Man could face charges for deadly fire
Compiled from news services
SAN FRANCISCO — 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 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. On Monday, prosecutors watched over the scene to preserve evidence as bodies were pulled from the ruins. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said if prosecutors believe criminal charges are warranted, charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder.
Cosby deposition allowed
PHILADELPHIA — 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 sex assault trial, a judge ruled Monday.
The defense has insisted that Mr. Cosby testified only after being promised he would never 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.
Mr. Cosby, 79, acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had a string of extramarital relationships. 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 Ms. Constand’s 2005 police complaint.
Women, children freed
SAN ANTONIO — A judge released 460 women and children from a family detention center in San Antonio, which had recently garnered attention for banning crayons in its visitation area.
The judge sided against the companies that run the facility and denied it a child care license. Now many of the women and children being held there find themselves freed, but with nowhere to go.
Power line permit
MONTPELIER, Vt. — A power line planned to run under Lake Champlain and link suppliers in Canada with consumers in southern New England has won a key federal permit, clearing its last big regulatory hurdle.
Transmission Developers Inc. announced Monday its TDI-New England subsidiary had received a presidential permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for the 154mile, $1.2 billion power line, dubbed the New England Clean Power Link. CEO Donald Jessom said construction could start in late 2017.
Also in the nation ...
Officials say an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, Dora Linda Nishihara, 69, has died and two other were people hurt when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio. ... A federal judge agreed Monday to let Dylan Roof, accused of fatally shooting nine black parishioners, rehire his attorneys until a verdict is reached, but to remain his own lawyer if he is found guilty and the trial moves into a penalty phase. ... A judge on Monday sentenced a Georgia man, Justin Ross Harri, 36, 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. experts say voting machines can be hacked, even if they are not connected to the internet, and activists worry those used in Allegheny County and elsewhere do not have a paper trail of a voter’s wishes, making hacking hard to detect without a thorough check.
In a letter emailed to county officials Sunday, Stein campaign attorney Douglas Lieb offered to pay for such an analysis out of the campaign’s pocket. “In this election, and with these machines, the only way to ensure the integrity of the vote in this county is a comprehensive forensic exam,” the letter asserted.
Prior to each election, the county examines the programming of 20 machines, randomly selected from more than 4,000 it uses. Mr. Lieb’s letter commended that review, adding that “We are asking for an essentially similar process … on a larger sample of machines.”
But Monday afternoon, the county rebuffed his offer to pick up the tab for further tests. “Judge James did not order any sort of forensics examination,” wrote elections division attorney Allan Opsitnick.
It’s unclear how the Stein campaign will respond: “The campaign is determining its next steps here and will continue fighting for the right of all Pennsylvanians to verify the vote,” Mr. Lieb said in a statement.
But Michelle Zuckerman-Parker, who’d volunteered to file the petitions with the county, said she was disappointed in the process.
“I promised folks I would do my best” to have machines thoroughly checked, she said, “and I haven’t been given a chance to do it.”
The Stein campaign’s federal lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia on Monday, similarly calls for both a recount and a forensic examination of voting machines. As grounds for concern, it cites the electionseason email hacking of the Democratic National Committee and attempts to breach election systems in other states.
“The Pennsylvania election system is a national disgrace,” the suit said. “Voters are forced to use vulnerable, hackable, antiquated technology banned in other states, then rely on the kindness of machines. There is no paper trail. Voting machines are electoral black sites: no one permits voters or candidates to examine them.”
Over the weekend, Green Party-backed voters dropped a separate, but similar, lawsuit in state court. In a filing, the campaign citing a Commonwealth Court order that the petitioners in that case must post a $1 million bond.
Republican Donald Trump bested Democrat Hillary Clinton by 47,750 votes in Pennsylvania, out of 6 million votes cast. State elections officials have previously said there is no evidence hackers tried to manipulate the vote. The Pennsylvania Department of State declined to comment on Ms. Stein’s lawsuit Monday, as did an attorney for the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
Stein attorney Ilann Maazel was unable to offer evidence Pennsylvania’s election had been hacked. But he contended the state’s elections system is so insecure that a forensic examination is the only way to be sure that votes weren’t altered.
“There are millions of voters out there who have worries, and they have good reason to be worried,” he said.
Similar sentiments were expressed at a rally in Harrisburg on Monday afternoon, when about 30 people demonstrated in the Capitol rotunda, many of them holding signs with messages like “I want to trust the numbers” and chanting “Count every vote.”
Pat LaMarche, a Cumberland County resident who ran for vice president with the Green Party in 2004, questioned why she gets a receipt when she makes a purchase, but not when she casts her vote.
“I’m not supposed to be able to trust the woman who just sold me a $15 Tshirt,” she said. “But I’m supposed to trust the collection of millions of votes.”