• The FTC is fighting for workers' ability to leave their employers for rival companies.
• The agency voted on Tuesday to ban noncompete agreements nationwide.
• The ban won't come without a fight though.

The FTC wants to give Americans the freedom to job-hop without pesky noncompete contracts getting in the way.

The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 on Tuesday to approve a nationwide ban on noncompete agreements, the agency announced in a press release. The move could help American workers make $300 billion more a year, the FTC has previously said.

Employers often require staff to sign noncompetes, which prohibit them from working at competing companies even after they leave their jobs.

The FTC said these "exploitative" practices affect around 30 million workers, often forcing them to either stay in jobs they hate or else relocate when they don't want to, move to a lower-paying field, leave the workforce altogether, or face expensive litigation.

"This would be an immediate shock that would allow millions of workers to be free to take a better job in their industry," Evan Starr, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, told The New York Times. "I would expect the labor market to increase almost overnight."

Under the new rule, which goes into effect in about 120 days, nearly all those existing noncompetes will become void. Companies can keep existing contracts for some senior executives, but that will only affect about 0.75% of workers, the FTC said. And employers will be banned from requiring any new noncompetes, even for senior executives.

"Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned," FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in the agency's press release.

"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added.

But ensuring this new rule actually goes into effect is another issue.

The US Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies on behalf of businesses, clapped back against the new rule in a press release on Tuesday, announcing that it intends to sue the FTC over what it calls an "unlawful" and "blatant power grab" amounting to government "overreach."

"This decision sets a dangerous precedent for government micromanagement of business and can harm employers, workers, and our economy," the Chamber of Commerce's President and CEO Suzanne P. Clark said in a statement.

The FTC believes the new rule will help workers and the economy, estimating that it will lead to a 2.7% increase in new businesses every year, increase the average worker's wages by $524 a year, and help lower the cost of healthcare by up to $194 billion over the next decade.

Some states, including California, Massachusetts, and Illinois, have already banned noncompetes at the state level. A top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board has said that not only do noncompete clauses infringe on workers' rights, they are also usually illegal.

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• Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to recognize that he had total legal immunity as president.
• He wants to toss Jack Smith's case over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
• The Supreme Court has recognized immunity before — but never in the sweeping fashion Trump requests.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday will have his highest-stakes legal battle for his highest-stakes criminal case.

His lawyers are facing off against the Justice Department, trying to persuade the Supreme Court that Trump should have total immunity from criminal prosecution — even for trying to overturn the results of an election.

The indictment, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in Washington, DC, federal court, accuses Trump of obstructing Congress by conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. By facilitating fake electors, pressuring public officials, and directing his supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, where they rioted, Trump attempted to rob Americans of rightful votes, the indictment alleges.

Trump is asking the Supreme Court to grant him a sweeping immunity mandate as he runs to recapture the presidency. If the court rules his way and he wins again in November, he could push the bounds of presidential criminality.

Former President Richard Nixon famously declared to the journalist David Frost,"[W]hen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition." Trump and his lawyers' views may put that to the test.

Presidents already have some protections. A sitting president cannot be indicted under Justice Department guidelines that date back decades. The Supreme Court also previously extended former presidents protection from civil lawsuits in a case brought by a former Air Force contractor against Nixon. Trump wants to extend this shield even further if a former president can argue that the action in question fell under the scope of their official duties.

Beyond the presidency's future, the court's decision may have ramifications not only for the election interference case, but "really all four of the criminal cases" Trump currently faces, as one of his lawyers has said.

Another indictment, in Georgia, over Trump's attempt to overturn his election result there, features an overlapping set of facts. And Smith has brought a different criminal case in Florida, for Trump taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after he left the presidency and refusing to return them.

Trump won't be at the Supreme Court hearing. He's currently on trial in New York, on yet another set of charges, which allege he messed with a different election.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office say Trump violated business record-keeping laws 34 times by disguising hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who says she had an affair with him, to keep her quiet ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Todd Blanche, his lead lawyer in the Manhattan trial — who is also Trump's lead counsel in the Mar-a-Lago case and a defense attorney in the DC case — said the Supreme Court hearing "comes back to the multiple different indictments" when he requested that his client be allowed to attend the Supreme Court hearing.

