Oklahoma's Olivia Jordan was crowned  Miss USA on Sunday, capping weeks of controversy in the run-up to the annual beauty pageant after its co-owner Donald Trump made incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants while  announcing his run for president.
             
Several judges, guests and the event's hosts all backed out  after the real estate mogul described some migrants from Mexico  to the US as drug-runners and rapists while  announcing in June he was seeking the Republican nomination.
              
Despite the controversy, no incidents or disruptions were  apparent either in the audience or on stage during the live broadcast from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, carried on cable channel  Reelz after NBC dropped the show over Trump's remarks.
              
Trump, who traditionally attends, said on Saturday he would  be campaigning and would not be on hand.
              
Jordan, 26, an actress and graduate of Boston University,  won the 64th pageant after deftly answering a question about the  nation's next hot-button issue. Other finalists stumbled while
 answering similarly topical questions from the judges, who were  all past pageant winners such as Miss Universe and Miss USA.
              
"We still need to talk about race relations in the country,  we have not solved this issue," Jordan said. "We really need to work on being an accepting society."
              
The other finalists came from Rhode Island, Maryland and  Nevada, with Texas' Ylianna Guerra winning first runner-up.
              
Several of the top 15 finishers spoke of their Latin  American heritage, including Rhode Island's Anea Garcia, who was raised by her grandmother, an immigrant from the Dominican  Republic. Garcia came in third among 51 contestants.
              
One segment focused specifically on contestants' multi- cultural backgrounds, with the women speaking in taped segments  about being bi-racial or coming from immigrant families.   - Reuters