A California city in Ventura County, part of the greater Los Angeles region.
A fast-moving brush fire in Simi Valley has grown to multiple hundreds of acres, prompting evacuation orders for parts of Ventura County and Thousand Oaks as winds shift conditions. Firefighters are contending with windy, dry weather and ongoing containment efforts.
A Long Island Expressway coach bus carrying Royal Jordanian Airlines crew has crashed near Exit 16 in Queens. One crew member has died; the driver and a passenger are dead at the scene. Several others are hospitalized with varying injuries as investigators probe the cause.
The Ventura County district attorney’s office has announced that Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji escalated a verbal confrontation and struck Paul Kessler with a megaphone during a Thousand Oaks protest. Kessler died the following day. The court has refused a harsher sentence, prompting renewed calls for justice from Kessler’s family.
Federal and local probes have produced new findings and warnings about autonomous vehicles. The NTSB has reported that a Tesla driver manually overrode Full Self-Driving before a June crash that killed a 76‑year‑old in Katy, Texas. NHTSA has issued a directive demanding AV developers fix cases where driverless cars enter or block emergency scenes; Waymo and California regulators are under pressure over several incidents.
Waymo has announced the expansion of its driverless robotaxi fleet to four new U.S. cities, starting with employee rides before opening to the public. The Ojai vehicle is introduced as a comfort-focused option, with expansion plans across San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa, and Denver. The rollout faces regulatory approvals and past safety incidents.