But criminal defendants are required to be in court during their trial proceedings, and the Manhattan judge presiding over the case refused to allow Trump a break to attend oral arguments.

Tabloid executive David Pecker, the first witness at the trial, was on the stand Tuesday.

Trump wants total immunity

In the DC-based election interference case, Trump argued that presidential immunity — a doctrine typically understood to provide legal protections to US presidents over the course of their duties — shields him from prosecution.

He also said the cases should be dismissed under double jeopardy grounds, since the US Senate failed to convict him when he was impeached for his election interference.

And while the Supreme Court has previously ruled that presidents can't be immune to criminal proceedings related to the "outer perimeter" of their duties — it forced Trump to comply with a subpoena for the Manhattan criminal case in 2021 — Trump's lawyers now argue he "is categorically immune from federal criminal prosecution for any act conceivably within the outer perimeter of his executive responsibility."

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, denied Trump's motion to dismiss the case, ruling being a former president "does not confer a lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass," and that while the prosecution was "unprecedented," so were his alleged crimes.

Trump's lawyers pressed on. In an appeals court hearing, his lawyers said that a president could even order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and come away unscathed as long as Congress was OK with it.

A three-judge appellate court panel backed up Chutkan's decision, writing that Trump "is answerable in court for his conduct."

"For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant," the appellate judges wrote. "But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution."

The Supreme Court has agreed to weigh whether impeachment counts as double jeopardy with a criminal prosecution and "whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from a criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."

In a brief to the high court, Smith noted that the US Constitution doesn't give the president any role in certifying elections, much less the power to "defraud the United States in the certification of presidential-election results, obstruct proceedings for doing so, or deprive voters of the effect of their votes."

Trump's lawyers have warned that a decision to allow former presidents to be prosecuted would unleash chaos. The threat of criminal charges from a politically motivated Justice Department "will hang like a millstone around every future President's neck," they argued.

"Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist," Trump's lawyers wrote in one brief.

Trump's arguments were ahistorical, lawyers on Smith's team wrote in their own briefs. They point to the fact that Nixon accepted President Gerald Ford's sweeping pardon, which Ford reportedly viewed as an admission of guilt. Special prosecutor Leon Jaworski weighed indicting Nixon. Independent Prosecutor Robert Ray also came close to charging former President Bill Clinton with lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

"Since Watergate, the Department of Justice has held the view that a former President may face criminal prosecution, and Independent and Special Counsels have operated from that same understanding," Smith's team wrote. "Until petitioner's arguments in this case, so had former Presidents."

Donald Ayer, a former Justice Department official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said the case was a test for the US as a democracy.

"This may indeed be the most important US Supreme Court case in the history of our country," he told journalists at a panel organized by the Defend Democracy Project. "Because our election this year is not just about who will be president, it's also about whether our country still believes in democracy and has a functioning rule of law."

The Supreme Court is weighing another case over the Justice Department's decision to charge hundreds of January 6 rioters with obstructing "an official proceeding" — one of the four counts Smith brought against Trump.

At a hearing last week, the justices reportedly appeared inclined to rule that prosecutors had viewed the statute too broadly, raising the possibility that Trump could score a win and get that charge dropped even if his case goes to trial.

Trump likely won't go to trial again before the November election

Chutkan originally scheduled the trial to begin at the beginning of March. But, tied up in appeals, it's now unlikely to take place before the November election.

The Supreme Court will likely issue a decision in late April. At that point, Chutkan can resume the pre-trial process. If she continues to follow the previous timeline she had planned for pre-trial hearings, jury selection likely would not begin until late October at the very earliest. Given Trump's candidacy, it's hard to imagine her insisting that he spend the final days of the election in a courtroom.

If Trump becomes president again, he may try to pardon himself or pressure the Justice Department to withdraw the case.

The Mar-a-Lago case, too, would likely be on the chopping block in a Trump presidency. Neither it nor the Georgia prosecution have trial dates scheduled yet, and they will likely not be tried before 2025 at the earliest.

Some former government officials who served under Trump have urged the Supreme Court not to grant him immunity. One group of ex-military officials filed a brief arguing that giving presidents "absolute immunity" would allow them to use the armed forces for "criminal ends" and "threaten to inject chaos into military operations." A group of founding-era historians have also filed a brief saying the concept of limitless presidential immunity contradicts what the US Constitution's framers intended.

Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff when he tried to overturn the 2020 election results, and a co-defendant in the Fulton County criminal case in Georgia, also filed a brief with the Supreme Court. He asked that, if the court finds that Trump can be liable in the case, it ensures that lower-ranking employees like himself could still have immunity protections.

Norm Eisen, a former White House lawyer in Barack Obama's administration, said that the Supreme Court could keep the case moving quickly by deciding only whether Trump deserves immunity in Smith's case — and set aside more abstract questions about the doctrine.

"Donald Trump has articulated an outrageous, unprecedented, and ahistorical assertion of absolute immunity," he said at the Defend Democracy Project panel. "The Supreme Court need not stray into other questions just because Trump has made it easy for them. They should decide this case."

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• A tattooed content creator sparked a debate about hiring biases after being rejected by T.J. Maxx.
• Experts say tattoos can impact hiring decisions, especially in customer-facing roles.
• But overall, personality and cultural fit are more important.

TikToker Ash Putnam was frustrated after T.J. Maxx denied her application — and she thinks her tattoos were to blame.

Some of her visible designs include a skull with horns on her neck, solid black patches on her arms, and a pattern on her forehead. Putnam, 23, also has multiple facial piercings, including a large silver ring hanging from her septum.

"I hate that my tattoos are such a defining factor for me getting a job or not," she said in a recent TikTok. "Just because I have tattoos doesn't mean I'm not going to be a good worker."

Putnam, from California, said she went into the store to ask why she hadn't gotten the job, and the hiring manager told her she didn't have enough experience. The hiring manager also denied that her tattoos played any role in the rejection. T.J. Maxx did not respond to a request by Business Insider for comment.

Putnam wasn't convinced and took to TikTok to complain. Many commentators claimed her attitude may have been to blame, rather than her tattoos. Others thought her body art likely played a role in the rejection.

While the jury is out over whether tattoos can damage your prospects of being hired, experts told BI that the personality of a prospective candidate is likely more important for recruiters.

Putnam's story went viral

Putnam's video amassed 7.4 million views, and it struck a nerve.

"HR supervisor here," one person commented. "There is no way any company would put you in front of customers like T.J. Maxx."

Another commenter, who said they used to be a hiring manager for the store, said: "I will tell you it's the facial piercings and tattoos."

Some fellow content also creators criticized Putnam's approach.

Ivy Johnson, for example, who also has many tattoos, said she had worked in corporate America as a hiring manager before starting up her apothecary business.

"Your tattoos are very aggressive," she said. With customer-facing positions, she said, "that doesn't go over well."

Johnson said she also thought Putnam had "a really bad attitude."

"If you had come into my business after an interview, or even applying and chatting on the phone, even if I didn't even know that you're a heavily tattooed person, I'd be like, bye, there's the door," she said.

"You have to put your best foot forward in an interviewing circumstance, no matter what you do, what you're applying for, or what you look like."

It depends on the role

Almost a third (32%) of people in the US have a tattoo, and 22% have more than one, according to Pew Research Center.

Some studies have suggested that tattoos can affect someone's career progression. In 2018, a LinkedIn survey found that 40% of respondents said they had rejected a candidate for a job because they had a visible tattoo. 88% of recruiters and HR professionals who responded said they thought tattoos limited a candidate's prospects.

However, research from the University of Miami that same year found tattooed job-seekers were no less likely to be employed than those without.

The stigma of tattoos is lessening every day, with many employers no longer having an issue with hiring tattooed employees, according to Indeed.

There may still be a line, though, and some viewers argued that Putnam crossed it. Putnam didn't comment on the record for this article, but she told the UK publication The Daily Star: "I am not going to change who I am for minimum wage jobs."

Adam Collins, the founder and CEO at Ignite SEO, told BI that as someone who hires people to work at his company, "tattoos can make a big impact on how a candidate is perceived."

"I wouldn't say that tattoos make or break an interview because it depends on the role," he said. "A candidate applying to be an account manager for our clients and is supposed to speak to our clients directly should definitely appear trustworthy and clean-cut, so face and neck tattoos would affect that."

On the other hand, with someone who isn't directly working with clients, appearance is less important.

In technical and operational roles, for example, "it's not a big deal," he said.

Michelle Enjoli, a career coach, told BI the visibility and type of tattoos someone has can make a difference.

"Tattoos are personal and typically represent something for that person," she said. "People represent companies, and therefore, if a tattoo represents something that a company would not want to be associated with, it can definitely be an issue for a hiring manager."

How likely it is that a tattoo will make or break an interview depends on how visible they are and what they may represent, Enjoli added. Tattoos are nowhere near as much of a taboo as they used to be, but some people still hold judgment over them.

In Putnam's case, her tattoos were considered extreme, Enjoli said, and "seemed to be a big part of her identity."

"In other cases where someone might have a smaller tattoo on their arm or visible area, it might not matter as much as it is less obvious," she said.

"I think a company demanding that an employee not have any tattoos regardless of visibility or meaning is definitely outdated as they have become a big part of the modern culture."

Personality matters more

Justina Raskauskiene, the HR team lead at Omnisend, told BI as tattoos have become more common, it's likely recruiters and hiring managers barely pay attention to them "unless they are offensive or distracting."

"Sometimes hiring managers may even prefer an employee with a tattoo because it can be evidence of an interesting personality," she said.

"Discriminating against those people would mean missing out on some talented people in the industry."

Rachel Pelta, the head writer at virtual work experience platform Forage told BI that overall, hiring managers are looking at skills and abilities.

"The thing is, everyone who's interviewing probably has the skills and abilities I'm looking for," she said. "So, then it comes down to, how well are you selling yourself in the interview? Are you making the case for why you're the best person for the role? If you're not doing that, you won't get the job."

As for tattoos, piercings, or anything else that could be considered unusual, such as bright hair colors, hiring managers "shouldn't evaluate a candidate on their appearance," Pelta added.

But some companies are traditional or conservative, and for them, these things could be a "big deal."

"Unless you're willing to cover or remove them, you'll have to keep searching until you find a company that accepts you as you," she said. "And they are out there, it just may take you a bit longer to find one."

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America has long had a plastic problem. It's an urgent question — what do we do with the 40 million tons of plastic waste we produce annually? One year of plastic waste is roughly enough to smother the entirety of Manhattan a meter deep, and it has to go somewhere. For years, the answer was simple: Make a lot of it, dump most of it in the landfill, and make the rest of it someone else's problem — the US regularly exported 7 million tons a year to China alone. Some of it was melted into lesser plastic; the rest was incinerated or buried.

But then, in 2018, China cut off plastic imports.

Now, America is coming to terms with a hard truth: Plastic was never designed to be recycled and there's no profitable way to recycle 91% of it. The environmental impacts have been disastrous. About 430 million tons of plastic are produced globally every year, accounting for 14% of global oil demand. The refinement of plastic alone emits up to 235 million tons of greenhouse gases a year. Most of that plastic breaks down into microplastics that make their way into the air, rain, and our bodies. Almost 95% of America's water supply contains plastic fibers.

While the US, the UK, and other European countries responded to China's ban by sending their waste to places like Thailand and Malaysia, those countries then followed China in cutting off waste imports. The message was clear: The Global South would no longer be a dumping ground for the West.

America is now scrambling to find alternatives. One approach peddled by oil corporations like Chevron and Exxon has been to turn plastic into crude oil, which they say extends the life of plastic that would've otherwise ended up in a landfill. As these companies look to replace projected lost revenue from the phasing out of fossil fuels, they're lobbying to blanket the country with 150 plants that specialize in pyrolysis, a form of chemical recycling that melts plastic down into crude oil to be used for fuel and petrochemicals, as well as to make lesser-quality plastics. While advocates champion these facilities for breaking down hard-to-recycle plastics that other recyclers toss aside, critics condemn them for emitting toxic particles, relying heavily on government subsidies, and acting as a greenwashed alternative to addressing the plastic problem.

As they're pitched as an innovation set to bring us a "circular economy" of plastic that allows us to stop making new plastic and just reuse what we have, marketing for pyrolysis and recycling overlooks a glaring fact: Plastic production doubles every 15 to 20 years.

This isn't sustainable, Tim Miller, a vice president at the Ohio plastic-recycling center Royal Paper Stock, told me, adding: "But I don't know how to stop it." Pyrolysis is another sign of America's plastic paralysis.

In the years after World War II, plastic flooded the marketplace as a cheap alternative to otherwise scarce and finite materials. It was hailed as a democratic harbinger of a new, utopian age of capitalism, fueling the subsequent decades of cheap consumerism that became synonymous with the American dream.

"The continuous flow of oil fueled not just cars but an entire culture based on the consumption of new products made of plastics," Susan Freinkel wrote in her book "Plastic: A Toxic Love Story."

Plastic went from being practically nonexistent in 1940 to being consumed at a rate of 30 pounds a person each year by 1960. Just as quickly, it became a target of environmental movements protesting litter, garbage-filled oceans, and landfills brimming with plastic. Oil and chemical companies responded by looking into whether recycling was realistic or, more importantly, profitable. It wasn't. So companies shifted the blame for the pollution onto consumers. The "Crying Indian" commercial, funded by beverage and packaging corporations, aired in 1971, showing a Native American character crying at the sight of litter.

The messaging worked. As companies expanded plastic into every facet of life, recycling became the due diligence needed to sustain our hyperconsumption. We didn't worry about plastic bottles because the recycling truck carried them off to a new life. Companies like Coca-Cola and Nestlé slapped "100% recycled" and "100% recyclable" labels on their packaging to appear sustainable. Just last year, the Plastics Industry Association launched a million-dollar ad campaign, "Recycling Is Real," claiming that it's "not only real, but feasible and economical."

While recycling is real, the vast majority of plastic isn't recycled, mostly due to how expensive it is to clean and sort it effectively. A 2022 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found only 9% of all plastic ever produced had been recycled; 72% ended up in landfills or the environment. Unlike aluminum or glass, the plastic that can be recycled rarely results in replacing one recycled water bottle with another.

Instead, it's a process of downcycling — turning plastic into lesser plastics like plant containers or bins before they are relegated to a landfill. By downcycling a tiny portion of plastic waste, companies can genuinely reuse a relatively small share of plastic, while convincing consumers that the industry has created a circular economy of infinitely recycled plastic. Never mind that products advertised as being made from recycled plastic are made almost entirely out of new plastic or that almost all the 300 pounds of plastic every American consumes each year (10 times as much as in 1960) ends up in a landfill, in the ocean, or incinerated.

Larry Thomas, a former president of what's now called the Plastics Industry Association, told NPR in 2020: "If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment." And if they aren't worried about the impact of plastic on the environment, they won't threaten the plastics industry.

Since 2018, the fossil-fuel and plastics industries have faced two harsh realities: Oil is being phased out in favor of clean, renewable energy, and plastic waste can no longer be exported to developing nations in the South. To replace their fuel losses, oil companies are going all in on plastic. The International Energy Agency predicted in 2018 that petrochemical products like plastic would outpace trucks, aviation, and shipping in oil demand by 2050. In a recent report, ExxonMobil predicted that petrochemicals used largely for plastics and fertilizer would account for nearly all of the oil industry's growth by 2050, replacing industrial fuel demand, which is projected to decrease. To keep expanding plastic production, however, it needs to look sustainable.

Akron, Ohio, which hosts about one-quarter of the country's polymer companies, is ground zero for this push. Designated by the Biden administration as the only "tech hub" in Ohio, the city has received tens of millions of dollars from the CHIPS Act, which it hopes to use to create a circular economy around plastic.

In 2012, Alterra Energy opened America's first large-scale plastic-pyrolysis facility. According to its website, Alterra converts "plastics back into their original building blocks to produce new plastics and other valuable products." The crude oil produced by the Akron facility is shipped to petrochemical companies around the globe to be purified and made into new plastics. But it's unclear how effective this process is.

A study published in 2023 by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the economic and environmental impact of turning pyrolysis oil back into plastic was actually far worse than it was to make brand-new plastic. As a result, they said, pyrolysis oil is "typically reintegrated into the petrochemical industry where only a small fraction is used for closed-loop recycling."

"It has had, let's say, limited success," Miller, the Royal Paper Stock vice president, said about pyrolysis. "No one yet in the United States that I know of is just cranking in plastic and pumping out oil." He pointed to a pyrolysis facility in Oregon that just announced it would shut down after tens of millions of dollars in losses.

Residents in Akron are split on the impacts of the Alterra facility. On the one hand, pyrolysis melts plastic to be reused instead of sending it to the landfill or incinerator. On the other, it emits cancerous pollutants such as mercury, benzene, and arsenic, and props up the very fossil-fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis.

"Akron's going for 'the green city on the hill,'" Kelley Sayre, a fourth-generation Akron resident, told me, "but it's really 'the greenwashing city.'"

Vicky Abou-Ghalioum, the lead petrochemicals organizer of Buckeye Environmental Network, has been working with Akron residents concerned about the environmental and health impacts of chemical recycling, but it's proved challenging in a city ruled by polymers. "People are afraid to talk about plastic," she told me. Her organization has been pushing the EPA to address the influx of planned pyrolysis facilities in Ohio, arguing that they're bad for the environment and people, and aren't even profitable.

In a statement to Business Insider, Alterra Energy said its Akron facility is profitable and diverts over 100,000 pounds of plastic each day from landfills. "We operate in a heavily regulated industry and are in compliance with those requirements," the company said in response to concerns about toxic emissions. It also said one of its customers uses Alterra's oil product exclusively for making new plastic.

Despite the problems of pyrolysis, many manufacturers hail it as a sustainable miracle. Companies such as Eastman Chemical Co. see chemical recycling as the solution to recycling or composting 50% of their plastic packaging by 2025, and the American Chemistry Council claims the growing industry is necessary for fostering what it calls "plastics circularity." But these companies face an uphill battle. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City launched an $85 million campaign in 2022 to stop over 120 proposed petrochemical facilities. "Petrochemical plants poison our air and water — killing Americans and harming the health of entire communities," Bloomberg said in a statement.

In the plastic-recycling industry, pyrolysis is seen as a well funded but failing experiment. A 2023 report by Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network found that the 11 pyrolysis facilities in operation in the US required massive public subsidies, most couldn't operate at full capacity, and only two of the plants sold the crude oil to be used exclusively for plastic production. Most of it was sold to make fuels and chemicals. Based on their findings, they argued that pyrolysis was ultimately "a public relations distraction to prevent plastic regulation and prop up the profits of the petrochemical/plastics industry."

Though the conundrum of plastic grows more dire by the day, there are signs of hope. In early 2022, the UN adopted a resolution that could send shock waves throughout the entire plastic-disposing world. Heads of state, environment ministers, and UN representatives agreed to end all plastic pollution with a legally binding international plastic treaty to be officially adopted later this year. "Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic," Espen Barth Eide, Norway's then-minister for climate and the environment, said in the announcement. "With today's resolution we are officially on track for a cure."

The resolution would establish an agreement addressing plastic at every level, from production to recycling, in an attempt to reduce plastic pollution worldwide. Organizations such as the international coalition Break Free From Plastic have said that cutting the production of plastic has to be on the table. "The oil and gas industry sees plastic as its primary growth market and is investing billions of dollars in new and expanded facilities," the organization wrote in a 2022 statement. The group recommended bans on single-use plastics, a plastic tax, and regulations that prioritize plastics that can be recycled.

