Washed-up plastic bags along the Los Angeles River Josh Morgan/AP

Last month, California became the first state to pass a bill banning the ubiquitous disposable plastic bag. If signed into law, the measure will prohibit grocery and retail stores from providing single-use plastic bags and require them to charge at least 10 cents for paper bags, compostable bags, and reusable plastic bags. The bill, introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles), will also provide funding for California-based plastic bag companies to develop sturdier, reusable options.

Worldwide, consumers use an estimated 1 trillion plastic bags each year-nearly 2 million a minute-with the use time of a typical bag just 12 minutes. Californians alone throw away 14 billion a year, creating 123,000 tons of waste and untold amounts of litter.

There is evidence that bag bans and taxes can cut down on some of this waste: Ireland’s 2002 tax cut bag usage between 75 and 90 percent. An analysis of bag use in Australia found that 72 percent of customers accepted […]

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Since 2000, nearly 600 people, many of them young black and Latino men, have been killed by Los Angeles law enforcement officers. That’s according to a sobering new report from the Los Angeles Youth Justice Coalition, a youth advocacy organization, that looks into the use of lethal force among police.

The report, titled “Don’t Shoot to Kill,” examines homicide data from the Los Angeles County coroner’s department and incorporates details from numerous media reports on specific incidents. Between Jan. 1, 2000 and August 31, 2014, the report found, law enforcement officers in Los Angeles County used lethal force resulting in the deaths of at least 589 people. That’s almost one death a week, for nearly 14 years.

“If the killing of community residents is one measure of police-community relations,” the report reads, “then law enforcement’s fear, distrust and/or aggressive treatment of people –- especially youth and people of color –- have not improved, and may have increased.”

From 2000 to 2006, the report says, overall homicides in L.A. County ranged between 1074 and 1231 per year. During that period, officer-involved killings made […]

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NY Times: Obama Said That Islamic State Made A Strategic Error In Killing American Journalists, As It Provoked Support For U.S. Intervention. According to a September 13 New York Times report, Obama told a group of journalists at a private White House meeting on September 10 that the Islamic State’s beheading of kidnapped journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff was a strategic error on the group’s part, as it had led to greater support for U.S. military action (emphasis added):

Mr. Obama had what guests on Wednesday afternoon described as a bereft look as he discussed the murders of Mr. Foley and Mr. Sotloff, particularly because two other Americans are still being held. Days later, ISIS would report beheading a British hostage with another video posted online Saturday.

But the president said he had already been headed toward a military response before the men’s deaths. He added that ISIS had made a major strategic error by killing them because the anger it generated resulted in the American public’s quickly backing military action.

If he had been “an adviser to ISIS,” Mr. Obama added, […]

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Smoking has declined by about 4 percent annually in Uruguay since the country required graphic warnings on cigarette packages. (photo: Matilde Campodonico/AP)

Shopping for cigarettes in Uruguay isn’t a pleasant experience. Photos of decaying teeth, premature babies and gruesome hospital scenes wrap around every pack. In fact, the country requires manufacturers to cover at least 80 percent of the packaging with medical warnings and graphic images.

Cigarette giant Philip Morris International sees this requirement as a violation of a treaty law. So it’s suing the country of Uruguay for $25 million.

The lawsuit is based on a 1991 trade agreement between Uruguay and Switzerland, where the company is located. The cigarette manufacturer says Uruguay is violating its promise to respect intellectual property rights.

Studies have found that such gruesome packaging reduces smoking, particularly in pregnant women.

To better understand this case before it goes in front of the World Bank this month, NPR’s David Greene spoke with […]

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Conservatives and liberals do not smell the same to potential mates. According to a study published this month in the American Journal of Political Science, people can literally sniff out ideology – and this may explain why so many couples share political beliefs. Or, as the study’s title says, ‘Assortative Mating on Ideology Could Operate Through Olfactory Cues.”

Researchers led by Brown University political scientist Rose McDermott found that, to a small but significant degree, people prefer the body odor of those who vote as they do.

Previous studies showed long-term mates are more similar when it comes to politics than anything else besides religion. Researchers set out to determine whether this is a purely socially driven phenomenon, or whether biology plays a role.

To test the link between smell and party affiliation, researchers rounded up 146 people aged 18 to 40 from ‘a large city in the northeast United States.” They used a seven-point scale to determine where they fell on the political spectrum. They sent 21 of these -10 liberals and 11 conservatives – home with fragrance-free soap and shampoo and a gauze pad taped to their armpit. The subjects were told not to smoke, drink, use deodorant or perfume, have […]

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