149 buildings in UK fail fire safety tests

LONDON • Some 149 high-rise buildings have failed safety tests introduced after a deadly tower block fire in west London, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday while criticising a decision to hold a council meeting on the disaster in private.

The spokesman told reporters: "So far, the cladding from 149 high-rise buildings in 45 local authority areas have failed the tests.

"That continues to be a 100 per cent test failure rate."

REUTERS

Court backs seizure of Hitler's birth home

VIENNA • Austria's highest court ruled yesterday in favour of last year's controversial expropriation of the house where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was born, ending a long-running bitter saga between the state and the former owner.

The government took control of the dilapidated building in the northern town of Braunau in December after MPs approved an expropriation law aimed specifically at the property.

The government said it had been necessary to force a decision on the issue to stop the premises from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE