Tag Archives: California

Lawsuit claims Trump travel ban discriminates against Muslims

Protest of Donald Trump's travel ban

(Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union accused the Trump administration in a lawsuit filed on Thursday of violating the religious freedom of some nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries who have been barred from entering the United States.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of California on behalf of three student visa holders, including one Yemeni who left the United States and is unable to come back, according to court documents.

The lawsuit is a proposed class-action brought on behalf of nationals who are living or have lived in the United States and are originally from the Muslim-majority nations whose citizens President Donald Trump has temporarily banned from entering the United States, with some exceptions.

The suit is the latest in a series of legal actions challenging the executive order that was issued last Friday. Federal judges in several states have placed limits on the order.

The order set off protests over the weekend at several major airports as immigration and customs officials struggled to interpret the new rules.

The plaintiffs and the members of the class “fear that, in the event they attempt to enter or re-enter the United States, they will be denied permission to do so,” the lawsuit said.

It accuses Trump and his administration of violating the free speech, religious freedom and due process rights of those affected by the order, and says it is an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise made by Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

“Senior advisers to defendant Trump have engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric that provides additional support for the notion that the executive order was prompted by animus toward Islam and Muslims,” the suit said.

Department of Justice officials could not be reached for comment late on Thursday.

The ACLU asked the court to rule that the executive order violates the rights of the students and class members and to order the administration not to enforce the travel ban, according to the suit.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Sandra Maler, Robert Birsel and Kevin Liffey)

San Bernardino massacre yields second immigration fraud conviction

Memorial for San Bernardino victims

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Russian-born wife of the California man accused of supplying guns used by another couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal immigration fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Mariya Chernykh, 26, became the second person convicted in an immigration fraud scheme linked to the December 2015 massacre by Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik, who authorities said were inspired by Islamic extremism.

The man she admitted paying to marry her, Enrique Marquez Jr., is charged with furnishing two assault rifles used in the shooting rampage by Farook, a U.S. native of Pakistani descent, and Malik, whom he married in 2014 in Saudi Arabia.

The couple were killed in a gunfight with police four hours after the massacre.

Marquez also is accused of having plotted with Farook to stage similar shooting attacks in the suburbs east of Los Angeles in 2011 and 2012 that were never carried out. He is scheduled to go on trial on Sept. 26.

Farook’s brother, Syed Raheel Farook, 31, pled guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit fraud earlier this month, admitting that he lied on immigration forms that paved the way for Chernykh, his wife’s sister, to engage in a fraudulent marriage to Marquez.

Chernykh, a Russian citizen, pled guilty to charges of conspiracy, perjury and making false statements, and now faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine when she is sentenced in November, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Her would-be brother-in-law, Raheel Farook, could receive up to five years in prison.

His wife, Tatiana Farook, a third defendant in the immigration fraud case, is slated to go on trial in March.

The slaying of Rizwan’s Farook’s co-workers at a holiday office party on Dec. 2, 20015, ranks as one of the deadliest attacks by Islamist militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

In addition to acknowledging in court on Thursday that she falsified immigration documents and paid Marquez to participate in the sham marriage, Chernykh admitted making false statements to federal investigators in the immediate aftermath of the San Bernardino attack, authorities said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler)

U.S. cities move to curb lead poisoning following Reuters report

Environmental Protection Agency signs that read "DO NOT play in the dirt or around the mulch" are seen at the West Calumet Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, U.S.

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cities and towns across the United States are taking action after a Reuters report identified thousands of communities where children tested with lead poisoning at higher rates than in Flint, Michigan.

From California to Pennsylvania, local leaders, health officials and researchers are advancing measures to protect children from the toxic threat. They include more blood-lead screening, property inspections, hazard abatement and community outreach programs.

The University of Notre Dame is offering a graduate course to study and combat local poisoning problems the report helped bring to light.

