Hundreds of firefighters battled a massive blaze at a pallet facility warehouse Tuesday evening in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. “Currently, numerous firefighters and emergency personnel are battling a massive 4-alarm fire at a pallet warehouse facility in West Town, Chicago, Illinois. The scene is marked by heavy flames and thick smoke visible for miles, intensifying as the fire spreads. Police have issued advisories urging the public to steer clear of the area due to the heavy black smoke, which poses risks to air quality. At this time, the cause of the fire remains unknown, and the situation continues to unfold,” Rawsalerts wrote. “According to Officials who are on the scene The fire has escalated to a HazMat situation due to the presence of a fertilizer company they are asking people to avoid the area,” an update read. WATCH: #UPDATE: According to Officials who are on the scene The fire has escalated to a HazMat situation due to the presence of a fertilizer company they are asking people to avoid the area pic.twitter.com/rYbDTtc2Fk — R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 19, 2024 “3-11 Alarm Fire @ 2029 W Hubbard. Pallets on fire in a building supply warehouse (MD),” Chicago Fire Media posted. “Alarm has been upgraded to a 4-11 by 2-1-6. 3 Elevated, 7 Master Streams working,” an update read. Alarm has been upgraded to a 4-11 by 2-1-6. 3 Elevated, 7 Master Streams working. pic.twitter.com/NdflNUKRu7 — Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) June 18, 2024 ABC7 Chicago reports: Chicago Fire Department First District Chief Jim McDonough said the call for the fire in the 2000-block of West Hubbard Street first came in just after 5:45 p.m. The fire broke out at a pallet company that has an industrial space comprising two-story front office area and then a massive single story warehouse that held approximately 20,000 wooden pallets at the time the fire broke out, McDonough said. The fire initially broke out in the back side of the building, in the warehouse where the most wood was. McDonough said strong winds from the south helped the fire spread rapidly, leaving firefighters at a disadvantage when they arrived at the scene. The flames also caused the warehouse roof to collapse. The fire department declared a hazmat situation as a precaution the site shortly after 7:30 p.m., due to the unknown nature of the materials burning in the building. The hazmat will remain in place until they have more information on those materials and any risks they could pose. #BREAKING: Four-Alarm Fire at Commercial Pallet Yard. The fire has escalated to a HazMat situation due to the presence of a fertilizer company. Police are ensuring everyone stays at least a block away. #Chicago | #Illinois The smoke produced while burning pallets can… pic.twitter.com/3RBaJ4Nxmr — Citizen (@CitizenApp) June 19, 2024 HUGE FIRE @ A PALLET YARD! – Chicago, #Illinois. Chicago | 2-11 Alarm Fire | 2029 W Hubbard | Pallet yard on fire with exposure issues. 317 Video credit: WGN News. @CPD1617Scanner pic.twitter.com/bXijxFHPRo — Chicago & Midwest Storm Chasers (@ChicagoMWeather) June 18, 2024 From the Chicago Tribune: No injuries were reported in the initial fire, but two firefighters suffered minor injuries while battling the blaze. Public records list the business as Commercial Pallet. The blaze that sent plumes of smoke over West Town erupted around 5:50 p.m. after the facility had closed for the day, Chicago Fire District Chief Jim McDonough told reporters Tuesday evening near the still-smoldering scene. The building, which contained 20,000 pallets, was “completely lost,” he said. A 4-11 alarm is one of the largest responses the department can signal, summoning vast amounts of firefighting personnel, equipment and the fire commissioner. Fire crews responded to a call of pallets on fire in a building supply warehouse, fire officials said. Flames were visible from the intersection of South Damen and West Hubbard, into the evening hours. WATCH:

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on bump stocks for firearms, Democrats introduced legislation to reinstate the ban. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) sought “unanimous consent” to pass the ‘BUMP Act.’ However, a Republican senator objected and stalled the bill. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) blocked the legislation from moving forward, and several other GOP senators backed his objection. “@SenatorRicketts has BLOCKED the passage of a fake ‘bump stock ban’ which also required semiautomatic gun registration under the unconstitutional National Firearms Act of 1934. It would also have encouraged a new ATF rule banning most semiautomatic firearms,” Gun Owners of America wrote. 2A WIN@SenatorRicketts has BLOCKED the passage of a fake "bump stock ban" which also required semiautomatic gun registration under the unconstitutional National Firearms Act of 1934. It would also have encouraged a new ATF rule banning most semiautomatic firearms. https://t.co/am0wpgUzs9 pic.twitter.com/pSFcsFRuWY — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 18, 2024 WATCH: Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) blocks Democrats' unanimous consent request to ban bump stocks: "[Schumer] claims this bill will ban bump stocks … If you actually read the bill, that's not what it does at all. The Bump Act targets common firearm accessories, not just bump stocks." pic.twitter.com/2zSuF149rR — The Recount (@therecount) June 18, 2024 Per CNN: Criticizing the bill as overreach, Ricketts said, “This bill would ban literally any item that makes a firearm easier and in some cases safer to shoot.” “It’s not really about bump stocks, this bill is about banning as many firearm accessories as possible,” he said. “It’s an unconstitutional attack on law-abiding gun owners.” Earlier this week, several senior Republican senators expressed a tentative openness to legislation restricting the use of bump stocks, but others argued it wasn’t a good idea. