At 5 a.m. on Thursday, the Washington Metro regional commuter rail system resumed service after a hastily called 24-hour shutdown. New Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld had ordered the service pause so inspectors could look over 600 subway power cables, after a pre-commute fire broke out in one tunnel on Monday. The inspection crew found and repaired cables in three heavily trafficked areas where the damage was so serious that, if Metro had known about it, the lines would have been immediately shut down, Wiedenfeld said, adding, "This is what a safety culture looks like."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Operation Rubific: the government's secret Afghan relocation schemeThe Explainer Massive data leak a 'national embarrassment' that has ended up costing taxpayer billions
-
Melania Trump's intervention on UkraineIn The Spotlight The first lady has been linked to the president's u-turn on sending arms to Kyiv
-
The Retrievals, series two: 'essential listening'The Week Recommends The second instalment of this hard-hitting podcast delves into the 'appallingly common injustice' of women having C-sections without pain relief
-
Measles cases surge to 33-year highSpeed Read The infection was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 but has seen a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy
-
Kennedy's vaccine panel signals skepticism, changeSpeed Read RFK Jr.'s new vaccine advisory board intends to make changes to the decades-old US immunization system
-
Kennedy ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory panelspeed read Health Secretary RFK Jr. is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has criticized the panel of experts
-
RFK Jr. scraps Covid shots for pregnant women, kidsSpeed Read The Health Secretary announced a policy change without informing CDC officials
-
New FDA chiefs limit Covid-19 shots to elderly, sickspeed read The FDA set stricter approval standards for booster shots
-
US overdose deaths plunged 27% last yearspeed read Drug overdose still 'remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44,' said the CDC
-
Trump seeks to cut drug prices via executive orderspeed read The president's order tells pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices, but it will likely be thrown out by the courts
-
RFK Jr. visits Texas as 2nd child dies from measlesSpeed Read An outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease continues to grow following a decade of no recorded US measles deaths
