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Supreme Court

Menthol vapes and forum shopping, FDA tobacco control comes before justices

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a clash over whether a North Carolina-based company can challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s denial of its application to market e-cigarettes in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in Louisiana. The company, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company, joined a lawsuit by retailers based in Texas and Mississippi – two states covered by the 5th Circuit.

Although the dispute may seem like a technical one, … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Parties file final briefs before Supreme Court hears TikTok case

One week ahead of oral arguments in its challenge to a federal law that would require social-media giant TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it by Jan. 19, the Biden administration filed its reply brief on Friday, urging the justices to allow the law to go into effect. The law, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices, targets the national security risk of China’s potential control of the Beijing company, … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Bump-stock ban comes before Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has already heard oral argument in one major gun-rights case this term, and on Wednesday the court will hear another. In November, the justices heard United States v. Rahimi, a challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law that makes it a crime for someone who is the subject of a domestic-violence restraining order to have a gun. Wednesday’s case involves the interpretation of federal law rather than the Second Amendment. The question before the court … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Social media content moderation laws come before Supreme Court

Once again, the relationship between the government and social media will headline arguments at the Supreme Court on Monday. NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice are just the second of three social media disputes the court will hear this term. The justices on Monday will consider the constitutionality of controversial laws in Texas and Florida that would regulate how large social media companies like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) control content posted on their sites.

Defending … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Consumer watchdog funding fight goes before justices

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Congress consolidated the task of enforcing federal consumer finance laws into one agency. It created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers in the marketplace and, in part, regulate predatory financial products, like the high-risk mortgages that had contributed to the crash. As part of its efforts to foster the agency’s independence, funding for the CFPB would come not from the annual appropriations process in Congress, but instead from the … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Divided court authorizes Alabama execution, but state is unable to carry it out before midnight deadline

The Supreme Court on Thursday night cleared the way for Alabama to carry out a lethal injection of an inmate who argued that he had the right to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that supporters say is more humane. In an unsigned order that divided the justices 5-4, the court lifted an order by a federal judge that would have required the state to use nitrogen hypoxia to execute Alan Eugene Miller. But the state called off … Read the rest