DrunkEngineer, drunkengineer@lemmy.world

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a top official with the National Institutes of Health who blew the whistle on internal clashes over vaccine research in the early months of the Trump administration.

Storefront in Berkeley (of course it is Berkeley).

Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20251002200413/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/arts/design/trump-eisenhower-king-charles-sword.html

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is providing the following information to urge the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) to take immediate action on the safety recommendations in this report concerning electrical fires aboard Silverliner IV railcars in passenger service. We identified this issue during our investigation into a February 6, 2025, fire in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, and four additional fires involving Silverliner IV railcars over the following months.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, today hailed the success of his bold air quality policies which have led to the capital’s air pollution levels falling to within the legal limit for the first time.  

Multiple sources close to Fox25 have told us that State Superintendent Ryan Walters is planning to resign, with an announcement expected on Friday, Sept. 26, with plans to take a position in the private sector.

If you’ve wandered onto social media in the last week, chances are good that an algorithm seemingly designed to reward snuff films served you a video of a gruesome killing. Among the clips is footage of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska being brutally, fatally stabbed on the Charlotte Light Rail by Decarlos Brown Jr., who faces both a first-degree murder charge and a federal charge for committing an act of death on a mass transit system.

An eyewitness said that the driver of a grey BMW 52I hit a man in his 30s walking his German shepherd and dragged him for at least a block, and then looped back, rammed another car, jumped the sidewalk and hit a man on a bicycle, which was left mangled at the scene.

Taxing Britain’s SUVs in line with other European countries could raise almost £2bn a year for the public finances, research has shown.

California could pay hundreds of millions of dollars to cover maintenance costs at Valero Energy Co.’s refinery in Benicia in an effort to stave off the plant’s closure, according to Bloomberg. 

Old Grudge

The federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles moved to disqualify acting US attorney Bill Essayli, citing a decision that ruled New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor ineligible to serve on similar grounds.

A misguided proposal to give state DOTs yet more “flexibility” in spending federal dollars is one more example of how the desire for bipartisanship on transportation too often leads to bad policy and outcomes. This proposal would almost certainly result in more money being transferred into wasteful highway spending, especially in states that are currently failing to produce good outcomes with the massive “flexibility” that they already have. Why give these low performers more in exchange for nothing in return?

In June, Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican serving on the House Oversight Committee, appeared on BlazeTV’s Prime Time with Alex Stein, where he discussed his belief that giants once existed. Burlison told Stein he was scheduled to be at “NephCon 2025,” a conference focused on fringe topics including the biblical Nephilim —figures in Genesis that some interpret as the giant offspring of angels and human women.

The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, a White House official said Friday, after the Department of Justice accused the school of antisemitism and other civil rights violations.

Joel and Kathryn Friedman, both 71, are counting the days until they can sell their home and move into a 55-plus community.

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday creating a task force to oversee the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and he's putting himself in charge of it.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the beginning of a coordinated wind-down of its mRNA vaccine development activities under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), including the cancellation and de-scoping of various contracts and solicitations. The decision follows a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Several years ago, traffic crashes and pedestrian deaths from speeding were out of control in Uruguay. So, officials installed a national network of speed cameras.