Nation Glance
Men charged in 36 deaths at ramshackle Oakland warehouse
OAKLAND, Calif. — The founder of a ramshackle collective who officials say illegally converted an Oakland warehouse into residences for artists and musicians saw himself as a guru and benevolent landlord trying to help people struggling to survive in the expensive San Francisco Bay Area.
Instead, court documents say his reckless actions created “a high risk of death” at the warehouse known as the Ghost Ship where 36 people died in a massive fire in December.
Derick Almena, 47, and his right-hand man, Max Harris, 27, were each charged Monday with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths during an dance party.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said Almena had turned the warehouse into a “deathtrap.”
“Witnesses describe wood and other flammable objects being stored from floor to ceiling on the first level. Storing that amount of flammable material in the manner described ... created an extremely dangerous fire load,” according to the criminal complaint in the case. unpermitted NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby went on trial Monday on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman more than a decade ago, with prosecutors immediately introducing evidence the 79-yearold TV star once known as America’s Dad had done it before to someone else.
The prosecution’s opening witness was not the person Cosby is charged with abusing, but another woman, who broke down in tears as she testified that the comedian violated her in the mid-1990s at a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles.
Cosby is on trial on charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. His good-guy reputation already in ruins, he could get 10 years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutor Kristen Feden, in her opening statement, noted the “Cosby Show” star previously admitted under oath that he gave Constand pills and touched her genitals as she lay on his couch.
“She couldn’t say no,” Feden said. “She can’t move, she can’t talk. Completely paralyzed. Frozen. Lifeless.”
NEW YORK — The sons of President Donald Trump said Monday their company is launching a new hotel chain inspired by their travels with their father’s campaign.
The Trump Organization is calling the new mid-market chain “American Idea” and said it will start with three hotels in Mississippi.
At a party at Manhattan’s Trump Tower, Donald Trump Jr. said he and his brother, Eric, got a “crash course in America” while traveling across the country with their father’s presidential campaign.
“We saw so many places and towns and so many stories,” he said.
The first of dozens of hotels in another new Trump chain called “Scion” is also under construction in Mississippi, the company said.
Scion is a four-star hotel chain meant to offer upscale service in U.S. cities that could not support a full-fledged Trump luxury property. Ethics experts have said the chain raises conflicts of interest issues for the White House.
The four Mississippi hotels for both chains will be owned by Chawla Hotels. The Trump Organization will get management and franchise fees for the new ventures. Chawla Hotels owns 17 hotels under various franchise names.
Chawla Hotels was founded by the late V.K. Chawla, who was described as a war refugee from India. His son, Dinesh Chawla, said his father came to the United States as a legal immigrant from Canada.
“I am an immigrant, and I have sympathy for people who are refugees,” said Dinesh Chawla, CEO of Chawla Hotels. “I do believe in legal immigration.”
The Scion hotel will be built from the ground up in Cleveland, Mississippi, in the Delta region that has a substantial blues music tourism industry. It will cost $20 million, with financing from Guaranty Bank, a local bank, Chawla said.
The three American Idea hotels will also be in the Delta, one each in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenville. Chawla said his company will renovate existing hotels and each renovation will cost up to $1.5 million. He said the renovation could take up to eight months.
“They’re cashing in on the red states,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “I’m not surprised that the Trump family would look to opportunities to commercially exploit his political success.”
Government ethics experts worry that developers seeking to curry favor with the president will be eager to help him in his new chains. They say their investments could work just like a campaign contributions, but without any limits on spending and disclosure requirements.