“This has just laid out that it’s not just a Detroit issue, it’s not just a Baltimore issue,” said Ruth Ann Norton, president of Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, a Baltimore-based nonprofit. “This started conversations with mayors and governors.”

In an investigation last month, the news agency used census tract and zip code-level data from millions of childhood blood tests to identify nearly 3,000 U.S. communities with recently recorded lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint. More than 1,100 of these neighborhoods had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher than in Flint.

A Reuters interactive map, built with previously unpublished data, allowed users to track local poisoning rates across much of the country for the first time. In many areas, residents and officials weren’t previously aware of the scope of local children’s exposure. The poisoning hazards include deteriorating lead paint, tainted soil and contaminated water.

To read the December investigation and use the map, click here:  http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/

Flint’s lead poisoning is no aberration, Reuters found, but one example of a preventable health crisis that continues in hazardous spots in much of the country.

Lead poisoning stunts children’s cognitive development, and no level of exposure is considered safe. Though abatement efforts have made remarkable progress in curbing exposure since the 1970s, children remain at risk in thousands of neighborhoods.

In South Bend, Indiana, for instance, the data showed several hotspots. In one tract, 31.3 percent of small children tested since 2005 had blood lead levels at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s current threshold for elevated levels in children under age 6. Children at or above this threshold warrant a public health response, the CDC says.

Across Flint, 5 percent of children tested had high levels during the peak of the city’s water contamination crisis.

After Reuters published its findings, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg held a press conference with county health officials to address local poisoning. Several actions followed:

– County health officials have begun a surveillance effort to track childhood blood-lead testing, encouraging more screening.

– Officials plan to press for an Environmental Protection Agency grant to boost environmental testing and lead abatement.

– Notre Dame is offering a semester-long graduate level class for students to research the local poisoning problem and assist health officials. A summer research program, “Get the Lead Out,” will send students into homes to measure lead in paint, dust, soil and water and inform families about risks. These programs will help pay for hundreds more childhood blood lead tests, after testing stalled due to funding shortfalls.

“Everything has moved into fast-forward pace here since your story,” said Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, a county health board member and professor at Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health. “We are acting with a sense of urgency because kids here depend on it.”

Other officials in Indiana are exploring additional measures to protect children. State Senator Jean Breaux introduced a bill this week to compel the state health department to double blood lead screening rates among Indiana children enrolled in Medicaid. The screenings are required for Medicaid-enrolled children, but major testing gaps remain.

CALIFORNIA REACTS

In Oakland, California, 7.57 percent of children tested in the Fruitvale neighborhood had high lead levels, a result largely of old lead paint or tainted soil.

Two Oakland council members introduced a city resolution Jan. 12 that, if approved, will require property owners to obtain lead inspections and safety certifications before renting or selling housing built before 1978, when lead paint was banned. Oakland would also provide families in older homes with lead safety materials, and urge more blood screening.

“We need to address that issue, that’s the bottom line,” said councilman Noel Gallo, who grew up in Fruitvale.

Larry Brooks, director of Alameda County’s Healthy Homes Department, wrote in a San Francisco Chronicle editorial that “Oakland has thousands of lead-poisoned children.” Before the Reuters report, he added, “whispers about potential lead poisoning in Oakland were dismissed as an ‘East Coast phenomenon’ or a crisis contained to Flint.”

The Reuters analysis found high poisoning rates in spots across Texas, where the office of Austin City Council member Delia Garza said she may use the information to press for more aggressive lead abatement measures. City officials are urging the state health department to release more blood testing data.

Local data can detect clusters of poisoned children who remain hidden in the broader surveys states usually publish. The news agency obtained local data covering 21 states, and about 61 percent of the U.S. population, through public records requests.

In the Dallas area, clean air advocacy group Downwinders at Risk is holding an event to address lingering hazards, including shuttered lead smelters. The group cited Reuters’ work, which helped to identify Dallas areas with high poisoning rates.”Having five to six times the national average of high blood lead readings in a zip (code) just south of downtown certainly has been getting people’s attention,” said group director Jim Schermbeck.

