Grenfell Tower fire inquiry says U.S. company Arconic "deliberately concealed" dangers of building materials
CBSN
London - The public inquiry into the deadly 2017 fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower, a high-rise public housing apartment building in central London, published its final report Wednesday on the disaster that killed 72 people. The blaze — London's deadliest since World War II — was blamed on a litany of failures, from shoddy construction and materials to poor local management and inadequate fire safety standards.
Among the parties found to have played a role in the tragedy by the inquiry is the American company Arconic, which made and sold the building's exterior cladding through a French subsidiary.
The report's authors said the Pittsburgh-based company "deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger of using" the materials that were added to Grenfell Tower during a renovation, "particularly on high-rise buildings."
London - Britain's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced Thursday that there would be a number of new central government-backed local inquiries into years-old allegations of child grooming gangs, weeks after Elon Musk accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failings in relation to the handling of the crimes in a series of tweets. The crimes took place a decade ago when Starmer was the country's top prosecutor.
In a roughly 30-minute phone call Sunday afternoon, President Biden delivered difficult news to the families of three Americans held by the Taliban. He did not have a deal with the Taliban to free their loved ones from captivity, despite what U.S. officials described to CBS News as a significant offer the U.S. had extended in Doha days earlier. The U.S. considers Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann to be wrongfully detained by the Taliban, and describes Mahmood Habibi, who holds dual American and Afghan citizenship, as "unjustly held" since 2022.