Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Leading ingredient in over-the-counter decongestants doesn't work

Summary: A Food and Drug Administration panel has determined, after reviewing years’ worth of research data, that a key ingredient in many popular decongestants, phenylephrine, doesn’t actually work when taken orally, despite helping relieve stuffy noses when delivered via nasal spray.

Context: The findings indicate that when taken orally, only about 1% of the drug ends up in the bloodstream, which eventually brings it to the afflicted nose tissues—which makes the job its meant to do, constricting the blood vessels in the nose and sinuses, all but impossible; the FDA found that pill- and liquid-based versions of the drug were originally approved because of flaws in the original studies that no longer stand up to modern testing scrutiny, and although phenylephrine has since become the most popular decongestant on US shelves, it’s possible non-nasal versions of it will be taken off the market in the near-future, if the FDA decides to remove its “safe and effective” designation.

—Live Science

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McCarthy, facing an ouster and a shutdown, orders an impeachment inquiry

Summary: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, seemingly to assuage further-right members of his party who have threatened to remove him as Speaker and to prevent the passage of a government budget, forcing a shutdown, if he failed to do so.

Context: This inquiry is not a full-on impeachment process, and by all indications the votes to move forward—including from Republicans, most of whom have indicated they think this inquiry is a distraction—don’t exist, but the claim is that the Biden family, including President Biden’s son, Hunter, have been doing illegal things to profit from Joe Biden’s place in the Senate, then the Vice Presidency, then the Presidency; no evidence has been presented to back these claims, thus far, and it’s been reported that former President Trump has been pushing his supporters in the House to force this announcement, which suggests they think there’s some benefit to be had in this inquiry, even if it never culminates in a real-deal impeachment.

—The New York Times

Sweden to increase defense budget to meet NATO target

Summary: The Swedish government has announced that it will increase its defense budget by significantly more than previously announced, adding another €2.2 billion to their bottom-line in order to hit NATO’s 2% defense spending goal.

Context: This is notable in part because Sweden is new to the NATO alliance, and other governments have been slow to hit these targets, despite ongoing concerns related to Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, and how that conflict might spill-over into other European nations at some point; this announcement also arrives shortly after European Union leadership called for an ambitious expansion of the bloc, which could substantially bolster NATO participation in the area, alongside EU governance throughout the region.

—Euractiv

Satellite images of Durna, Libya, on September 2 and September 12, show the extent of the damage caused by floods that burst local dams, demolishing entire neighborhoods and killing an estimated 5,000 people, with more than 10,000 still missing.

—Axios

0.956 seconds

Time required to hit 62 mph (100 km/h) from a standing start for a scratch-built electric car designed and fabricated by a team of students at the Academic Motorsports Club Zürich and two Swiss universities.

That’s a new record (beating the previous one—set last year by German students—by more than a third) and it allows their EV to hit that target speed after crossing just 40.3 feet (12.3 meters).

—Ars Technica

Trust Click

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