In St. Joseph, Missouri, where testing data showed at least 120 small children have been poisoned within a 15-block radius since 2010, the city manager convened department heads to address the problem.

Pennsylvania had the most census tracts where at least 10 percent of children tested high for lead. In Warren, where the rate was as high as 36 percent, the city manager said she’s considering distributing home-testing kits to families. County officials will meet to consider several additional measures, including boosting blood screening and increasing funding for prevention. County Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said he wasn’t aware of the full scope of poisoning in Warren until the Reuters report. It hit close to home. A few years ago, Eggleston said, his infant son was poisoned by lead.

(Reporting by Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell. Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Storms ease California drought as reservoirs fill up

Vehicles drive on flooded freeway

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – Several months of wet weather have dramatically eased California’s years-long drought, replenishing reservoirs and parched aquifers and forcing state water officials to switch – at least temporarily – from managing shortages to avoiding floods.

With rain continuing to fall following a deluge that brought 20 inches (50 cm) of precipitation to some areas this week, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains – crucial for storing water needed in the state’s long, hot summers – is deeper and wetter than normal. Reservoirs were well above normal levels, state and federal drought experts said on Thursday.

“This is the wet winter that makes us cautiously optimistic,” Ted Thomas, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, said on Thursday. “Conditions are improving.”

California has been in the grip of drought for five years, leading farmers to fallow a half-million acres 500,000 acres (200,0000 hectares) of cropland, and forcing some residents to rely on bottled water for drinking.

But the storms that have swept through the state since early autumn have released as much as 42 percent of the state from drought conditions, the U.S. Drought Monitor report said on Thursday, down from less than 3 percent a year ago.

Just 2 percent of the state was experiencing what scientists call “exceptional” drought, the worst category, down from 40 percent two years ago, said the report by the National Drought Mitigation Center.

So much water was coursing through California’s waterways this week that the state’s climatologist, Michael Anderson,

said he was too busy trying to help with flood control operations to talk about the drought on Thursday.

Engineers opened floodgates along the Sacramento River system, drenching low-lying land and sending water coursing into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in part to protect the state capital, Sacramento, said Dave Rizzardo, an expert with the state Department of Water Resources.

A high tide from the Pacific Ocean was expected to swell the delta, which supplies water for 25 million Californians, and engineers were watching for any levee breaches that would affect delta farming and suburban communities near Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, Rizzardo said.

Thomas said, however, the state was not ready to declare the drought finished. He cautioned against putting too much faith in the Drought Monitor data, saying it relied on short-term events such as weather that did not fully reflect California’s water needs.

“It’s not over yet,” Thomas said. “We could go from wet right now to dry for the rest of the winter.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Powerful storms head for U.S. West after thousands flee floods

Partially submerged building in California

(Reuters) – Powerful storms packing heavy rain and snow will lash the U.S. West on Tuesday, a day after thousands of people fled their homes to escape floods, forecasters said.

A band of heavy downpours will drench northern California and heavy snow will fall in the Sierra Nevada mountains into Wednesday, exacerbating the threat of flooding, the National Weather Service said.

The storms are part of weather system called the “Pineapple Express” that has soaked a vast area from Hawaii to the typically drought-prone states of California and Nevada.

Just north of San Francisco, the Russian River in Sonoma County flooded early on Monday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 residents, officials said.

In Nevada, residents of about 400 homes in Reno were ordered to leave as rains swelled the Truckee River, which flows through the city, a county official said.

A woman died after she was struck by a falling tree in the San Francisco area, local officials and media reported.

Over the weekend, an ancient giant sequoia tree with a hollowed-out tunnel was toppled by floods in Calaveras Big Trees State Park just southeast of Sacramento.

California’s Napa Valley vinyards largely escaped undamaged and the rain was expected to replenish water supplies after five years of drought, said Patsy McGaughy, Napa Valley Vintners spokeswoman.

