. . .[All parties and counsel] had mediation with Judge Hochberg on September 16-18, 2026. We have agreed to continue mediating with Judge Hochberg on October 27-28, 2026. . . .
. . .Wolfe Research upgrades Moderna to Peer Perform and describes the melanoma trial as de risking the intismeran platform, with a clearer regulatory path in adjuvant melanoma and estimated unadjusted peak sales across four indications of $9.2 billion. . . .
Barclays, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital all move price targets materially higher, linking their revisions to the Phase 3 melanoma success and to higher modeled contribution from intismeran. . . .
. . .An engineering model of NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent probe passed a key test that ran from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10, showing it can survive the extreme temperatures of Venus.
The DAVINCI team took the engineering model to a furnace at Rex Heat Treat in Bedford, Pennsylvania, as it’s one of few facilities capable of heating up to Venus-like temperatures as rapidly as the probe would experience. . . .
Encased in a corrosion resistant, strong-yet-lightweight titanium shell, the DAVINCI probe will be equipped with a suite of instruments to sample the composition of the gases of the Venusian atmosphere to determine what molecules they’re made of and learn about the atmosphere’s structure. It will also contain cameras that will snap the highest-resolution images of Venus’ surface ever, which scientists will use to make a 3D map, and a radio system to send data back to the spacecraft flying 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) overhead.
This heat testing follows on the heels of a campaign earlier this summer to demonstrate the probe’s imaging system. The mission is currently working toward gaining approval to move into the final design and fabrication phase. “The DAVINCI team has now met both of the major mission milestones this year on an accelerated timeline,” Garvin said. Showing that the DAVINCI probe can beat the Venusian heat, brings scientists one step closer to learning why Earth’s “twin” turned out so different from our home.. . .
Those CNN (and other) reporters' hard passes are immediately restored -- for 1600 Penn press events. Amendment First still exists -- even if Trump cannot read and comprehend the clear English language, in the Bill of Rights.
Indeed, Tangerine 1.0 lost exactly this same sort of overreach case -- during his first term. See, Jennings. What a malign moron:
. . .[Trumpian] Defendants do not dispute that [CNN] Plaintiffs did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before their hard passes were revoked. And, as in Karem, the record is bereft of any relevant "formally articulated standards" in place before any of the conduct for which Defendants revoked their hard passes. Karem, 960 F.3d at 665. One standard Defendants appear to offer reflected in letters they sent to Plaintiffs on September 22, 2026, identifying their objectionable reporting is so vague it hardly does the trick. See, e.g., ECF No. 16-1 ("[Y]our organization has exhibited behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex.").
Moreover, Defendants renewed Plaintiff Betsy Klein's hard pass several months after she published some of the identified reporting, undercutting any argument that she or her employer, for example, had the requisite notice that the conduct at issue violated a relevant standard. See ECF No. 2-3 9| 4; ECF No. 16-1. Finally, nothing put Plaintiffs on notice of the magnitude of the sanction Defendants imposed. Karem, 960 F.3d at 665.
None of Defendants' arguments convince the Court that Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on their due process claim. Defendants say that Sherrill and Karem were wrongly decided. ECF No. 16 at 12. Maybe -- but this Court is bound by D.C. Circuit precedent, full stop. . . .
Florence? No, Rome!
. . .big fun -- but still no blogging. . . .
Updated: on to Rome by the morning of the 22nd. . . .
Underway -- with a long day in the air, and ground transfers -- from JFK to Nice, France.
Day Two, on the French Riviera -- swim shakeout. . . falling silent, now:
. . .blog forecast -- outage through Sept. 25, 2026. . . .
. . .MINUTE entry before the Honorable Sara L. Ellis:
The court sets a Telephone conference for 9/11/2026 at 10:00 a.m.
Attorneys/Parties should appear for the hearing by calling the Toll-Free Number: (650) 479-3207, Access Code: 2314 361 1508.
Entering an attendee code is not required. Throughout the telephonic hearing, each speaker will be expected to identify themselves for the record before speaking.
Please note that the conference call-in will be used by all cases that are on the court's calendar for the said date, therefore counsel must be in a quiet area while on the line and must have the telephone muted until your case is called. Members of the public and media will be able to call in to listen to this hearing (use toll-free number). Please be sure to keep your phone on mute when you are not speaking. Persons granted remote access to proceedings are reminded of the general prohibition against photographing, recording, and rebroadcasting court proceedings.
Violation of these prohibitions may result in sanctions, including removal of court-issued media credentials, restricted entry to future hearings, denial of entry to future hearings, or any other sanctions deemed necessary by the Court. . . .
So, now the Trump FCC attempts -- to limit primarily Democratic Committee reach, on a "political ad spending" basis -- have failed. I don't love committee spending, as a rule -- but it is plainly consistent with the free expression/political speech precepts we've long held, in the US.
