Walmart Bans Sale of E-Cigarettes
What started as a “healthier” and “safer” alternative to smoking cigarettes has become just the opposite. Vaping has caused a mysterious lung illness in over 530 people, and has now killed a total of eight individuals.
Due to this new illness, the lack of knowledge about vaping’s long-term effects, and the fact that vaping is considered an epidemic in hooking teens on nicotine, retail giant Walmart has lead the charge with banning their sale. Although they had previously banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, they decided to amp up the ban by ridding their shelves of any e-cig.
Other retailers may follow suit, and while this could pose an issue for adults who are trying to quit smoking cigarettes, it will make it far more difficult for kids under the age of 18 to get addicted to nicotine, which was one of the major goals of the measure. So, unless you are a high school sophomore trying to get some more Juul pods, this should not come as much of a surprise.
(Source: The Verge)
Oil Leaders Fight Climate Change
Big Oil has been in control of many developed countries for over a century and have also had their fair share of issues. These issues include major oil spills, dramatically increased or decreased oil prices, and now what is finally being talked about more seriously: climate change.
Today, global leaders and top oil companies, such as ExxonMobil and Shell, gather at the United Nations to discuss a course of action to deal with the rising issues associated with climate change. The oil companies disagree on how to go about this, but due to declining profits and market share of fossil-fuel companies, their investors are demanding a joint solution.
The meeting will address how closely these leaders have met their goals from the 2015 Paris Accord, specifically decreasing global temperatures. While the oil companies have made an effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions such as methane from their drilling sites, they cannot agree to reduce greenhouse-gas emission from oil byproducts because of the difficulty of it and the resulting decrease of profits. These companies argue for government intervention, which would most likely equate to a delayed conclusion for more years to come.
Still, leaders gathering today are hopeful that they can reach an agreement. This is a must due to an increase of societal pressure to save the earth.
(Source: WSJ)
Area 51 Raid: A Successful Failure
College student Matty Roberts’s joke Facebook event calling people to “Storm Area 51” happened this weekend. As you might have thought, no one got inside or found any aliens. People did get very excited for it though, with over 10,000 people showing up to the event and surrounding Nevada towns.
This was never something to be taken seriously, and people mostly remained light-hearted and calm. Two people were arrested for public indecency and alcohol-related issues, respectively. Besides that, though, the only other issues from the event was the strain put on the Nevada towns, specifically Rachel (a town of 54 people without a grocery store or gas station) and Hiko. These towns were not meant to accommodate the huge influx of tourists, which led Roberts to cancel the event and host an official 3-day festival in Vegas with high-profile sponsors such as Bud Light called “Alienstock.”
People had joked about wanting to take aliens home with them from the raid and subsequently sparked a whole genre of Area 51 memes. Although the event failed in the sense that no one actually did any of that, it succeeded in proving that not everything should be taken so seriously and that aliens are pretty cool.
Source: (The Washington Post)
