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A YACHT has been found drifting off the north Queensland coast with computers running and even food on a table ready to eat - but no crew. Police said the men, aged 56, 63 and 69, were believed to have left Airlie Beach on Sunday for Western Australia.

A boat was found drifting about a mile off Grand Turk island with 20 dead people on board, including two children, authorities in the Turks and Caicos Islands said Sunday. Officials said investigators had ruled out foul play but were still trying to determine what happened. The identities and origin of the dead were also under investigation. Fishermen spotted the small boat Thursday morning and alerted the marine branch of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, who towed the vessel ashore.

Almost three years after a fire ripped through an Oakland warehouse and killed 36 people, jurors in the Ghost Ship criminal trial acquitted one defendant of involuntary manslaughter Thursday and hung on the guilt of the warehouse’s master tenant. Max Harris, 29, walked out of jail in Dublin on Thursday night and Derick Almena, 49, spent another night in his jail cell, as prosecutors decide whether to retry him on the 36 charges of involuntary manslaughter. Each faced up to 39 years in prison if convicted on all charges stemming from the deadly Dec. 2, 2016, inferno at an electronic...

One of the prosecuting attorneys made the announcement Monday afternoon that former tenant Robert Jacobitz was killed in a car accident in San Pablo on Sunday. According to multiple reports, Jacobitz had done some of the electrical work at the Ghost Ship Warehouse. There were no additional details available regarding the circumstances of the crash that killed Jacobitz. Earlier Monday, the mother of Ghost Ship fire victim Nicole Siegrist took the stand Monday over the objections of a defense attorney as testimony got underway at the trial of two men charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deadly...

Two men will face trial on 36 counts each of involuntary manslaughter in the Ghost Ship fire after an Alameda County Superior Court judge determined Thursday that there was sufficient evidence in the case. Prosecutors say Max Harris and Derick Almena created a firetrap at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland’s Fruitvale district. The men, prosecutors allege, rented the space for an electronic music show on Dec. 2, 2016, that drew dozens of partygoers — 36 died in the burning building, which was not permitted for shows or residency and had no sprinklers, fire escapes or marked exits. Witnesses told...

OAKLAND — Officials in this fire-ravaged city reacted with alarm Monday over a report by this news organization that almost 80 percent of firefighter referrals to inspect dangerous conditions went ignored over the last six years. “It is horrifying,” Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said of the investigation’s findings. “In fact, one of the issues (the story) identified is how it gets decided who gets inspected.” In January, a month after the Ghost Ship warehouse fire killed 36 people, Kaplan proposed reprioritizing which businesses get inspected.

More than 30 dead in fire at artists’ warehouse in California | At least 36 people have died after a fire broke out in a warehouse that was home to an artists’ collective in Oakland, California. According to The Art Newspaper, the fire began during a party at the complex on Friday night, engulfing the entire building. The warehouse, known as the ‘Ghost Ship’, housed multiple studios where artists produced work in a variety of media. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the premises had been under investigation by health and safety officials for code violations: the property...

Parents of a young woman and man who were killed in the Oakland Ghost Ship fire sued the owner and operators of the converted warehouse Friday for maintaining a “death trap” that caused 36 people to lose their lives.

Attorneys for master tenant Derick Ion Almena at the “Ghost Ship” warehouse in Oakland where 36 people died in a fire Dec. 2 issued a statement Monday saying he didn’t engage in criminal misconduct and alleging that government agencies are responsible for the fire. High profile attorney Tony Serra and colleagues Jeffrey Krasnoff and Kyndra Miller also alleged that the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, which is conducting a criminal investigation into the fire, has a conflict of interest, reports CBS San Francisco. The attorneys said they would be the courtroom attorneys for Almena, 46, if any charges are filed...

"I shouldn't be alive, and I've lit 36 candles every day since," Aaron Marin said, referring to the 36 people who lost their lives in the Ghost Ship fire. He has returned to his Portland, Ore., home, but is deeply shaken by his experience in Oakland. "I shouldn't be alive, and I've lit 36 candles every day since," Aaron Marin said, referring to the 36 people who lost their lives in the Ghost Ship fire. He has returned to his Portland, Ore., home, but is deeply shaken by his experience in Oakland. Just before the Ghost Ship lost power, a...