This one involves (in the succint prose of Amy Howe) Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) and three other Democrats who are/were candidates for the House or Senate went to the full FCC on April 29, 2026 -- asking it to review the public notice. Approximately six weeks later, before the agency had acted on their application for review, they went to federal court, where they argued that the public notice was inconsistent with federal election laws. That is correct.
But as it now stands, both Democratic and Republican Committees will be able to buy ads at preferential rates (should they wish to) -- going into the midterms.
This confirms my view of the First Amendment law. And whatever Trump's FCC does (or tries to do, more precisely -- beyond its charter), after the midterm cycle -- will be litigated anew. Here's the decision, of last evening, from the Supremes (and for the record, KBJ was the lone dissenter -- I get her point; but I think freer speech is. . . better):
. . .Because the candidates’ application for review was pending when they filed their petition for review, the Fourth Circuit likely lacked statutory jurisdiction to address their challenge. Its holding to the contrary splits with every other Circuit to have considered the issue. Council Tree Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 503 F. 3d 284, 287 (CA3 2007); Alabama Power Co. v. FCC, 311 F. 3d 1357, 1366 (CA11 2002); International Telecard Assn. v. FCC, 166 F. 3d 387, 388 (CADC 1999) (per curiam). Accordingly, the first and second stay factors weigh in favor of granting the application.
The party committees have also demonstrated that they will likely suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. They represent that, in light of the Fourth Circuit’s decision -- which the Fourth Circuit likely lacked jurisdiction to issue -- broadcasters are already rescinding favorable rates. Current and future recissions will require the party committees to pay more for advertising space, thereby hampering their efforts to reach the electorate in the critical weeks leading up to the midterms. That injury, which implicates their First Amendment rights to speak and coordinate their political activities freely. . . .
. . .A federal magistrate judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to reveal the identities of the people who devised a contentious plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate those who believed they were wronged by political prosecutions.
The order by the magistrate judge, Ivan D. Davis, could shed further light on how the fund was put together. The plan to create the fund, which could have funneled taxpayer money to the president’s allies, drew repeated scrutiny. It prompted a rare rebuke from Senate Republicans, and imperiled the confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Mr. Blanche has repeatedly said the fund is dead, but President Trump has been more circumspect, indicating his support for compensating people like the rioters who [make the preposterous claim that they were done wrong, when they were] prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. . . .
The lawyers for Tangerine well-knew this was a loser. USDC Judge Xinis' orders were clear, logical and well-grounded in settled black letter federal law.
So Team Tangerine didn't even bother to timely file papers to explain any putative reason(s) for originally appealing their complete loss.
. . .The court dismisses this proceeding for failure to prosecute pursuant to Local Rule 45. The court dismisses this proceeding for failure to prosecute pursuant to Local Rule 45.
For the Court--By Direction
/s/ Nwamaka Anowi, Clerk. . . .
. . .Idiot America is not the place where people say silly things. It is not the place where people believe silly things. It is not the place where people go to profit from the fact that people believe in silly things. That America has been with us always -- the America of the medicine wagon and the tent revival, the America of the juke joint and the gambling den, the America of lunatic possibility that in its own mad way kept the original revolutionary spirit alive while an establishment began to calcify atop the place. Idiot America isn’t even those people who believe that Adam sat down one day and named all the dinosaurs. . . .
The rise of Idiot America, though, is essentially a war on expertise. . . The rise of Idiot America today reflects -- for profit, mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power -- the breakdown of the consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people we should trust the least are the people who know best what they’re talking about. . . .
Idiot America is a collaborative effort, the result of millions of decisions made and not made. It’s the development of a collective Gut at the expense of a collective mind. It’s what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and not merely do we abandon the right to punish them for it at the polls, but we also become too timid to punish them with ridicule on a daily basis, because the polls say they’re popular anyway. It’s what results when leaders are not held to account for mistakes that end up killing people. . . .
[His] Three Great Premises:
1. Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.
2. Anything can be true is someone says it loudly enough.
3. Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it. . . .
. . .Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak has claimed 252 lives so far this year, with confirmed cases reaching 1,035, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC).
The agency reported 14 new confirmed cases during epidemiological week 33, covering Aug. 10-16, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed infections in 2026 to 1,035, Anadolu agency reported. . . .
The 252 deaths represent a case-fatality rate of 24.4%, up from 18.6% during the same period last year, when 159 deaths were recorded from 854 confirmed cases.
The NCDC said Lassa fever has been confirmed in 23 states and 117 local government areas across the country this year.
Five states -- Ondo, Bauchi, Taraba, Edo and Benue -- account for 87% of all confirmed cases, while the remaining 13% were reported across 18 other states. . . .
