Author: Kelly W. Smith

South Australia was first, banning plastic straws, cutlery, plates and expanded polystyrene containers from March 1, 2021. Queensland followed that September, adding balloon releases to its list. By 2022, the ACT, NSW and Western Australia had all introduced their own single-use plastic bans, and Victoria followed in February 2023, explicitly extending its ban to cover degradable and compostable plastic versions of banned items, not just conventional plastic. Western Australia has kept expanding its restrictions since. Produce bag bans widened to dry goods from October 2025, with bans on plastic bags for meat, fish and dairy due in 2026. South Australia added soy sauce fish sachets to its banned list as recently as September 2025. Why "banned nationally" is the wrong way to read this There is no single national single-use…

Ask a San Diego contractor why a quote came in higher than last year's version of the same project, and the honest answer increasingly has nothing to do with San Diego at all. It's sitting in a shipping container somewhere, subject to a tariff that didn't exist two years ago. What's Actually Driving the Cost The National Association of Home Builders has been tracking the effect closely, since building materials are one of the association's core advocacy issues. A 50% Section 232 tariff on steel and aluminum imports remains in effect, alongside tariffs on softwood lumber, kitchen cabinetry, and a range of other building materials. Steel and aluminum aren't abstract line items for a backyard project. They're rebar in a poured footing, the frame of a pergola, fasteners and fixtures…

Buried in the Companies Act 1967 is the single provision that shapes nearly every governance obligation a Singapore company carries after incorporation. Section 171 requires every company to appoint a corporate secretary in Singapore within six months of registration, and a 2026 breakdown of the provision shows how much rides on that one requirement. The secretary must be a natural person ordinarily resident in Singapore, which in practice means a citizen, a permanent resident, or a long-term Employment Pass holder residing locally. Public companies face a higher bar under Section 171(1AA), typically satisfied by membership in a recognised chartered secretaries body. Private companies have more flexibility, but Section 171(1E) still rules out one specific shortcut: a sole director cannot also serve as the sole secretary. What the Role Actually Covers…

A knocked-out tooth is one of the few dental problems where the clock genuinely matters. The choices made in the first half hour often decide whether the tooth is saved or lost for good. Most people freeze in that moment, unsure whether the tooth can be saved at all. It usually can, but only if the right steps happen fast. More Common Than People Think A tooth getting knocked clean out of its socket, what dentists call an avulsion, is not a rare freak event. It happens during sports, falls, car accidents, and ordinary mishaps every day. The American Association of Endodontists estimates that more than five million teeth are knocked out each year in the United States, among both children and adults. Despite how often it happens, surveys repeatedly…

The race to power artificial intelligence is, underneath all the chips and data centers, a race to build power plants. And a surprising amount of that race comes down to high-temperature steel, the kind that has to hold pressure while running hot for decades. New gas-fired generation is being built at a pace not seen in years, and every plant is full of pressure equipment that operates in the heat. A thermal power buildout in fast forward The numbers tell the story. As of early 2026, U.S. gas power capacity under construction had topped 29 gigawatts, more than double the figure of a year earlier, with far more in the pre-construction pipeline. The driver is electricity demand from data centers and AI, which need large, reliable blocks of power faster…

The 2025 holiday season ended with water where it did not belong. As a series of atmospheric rivers slammed into already saturated ground, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency across six counties, San Diego among them, ahead of more rain. What followed in the first days of 2026 made the abstraction concrete. Heavy rain triggered fast flooding around the county, the San Diego River overflowed at Fashion Valley, and crews carried out a string of swift-water rescues as cars were trapped in rising water. For a region that thinks of itself as dry, it was a pointed reminder. In the weeks since, a lot of homeowners have started asking a question they had skipped for years: where does the water on my property actually go? Why San Diego…

Some numbers are big enough to reshape policy on their own. San Diego County's senior population is one of them. As of the most recent county analysis, there were 565,364 residents 65 and older, more than 17 percent of the county's entire population. That is not a niche group. It is a sizable share of the region, and it is growing, which forces an honest question about how San Diego intends to care for it. The Institutional Care Problem The default historical answer to serious care needs was the nursing home. For many older adults and families, it remains the assumed endpoint. But institutional care is expensive, often undesired, and increasingly mismatched to what older adults say they want, which is to stay in their own homes and communities for…

When Niantic announced in March 2025 that it was selling its games division — including Pokémon GO — to Scopely for $3.5 billion, the reassurances came quickly. Pokémon GO lead Ed Wu published a statement saying the development team was staying together and that Scopely would be a positive steward for the game. Scopely echoed the sentiment. Both parties insisted nothing significant would change. The player base wasn't convinced. Within days of the announcement, threads across Reddit and social media filled with players describing the same precautionary move: transferring their Pokémon out of Pokémon GO and into Pokémon Home. Not because anything had actually changed yet — but because of what Scopely's track record suggested might be coming. The company that owns Monopoly Go, Marvel Strike Force, and Star Trek…

The hospitality industry loses 34% of its workers within a year. Arts and entertainment follows at 26%. Retail is close behind at 25%. These are not niche sectors. They are among the largest employers of young people in the UK, and they are bleeding staff at rates that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. For anyone tracking high turnover occupations, the pattern is clear: the jobs that employ the most young people are the jobs that young people leave the fastest. The Numbers by Age Median employee tenure for workers aged 16-19 is just 0.8 years shows that job hopping is concentrated at the youngest end of the workforce. Among 16 to 19 year-olds, 70.3% have been with their current employer for less than 12 months. For 20 to…