Nation and World briefs for November 2

Cosby lawyers press judge to exclude deposition from trial

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby’s lawyers pressed a judge Tuesday to keep the comedian’s damaging deposition in a decade-old lawsuit out of his sexual assault trial, saying Cosby agreed to answer questions under oath after being assured he wouldn’t be charged with a crime.

The defense has insisted Cosby had an oral promise from the district attorney at the time that he wouldn’t be prosecuted over a 2005 sexual encounter with Andrea Constand, a former Temple University basketball manager.

The judge previously refused to dismiss the charges on those grounds, but is now being asked to disallow the deposition when the case goes to trial in June.

A new district attorney had Cosby arrested last year, after the deposition was unsealed and dozens of new accusers came forward.

Cosby, now 79 and blind, has said his encounter with Constand was consensual. He could get 10 years in prison if convicted. He is free on $1 million bail.

‘We’ve returned to the stone age’: Quake levels Italian town

CASTELLUCCIO DI NORCIA, Italy (AP) — Some houses are collapsed outright, pancaked piles of stones and plaster. A pair of skis stick out. Some are cracked open neatly, exposing living rooms frozen in time.

The central Italian mountain village of Castelluccio di Norcia, among the most heavily hit by Sunday’s earthquake, is known for the beautiful blossoms of its lentil fields and its historic charm. Now it’s a ghost town.

With the roads cut off, almost all of the 300 inhabitants were evacuated by helicopter. They all survived after an earlier quake in August prompted them to move into safer housing like camper vans or containers.

But a small group of 13 hardy souls refuses to leave. Mostly farmers, they want to stay close to their cattle, sheep and horses — their livelihood, without which they would truly have nothing left to come back for.

“Practically we’ve returned to the stone age,” said Augusto Coccia, 65.

NTSB probing 2-bus Baltimore crash that killed at least 6

BALTIMORE (AP) — A school bus was blocks away from its first stop Tuesday morning when it rear-ended a car and then ricocheted off a roadside pillar into an oncoming commuter bus. The pre-dawn accident killed at least six people and injured 10, authorities said.

There were virtually no skid marks at the crash scene, suggesting that the brakes of the school bus were not forcefully applied, and leading to what Baltimore Police spokesman T.J. Smith called a working theory that the driver had suffered some sort of medical emergency.

The school bus driver was killed, along with at least five people on the Maryland Transit Administration bus, Smith said.

“It literally looks like a bomb exploded in the bus. It’s catastrophic damage,” Smith said.

The only other occupant of the school bus, an aide, was taken to a hospital, as were the car driver and eight people from the commuter bus, Smith told a news conference.

Pakistani gang rape victim walks the fashion runway

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Gang-raped and paraded naked in public 14 years ago, Mukhtar Mai walked the fashion runway during Pakistan’s fashion week on Tuesday.

A red-carpet reception in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, attended by the country’s fashion elite, served as the forum for Mai’s symbolic fashion debut—something she said she’s doing as a model of courage and hope for other Pakistani women.

“If one step I take, if that helps even one woman, I would be very happy to do that,” Mai told The Associated Press.

In 2002, Mai was sentenced by a local council of tribal elders to be gang raped and publicly humiliated as punishment for her brother’s perceived insult to a rival family. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault unless they choose to identify themselves.

Rather than commit suicide, as many Pakistani women in her position have done, Mai went public and fought all the way to the country’s Supreme Court to have her attackers jailed.

Commuters tackle evening rush as transit strike clogs roads

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Commuters jumped on bikes, grabbed cabs and crammed into carpools as Philadelphia transit workers went on strike Tuesday after the city’s main transit agency and a union representing about 4,700 workers failed to reach a contract agreement.

Regional rail travel to the suburbs was unexpectedly disrupted at the start of the evening rush as some pickets blocked access to those facilities for workers, and a number of trains had to be canceled. The pickets began clearing from those facilities around 5 p.m. after Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority got an injunction, but the cancelations were complicating an already slow and jam-packed commute.

Union spokesman Jamie Horwitz said the union was working to protect free speech “while still allowing unfettered access to SEPTA facilities and preventing any form of interference.”

The walkout, which began at 12:01 a.m., shut down buses, trolleys and subways that provide about 900,000 rides a day. As of 5 p.m. no new talks were scheduled.

“This is something that is bad for everybody and has to end,” said Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

Obama reveals private living areas of White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama likes to say the White House is the “people’s house.” Now, the people are getting a look at the rooms where he lives.

Exclusive photos published Tuesday by Architectural Digest are giving the public its first glimpse of private areas on the second floor of the White House that Obama, his wife, Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha and family dogs Bo and Sunny have called home for nearly eight years.

Los Angeles-based interior designer Michael Smith decorated the rooms, as well as the Oval Office. A mutual friend in Chicago introduced him to the Obamas after the 2008 election.

The first lady said Smith managed to reflect her family’s tastes while respecting the history of the White House.

“Above all, it has truly felt like a home for our family,” she told the magazine.