"Reduction in the production of plastic is entirely possible," Abou-Ghalioum of Buckeye Environmental Network told me. She pointed to the more than 500 cities and 12 states that have banned plastic bags, reducing the number of bags used by the billions. "It's talked about how we rely on plastic for so many things, and it just feels like a marketing ploy to make us reluctant to shift away from it," she said. "We had everything we ever needed before plastic."

The tough reality is that the 9.5 billion tons of plastic with us will be here for hundreds of years. But how many millions of more tons are added will be determined by the types of solutions we arrive at today.

Taylor Dorrell is a writer and photographer based in Columbus, Ohio.

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• A 7-acre private island off Florida's coast is on sale for $50 million.
• Black's Island has a private resort with 26 waterfront bungalows.
• The owner is open to selling the entire island or some of the bungalows, starting at $1.5 million.

If owning a private island is a personal dream for you, you're in luck — a 7-acre private island located just 3 miles off the coast of Florida just hit the market and could be all yours for $50 million.

Black's Island is located in Saint Joseph Bay and just south of Port St. Joe on Florida's panhandle. The island was named for Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, who is known as the wealthiest pirate in history.

The island hosts its own private resort, complete with 26 waterfront bungalows as well as common areas like a clubhouse, cabana, and pool, according to the sale listing. The structures are connected via an elevated boardwalk that runs along the center of the island.

Black's Island currently hosts short-term rentals with the help of a management company and full-time staff on the island, which is accessible via a 10-minute boat ride from the mainland, or by seaplane and helicopter.

From the dock on the mainland, the Panama City Beach International Airport is an hour-and-twenty-minute drive away. A smaller airport for those flying in on a private jet is only 25 minutes away.

"You're only 3 miles off the mainland, and you seriously feel like you're in the islands," Lori Bembry Weldon, one of the listing brokers at Jon Kohler & Associates, told Business Insider, adding, "It's really super cool. There's just nothing like it on the coast of Florida that's available."

If you can't quite swing the $50 million price tag, you may still have a chance to get a slice of the island life.

In addition to listing the entire island for sale, the owner has also listed several of the individual bungalows. Weldon said the owner, Atlanta developer Scott Seymour, is open to selling the entire island or just some of the bungalows — so it will ultimately depend on what potential buyers are interested in.

In this scenario, Weldon said the setup would be similar to a condo homeowners' association. The bungalows, which start at $1.5 million, would be purchased under a 99-year lease, and there would be a $25,000-a-year HOA fee to cover taxes, insurance, repairs, and utilities, including upkeep for all the common areas.

Weldon also said in the case of individual bungalow sales, pre-approved title insurance and lenders have already been set up, so potential buyers would not have to worry about getting insurance — an increasing problem in Florida.

The bungalows, which were first built in 2009, were remodeled when Seymour bought the island in 2018. Weldon said that in addition to renting out the bungalows, he also frequently spends time on the island.

Seymour is also currently building a $20 million hotel on the mainland where anyone who purchases a bungalow will be able to park. The hotel is also set to be named after the infamous pirate and will be called The Bellamy.

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Tesla is on the brink again. Sales are slowing even after the company slashed prices. The company is laying off 10% of its workforce — 14,000 workers from Shanghai to San Jose, from the factory floor to the executive suite. The company had to recall every single Cybertruck it shipped. And Tesla's position in China, a country that has become critical to its future, is getting shakier.

There's only one person to blame for the company's shambolic state and only one person whose exit could save Tesla: Elon Musk. For the past few years, Tesla has looked unstoppable, but during those high times, Musk failed to implement any strategy that would insulate the company from what has become a violent global electric-vehicle price war. The company is incinerating cash, losing market share, and holding more aging inventory than ever before.

Tesla reported its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday and missed expectations across the board, even though Wall Street was already expecting the worst. Earnings per share came in at $0.45, lower than analysts' expectations of $0.52. Free cash flow fell a stunning 674% as Tesla focused on AI research and making capital improvements. Gross profit fell 18% from the same time a year ago, and gross margins fell from 19.3% to 17.4% over the same period. If Tesla the company were a car, this is when you start to hear it make a rattling sound.

