Supreme Court sounds ready to back FDA’s e-cigarette rejection

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared ready Monday to side with the Biden administration’s decision to keep certain flavored e-cigarettes off the market, as the justices explored the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.

In oral arguments in FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments, the Biden administration asked the justices to overturn a lower-court ruling that it said undermined decisions that have kept more than 1 million candy, fruit and other flavored e-cigarette products off the market nationwide.

The two companies that challenged the FDA decisions in this case, Triton Distribution and Vapetasia, sought approvals for flavors such as “Jimmy The Juice Man Peachy Strawberry,” “Iced Pineapple Express” and “Killer Kustard Blueberry.”

While the companies argued that the flavors could help adult smokers switch from normal cigarettes to e-cigarettes, the FDA found that the companies had not sufficiently backed up their claims in the face of the risks of increased youth smoking from the flavors.

—CQ-Roll Call

Biden should spell out rules for using US troops against their fellow citizens, Dems say

A pair of New England senators are calling on the Biden administration to make it clear that the U.S. military should not be used against U.S. citizens except under the most dire circumstances.

U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a letter that it’s imperative that President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issue a policy directive informing U.S. troops of their obligations to disobey unlawful orders and laying out when a president may lawfully order the troops to act against their fellow Americans.

“It’s long been the law that the military should not be used on U.S. soil, except under extraordinary circumstances. Donald Trump campaigned on using our military to go after the ’enemy from within,’ so it’s important for President Biden to clarify the Defense Department’s policies. The Trump administration will need to justify any expansion of the military’s role against its fellow citizens,” Warren told the Herald.

In the letter, the pair say that Biden’s directive should make clear that U.S. law “prohibits the mobilization of active duty military or federalizing National Guard personnel to be deployed against their fellow Americans unless specifically authorized.”

—Boston Herald

'Brain rot' is the word of the year, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase is a century old

Doomscrolling is so 2020 — we're now in the year of "brain rot" instead.

That's 2024′s word of the year according to Oxford University Press, the Oxford English Dictionary's publisher.

For those uninitiated, brain rot is a popular term within internet culture, associated with being chronically online. The Oxford University Press defined the phrase as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging."

The publisher said the grand reveal follows a public vote in which more than 37,000 people participated. "After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public's input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring 'brain rot' as the definitive Word of the Year for 2024," the publisher said.

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Guinean government says 56 dead after mass panic at soccer match

CONAKRY, Guinea — At least 56 people have been killed in Guinea and many injured after a mass panic among soccer fans, the government said on Monday.

Clashes between rival fans broke out in the city of Nzerekore on Sunday after a red card was shown to a Labe player with the score at 0-0 late in the game.

Fans of Labe started throwing stones and security forces then used tear gas, sparking the mass panic. It is not yet clear if the deaths were mainly caused by a stampede.

Prime Minister Bah Oury expressed his condolences to the families of the victims on behalf of the government of the West African country and announced an investigation into the accident. The soccer match was part of a political campaign by the ruling military junta in Guinea.

—dpa