By JOSH FUNK

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Transportation Department is going to train 163 track inspectors to dramatically increase the number of people who know how to spot critical problems with railroad bridges, but the railroads themselves will still be responsible for inspecting their own bridges and the results will still be kept confidential.

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Currently, there are only seven Federal Railroad Administration employees trained to assess bridges, although their primary responsibility is to review each railroad’s inspection plan to make sure they have a good plan in place and that won’t change. But this move will train significantly more people to spot structural problems on railroad bridges while they are out inspecting the tracks. Both federal and state track inspectors will be trained.

“The Trump Administration is delivering on its promises to make government more efficient and keep travelers safe,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “Leveraging our existing, dedicated workforce to improve oversight of railroad bridge safety is another common-sense win for Americans.”

Jared Cassity, who is the National Safety Director for the nation’s largest rail union, SMART-TD, agreed that having more people trained to spot bridge problems is a good thing, but these inspectors still have more than 70,000 railroad bridges out there across the country to assess.

“The safety of the railroad system relies upon a multitude of components, but few are as critical to the public and the men and women we represent as the integrity of the bridges America’s trains traverse,” said Cassity, whose union represents conductors.

Because there are so few bridge inspectors at the Federal Railroad Administration, roughly 10% of U.S. railroads have not had their bridge management programs audited even 15 years after the rule on Bridge Safety Standards went into effect. But that issue is primarily at smaller short-line railroads. The Federal Railroad Administration said that the biggest railroads that deliver more than 90% of the nation’s freight have all been audited on a regular basis.

But there have still been high-profile rail bridge collapses like the one in Montana two years ago that sent a train hauling petroleum products into the Yellowstone River, sending tar balls downstream that had to be cleaned up. An Oregon railroad bridge maintained by a short-line railroad also collapsed earlier this year underneath a train — three years after it caught fire.

FILE – A Metro-North Railroad passenger train travels on the Moodna Viaduct steel railroad trestle in Cornwall, New York, April 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

Congress required the railroads to keep bridge inspection reports confidential because of concerns that a terrorist could use them to pinpoint vulnerable bridges. There are provisions of the law that allow state and local officials to request the reports, but those officials have often complained that it is still hard to get that information.

The Association of American Railroads trade group said this move to get more inspectors trained will help ensure rail bridges are safe.

“This important step complements the industry’s own comprehensive bridge management safety programs and rigorous inspections, which will further validate the thousands of rail bridges that keep our economy moving remain structurally sound and properly maintained,” association spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek said.

An Illinois man is charged with felony threats of violence against Minnesota’s lieutenant governor in the wake of last week’s mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Aug. 27 after the shooting that killed two students and injured another 21 people. She said her heart went out to those affected and asked people to join her in prayer.

A person commented on Flanagan’s post: “You should be genuinely shot and killed,” according to the criminal complaint filed Wednesday by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

Flanagan made another post on X thanking police, emergency healthcare workers and clergy.

The same account commented: “Children’s blood is on your hands and soon it will be coming out of your mouth and (expletive) throat as we beat you,” the complaint said. It added that the person also wrote, “You should be strung up by the neck …”

A Minnesota State Patrol trooper working at the Capitol district was assigned the case after a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension criminal intelligence analyst reported their open source aggregation system alerted them to a threatening post.

BCA staff identified the X user by an IP address as Caden J. Sluder, 22, of Oglesby, Ill., the complaint said.

The trooper called a phone number for Sluder on Aug. 27 about his posts. “Sluder said it was a joke,” according to the complaint. “I’m not actually gonna (expletive) do anything. I’m not crazy.”

He said he was “pissed off and Christians got killed in Minnesota and the Lieutenant Governor was wearing a trans shirt.”

The 23-year-old shooter at the church died by suicide afterward. The shooter’s mother had filed a petition for a name change for the suspect from Robert Westman to Robin Westman, noting Robin Westman identified as female, at age 17.

Flanagan has been pictured in the past wearing shirts that say, “Protect Trans Kids.”

Sluder told the trooper “he lives far away and had no intention of traveling to Minnesota to commit the crimes,” the complaint said, adding that he apologized multiple times. He said “he was making a joke, was very frustrated, and expressed his freedom of speech.”