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said “no,” he does not support any legislation restricting or banning bump stocks – a significant block to any potential bill. “The court ruling was accurate,” he added. Senate Democrats sought to use unanimous consent to pass legislation banning bump stocks for firearms, but Republican Pete Ricketts just objected — effectively blocking the bill. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 18, 2024 “The Second Amendment says Congress has NO AUTHORITY to ban semiautomatic firearms, machineguns, or even accessories like bump stocks,” Gun Owners of America wrote. The Second Amendment says Congress has NO AUTHORITY to ban semiautomatic firearms, machineguns, or even accessories like bump stocks. — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 18, 2024 NBC News reports: The move Tuesday followed a Supreme Court decision last week saying the executive branch may not use existing law to ban bump stocks, although the 6-3 ruling along ideological lines kept the door open for Congress to regulate the accessories with a new law. Unanimous consent is one mechanism for the Senate to pass legislation speedily, often used for non-controversial measures. Schumer can also bring the bump stock bill or other legislation up through the regular process, which takes more time and requires 60 votes to break a filibuster. That means at least 9 Republicans would have to support it if Democrats and independents stick together. Before the unanimous consent request, Schumer didn’t say whether he’d bring up the bill through regular channels if it stalled, imploring Republicans to “see the light” and not block it.

Let us invite the Lord to take a far more active role in our daily decisions.

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The lead story on Saturday’s PBS News Weekend was based on an American Cancer Society study on how bias and stigma can make LGBTQ people get cancer. At least that’s what Yang seemed to be suggesting to his Cancer Society-representing guest. The bizarre, pseudo-scientific angle is more evidence that the tax-funded ostensibly objective news network of PBS has become a niche market for left-wing obsessions like the gender alphabet, as shown by a NewsBusters study from Fall 2023. Anchor John Yang actually led the program with this arcane take. John Yang: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, a new study highlights how bias affects the detection and treatment of some types of cancer in the LGBTQ community….A first-of-its-kind report from the American Cancer Society is shedding new light on cancer risks for LGBTQ people. The finds that some LGBTQ populations are more likely to have cancer risk factors like smoking, heavy alcohol use, or excess body weight. Transgender people are less likely to be screened for cervical, colorectal and prostate cancer. And LGBTQ people continue to face barriers to high quality health care, including discrimination. Dr. William Dahut is the American Cancer Society's Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Dahut, this is the first time this has being done, this is being looked into. Why now? Why did you decide to do this now? Dahut was in full "woke" mode, as demonstrated by his terminology ("transgender men with a cervix" are known by normal people as "women"). Dr. William Dahut, American Cancer Society: ...overall, the vaccination rates were actually fairly similar to other populations and cisgender populations. I think that was good news. Screening rates are actually are fairly good, except, as you mentioned, and transgender men, where there's much fewer screenings done for colorectal cancer in transgender men with a cervix, of cervical cancer and prostate cancer. So there's a lot of variety, I think. The anchor's follow-up resembled a parody of identity leftism.  Yang: The risk factors, are these directly related to being gay or lesbian or transgender? Or is it also part of because of the stress that comes along with the stigma of being in those communities? Dahut wouldn’t go quite that far, saying "Well, the risk factors themselves are really risk factors for anybody to have cancer." Yang pressed on with his weird idea. Yang: You mentioned biases, how much of this has to do with the culture of maybe society or medical care? There was, along with this report, there was a study came out from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that said 80 percent of LGBTQ cancer patients they surveyed, said they didn't get appropriate preventative screening, 34 percent said their partners felt welcome in the part of their treatment, and only 4 percent of the partners said they felt respected by caregivers. PBS posed those same sort of pseudo-scientific questions regarding black Americans, asking if unequal health outcomes were due to the “chronic stress” blacks suffer from society’s “systemic racism.” This segment was brought to you in part by Cunard. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Weekend 6/15/24 6:04:37 p.m. (ET) John Yang: A first-of-its-kind report from the American Cancer Society is shedding new light on cancer risks for LGBTQ people. It finds that some LGBTQ populations are more likely to have cancer risk factors like smoking, heavy alcohol use, or excess body weight. Transgender people are less likely to be screened for cervical, colorectal, and prostate cancer. And LGBTQ people continue to face barriers to high-quality health care, including discrimination. Dr. William Dahut is the American Cancer Society's Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Dahut, this is the first time this has being done, this is being looked into. Why now? Why did you decide to do this now? Dr. William Dahut, American Cancer Society: Well, thanks very much for having me on today. It's really a great question. You know, it's really important to know that this was really a way for us to get a clue to the cancer risk to this population. Cancer communities, cancer registries do not collect data for cancer deaths, cancer incidents, based on sexual orientation or gender. So I think this is really important to begin to understand is the risk different. So we begin to capture that information in a much more critical way. John Yang: Were there things on your findings that surprised you? And what do you think are the key takeaways from this report? Dr. William Dahut: Yes, a couple of things are really important. I think, first of all, you really need to disaggregate the data by the population. This isn't really one homogeneous group. So certain groups, I think, as you commented on early on, looking at bisexual women in their 40s and 50s. You know, much higher alcohol use, obesity use, tobacco use, these are real risk factors for cancers. Other things were also interesting. You know, overall, the vaccination rates were actually fairly similar to other populations and cisgender populations. I think that was good news. Screening rates are actually are fairly good, except, as you mentioned, and transgender men, where there's much fewer screenings done for colorectal cancer in transgender men with the cervix of cervical cancer and prostate cancer. So there's a lot of variety, I think. John Yang: The risk factors, are these directly related to being gay or lesbian or transgender? Or is it also part of because of the stress that comes along with the stigma of being in those communities? Dr. William Dahut: Well, the risk factors themselves are really risk factors for anybody to have cancer. You know, our data, there's about 40 to 42 percent of cancers are actually preventable. And probably the risk of dying from cancer is actually — the risk prevention, it's much probably easier to prevent die from cancer by changing behavior. And so we focus on those behaviors, you know, alcohol use, obesity, tobacco use, and we did see them higher in this population, particularly in the bisexual woman. And so that gives us concern that there'll be a higher risk of cancer rates and deaths. And then if folks are not seeking medical care because of biases, then there's likelihood that people present with even more advanced diseases or outcomes. John Yang: You mentioned biases, how much of this has to do with the culture of maybe society or medical care? There was a long with this report, there was a study came out from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that said 80 percent of LGBTQ cancer patients they surveyed, said they didn't get appropriate preventative screening, 34 percent said their partners felt welcome in the part of their treatment, and only 4 percent of the partners said they felt respected by caregivers. Dr. William Dahut: Yes, it really is concerning. There was one fact that the paper pointed out that only about 25 percent of current medical students actually felt comfortable and taking care of transgender individuals. And 30 percent, there was really a sense of potential perceived bias, actually, when you thought about it. So I think seeing this hesitancy to seek medical care for real and perceived bias can actually lead to much poor outcome. You know, even if you're screened on time, if you have symptoms, you don't — if you're not seeing your symptoms, you're much more likely to present with more advanced disease. So there clearly are personal concerns by people from this community. John Yang: What lessons can be learned from this and what things can be done to overcome these problems? Dr. William Dahut: Well, I think number one, the first lesson is I think we need more data. We need data actually on true cancer incidence and mortality in the LGBTQ population. So that's important. And secondly, the same things that are likely to drive risk for all folks, we need to focus in on this population to, you know, ensuring people have a normal healthy weight, exercise, don't smoke, and decrease alcohol use. And then really begin to educate our students, our interns, our residents, that's really to have a much more inclusive welcoming attitude because if we actually push people away, the outcomes of particularly in cancer could really be devastating. John Yang: Dr. William Dahut of the American Cancer Society, thank you very much. Dr. William Dahut: Yes. Thanks so much for having me.