California officially remains in a state of drought as water is still scarce in the south.

But northern California’s Lake Oroville, the principal reservoir for the State Water Project, has 2.25 million acre feet of water, more than double the amount it had a year ago, Michael Anderson, state climatologist for the California Department of Water Resources, said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee)

More rain, snow forecast as U.S. storm brings floods to California

Flooded street in Calfornia

(Reuters) – Forecasters expect another half foot of rain to soak central and northern California and the Sierra Nevada mountains through early Tuesday, coming on the heels of powerful storms that walloped the state and other parts of the U.S. west on Sunday.

The drenching rains and blowing snow flooded rivers and shut down roads from mudslides in a state that has struggled with drought for years.

From 3 to 8 inches (7.6 to 20 cm) of rain is forecast in the region while several feet (1-2 metres) of snow are likely for higher elevations, said meteorologist Andrew Orrison at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

“We’re going to see heavy rain going into (Monday) evening and early morning,” he said.

Heavy snow is expected in Nevada and the northern Rocky Mountains could get several feet of snow over the next day or two.

The weather service said almost 40 rivers or creeks in Northern California and western Nevada were flooded or threatened to top their banks. But an emergency agency spokesman said there had been no reports of fatalities or serious damage.

Authorities said a section of Interstate 80 near Truckee, southwest of Reno, Nevada, was closed by a mudslide.

The upper Napa River north of San Francisco was expected to cause “extreme damage to all towns along the reach,” the California emergency agency said in a statement. Anticipated flooding brought voluntary evacuations in neighboring Sonoma County.

Residents of Cambria, near the famous Hearst Castle along California’s central coast, were advised to move to higher ground due a flash flood warning.

Several other California highways were closed from landslides or high water. In Washington state, high winds, ice and heavy snow shut roads and created hazardous driving conditions.

Iridium Communications said Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company had delayed Monday’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 of its satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles. The launch was now set for Saturday.

The storm is drawing strength from the interaction between an “atmospheric river,” a plume of water vapor flowing from the tropics toward the West Coast, and a low-pressure area near Oregon, the National Weather Service said.

After years of drought, the storm is the latest in a strong wet season for California that began in the autumn. Another front is expected on Tuesday.

In an encouraging sign, the U.S. Forest Service said the rain had restored moisture levels in Southern California vegetation to a seasonal normal for the first time in five years.

The eastern United States experienced low temperatures on Sunday, the day after a massive storm dumped snow from Georgia to Massachusetts.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

California lawmakers hire Holder for fights with Trump

Harold Pratt

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers in the California legislature said on Wednesday they retained former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to help in any legal battles with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

The move is more evidence that lawmakers in the nation’s most populous state, where Democrats hold two-thirds majorities in both houses of the legislature, are girding for possible court battles after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Last month, leaders of both houses introduced bills to protect undocumented immigrants from anticipated efforts by a Trump administration to increase deportations.

In addition, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has made combating climate change a priority for the state.

“Mr. Holder and his team will serve as outside counsel to the Legislature, advising us in our efforts to resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made,” Kevin de León, the Democratic leader of the state Senate, said in a statement.

A representative from de León’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Holder served as attorney general under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2015. He is a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling, which represents companies and helps them navigate government regulations.

“I am honored that the Legislature chose Covington to serve as its legal adviser as it considers how to respond to potential changes in federal law that could impact California’s residents and policy priorities,” Holder said in a statement.

California voted decisively for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election, choosing the former first lady over Trump by 28 percentage points.

The hiring of Holder was reported earlier by the New York Times.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Levine, editing by Larry King and Dan Grebler)

Oakland city workers visited warehouse, did not flag fire hazard

A firefighter watches from the roof at the scene of the fatal warehouse fire in Oakland, California, U.S.

By Heather Somerville, Kristina Cooke and Dan Levine

(Reuters) – In the two years leading up to the fire at an Oakland, California warehouse that killed 36 people at a dance party late last week, city officials had entered the building on numerous occasions and had multiple opportunities to see that residents were illegally living there in hazardous conditions.

The Oakland Police Department received dozens of complaints about the warehouse, and went inside at least half a dozen times, according to police reports and accounts from former tenants and visitors.

Neighbors and former tenants also say city fire officials were in the building at least twice.

Those who spent time in the artists’ cooperative known as the “Ghost Ship,” say that potential code violations would have been apparent to anyone entering the building, which was not permitted for residence.

Living quarters with narrow, winding halls were built from scrap materials, including highly flammable wooden pallets. Nails were exposed, plumbing improvised and a makeshift stairway to the second floor was extremely hazardous, they say.

“If you opened the door and stepped even three feet inside it would be grossly apparent to anyone that it wasn’t just being used as a warehouse or a workspace,” said former Ghost Ship neighbor Ben Acevedo, 45, who estimates he made about 60 calls to police about the property over 16 months to report noise, blight and illegal occupancy.

On Wednesday, amid questions about why the city did not act to shut down the warehouse, an Oakland official said that code enforcement personnel had not entered the building in 30 years.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said she did not know the last time fire inspectors had gone inside. She did not mention police visits, but said the city would launch a new effort “to clarify the responsibility of city employees to properly report any observations of dangerous living conditions or illegal events.”

LIFE IN THE GHOST SHIP

The Ghost Ship collective was founded by Derick Ion Almena, who leased the warehouse and lived in it with his wife and three children, as well as artists to whom he rented space.

Fights, raucous parties and complaints about thefts drew police to the scene numerous times during the collective’s tenancy. Almena did not responded to several requests for comment.

In January 2015, officers responding to reports of a fight went inside the warehouse, attempted to locate “a stolen cellphone,” and “canvassed the area and the building for the suspect,” according to a police report. Court records show that two children were present.

A person who was there at the time, but declined to be named for fear of retribution, said the officers’ search took them into parts of the building where people were clearly residing, including the bathroom and shower area as well as the kitchen, which was full of food and dishes.

The previous year, tenants Adriana Sparkuhl and her boyfriend reported a robbery at the warehouse to police, records show. Sparkuhl, now 31, says the report stemmed from a dispute with Almena when she and her boyfriend moved out.

Sparkuhl said she also told the officers that people, including Almena’s three children, were living in the warehouse illegally and that the police said they would pay the Ghost Ship a visit. She does not know whether they did.

In July 2014, about a month after Sparkuhl filed her report, police entered the foyer of the warehouse while investigating a homicide at a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant across the street, according to a resident at the time.

From where they stood, the officers would have seen the kitchen area and at least one RV, said then-resident Brad Evans, 21. Police asked Almena’s three children whether they lived there, Evans recalled, and the children responded that they did.

Former resident Shelley Mack, 58, said she called police to escort her from the building when she moved out in February 2015.

“They saw everything,” Mack said, adding that she told them about the illegal residents. “I told them everything they needed to know. They didn’t have to guess.”

OFFICIAL RESPONSE EYED

Oakland police have not responded to Reuters’ request for the call log of service requests to the Ghost Ship. City officials have not yet released fire inspection reports also requested by Reuters, citing a delay due to a criminal investigation of the fire by the district attorney’s office.

Barry Donelan, the president of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association said it was “ludicrous” to expect rank-and-file police officers to report building code violations.

“Are you familiar with the crime in Oakland? These guys are going from call to call and now we are responsible for code enforcement too?” he asked.

NBC Bay Area reported citing sources that there was no record of a fire inspection at the Ghost Ship over the last decade.

At least one resident and also a neighbor, however, recalled visits by fire officials to the warehouse.

