deposed in ongoing civil litigation over who should be held responsible for covering costs and damages resulting from the bridge collapse, which killed six construction workers and temporarily halted most maritime traffic through Baltimore’s busy port.
“The crew consists entirely of foreign nationals who, of course, have critical knowledge and information about the events giving rise to this litigation,” attorneys wrote. “If they are permitted to leave the United States, Claimants may never have the opportunity to question or depose them.”
The petition requested an emergency hearing on the matter. No ruling has been issued in response.
Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for the ship’s owner, said Tuesday evening that some crew members are scheduled to leave.
“A portion of the crew are going home and a portion are remaining here to assist with the investigation,” he said in a text message.
Wilson said he was unable to provide additional details about how many crew members were leaving and when. He also said he wasn’t sure when the ship itself would leave Baltimore for Norfolk, Virginia, where it will receive more extensive repairs.
The hulking container ship remained pinned amid the wreckage of the fallen bridge for almost two months while workers removed thousands and thousands of tons of mangled steel and concrete from the bottom of the Patapsco River at the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor.
The ship’s crew remained onboard even when explosives were detonated to break apart fallen bridge trusses and free the vessel from a massive steel span that landed across its bow.
The ongoing civil litigation began with a petition from the ship’s owner and manager, two Singapore-based companies, seeking to limit their legal liability for the deadly disaster.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found the ship experienced two power outages in the hours before it left the Port of Baltimore. In the moments before the bridge collapse, it lost power again and veered off course. The agency’s investigation is still ongoing to determine what exactly caused the electrical issues.
The FBI also launched a criminal investigation.
According to the emails included in Tuesday’s court filings, the eight crew members scheduled to return home have already been interviewed by Department of Justice investigators and that the department doesn’t object to their departure. The crew members will fly out of Baltimore “likely on or about June 20th,” an attorney for the ship’s owner and manager wrote.
FILE - Explosive charges are detonated to bring down sections of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the container ship Dali, May 13, 2024, in Baltimore. The main shipping channel into Baltimore's port has fully reopened to its original depth and width following the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to officials Monday, June 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
The container ship Dali is docked at a slip at the Port of Baltimore in Baltimore, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Federal, state, and local officials held a news conference to mark the full reopening of the Port of Baltimore following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
LONDON (AP) — Dutiful, managerial, a bit dull — Keir Starmer is no one’s idea of a firebrand politician.
The Labour Party hopes that is just what Britain wants and needs after 14 turbulent years of Conservative rule. Starmer, the center-left party’s 61-year-old leader, is the current favorite to win the country’s July 4 election.
Starmer has spent four years as opposition leader dragging his social democratic party from the left towards the political middle ground. His message to voters is that a Labour government will bring change — of the reassuring rather than scary kind.
“A vote for Labour is a vote for stability — economic and political,” Starmer said after Prime Minister Rishi Sunakcalled the election on May 22.
If opinion polls giving Labour a consistent double-digit lead are borne out on election day, Starmer will become Britain's first Labour prime minister since 2010.
A lawyer who served as chief prosecutor for England and Wales between 2008 and 2013, Starmer is caricatured by opponents as a “lefty London lawyer.” He was knighted for his role leading the Crown Prosecution Service, and Conservative opponents like to use his title, Sir Keir Starmer, to paint him as elite and out of touch.
Starmer prefers to stress his everyman credentials and humble roots — in implicit contrast to Sunak, who is a former Goldman Sachs banker married to the daughter of a billionaire.
He loves soccer — still plays the sport on weekends — and enjoys nothing more than watching Premier League team Arsenal over a beer in his local pub. He and his wife Victoria, who works in occupational health, have two teenage children they strive to keep out of the public eye.
Born in 1963, Starmer is the son of a toolmaker and a nurse who named him after Keir Hardie, the Labour Party’s first leader. One of four children, he was raised in a cash-strapped household in a small town outside London.
“There were hard times,” he said in a speech launching his campaign. “I know what out of control inflation feels like, how the rising cost-of-living can make you scared of the postman coming down the path: ‘Will he bring another bill we can’t afford?’
“We used to choose the phone bill because when it got cut off, it was always the easiest to do without.”
Starmer’s mother suffered from a chronic illness, Still’s disease, that left her in pain, and Starmer has said that visiting her in the hospital and helping to care for her helped form his strong support for the state-funded National Health Service.
He was the first member of his family to go to college, studying law at Leeds University and Oxford, and practiced human rights law before being appointed chief prosecutor.
He entered politics in his 50s and was elected to Parliament in 2015. He often disagreed with party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist, at one point quitting the party’s top team over disagreements, but agreed to serve as Labour’s Brexit spokesman under Corbyn.
Starmer has faced repeated questions about that decision, and about urging voters to support Corbyn during the 2019 election.
He said he wanted to stay and fight to change Labour, arguing that “leaders are temporary, but political parties are permanent.”
After Corbyn led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019 — the latter the party’s worst result since 1935 — Labour picked Starmer to lead efforts to rebuild.
His leadership has coincided with a turbulent period that saw Britain go through the COVID-19 pandemic, leave the EU, absorb the economic shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and endure economic turmoil from Liz Truss’s turbulent 49-day term as prime minister in 2022.
Voters are weary from a cost-of-living crisis, a wave of public sector strikes and political turmoil that saw the Conservative Party dispatch two prime ministers within weeks in 2022 — Boris Johnson and Truss — before installing Sunak to try to steady the ship.
Starmer imposed discipline on a party with a well-earned reputation for internal division, ditched some of Corbyn’s more overtly socialist policies and apologized for antisemitism that an internal investigation concluded had been allowed to spread under Corbyn.
Starmer promised “a culture change in the Labour Party.” His mantra is now “country before party.”
Starmer was a strong opponent of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, though now says a Labour government would not seek to reverse it.
Critics say that shows a lack of political principle. Supporters say it’s pragmatic and respects the fact that British voters have little desire to revisit the divisive Brexit debate.
Now Starmer must persuade voters that a Labour government can ease Britain’s chronic housing crisis and repair its fraying public services, especially the creaking health service — but without imposing tax increases or deepening the public debt.
To the dismay of some Labour supporters, he watered down a pledge to spend billions investing in green technology, saying a Labour government would not borrow more to fund public spending.
“A lot of people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, betraying socialist principles. And a lot of people on the right accuse him of flip-flopping,” said Tim Bale, political scientist at Queen Mary University of London.
“But, hey, if that’s what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer’s character. He will do whatever it takes -- and has done whatever it takes -- to get into government.”
The party has surged in the polls under his leadership, which has helped keep Starmer's internal critics onside.
At the party’s conference in October he showed a flash of passion, telling cheering delegates: “I grew up working class. I’ve been fighting all my life. And I won’t stop now.” He also showed remarkable composure when a protester rushed onstage and showered Starmer with glitter and glue.
Some have likened this election to 1997, when Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide victory after 18 years of Conservative rule.
Bale says Starmer lacks Blair’s charisma. But, he said, “given the turmoil that Brits have had to endure since the Brexit referendum in 2016, a bit of boring wouldn’t go down that badly, I think, with the public.”
Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this story.
Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is welcomed by BBC Director-General Tim Davie for the BBC's Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, Wednesday June 26, 2024. (Phil Noble/Pool via AP)
Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer arrives for the BBC's Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, Wednesday June 26, 2024. (Phil Noble/Pool via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, left, take part for the BBC's Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, Wednesday June 26, 2024. (Phil Noble/Pool via AP)
Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer takes part for the BBC's Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, Wednesday June 26, 2024. (Phil Noble/Pool via AP)
