Josh Gabbatiss , Science Correspondent - Independent (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is some more good news about the plastics crisis.
More than 40 major businesses have pledged to eradicate single-use plastics from packaging in an effort to tackle the global pollution crisis.
The launch of the UK Plastics Pact comes amid concerns over the impact such waste is having on the environment as it pervades the world’s land, oceans and waterways.
With members across major food and non-food brands – including Sainsbury’s, Nestlé and Coca-Cola – the pact’s participants are collectively responsible for more than 80 per cent of the UK’s supermarket plastic packaging.
As the first initiative of its kind in the world, it is hoped the pact will serve as a template for other countries and spark a “global movement for change”.
The pact, which was welcomed by government ministers and environmental campaigners, consists of a series of targets that the industry as a whole will aim to meet by 2025.
These include the complete elimination of “problematic or unnecessary” single-use plastic packaging by developing new designs and alternative delivery methods.
Other targets include all plastic packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable, and ensuring that at least 70 […]
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Thursday, April 26th, 2018
ASHRAF KHALIL, Staff Writer - Time Magazine
Stephan: Once again the Trump administration shows its contempt for the poor.
Republican Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Credit: Jae C. Hong/AP
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of families living in federally subsidized public housing would pay more for rent under a proposal unveiled Wednesday by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
The proposal would have to be approved by Congress, where it could touch off a debate over how best to support some of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable families. Democrats will likely put up fierce resistance and some members of the Republican majority will be reluctant to embrace it ahead of midterm elections in the fall.
Dubbed the Make Affordable Housing Work Act, the plan would raise the rent paid by public housing residents to 35% from 30% of household income and eliminate all deductions that could lower that number. These rents would now be evaluated every three years instead of annually. Elderly and disabled tenants, who constitute more than half of the 4.7 million public housing families, would be exempted.
Carson said the changes are necessary to bring more money into […]
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Thursday, April 26th, 2018
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate Economist and Op-ed Columnist - The New Yorkj Times
Stephan: Republicans are incapable of effective wellbeing fostering governance because they value ideology above facts. Paul Krugman lays it out, and I agree with what he says.
Thousands of teachers rallied for education funding at the state Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., two weeks ago.
CreditAlex Slitz/Lexington Herald-Leader/AP
Matt Bevin, the conservative Republican governor of Kentucky, lost it a few days ago. Thousands of his state’s teachers had walked off their jobs, forcing many schools to close for a day, to protest his opposition to increased education funding. And Bevin lashed out with a bizarre accusation: “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”
He later apologized. But his hysterical outburst had deep roots: At the state and local levels, the conservative obsession with tax cuts has forced the G.O.P. into what amounts to a war on education, and in particular a war on schoolteachers. That war is the reason we’ve been seeing teacher strikes in multiple states. And people like Bevin are having a hard time coming to grips with the […]
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Thursday, April 26th, 2018
Melissa Hogenboom, - Conde Nash Traveler
Stephan: There are big changes coming about passports including, note, you may need one for domestic travel. If you travel read this carefully.
Americans have applied for passports en masse this year—more than 21 million new little blue books were projected, says the State Department—and the number is expected to match that in 2018.
Why the rush? A lot of passports were up for renewal: Remember in 2007, how the government told us we needed passports or passport cards to visit Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean? Those only have a shelf life of ten years, which brings us to…now. Add to that the number of Americans who’ll need passports to fly across the U.S. because of the Real ID Act. (More on that a minute.)
So what do you need to know in order to leave the country in 2018?
You can renew online! Eventually…
The passport renewal process is getting an overhaul: Starting mid-2018, a new platform will let you renew your passport online, says Carl Siegmund, community relations officer for passport services at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. This could mean the end of those late-night trips to Walgreens photo booths to rush off your application […]
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Thursday, April 26th, 2018
Betsy Woodruff and Adam Rawnsley, - Daily Beast
Stephan: I think the case can now be made that the United States is the most corrupt and compromised nation in the developed world.
Brian Ballard
Credit: Daily Beast
Brian Ballard, viewed by some as the lobbyist closest to President Donald Trump, is working for an ally of Syria’s brutal dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
Ballard’s firm, Ballard Partners, disclosed on March 15 that it has taken on a Dubai-based trading company called ASM International General Trading LLC as a client. A Daily Beast analysis of open source materials—including website registration information, leaked offshore investment documents, and résumé sites—indicates that ASM International General Trading is affiliated with a member of Syria’s wealthy Foz family of international businessmen, which reportedly has close links to the Assad regime.
Reached for comment, Ballard told The Daily Beast his firm will cut ties with the company if it has links to Assad.
“We’re going to do more due diligence,” Ballard said. “We’re not the CIA, but if it were to turn out that there was any connection at all, we would withdraw from our representation of the Dubai trading company.”
Ballard’s firm also represents an anti-Assad […]
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