Ghost Ship resident Libby Physh said a fire official visited the building twice when she lived there during the summer and fall of 2014. She said the fire official saw “how much building was going on” inside the warehouse and wanted to ensure there were clearly marked exits. Otherwise, Physh said, he “did not say anything negative” about the space.

Danielle Boudreaux, a neighbor and one-time friend of Almena and his wife, said that Almena told her around January 2015 that a fire official had recently visited the warehouse and “was breathing down” his neck.

“If you get all these complaints for the same address you’d think they’d take it more seriously, would make it a priority,” said Acevedo, the former neighbor.

(Additional reporting by Curtis Skinner; editing by Sue Horton, G Crosse)

6.8 earthquake reported off Northern California

Location of 6.8 earthquake off the coast of Northern California, USGS Government

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 was reported off the coast of Northern California on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was centered about 102 miles (165 kilometers) in the Pacific Ocean west of Ferndale, California, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 km), according to the USGS.

There was no tsunami warning, advisory or threat in effect following the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of the National Weather Service said on its website.

The quake was first reported with a 6.9 magnitude but downgraded to 6.5.

Some social media users said they felt the tremor in San Francisco, about 260 miles (418.43 km) south.

“That was a big one,” wrote Twitter user Antonis Papatsaras from the Bay Area city.

“Felt 20 seconds of very light shaking,” tweeted another San Francisco resident, Lila LaHodd.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. cities enlist public’s help in wake of deadly Oakland fire

Two children place flowers at a makeshift memorial near the scene of the fatal warehouse fire in Oakland, California

By Rory Carroll and Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – In the days since a warehouse fire in Oakland, California, killed at least 36 people attending a party, cities across the United States have vowed to find ways to prevent such tragedies.

In Portland, Oregon, an elected leader wants to require sprinklers before a building can host a special event. In Los Angeles, a councilmember is calling on citizens to report unsafe buildings.

In Baltimore, officials reacted swiftly on Monday to a citizen complaint about an art space called the Bell Foundry, condemning the building and ousting its tenants after finding violations that included a lack of permits, use of flammables and removal of ceiling beams, said Chief Roman Clark, a fire department spokesman.

The two-story California building where at least 36 people died lacked both sprinklers and smoke alarms. Oakland officials had issued multiple violation notices on the warehouse property over the past several years for trash, debris and rodents, according to city building department records. It was unclear if the city was aware of more serious violations such as just two exterior doors and wooden pallets partially forming a makeshift stairway.

A crane removes debris from the site of a fatal warehouse fire in Oakland, California, U.S.

A crane removes debris from the site of a fatal warehouse fire in Oakland, California, U.S. December 6, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

New York stepped up its enforcement of building safety codes following the 1990 Happy Land fire, which killed 87 people in an unlicensed dance club, said City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who represents Queens and chairs the council’s fire committee.

“We’re seeing what’s happening there and it’s unbelievable. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen here or anywhere,” she said. “We should take this as a lesson and do our best as a country to make sure all of our cities are abiding by fire and safety regulations,” she said.

In Los Angeles, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson on Tuesday asked the public to report potential problem residences. “Some people simply aren’t aware that they are living in a place that is as unsafe as it is,” he said.

Los Angeles, he said has many empty warehouses and abandoned buildings that are used for parties and concerts and by the homeless seeking shelter.

Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman said he wants more buildings to have sprinklers before holding gatherings. He also wants the public to tell the city about problems, as soaring rents have pushed people to live in unsafe conditions.

“We need to deputize the public as our inspectors too,” he said.

Arts organizations have also stepped up.

In Oakland, a group called Omni Commons will meet on Wednesday to see how they can help residents of makeshift spaces improve safety given an expected crackdown on building code violations, according to the group’s Facebook page.

A dance and circus art space called House of Yes in New York City will hold a fundraiser for Oakland victims, during which it will offer a fire-safety class.

In 2008, a non-fatal blaze destroyed the group’s former location, where 10 artists lived.

(Editing by Sue Horton and Lisa Shumaker)