What happened
Tennessee last night attempted to execute Christa Pike (pictured above), but two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital failed to kill her and she was transported to a hospital. Pike, 50, was convicted of murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when she was 18 and Slemmer 19. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Who said what
The failed execution followed a day of legal tumult. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Pike’s execution yesterday morning, but the Supreme Court lifted the stay hours later, with three justices dissenting. Tennessee “raced to go ahead with the execution before the day ended” and they had to “reschedule,” The New York Times said. 

“We take no pleasure in being right,” Pike’s lawyers said, but her concerns about “blown veins,  degraded pentobarbital” and the lack of on-site emergency care “proved to be true.” Pike surviving the lethal doses is “singular and unparalleled,” Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center told The Associated Press. But this was Tennessee’s second failed execution this year, after an aborted hourlong attempt to administer pentobarbital to Tony Carruthers in May.

What next?
Gov. Bill Lee (R) last night ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review” of Pike’s botched execution and said Tennessee’s “remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year.”

What happened
The U.S. military yesterday formally withdrew from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State insurgency. America’s two-decade military presence, starting with the 2003 invasion, “stoked years of devastating bloodshed” in Iraq, The New York Times said, and the “battered nation” is still “struggling to unshackle itself” from its “two most powerful” allies, the U.S. and Iran. 

Who said what
The “long-planned withdrawal” of the final 2,500 U.S. troops was “celebrated by the Iraqi government and the Pentagon,” CNN said, “as well as Iran and its allies.” Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi welcomed the “new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty.“ In Baghdad, Reuters said, “hundreds ​of supporters of pro-Iranian Iraqi militia groups” celebrated in the streets (pictured above), “chanting ‘Death to America.’” 

“I had a choice to stay or leave,” and “it was time for America to go home,” President Donald Trump told White House reporters. His compliance with the withdrawal deadline negotiated by the Biden administration “reflects broader U.S. determination to step back from the region” and “so-called forever wars,” the Times said, “despite the war with Iran.”

What next?
The Pentagon said it “will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.” But many Iraqis worry that the U.S.-trained security forces “still can’t protect the country,” leaving an “opening for the return” of ISIS, Reuters said.

A new study suggests a worrying link between frequent marijuana use and drug-resistant seizures in people with epilepsy. While it’s too early to prove causation, researchers believe the connection warrants further study.

Adults with “hard-to-treat” epilepsy who used cannabis most days had “more than twice as many convulsive seizures” per year and “more rapidly became resistant to antiseizure medications” compared with nonusers, Washington University School of Medicine said in a press release about the study, which was published in the journal Epilepsia. 

The researchers reviewed the medical records of 64 adults with drug-resistant epilepsy who were admitted to an inpatient unit where doctors monitored their seizures. Twenty-two of the patients reported using marijuana at least 20 days a month. The difference between the two groups was “significant,” said U.S. News & World Report. In total, “91% of frequent users experienced convulsive seizures compared with 57% of nonusers.”

An FDA-approved cannabis-derived epilepsy treatment, Epidiolex, exists, but it’s “only made from cannabidiol (CBD),” said Gizmodo. The research team suspects THC, the other active compound in cannabis, “could be the primary culprit behind this unsettling trend.”

The researchers emphasized that the “current data demonstrate an observational association rather than direct causation,” said Neuroscience News. Moving forward, they’re designing a “prospective, multisite study” incorporating blood tests rather than “self-reported usage.”

The primary takeaway is to “not ignore cannabis use in epilepsy or to assume it’s beneficial,” said senior study author Aaron Struck to Gizmodo. It’s worthwhile to “discuss with a treating physician” if “stopping or reducing THC may be beneficial to your care.”