. . .After eight years, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission is about to enter its Mercury Arrival Phase. On 3 September 2026, ESA’s Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) will separate from BepiColombo’s two science orbiters – the first major step in one of the most operationally challenging planetary arrival sequences ever attempted by ESA.
The European Space Agency (ESA) will livestream the critical milestone from 13:45 CEST. Tune in and witness the first step of one of the most complex phases of the mission, live from ESA mission control. . . .
BepiColombo's arrival is one of the most demanding operational sequences ever carried out by ESA. MTM's separation on 3 September is just the first step. After MTM has separated, in November ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) will enter orbit around Mercury together, before separating from each other in December 2026. Science operations will begin in April 2027. . . .
. . .A global initiative to establish a stockpile of mpox vaccines was launched on 27 August, creating a long-term mechanism to ensure countries have access to vaccines when responding to mpox outbreaks.
Set to begin operations later this month, this new global mpox vaccine stockpile that all countries can access is a resource that was approved by the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) in 2025, and is funded by Gavi and coordinated by the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision. The ICG partners are the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The initiative builds on the Access and Allocation Mechanism established in 2024 during the last mpox Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and will ensure that countries have timely and equitable access to vaccines for outbreak response.
Mpox continues to cause outbreaks globally, with two-thirds of reported cases occurring in the African Region. From 1 January 2022 to 31 July 2026, 145 countries and territories reported 190 683 confirmed cases and 529 deaths. Mpox is a viral disease that spreads primarily through close physical contact between people, while animal-to-human transmission continues to occur in parts of Africa, contributing to the ongoing risk of new outbreaks. . . .
. . .NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the mission’s Coronagraph Instrument, which will block starlight to view planets and dusty disks around nearby stars. Now the instrument will undergo a monthslong series of calibrations and tests prior to beginning full science operations.
The coronagraph power-on began at 7:27 a.m. EDT and completed at 8:22 a.m. on Sept. 1.
The Roman Coronagraph is a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors designed to demonstrate the most advanced technologies ever flown in space for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from stars and make it possible for scientists to see the faint reflected light from planets in orbit around them. . . .
. . .The final two of ESA's pioneering Cluster spacecraft, Samba and Tango, will end their journeys as they burn up in our atmosphere on 31 August and 1 September respectively. Their targeted reentries mark the end of a mission that has transformed our understanding of Earth's magnetic environment. The final moments also offer a rare scientific opportunity for reentry observations from a plane. . . .
“When a spacecraft reenters the atmosphere, it experiences extreme forces. Temperatures soar, materials melt and vaporise, and the spacecraft gradually breaks apart. But how exactly?” says Stijn Lemmens, senior space debris mitigation analyst at ESA.
“We need to understand better how they disintegrate to inform the design of spacecraft that can burn up completely, reducing the risk on the ground, while we also aim to prevent pollution of the atmosphere. . . .”
As we wait until we can share the first image from Samba’s demise today, the final reentry time prediction was confirmed for Tango.
Later today, Tango will reenter the atmosphere at 21:30:31 UTC / 23:30:31 CEST, with an uncertainty remaining of +/- 10 seconds either way. . . .
. . .A $1.8 billion artificial intelligence data center under construction in Kenilworth is facing pushback from residents.
The project is located at the Northeast Science and Technology Center (NEST) campus. The old Merck & Co. building will house the data center.
CoreWeave, a company that specializes in AI infrastructure, purchased a large portion of property on the campus in 2025 to build the center.
Despite the Kenilworth Borough Council's approval of the project, it has largely flown under the radar until recently.
Truly this is trivial -- compared to all his other criminality. And, in any event, perhaps it is good (relatively speaking) to let this reprobate waste his days obsessing over gold leaf in a new ballroom, rather than waging wars of choice and vastly destructive (to ordinary Americans) trade wars with Canada.
Perhaps that is what the Chief now thinks. But it is clear that the other five are wrong: only Congress has this power.
As soon as a plaintiff appears with standing (like a taxpayer, in a new suit) this will all end.
But do read this: Amy Howe -- over at ScotusBlog has it exactly right:
. . .In his six-page dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, Roberts countered that “[a] historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as,” based on prior court precedent, “an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.” Roberts ended the opinion by quoting Winston Churchill, who said that “[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” “All the more reason,” according to Roberts, “to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House. . . .”
. . .Congo’s authorities said Monday that the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history has topped 6,000 cases. . . [and likely well-over 3,000 deaths].
More than 1,360 people have recovered from the virus, in what authorities said was an “encouraging” development.
The outbreak in eastern Congo is spreading under extremely difficult conditions, fueled by insecurity, displacement, a health workers’ strike and intense population movements. The situation is particularly concerning at displacement sites, where residents already live in extremely precarious conditions. . . .
The World Health Organization has said that it remains out of control and is on track to surpass the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the deadliest on record, which killed more than 11,000 people, primarily in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. . . .