A warrant has been issued for Sluder’s arrest. The Pioneer Press could not reach him for comment Wednesday.

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By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal officials have agreed to restore health- and science-related webpages and data under to a lawsuit settlement with doctors groups and other organizations who sued.

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The settlement was announced this week by the lead plaintiffs in the case, the Washington State Medical Association.

Soon after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, federal health officials deleted or removed information on a range of topics including pregnancy risks, opioid-use disorder and the AIDS epidemic. The move was made in reaction to a Trump executive order that told agencies to stop using the term “gender” in federal policies and documents.

The administration saw it as a move to end the promotion of “gender ideology.” Doctors, scientists and public health advocates saw it as an “egregious example of government overreach,” says Dr. John Bramhall, the organization’s president, said in a statement.

“This was trusted health information that vanished in a blink of an eye — resources that, among other things, physicians rely on to manage patients’ health conditions and overall care,” Bramhall said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to restore more than 100 websites and resources to the state they were in, said Graham Short, a spokesperson for the Washington State doctors’ group.

“We expect the sites will be restored in the coming weeks,” Short said in an email.

The case was filed in federal court in Seattle. The plaintiffs include, among others, the Vermont Medical Society, the Washington State Nurses Association and the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care.

The defendants included U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and federal health agencies and officials who work under him.

Federal officials responded to questions about the settlement with this statement: “HHS remains committed to its mission of removing radical gender and DEI ideology from federal programs, subject to applicable law, to ensure taxpayer dollars deliver meaningful results for the American people.”

The case is similar to one filed in Washington, D.C., by Doctors for America and others against the government. That lawsuit also sought to force the government to restore health information to the public, and the two cases overlapped somewhat in the websites they targeted, Short said.

In July, a judge in the Doctors for America case ordered restoration of websites. As of last week, 167 of the websites at issue had been restored and 33 were still under review, according to a court filing.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By DAVID KLEPPER and MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee says a classified meeting planned with a key U.S. spy agency was called off after it was criticized by Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist.

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The cancellation of Sen. Mark Warner’s visit with career intelligence staffers at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency represents an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to block Congress from exercising oversight over the nation’s intelligence agencies.

“Is congressional oversight dead?” Warner, of Virginia, said Wednesday, questioning Loomer’s authority over the intelligence community. “Is she now the secretary of defense and the director of national intelligence?”

Loomer has taken credit for the State Department suspending visas for wounded Palestinian children seeking medical treatment in the U.S. and several staff changes in the administration, accusing some officials of not being not sufficiently loyal to Trump. Loomer has a history of making racist and anti-Islamic attacks on social media, and once shared a video on X that said “9/11 was an Inside Job!”

While not as well known as the CIA or NSA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency handles the collection and analysis of imaging information, including satellite imagery, used for military and intelligence operations. Its director reports to both the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense.

Warner said he has had more than a dozen similar meetings with the NGA and other spy agencies under Republican and Democratic presidencies, including during Trump’s first term. He said he was hoping to ask the NGA about its use of artificial intelligence and other matters.

In a social media post Sunday, Loomer detailed plans for the meeting and criticized Warner and Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, the NGA’s director, who was tapped to lead the agency by former President Joe Biden.

“I’m told NGA is infested with Trump haters,” Loomer wrote.

In a post Tuesday, Loomer took credit for exposing the meeting and called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fire Whitworth.

Warner said he believes the meeting was canceled by Hegseth’s office. The Pentagon said the visit was not canceled but rescheduled “to accommodate bipartisan participation in the town hall event.”

Spokespeople for the NGA and for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to comment. Loomer did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Trump has downplayed Loomer’s influence, but a growing list of administration officials have resigned or been dismissed following her criticism.

They include former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Vinay Prasad, who announced his departure in August; Jen Easterly, former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who was dismissed from a post at the U.S. Military Academy; as well as Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, former director of the NSA and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.

The State Department also announced last month that it would suspend all visitor visas for people from Gaza, pending a review, a day after Loomer posted videos on social media of children from Gaza arriving in the U.S. for medical treatment and questioned how they got visas. The administration announced a new, restrictive visa policy for Gaza this week.