Kris Gambardella didn’t know Feral Pines, one of the 36 people who died in the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. But when Pines, a 29-year-old transgender woman, was identified in official accounts by the male name she had been given at birth, Gambardella, who is a trans man, took it personally.

OAKLAND — The owner of the Ghost Ship warehouse where 36 people perished earlier this month has had a business license at that Fruitvale address for more than two decades, a city official confirmed Thursday, yet firefighters charged with inspecting Oakland’s commercial businesses never reviewed the building. Chor Ng, 62, filed for the business license in 1995 on her property at 1315 31st Ave., writing on the form that she wanted to operate a “commercial rental,” said Margaret O’Brien, Oakland’s revenue and tax administrator. The property owner was up to date on her annual business taxes, O’Brien said.

The fact that the warehouse was not on the fire inspection system is puzzling because the city Fire Prevention Bureau is required to conduct annual inspections of all commercial buildings and multifamily residences, according to city ordinance. Some former residents described the warehouse as a cluttered “death trap” lacking fire sprinklers and filled with debris and exposed wires. Some said they made complaints to the city. People rented space in the building even though it was zoned only for warehouse use. The death toll from the fire was so high because the warehouse was hosting an unpermitted concert that night....

As Oakland’s tightknit arts community continues to grapple with dozens of deaths in the Ghost Ship warehouse blaze, it is also being roiled by heightened scrutiny over the safety of similar living spaces. ... “We’ve been in the shadows for a long time for a reason ... and it worked really great for a lot of people for a long time until this one incident,” said Scrivani, a photographer who also produces art shows. “Right now the spotlight is on us.” ... Sam Lefebvre, a music journalist who has been covering the fire for the weekly East Bay Express newspaper...

Max Ohr considered himself the creative director, the “go-to guy,” the “camp counselor” at the Ghost Ship warehouse, and on that Friday night, he was also the doorman. He had spent the day getting ready for an electronic music party upstairs, arranging the sound system and cleaning up the fantastical bohemian space where he and about two dozen of his fellow artists lived. Before 9 p.m., the lanky jewelry maker with a scraggly beard and crescent tattoo on his cheekbone began welcoming visitors. They arrived in small groups, more than 100 guests in all from a tight-knit music and art...

The disastrous Ghost Ship fire has intensified long-simmering tensions between Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed and the city’s firefighters union, which for years has been lobbying behind the scenes to get her fired. At the same time, however, African American community leaders are coming to the chief’s defense, complaining that Mayor Libby Schaaf’s administration may be setting her up to take the blame for the deadly fire.

Full title: Mayor of Oakland warns against ‘scapegoating’ lavishly paid city employees who failed to inspect deathtrap warehouse in 30 years. The Ghost Ship warehouse/artists’ colony fire makes for a compelling drama. And everyone knows that for a drama, you need villains, especially when a tragedy is as vivid as the horrible deaths of 36 mostly young adult creative explorers. The mainstream media found a ready made figure in Derick Almena, the man who rented the warehouse and set up the colony, whose solipsistic tweets focused on his own suffering not the fire victims. His appearance on the Today Show...

The footage and photos, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, shows the living quarters of some of the residents of the building known as the Oakland Ghost Ship. While photos on the art collective's website show an eclectic and creative space for artists and musicians, the reality of life behind the scenes in this dilapidated building is horrific. Dark and dingy rooms don't look fit for humans, with exposed electrical wires and panels, venting pipes and piles of junk and old clothes everywhere. Tenant Shelley Mack, who disclosed the pictures to DailyMail.com also revealed that there were three fires while she lived...

This is the mummified body of a German adventurer who was found dead drifting on his abandoned yacht at the weekend off the coast of southern Philippines. Manfred Fritz Bajorat, 59, was discovered by two fishermen aboard his yacht in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Barobo town in Surigao del Sur. His body was sitting near to the radio telephone as if he was trying one last desperate Mayday call to save himself when he died.

According to “experts,” a 1,565-ton cruise liner carrying disease-ridden rats is out there, somewhere, and could very well be headed for Britain. The ship, which went missing a year ago, has presumably been drifting across the North Atlantic ever since. The Independent‘s account of what happened next is based in some true facts, and then fluffed up with a lot of conjecture. Here’s what appears to be going on: Not made-up: ghost ships. That’s just the term used for ships with no living crew aboard, and according to Quartz, they’re not that rare — sailors have spotted at least seven...