Como bike ban, Trump’s FDA pick and $40tn US debt, Vine returns
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
Como’s mayor, Alessandro Rapinese, has ordered cyclists to dismount in around 30 streets in the walled historic centre from September, following a June collision involving an electric bike. The rule covers both e-bikes and conventional bicycles because Italian road rules do not distinguish between them. Rapinese says the restriction is intended to protect pedestrians in a heavily visited area, while local campaigners, businesses and politicians have criticised it as disproportionate; a cycling protest is planned. In Washington, President Donald Trump said he would nominate White House domestic-policy aide Dr Heidi Overton to lead the Food and Drug Administration, replacing Marty Makary, who resigned in May. The nomination requires Senate confirmation and has prompted scrutiny of Overton’s positions on vaccines and abortion medication.
- Como will require cyclists to walk their bikes through parts of its historic centre from September.
- Trump has nominated White House aide Dr Heidi Overton to head the FDA, subject to Senate approval.
- US total public debt has passed $40tn; the Vine-like app diVine has opened publicly.
Full account
A ban on cycling through Como's historic walled centre has plunged the Italian lakeside city into an unlikely row over transport policy, road safety and, some say, one man's grudge. Mayor Alessandro Rapinese has ordered that from September cyclists must dismount and walk their bikes, whether electric or conventional, along roughly 30 streets in the old town. He has been open about the personal trigger for the policy: in June he was struck by an e-bike while leaving the town hall, moments after his own administration had been discussing measures to restrict traffic in the centre. Rapinese insists the timing does not undermine the case for the rule, arguing that public safety in a district thronged with tourists justifies acting before someone is seriously hurt rather than after.
The backlash has been swift and has cut across the political spectrum. Local resident and civic groups, along with figures from the left-leaning Democratic Party and members of the mayor's own centre-right coalition, have accused him of turning a personal mishap into blanket policy, with one Forza Italia politician calling the measure simply 'crazy' even while sympathising with Rapinese over his injury. Opponents point out that some of the affected streets are among the widest in the centre and offer the smoothest route down to Lake Como, and warn that the ban will hit delivery riders and the shopkeepers who depend on them, as well as denying residents a cheap, low-carbon way to get around. A petition has been launched calling for the rule to be scrapped, and campaigners are planning to cycle through the restricted streets in protest in mid-September. Rapinese has so far refused to reverse course, saying the measure applies uniformly to all bikes because Italian traffic law makes no distinction between electric and pedal-powered models, and noting that the city already banned hire e-scooters from the centre in 2022.
In a very different corner of the internet, nostalgia for another mode of getting about — six seconds at a time — has resurfaced with the public launch of Divine, an app widely described as a spiritual successor to Vine, the short-form video service that Twitter shut down in 2017 after amassing more than 200 million monthly users and launching stars such as Jake Paul and Lele Pons. Built by former Twitter staffer Evan Henshaw-Plath and backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Divine reproduces Vine's signature looping six-second clips and has restored more than two million of the original videos for users to watch again. Unlike Vine, however, it runs on Nostr, a decentralised protocol also used by platforms such as Bluesky and Mastodon, meaning no single company controls it and users could in theory carry their accounts and content elsewhere.
Divine's most pointed departure from the social media mainstream is an outright ban on AI-generated content: clips must be recorded live within the app rather than uploaded, and a verification tool called ProofMode attaches data to each recording to help confirm when it was made and whether it has since been altered, with suspect material flagged by both users and automated checks. Henshaw-Plath said he built the app because he felt existing social platforms had 'gone awry' and wanted somewhere users would not have to 'second guess' whether what they were watching was real. Commentators are less sure the formula will succeed commercially; social media analyst Matt Navarra observed that the very features which make big platforms addictive are often the ones users say they dislike, leaving Divine to prove it can strip out that compulsive design without also draining away the fun that made Vine popular in the first place.
Where outlets differ
The Como report foregrounds political conflict and quotes multiple opposing voices — civic groups, the Democratic Party and a Forza Italia MP — reflecting cross-party backlash, whereas the Vine/Divine report is more product-focused, built around a single founder interview and an independent analyst's commentary rather than public dissent.
The two pieces emphasise different stakes: the Como story frames the ban primarily as a public-safety-versus-personal-vendetta dispute with economic side-effects (delivery riders, shopkeepers), while the Divine story frames its innovation primarily around authenticity and trust (banning AI content) rather than safety or economics.
Only one source is provided for each story, so there is no outlet-versus-outlet contrast within either topic — the differences noted reflect emphasis between the two separate stories rather than competing accounts of the same event.
The supplied material does not include reporting on Trump's FDA pick or the $40tn US debt figure referenced in the headline, so this account is limited to the Como cycling ban and the Divine/Vine relaunch.
More coverage
- The Guardian — Como mayor bans bikes in city centre after being hit ‘by one of these beasts’
- Associated Press — Trump picks Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide, to lead the Food and Drug Administration
- BBC News — Is Vine back? Short-form video-sharing app Divine opens to public
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