Nation roundup for May 18

Calmer winds help firefighters gain control

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Calmer winds helped firefighters gain ground Saturday against fires that have destroyed homes and raced through nearly 20,000 acres of northern and eastern San Diego County brush land, while authorities have charged a man for adding fuel to one of the nearly dozen blazes.

A new fire at the Camp Pendleton Marine base left some evacuations in place.

Thousands of firefighters and fleets of water-dropping military and civilian helicopters planned fresh battles Saturday. Investigators, meanwhile, continued to seek the causes of the conflagrations that burned at least eight homes and an 18-unit condominium complex, emptied neighborhoods and spread fields of flame, smoke and ash that dirtied the air in neighboring Orange County and as far north as Los Angeles County.

Alberto Serrato, 57, pleaded not guilty Friday to an arson charge in connection with one of the smaller fires, a 105-acre fire in suburban Oceanside that started Wednesday and is fully contained.

Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, said witnesses saw Serrato adding dead brush onto smoldering bushes, which flamed up. He has not been connected to any other fire, Sierra said.

Oceanside police Lt. Sean Marshand said Serrato is believed to have added fuel to the fire but not to have started it.

He remained jailed Friday, and Sierra said she didn’t know whether he had an attorney.

Obama considers new housing, budget chiefs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shuffling his second-term Cabinet, President Barack Obama plans to nominate Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan to be budget director and is considering San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to succeed Donovan, according to people familiar with the selection process. The moves would raise the profile of two men with close ties to the president.

Donovan is an original member of Obama’s Cabinet and is well-liked within the White House, where officials have lauded his work overseeing the government’s response to Hurricane Sandy.

As budget director, he would have significant influence over the administration’s policy and spending priorities.

Castro’s star has been on the rise since Obama picked him to deliver the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. The 39-year-old Castro is considered a possible vice presidential pick in 2016. If Castro is nominated to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and is confirmed by the Senate, he would become one of the highest-ranking Hispanic officials in the Obama administration.

A person familiar with the selection process said Donovan has been offered the budget director job and has accepted. An aide to Castro’s brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said the mayor has expressed interest in the housing job and does plan to accept if it is offered following a formal screening process.

Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation ahead of an official announcement from the White House. The White House said Saturday that it had no personnel announcements to make.

Obama has previously tried to offer Castro a Cabinet post, but the mayor decided to stay in San Antonio and handily won a third term last year.

“This was a job I really did look forward to growing up, when I thought about politics,” Castro said in 2011. “So I’m not in a hurry to leave.”

Still, Castro and his brother have become popular figures on the Democratic fundraising circuit. Julian Castro in particular is seen as a possible running mate in 2016 for a party that has staked its success in presidential elections in part on winning broad support from Hispanics.

Serving in Obama’s Cabinet would help broaden Castro’s experience beyond local politics.

In discussing Castro’s qualification for HUD secretary, the aide to his brother cited the mayor’s work on San Antonio’s “Promise Zone.” That federal government initiative aims to revitalize high-poverty communities by increasing economic activity, improving educational opportunities and leveraging private capital.

HUD plays a key role in the “Promise Zone” initiative and San Antonio was among the first cities that received a grant for the program from the administration.

Donovan has overseen the department throughout Obama’s presidency. The 48-year-old is seen by Obama advisers as a strong manager and was tapped in 2012 to oversee the administration’s response efforts after Sandy battered the East Coast.

“In the aftermath of Sandy, when we thought about who was somebody who we had confidence could drive a process to make sure that the federal, state and local coordination delivered for the people who had been affected, and that we could rebuild both on the New York side and the Jersey side as effectively as possible and as quickly as possible, Shaun came to mind,” Obama said Thursday during a fundraiser in New York that Donovan also attended.

The director of the Office of Management and Budget is a Cabinet-level post under Obama. Those who have held the job earlier in the administration, including current Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, have played crucial roles in setting budget priorities and negotiating fiscal agreements with Congress.

If confirmed by the Senate, Donovan would take over from Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who was nominated to lead Department of Health and Human Services after Kathleen Sebelius resigned this year.

Police unions push for medical coverage of PTSD

DENVER (AP) — Police unions across the U.S. are pushing for officers to be able to collect workers’ compensation benefits if they suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, whether they got it from the general stress of police work or from responding to a deadly shooting rampage.

“I can’t imagine a department in the United States without officers who have symptoms of PTSD and are still working,” said Ron Clark, chairman of the Badge of Life, a group of active and retired officers working to raise awareness of police stress and suicide prevention.

“We’re beginning to see more and more states talking about this,” he said.

But some police chiefs and municipal leaders oppose lawmakers’ efforts, even in states such as Connecticut and Colorado, the scenes of some of the deadliest massacres in recent years. They say they are concerned the benefits would strain budgets and lead to frivolous claims.

“We support and appreciate the efforts of our police and firefighters, but there’s a concern when you expand benefits,” said Betsy Gara, executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns.

Legislation has been emotional in that state, still haunted by the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

Newtown police officer Thomas Bean told lawmakers his depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts left him unable to work. “I’m always being re-traumatized because I don’t know what my future is,” Bean testified in March.

Connecticut allows police and firefighters to collect workers’ compensation if they use deadly force or witness a colleague’s death. New legislation would expand it to all municipal employees diagnosed with PTSD after witnessing a violent event or its aftermaths.

Federal employees and military members can collect compensation if a psychiatrist finds PTSD symptoms. But most states require officers and firefighters to have an accompanying physical injury.

Supporters say lawmakers’ efforts to change that are encouraging, but the push-back shows a stigma remains.

“They don’t get too worked up when an officer gets shot or physically assaulted because they can see it,” Clark said. “If you think every cop is just going to run to that lifeboat and say, ‘I have PTSD,’ I just don’t see it.”

It is hard to say how many officers suffer symptoms because many do not come forward for fear of seeming weak, Clark said.

Legislation expanding benefits to cover the disorder died in Colorado, where officers responded to a mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater in July 2012. A legislative task force will likely study the issue instead.

“We’ve got law enforcement officers working the streets in Colorado suffering from PTSD and keeping it a secret, going to work every day with a smile,” said Mike Violette, executive director of the state’s Fraternal Order of Police, which helped write the bill.

Colorado lawmakers eliminated language that would have presumed an officer had job-induced PTSD if he was diagnosed after using deadly force, witnessing a death, being injured or becoming ill on the job, which police chiefs thought was too broad.

“It could be virtually every single police officer who might qualify,” Greenwood Village Police Chief John Jackson, who is vice president of the Colorado Chiefs of Police Association, said. “We believe PTSD is a real issue, we just want to make sure that it’s done properly.”

Similar legislation is under consideration in South Carolina. It was inspired by former Spartanburg County sheriff’s deputy Brandon Bentley, whose doctor told him he was too stressed to return to police work after he fatally shot a man during a domestic disturbance call in 2009.

Bentley, 35, said he spiraled into a depression that was compounded when the state denied him workers’ compensation benefits and he couldn’t make ends meet for his family.

Bentley appealed to the state Supreme Court, which denied his claim, saying the law did not provide mental health benefits for officers because they are trained in the use of deadly force and know that they may have to use it.

Under state legislation still pending, officers who experience stress after using deadly force would have the chance to collect such benefits. But the bill is not retroactive.

“It was never about the money,” he said. “The only thing I want is for these guys and these girls not to go through the same thing I went through.”