As populations rise, plastic trash piles up following the 2017 Chinese import ban.

Following China's historic 2017 ban on the import of plastic waste, new data from Japan's Environment Ministry shows that local governments in the nation are foundering in garbage that they do not know what to do with.

In results released Thursday, some 25 percent of 102 local Japanese governments responding to an Environment Ministry questionnaire acknowledged that the amount of plastic waste stockpiled in regional scrap companies rose sharply between January and July, as municipalities reported waste dumps reaching and even exceeding the legal limit, according to Japan Times.

According to industry estimates, Tokyo sends some 1.5 million tons of plastic waste abroad annually. Until the imposition of the 2017 Beijing plastic ban, some 50 percent of that garbage was sent to China, up until then the world's largest importer of plastic trash.

A trip to the convention of the APA revealed a profession enamored with its own power, and an attempt to get back into Guantanamo after a scandal with the CIA and Pentagon
A convention of professional specialists is always revelatory - if not always intellectually edifying. This is especially true of academic disciplines in the Liberal Arts. It is a species of social institution that bears its American birthmark. Now spread throughout the developed world, it was born in the United States and evolved into its present form in the post-war decades.

Those were years of earnest endeavor, an optimistic belief in collective uplift, and abundance of just about everything. The distinguishing features inherited from that era are still evident, however, qualified by rampant self-promotion, commercialization and sheer size. For American intellectuals remain preoccupied with practical problem-solving energized by the can-do spirit and an undying faith in the betterment of humankind - even as 'humankind' vies more and more with 'me and my friends' for primacy.

I was reminded of all this by attending a few sessions of the American Psychological Association meetings in San Francisco in August. It had been years since I last was at one of these shindigs. My experience had been mainly with the American Political Science Association, but the differences are insignificant. Indeed, the subject matter within the social sciences increasingly overlaps.

Regrettably, I missed the main event which occurred on the eve of the convention as the APA was roiled once again by the aftershocks from the scandal that arose over the organization's direct participation in counseling the CIA and the Pentagon on interrogation techniques. Those included techniques employed at Guantanamo and the 'black sites' scattered around the globe. Some members had gotten their hands very dirty. The association's Executive Council had cashed some rather large government checks, cast a veil over these dubious dealings, and met accusations with a barrage of lies - for more than a decade. Skullduggery became the order of the times.

Six people have been shot at a laundromat near the Jacksonville Jaguars football stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, police have confirmed. The suspect is on the run.

One man was shot in the head and a woman was shot in the hip, one witness said, according to News 4 Jax. The victims were all adults, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office tweeted, adding that three are in critical condition.

"As I was securing the church, some members were coming inside and they said they heard maybe 10 to 12 shots," a local church staff member told First Coast News, adding that the area where the shooting occurred "needs a lot of help."

So, it's three weeks before the US midterm elections, and it looks like we have got ourselves a horse race! That's right, folks, once again, it's time to start playing with those forecast maps on Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight, and obsessively following the fluctuating poll numbers of congressional candidates you have never heard of competing in districts you couldn't locate if someone held a gun to your head. You need to start doing this immediately, if not sooner, as the stakes in these midterms could not be higher. Nothing less than the continued existence of "American democracy" hangs in the balance, so the ruling classes need every last one of us to get out there and vote for somebody!

The fact that it only marginally matters who that somebody that you vote for is should not dissuade you from voting for somebody. Voting for somebody is your civic duty, and is no less important than rooting for a sports team, or maintaining a personal favorite color, or celebrity, or brand of hemorrhoid creme. Remember, if you don't vote for somebody, somebody else is going to win, and we can't afford to let that happen!

The protests were preceded by a demonstration against the Israeli occupation, organized by the area's Druze community, who waved Syrian flags and held portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while standing on the border with Syria.

The Syrian population of the Golan Heights has gathered in the town of Majdal Shams to protest against Israeli policies in the occupied territories, Syria's SANA news agency reported. The protesters waved Syrian flags and burnt election ballots that had been distributed by local Israeli authorities.

