Economy
Starbucks, Dunkin Race Against Bans, Taxes on Disposable Cups (tmn)
Overwhelmed by trash, jurisdictions around the world are banning single-use plastic takeaway containers and cups. Europe says plastic beverage cups have to go by 2021. India wants them out by 2022. Taiwan set a deadline of 2030. Surcharges like Berkeley’s are likely to get more common in an attempt to quickly change consumer behavior before more outright bans.
Trump says he wants asylum seekers to pay a fee to apply (TS)
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, at a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, said he had no information on the fees and other measures in the proposal from Trump. But seeking asylum, spokesman Charlie Yaxley said, “is a fundamental human right, and people should be allowed to exercise those rights when seeking to seek asylum.”
What if a killer asteroid were headed toward Earth? NASA plans to find out this week (Sparky1)
According to the loosely scripted scenario, astronomers discover that a make-believe space rock dubbed 2019 PDC has a one-in-100 chance of smashing into Earth in 2027. Participants in the exercise, including the European Space Agency and the International Asteroid Warning Network, as well as NASA and FEMA, will consider how they might mount space missions to investigate and possibly deflect the asteroid — and how the effects of an impact might be mitigated.
Planetary Defense Conference Exercise – 2019 (Sparky1)
The following diagram shows the orbits of 2019 PDC and Earth, along with their positions when the asteroid was discovered on March 26, 2019, and the point at which the orbits intersect. The asteroid makes just over 3 orbits of the Sun between discovery and the potential impact.
Space scientists have big plans to avert an asteroid apocalypse (Sparky1)
To size up the risk, NASA is sending a spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx to explore Bennu. The probe, shaped like an eight-foot cube with solar-panel wings, launched in September 2016 and will arrive at the space rock this August. When it does, it will nestle up to Bennu, testing rendezvous and landing techniques and collecting a surface sample to investigate the composition of such asteroids.
John Bolton On The Warpath (jdargis)
Bolton has spent decades in federal bureaucracies, complaining often of hating every minute. He has written wistfully of a note that Goldwater sent to an offending colleague: “Dear Bill: I am pissed off.” Though Bolton says that he has never written such a letter, he has established himself as a ferocious infighter—often working, either by design or by accident, against the grain of the place to which he’s assigned.
19 Historical Oil Disruptions, And How No.20 Will Shock Markets (Michael S.)
The table below lists the nineteen market disruptions. I prepared it in 2018 at a time when Conoco had just used an award of $2 billion granted against Venezuela to seize the latter’s assets in Curacao and when production in Nigeria suffered a disruption. For each event listed, the table shows the start date, the duration, the maximum price increase associated with it, and the percentage loss in supply.
The Fastest-Growing U.S. City Is Scrambling to Survive the Shale Boom (Jason W.)
In the process, though, local resources were stretched beyond their limits. Now, Morales and others say the region may be settling into adulthood. Employers still struggle to fill jobs in competition with the oilfields, roads are jammed, schools overflow and home prices are sky-high. But local leaders say they have plans and resources set to secure a long-term future
Raw And Red-Hot (tmn)
The anti-inflammatory effect of exercise was much greater than most people had expected. That raised another question: whether inflammation might also play a dominant role in other lifestyle illnesses that have been linked to cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes and dementia.
Gold & Silver
Click to read the PM Daily Market Commentary: 4/29/19
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