Plastic bags may actually have one thing going for them.
Sure, they fill landfills and accumulate into giant plastic islands in the ocean. That's why New York became the second state to ban them altogether last month. But a recent study shows that a similar ban in California actually ended up pushing plastic waste higher — and that the alternatives to plastic may not be so great either, NPR reports.
After California's cities and counties banned plastic bags ahead of a statewide ban in 2016, University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor found they did reduce 40 million pounds of plastic waste every year. Yet in the months after the statewide ban began, Taylor's study also found that purchases of small, four-gallon plastic garbage bags — which use more plastic than single-use options — more than doubled. That's likely because people needed something to replace the plastic shopping bags they once reused to pick up dog poop or line small garbage cans around their house, NPR says.
In another blow to the environmentally conscious, NPR also compiled several studies that show paper bags are worse for the planet than plastic. Sure, they can be recycled and reused, but a ton of water, chemicals, and fuel are used to produce them. Even worse, one study from the Danish government found you'd have to use an organic cloth bag 20,000 times for it to be a better environmental choice than plastic. So to be the best tree hugger you can, use a reusable polyester or plastic bag over and over, the Danish study recommends. Read more about the unintended consequences of bag bans at NPR. Kathryn Krawczyk
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that former White House counsel Don McGahn can defy a congressional subpoena that sought to compel him to testify and turn over documents related to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump administration's possible obstruction of justice, reports The Washington Post.
President Trump had blocked McGahn from complying with the subpoena. The Justice Department argued courts should not be involved in such "interbranch disputes," and Congress can conduct oversight "without dragging judges into the fray," reports HuffPost's Ryan Reilly. The court agreed.
The argument was the opposite of what attorneys said during Trump's impeachment trial; at that time Trump's legal team said subpoenas for executive branch witnesses should be handled in court. The White House has argued its advisers are "absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony."
Read more at The Washington Post. Summer Meza
The end of a very rough week for U.S. markets brought a worrying prediction.
While one expert warned fallout from the global coronavirus outbreak could be "worse than the financial crisis" of 2008, the economist who correctly predicted that very crisis is now saying the idea of a major global recession "doesn't sound too farfetched."
Nouriel Roubini, a New York University business professor and market prognosticator who foretold the housing bubble burst, told Yahoo Finance on Friday to expect "severe" consequences as the coronavirus continues to rattle markets. How severe? He told Der Spiegel it could be worse than investors even believe at this point, predicting "global equities to tank by 30 to 40 percent this year."
He said people "prefer to believe in miracles," (not necessarily referencing President Trump's prediction the coronavirus will "disappear ... like a miracle,") and don't realize the "simple math" tells us that realistically, a squeezed Chinese economy will mean downturns around the globe. "This crisis will spill over and result in a disaster," said Roubini.
Roubini, who is often nicknamed Dr. Doom for his frequent pessimistic predictions, also saw doom and gloom for Trump's future as president as a result of any economic strife. Asked by Der Spiegel, Roubini said Trump would likely try to benefit politically from the outbreak, but "will lose the election, that's for sure." Pointing to past incumbent presidents getting ousted amid geopolitical tensions that damaged the economy, he said "The Democratic field is poor, but Trump is dead. Quote me on that!"
Though the week just saw a 3,500-point drop for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Roubini warned: "It is far from being over." Read more at Der Spiegel. Summer Meza
Ongoing anxiety about the novel coronavirus just resulted in Wall Street's worst week since the financial crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 3,583 points this week, sliding 12.4 percent for the biggest percentage drop in a week since 2008, CNN reports. Additionally, the S&P 500 had its worst week since 2008, plunging 11.5 percent. As with the Dow, that's the biggest percentage drop for the S&P 500 in a week since October 2008.
The Dow's 3,500 point drop, CNBC notes, is "far and away its largest weekly point loss ever." On Thursday, the Dow plunged 1,190 points, the biggest one-day point drop in history.
On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a statement said the "fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong" but that "the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity," and the Federal Reserve "will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy." White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told Fox Business on Friday "our economy is holding up very well," during a segment in which a graphic directly next to him showed the Dow continuing its slide. Brendan Morrow
Pixar fans expecting an animated short from the studio to play before Onward might be about to have a cow.
Disney's newest Pixar film will open with an animated short, as per usual. But the studio has announced that this time, it will come from a not-so-usual place: The Simpsons.
Yes, The Simpsons is a Disney property ever since the company's Fox purchase last year, and now, Disney will proudly show off what that money got them with a Simpsons short called "Playdate with Destiny" that will play before Onward.
This Simpsons short will evidently be centered around Maggie Simpson, and one has to assume it will be fairly family-friendly given its place before this PG Disney release. But if the conceptual idea of the long-running show that's been known to brutally mock Disney actually being owned by Disney was already weird enough, get ready for the surreal sight of new Simpsons content being immediately followed by ... the Cinderella castle. Ay, caramba, indeed. Brendan Morrow
A federal appeals court has blocked President Trump's policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases work their way through the immigration court system.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came to this decision on Friday, saying that the policy is "invalid in its entirety," The New York Times reports. The Times notes this Migrant Protection Protocols policy, also referred to as the "Remain in Mexico" policy, was a "central pillar" of Trump's immigration agenda.
A federal judge in April 2019 issued an injunction against the Trump administration's policy after it was enacted that January, but a court of appeals later allowed it to go into effect while legal challenges against it continued, NBC News reports. Almost 60,000 people have been sent back to Mexico under the program, Reuters reports.
Additionally, the appeals court on Friday also upheld a ban on a rule preventing those who cross the border between ports of entry from being eligible from asylum, per NBC News.
The Washington Post noted Friday that "the number of people waiting in Mexican border cities for U.S. immigration court dates has dwindled, in part because migrants said they were not making the trek to the United States in the first place given how unlikely it would be that they would gain entry," but it's "unclear what halting the policy might do to that mind-set." Brendan Morrow