In Brief: Nation & World: 12-6-16

Deadly warehouse fire: Operator accused of ignoring safety

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The founder of a ramshackle Oakland artists’ colony where dozens of people burned to death saw himself as a kind of guru and loved to surround himself with followers but showed chilling disregard for their well-being, according to relatives, neighbors and other acquaintances.

Derick Ion Almena, 46, leased and operated the cluttered warehouse where a blaze erupted Friday night during a dance party, leaving at least 36 people dead in the nation’s most lethal building fire in over a decade.

Neighbors and occupants of the building said he had illegally carved it into rented living and studio space for artists, calling it the Satya Yuga collective. On Monday, prosecutors watched over the scene to preserve evidence as bodies were pulled from the blackened ruins. The cause of the fire is under investigation, and no one has been charged.

Acquaintances painted a devastating portrait of Almena and his longtime partner, Micah Allison.

“Honestly, I don’t think he is capable of feeling any kind of remorse or guilt,” said Allison’s father, Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon. “I’ve never seen him ever really care about anyone else.”

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No experience needed: Trump taps Carson for HUD secretary

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump chose retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson on Monday to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, raising fresh concerns about the lack of experience some of Trump’s Cabinet picks have with agencies they’re now being chosen to lead.

Carson, who opposed Trump in the Republican primaries, has no background in government or running a large bureaucracy.

In addition, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s choice to be ambassador to the United Nations, has no foreign policy experience. Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood executive, is Trump’s man to lead the Treasury Department but has never worked in government. And retired Gen. James Mattis, a widely praised battlefield commander, spent decades in the Marines but now is tapped to run the nation’s largest government agency, the Defense Department, with 740,000 civilian employees in addition to 1.3 million service personnel.

Democrats swiftly criticized Carson’s qualifications for his job. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him a “disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice.” And New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he had “serious concerns about Dr. Carson’s lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least.”

Carson would oversee a budget of nearly $50 billion that provides rental assistance for more than 5 million households. Demand for that assistance is high in part because housing costs are rising faster than incomes. HUD also promotes home ownership with the Federal Housing Administration underwriting about 1 in 6 mortgages issued in the U.S. The agency is charged with enforcing federal fair housing laws, too.

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Mistrial declared in black motorist’s shooting

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

A panel of one black and 11 white jurors — who had seemed close to a verdict to convict Friday, with apparently only one holdout — said Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating more than 22 hours over four days.

“We as a jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all parties we are unable to come to a unanimous decision,” said Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, reading a note from the jury before declaring a mistrial.

Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015, shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott. The judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Cellphone video taken by a bystander that showed Scott being shot in the back five times was shown widely in the media and on the internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.

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Families brace for news that loved ones among fire victims

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Terry Ewing is waiting for the confirmation he already knows in his heart: His girlfriend was among the dozens killed in the Oakland warehouse fire.

Hundreds of family members and friends find themselves in similar limbo, as firefighters continue a painstaking search for victims. On Monday, the death toll rose to 36, and officials say they know more bodies will be discovered.

“We’ve all quietly slipped into using past tense verbs, and I think everybody, in their hearts has a good idea of what the news is,” Ewing said. His girlfriend, Ara Jo, has not been seen since Friday night, when flames tore through a building known as the “Ghost Ship” during a dance party in the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

“We’re just waiting.”

The laborious job of digging with shovels and buckets through the debris was suspended overnight because of a dangerously unstable wall. It resumed in the morning, though a rainstorm Tuesday could complicate the effort. The cluttered warehouse had been converted to artists’ studios and illegal living spaces, and former denizens said it was a death trap of piled wood, furniture, snaking electrical cords and only two exits.

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Teachers, music lovers among those killed in warehouse fire

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Teachers, music lovers and the son of a sheriff’s deputy were among those killed when a fire tore through a converted Oakland warehouse during a dance party.

The death toll from Friday night’s fire climbed to 36 on Monday with more bodies still feared buried in the rubble.

The victims included 17-year-olds and people from Europe and Asia, Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly said. Here’s a closer look at who they were:

EXTRAORDINARY CO-WORKER

Nick Gomez-Hall, 25, made a warm impression on friends and colleagues in California and Rhode Island as a musician, teacher and community advocate who most recently worked for an independent publisher.