Political activist and former prisoner Bashar al-Maqt, quoted by PressTV, slammed the elections that were organized by Tel Aviv as legally void and called on international organizations to pressure Israel to abandon its policies in the Golan Heights. Bashar al-Maqt further vowed to spread the protests to other Syrian communities in the Golan Heights.

Syria's first military correspondent has shed light on what it was like to be held captive by the Free Syrian Army rebels, revealing the "horror, humiliation, beatings and rape attempts" in an interview with Sputnik.

"I am the first Syrian journalist who happened to wear body armor and a helmet; I was arrested and taken prisoner. To top it off, I am one of the first Syrian journalists wounded in the discharge of my professional duties," Yara Saleh told Sputnik.

The thirty-two-year-old anchorwoman from state television channel Al-Ekhbariya arrived in the military zone 8 months after the start of the conflict that broke out in March 2011 and accompanied the government's forces for two and a half years.

Yara, when answering the question of why she had chosen a profession that was so unusual for a woman of her background, said that at first she and her deceased colleague and friend Yara Abbas did not think too much about what being a war correspondent meant.

As journalists, they were supposed to cover the entry of Syrian troops into the cities, accompany Arab observers, and show Syrians and the world the testimony of local residents in areas captured by militant groups. Yara does not refer to them as anything other than "terrorists."

Thousands of protesters are descending on Westminster for what organizers claim is the "biggest, loudest and most important" anti-Brexit demo since the vote. They insist Brexit is taking the UK to a "future nobody voted for."

The participants, mainly young activists, of the so-called "March For the Future" gathered at Park Lane in the British capital at noon. They will march to Parliament Square, where they will hear speeches in support of a people's vote.

"The Brexit elite can't sort out this mess - only you can: Demand a people's vote." This is the ambitious message conveyed by the People's Vote campaign group on its website. It insists that Brexit negotiations are taking British people towards "a future that nobody voted for."

A petition calling for people to be given a final say on a Brexit deal has already gained almost a million signatures.

A sum of 11 members of the pro-militants White Helmets Organization and non-Syrians experts were killed after a huge explosion at the terrorists' chemical workshop in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, a Russian media outlet reported on Saturday.

The Arabic-language website of Russia's state news agency, Sputnik, quoted well-informed sources as disclosing that a huge blast broke out at a workshop of the terrorists used for making chemicals in the small town of Tarmanin in Northern Idlib near the border with Turkey.

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul whose alleged sexual assaults sparked the international #MeToo movement, may be sentenced to a lifetime of shame and ridicule. Legal experts, however, now indicate he may never see the inside of a jail, let alone go to trial to face his accusers.

The case against Weinstein is "unraveling," high profile defense attorney and CNN legal analyst Mark Geragos says, citing the infighting between the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the New York Police Department as one of the main reasons he believes the Weinstein case won't go to trial.

"If you're on the defense here, you just sit back and watch them cannibalize themselves," said Geragos, who has represented high-profile clients, such as Michael Jackson and Colin Kaepernick.

In October 2017, The New Yorker released an audio recording of Weinstein speaking with model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez as part of a 2015 sting operation. Without consulting the DA's office, the NYPD set up the sting after Gutierrez told authorities that Weinstein groped her a day earlier.

An appalling video showing a student in a French school threatening a teacher with a dummy 'gun' in class has shocked France. Questions are being raised about the regularity of such incidents and the authorities' response.

The viral footage, initially distributed on Snapchat, shows a class in a school in Creteil commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris. A male student stands in the middle of the classroom and threatens the teacher with an object that looks like a gun, and demands that she write 'present', not 'absent' in the attendance list. In the background, there is another student making obscene gestures at the camera.

French media report that the gun was "an airsoft type" ball gun or a toy gun - which wouldn't be capable of hurting the teacher. In spite of the shocking situation, the teacher seems unperturbed, as though it's not the first time this has happened.

Following the incident, the teacher filed a complaint and two 16-year-old students were taken into custody, according to French media. The student who made the obscene gestures was soon released, while the main perpetrator is in custody and will stand before a juvenile court on Sunday.