CBS News
Grenfell Tower fire inquiry says U.S. company Arconic “deliberately concealed” dangers of building materials
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.”
“By late 2007 Arconic had become aware that there was serious concern in the construction industry about the safety of ACM panels and had itself recognized the danger they posed,” the report says. “By the summer of 2011 it was well aware that Reynobond 55 PE in cassette form [the material used on Grenfell Tower] performed much worse in a fire and was considerably more dangerous than in riveted form. Nonetheless, it was determined to exploit what it saw as weak regulatory regimes in certain countries (including the UK) to sell Reynobond 55 PE in cassette form, including for use on residential buildings.”
CBS News has asked Arconic to comment on the allegations laid out in the report published Wednesday.
Ongoing inquiry
Earlier phases of the multi-year inquiry concluded that some of the companies that manufactured the materials used in the cladding on Grenfell Tower, including Arconic, continued to market their products as safe, despite some employees knowing they were flammable.
Emails shared with the inquiry appeared to show that some Arconic employees knew of the fire risk associated with the cladding used on Grenfell Tower, but that the company continued to sell it anyway.
When approached in 2021 about whether its employees knew about the fire risks associated with Arconic’s cladding, Arconic told CBS News it was “continuing to offer their full support to the authorities as the inquiry works through the complex questions presented. It is not appropriate for us to comment further while the Inquiry is ongoing and before all evidence has been presented in Phase Two.”
“These corporations are still operating as if nothing has happened,” Karim Mussilhy, whose uncle was killed in the fire, told CBS News in 2021.
In the wake of the deadly blaze, apartment buildings across the U.K. that were covered in the same or similar external cladding materials were found to be unsafe, leaving thousands of people trapped in dangerous homes and unable to sell because banks won’t provide new mortgages on the properties in question.
“People should be safe in their homes. People shouldn’t have to feel like they’re going to sleep and not knowing if they’re going to wake up or not,” Mussilhy said in 2021.
Victims still seeking justice
The Grenfell Inquiry launched with a first hearing on Sept.14, 2017. The families of some victims and survivors said they’ve been denied justice as it’s gone on.
“It’s meant criminal prosecutions couldn’t have happened,” said Nazanin Aghlani, whose mother Sakina Afrasehabi was killed in the fire. She told CBS News’ partner network BBC News that prosecutions should have happened before the public inquiry.
She said the inquiry had even given “all those people that should be facing criminal prosecutions” a platform “to tell their version of the story.”
London’s Metropolitan Police said in May that no criminal prosecutions related to the Grenfell fire would begin until 2026, according to the BBC. The police were expected to make a statement later Wednesday.
“We’ve been waiting seven years to find out the facts, that are gonna be in black and white,” Nick Burton, who was rescued from the 19th floor of the tower, told the BBC, hoping the report would “tell the truth about these corporations and their part that they played in the fire.”
“We need to know who is actually accountable, who actually made the decisions that led to this horror and who can actually be pinned down and charged,” Emma Dent Coad, a former member of parliament for London’s central Kensington district, told the BBC.
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Fact checking Election Day 2024 claims about voter fraud, ballot counting and more
Throughout Election Day and night, CBS News’ Confirmed team will be fact checking reports of threats around voting today, voter fraud, election hacking, and more as the nation votes and waits to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States., CBS News’ full coverage of the election is here.
False: Elon Musk claimed Google intentionally manipulating search results in favor of Harris
X owner Elon Musk posted, then deleted, a screen recording comparing the Google searches. The post reached over 2.5 million views before its removal, with other posts garnering thousands of views.
Details: Google said searches for “where to vote for Harris” yielded a polling location map because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas, not because of bias for the Democratic candidate.
Searching for “where to vote for Trump” returned news articles and standard search results, while “where to vote for Vance” produced a similar polling locations map because Vance is the name of a county in North Carolina.
Google adjusted its algorithm Tuesday to prevent candidate-related queries from returning polling maps. Google trends data show that searching “where to vote” is a much more common query than searching where to vote for either Trump or Harris.
By Julia Ingram and Layla Ferris
False: Social media posts claim Milwaukee mayor, a Democrat, said the city’s votes would not be counted on election night
On X, users claimed that the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee said at a news conference that Milwaukee would not be counting ballots tonight.
Details: Votes in Milwaukee will be tabulated tonight despite posts on the social media platform X that have pushed a false claim that Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said votes in the city won’t be counted on election night.
In reality, vote counting started Tuesday morning and will continue late into Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the city’s so-called “central count” location, according to Johnson’s communications director, Jeff Fleming.
“They’ve already started tabulating, and had tabulated thousands of ballots by this afternoon,” Fleming said. “The vote totals exceeded our original projections, so the workload at central count is higher than expected.”
Milwaukee’s votes can take longer to count for several reasons, Barry Burden, Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, said.
“It’s the biggest city, and it has the most ballots, and it also counts absentee ballots at a central location,” Burden said. “That’ll be after midnight, 1 (a.m.) or 2 a.m.”
The city’s more than 200 election workers started counting votes at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Fleming said. They’ll continue the tabulation overnight, and ballots will be delivered to county clerks either the next day or the day after, depending on local rules.
By Chris Hacker
Spreadsheet error corrected: GOP U.S. House candidate says Harris County, Texas, early vote results showed big drops and spikes in early voting
U.S. House candidate Caroline Kane, a Republican running in Texas’ 7th District, posted on X Monday that Harris County’s early vote results showed significant drops and spikes in the number of early voters for several voting locations between Sunday and Monday, which should not be possible.
Details: Election officials said a misaligned spreadsheet caused the publicly reported early vote totals in Harris County to appear incorrectly. Local officials have corrected the document posted online by Kane. They noted the spreadsheet was labeled “unofficial” and said the error would not impact the official vote tally.
In a statement, the Office of the Harris County Clerk said, “In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.”
“I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied,” the statement from the clerk’s office concluded.
By Jui Sarwate
Software malfunction prevented some voters from scanning ballots in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Voting hours extended to 10 p.m. in the county.
Details: Local courts have extended voting hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Cambria County, Pennsylvania after local officials said a “software malfunction” prevented voters from scanning their ballots early Tuesday morning.
Voters are using paper ballots as technicians review the issue.
“All votes will be counted and we continue to encourage everyone to vote,” the county commissioner’s office said in a press release.
According to the county’s petition to extend voting hours, the malfunction “caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State said it is in contact with Cambria County and is “committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”
Cambria County, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, has a population of approximately 131,000. Trump won the county 68% to 31% in 2020, and he won by a similar margin in 2016.
By Steve Reilly, Julia Ingram, Layla Ferris
False: Non-citizens encouraged to vote in Philadelphia
Conservative commentator James O’Keefe claimed non-citizens are being encouraged to vote in Philadelphia.
Details: Philadelphia officials said allegations by commentator James O’Keefe that non-citizens are being encouraged to vote are incorrect. O’Keefe posted a new video on Monday claiming Election Clerk Milton Jamerson and Ceiba, a local non-profit, advised voting with an ITIN number, regardless of citizenship.
The video received 1.6 million views on X as of Tuesday, and was reposted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said it was “the smoking gun of attempted election theft.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said the report was incorrect and non-citizens are not eligible to vote in Philadelphia. ITINs are for tax purposes and not linked to voting eligibility. Ceiba called O’Keefe’s claims “unfounded and based on harmful stereotypes.”
By Joanne Stocker and Emmet Lyons
CBS News
Sen. Laphonza Butler on Harris campaign on Election Day 2024
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