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2 Russian nurses killed in rebel shelling of Syria’s Aleppo

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Rebel shelling killed two Russian nurses and eight civilians Monday in Aleppo, and a Russian fighter jet crashed as it was returning to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean after a sortie over Syria, but the pilot ejected safely, Moscow officials said.

The shelling that targeted government-controlled western Aleppo was one of the most intense in recent days. It coincided with a crushing air and ground assault that has seen forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Russia and militias allied with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been staunch supporters of Assad in his country’s bitter civil war, now in its sixth year.

The shelling initially killed one female nurse and wounded two Russian medics working in a field hospital, a Russian officer told reporters in the northern city. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Another nurse who was wounded later died, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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By accident or design, Trump signals tougher China policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whether by accident or design, President-elect Donald Trump is signaling a tougher American policy toward China, sparking warnings from both the outgoing Obama administration and Beijing.

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said progress with the Chinese could be “undermined” by a flare-up over the sovereignty of Taiwan, the self-governing island the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with in 1979. That split was part of an agreement with China, which claims the island as its own territory, although the U.S. continues to sell Taiwan billions in military equipment and has other economic ties.

Trump broke protocol last week by speaking with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, then took to Twitter to challenge China’s trade and military policies.

“It’s unclear exactly what the strategic effort is,” Earnest said. “I’ll leave that to them to explain.”

So far, Trump’s advisers have struggled to explain his action, sending mixed messages about whether the conversation with Taiwan’s leader was a step toward a new policy or simply a congratulatory call. Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Trump “knew exactly what was happening” when he spoke with Tsai, but Vice President-elect Mike Pence described the interaction as “nothing more than taking a courtesy call of congratulations.”

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Man convicted in son’s hot-car death gets life, no parole

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — A judge on Monday sentenced a Georgia man to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury found that he intentionally left his toddler son in a hot SUV to die.

Jurors last month convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.

Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that Harris was unhappily married and intentionally killed his son because he wanted an escape from family life. Defense attorneys maintained that Harris was a loving father and that while he was responsible for the boy’s death, it was a tragic accident.

Harris did not testify at trial and did not speak at his sentencing hearing.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark told Harris she thought about statements Harris made during conversations with police and his wife the day his son died about wishing to be an advocate to keep anyone else from ever leaving a child in a hot vehicle.

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Judge: Prosecutors can use Cosby’s deposition at trial

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Damaging testimony that Bill Cosby gave in an accuser’s lawsuit, including admissions that he gave young women drugs and alcohol before sex, can be used at his criminal sex assault trial, a judge ruled Monday.

The defense had insisted that Cosby only testified after being promised he wouldn’t be charged over his 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. But his lawyers at the time never had an immunity agreement or put anything in writing.

“This court concludes that there was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill wrote in his ruling.

Cosby, 79, acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had a string of extramarital relationships with young women. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested.

The release of the deposition testimony last year prompted prosecutors to reopen Constand’s 2005 criminal complaint.

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Renzi told to stay put a bit more; foes press for vote

ROME (AP) — Calls mounted rapidly Monday from populist and other opposition leaders for quick elections in Italy, seeking to capitalize on Premier Matteo Renzi’s humiliating defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms.

The president, though, told Renzi to stay in office a bit longer until a critical budget law is passed. Some officials say Parliament could pass that law as soon as the end of the week.

“With the referendum vote, the Italians have expressed a clear political signal — the desire to go as soon as possible to elections,” wrote Vito Crimi and Danilo Toninelli, two of the top leaders of the populist, anti-euro, 5-Star Movement in a piece accompanying the blog of Movement founder, comic Beppe Grillo.

Barely an hour after the referendum was resoundingly rejected Sunday by voters, Renzi announced he would keep his promise to quit if the measures fail to win popular muster.

With the defeat plunging Europe’s fourth-largest economy into political and economic uncertainty, and financial markets seeking reassurances, President Sergio Mattarella asked Renzi to hold off on leaving until the budget legislation is passed.