July 16 (ZFJ) — The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency categorized non-sugar sweetener aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” (group 2B) based on “limited evidence” for causing cancer in humans on Friday, July 14. A WHO joint panel did not change its acceptable daily limit of 40 mg/kg body weight. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that has been widely used in foods and beverages since the 1980s as an alternative to sugar.

July 12 (ZFJ) — The Food and Drug Administration granted traditional approval to Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb) 100 mg/mL intravenous injection on July 6. It is the first Alzheimer’s drug to clear this regulatory hurdle and aims to slow the disease’s progression. “Today’s action is the first verification that a drug targeting the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s disease has shown clinical benefit in this devastating disease,” said Teresa Buracchio, acting director of the Office of Neuroscience in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

July 10 (ZFJ) — The last possessor state, America, announced that it finished destroying its declared chemical weapons stockpile on Friday, July 7, marking the first time an international body verified the destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction. The stockpile was declared to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body responsible for implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention. The 1997 arms control treaty prohibits its 193 members from developing or stockpiling chemical weapons.

July 3 (ZFJ) — Affirmative action in college admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, ruled the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (20-1199) and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (21-707) on Thursday, June 29. The EPC prohibits racial discrimination by the government. Reversing the lower courts’ decisions, the Court struck down the admissions programs used by Harvard and UNC by a 6-2 and 6-3 vote, respectively.

June 26 (ZFJ) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent visit to the United States, and President Joe Biden announced a pilot for the expansion of capacity for H-1B and L-1 visas with the domestic renewal of temporary work visas. The loosening of visa restrictions aims to increase the amount of skilled workers and students immigrating to the U.S. Currently, this pilot launch is only applicable to the H-1B and L-1 visas, which both admit skilled workers.

June 24 (ZFJ) — Lab-grown meat companies UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat announced on Wednesday that they received the final Agriculture Department approval required to sell their chicken in the United States. The Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service issued grants of inspection for the companies’ manufacturing facilities: UPSIDE’s Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center and GOOD Meat’s demonstration plant in Alameda, California. GOOD Meat’s contract manufacturing partner JOINN Biologics also received a GOI.

EDISON, N.J., June 7 (ZFJ) — Smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted into the eastern and central U.S., tinting the sky orange and triggering air quality alerts on Wednesday. Canadian authorities are battling “one of the worst wildfire seasons on record,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canadian minister of environment and climate change. The country is currently facing over 400 wildfires, with over half out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

May 28 (ZFJ) — The federal government can only regulate wetlands with “a continuous surface connection” to adjacent “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (1972), ruled the Supreme Court on Thursday, May 25, in Sackett v. EPA (21-454). The CWA is the primary federal law regulating water pollution and prohibits the “discharge of any pollutant,” including “chemical wastes,” “rock,” and “sand,” into “navigable waters,” defined as “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.

May 18 (ZFJ) — There is a 66% chance that the annual global surface temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels before 2027, said the World Meteorological Organization on Wednesday. The UN weather agency also predicted that there is a 98% chance that one of the next five years will be the warmest on record. “These new highs will be fuelled almost completely by the rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but the anticipated development of the naturally-occurring El Niño event will also release heat from the tropical Pacific,” said Dr.