national news, but the shooting at the GOP congressional baseball practice has completely eclipsed all other stories. Even with little to no new information, none of the big three news outlets will let this go. No one had died from their injuries. I doubt that victims of the tower fire in London were as lucky.

had complained to the management and authorities about problems with the building's safety, including poor lighting of the fire escapes, lack of adequate fire alarms, and dated electrical systems for several years. None of those issues were ever addressed.

There were 125 families living in that building and the entire building was engulfed in less than one hour. I have seen interviews of residents who escaped and none of them thus far interviewed lived above the ninth floor. As quickly as the blaze spread and the lack of an adequate alarm system in the building, I am afraid that the death toll will end up being very high. This is another horrible tragedy that should have been preventable.

You want jobs or not!

Our oligarchs are now global. They don't give FF about the common people. Commoners are there to serve the oligarchy. If that means they die in war, burn up in a building, or just languish until death, it doesn't matter as long as the profit margin and bonuses add up. .

It was in a Cook County building. All buildings are required to have sprinkler systems. This one didn't. It seems that the County exempted it's own buildings from the requirement.

Fire started in a file room where gasoline was stored. I think people died.

Hmmm! Storing gasoline along with old dry paper. What could go wtong?

08:35
Cladding review launched

Robert Booth Robert Booth
Dozens of tower blocks from the 1960s and 1970s have been refurbished with new thermal cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower and a review of some of those installations is already under way, the Guardian understands.

A construction industry source confirmed that professionals were examining multiple refurbishment projects in the wake of the fire.

One architect, who has been responsible for several re-cladding projects but asked not to be named, said that the common rainscreen system used on Grenfell Tower is designed to include fire-breaks at every floor and around every window.

He said that if installed correctly, flames should not be able to sweep through the cavities behind the panels because of the fire retardant breaks.

“The issue is the cavity between the existing wall and the rainscreen,” he said. “There needs to be firestops at every floor level and around every window.”

It is not yet known what caused the fire or how it spread. Rydon, the contractor said it “met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards”.

The architect added that 1970s blocks such as Grenfell featured “one escape stair which is not designed for a mass evacuation, but is designed for a small number of people to get out whose individual flats are on fire”.

He said the “stay put” strategy which was in place at Grenfell was intended to stop people getting hurt if a small number of flats were on fire.

“The ‘stay put’ strategy clearly wouldn’t work when the fire is roaring up outside the building,” he said. “That is a strategy that would lead to certain death in the circumstances of this fire.”

It emerged the cladding used in Grenfell Tower was behind a rapidly spreading blaze at a tower block in Melbourne in 2014. An eighth-floor fire raced up 13 floors to the roof of the 21-storey building in 11 minutes. The spread was “directly associated” with the external cladding, said the fire brigade.