China’s court jails former head of safety watchdog

China has jailed the former head of its safety watchdog for 15 years for graft, the state broadcaster said, wrapping up an inquiry launched after deadly blasts in 2015 killed nearly 170 people in the city of Tianjin, where he worked. Regular mishaps, from factory fires to mine cave-ins, have boosted public concern about China’s relatively lax safety standards, which the government has pledged to improve. Yang Dongliang, former head of the State Administration of Work Safety, who spent much of his career in the port city, was suspected of violating law and party discipline and sacked days after the blasts in a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals. A court in Beijing found Yang guilty of abusing his position, including when he was former vice mayor of northeastern Tianjin, by accepting bribes to grant contracts to companies, China Central Television (CCTV) said. In 1999, a property developer gave Yang an apartment in a new development complex that he failed register with the authorities.