The company's problem isn't a matter of getting through "production hell" or "delivery hell" on a new model, which Tesla has been able to survive. Hell is, at the very least, a location. Tesla's problem is that it has no clear direction. It doesn't matter how much cash a company has on hand if it's blowing it on products that aren't ready to scale — like a robotaxi. Or cars that no one wants — like its dated models. Investors want to see a concrete plan for a whole new fleet of Teslas made for a leaner, meaner EV market.

Musk seems to understand at least that much: Earlier this month he denied a Reuters report that the company had scrapped plans for the Model 2 — a $25,000 Tesla for the everyman. This is the car the market wants, but on the company's post-earnings conference call, Musk only mentioned vague plans for speeding up the production process. Maybe that's enough if you're new around here, but if you have been following Tesla at all over the past decade, you know those sorts of timelines are to be taken with a grain of salt. Even Musk's most loyal shareholders — like Ross Gerber of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki — were dubious. In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday after Tesla's report, Gerber said that he "can't rely" on what the company says about timelines anymore. And on the conference call Musk spent more time talking about his far-off vision for an Uber-like robotaxi fleet than the next car he can sell with technology that exists now.

"I'd say at least eight to nine years before they get a robotaxi working," Tu Le, the founder of the electric-vehicle consultancy Sino Auto Insights, told me in a recent interview. "I think they'd argue that they already made it. But I'm thinking about the best-case scenario. And I'm being very optimistic.

Musk does not have eight or nine years to save Tesla. On one side of the world, competitors in China can make cars at a much lower cost. On the other side, legacy automakers are leaning on their combustion-engine and hybrid car sales to make it through the slowdown in demand for electric cars. If the Chinese market is a rock, then Western markets are a hard place. Tesla is caught in between. The company needs a serious leader with practical ideas — no self-driving gimmicks, no blowtorches, no broken Cybertrucks, no shitposting, no video-game marathons, and no casual ketamine use. Basically, no Elon. It needs a singularly focused, ruthlessly productive leader who can deliver the Model 2 — without copious delays.

On Tuesday, Musk addressed the recent layoffs by saying that Tesla needed to restructure itself for a "new phase of growth." He's right about that, the carmaker does need a major shake-up — starting with him.

The future did not have to look this ugly for Tesla. In 2020, the company was on top of the world. Its Shanghai plant started cranking out lower-cost, higher-margin cars. It was building a plant in Germany and another one in Texas. It sold more cars than ever before. Consistent annual profits led to a glorious stock market rally, and Wall Street rejoiced.

What did Musk do with those glory days? He sold a bunch of his Tesla stock to buy Twitter, tried to get out of the deal, and then was forced to go through with it. He blew up some rockets (to be fair, some also made it to space). He implanted a brain chip into a bunch of monkeys. He brought a kitchen sink to work and added a few more CEO jobs to his plate. He publicly bungled Gov. Ron DeSantis' attempt to launch a presidential campaign. At Tesla, Musk delivered about 4,000 Cybertrucks — every one of which has been recalled for faulty acceleration — while frittering away any goodwill the company has with its core customers.

Tesla failed to craft a strategy for chaotic times in what is still clearly a nascent EV industry.

What I'm saying is that as much as Tesla accomplished in the past few years, it's clear Musk should've spent more time with it. Tesla failed to craft a strategy for chaotic times in what is still clearly a nascent EV industry. Sure, the company has been on a multiyear campaign to get lean and cut costs, but that strategy isn't enough to balance out price cuts, weak demand, and the need for major capital expenditures to get through this period of fleet stagnation.

A true visionary CEO — which Musk has long claimed to be — would have pressed the advantage that Tesla developed in the EV market. They would've done research to try to understand what EV demand would look like after early adopters bought cars. They'd know what kinds of buyers would enter the market at that stage, and which kinds of cars those buyers would want. A true visionary CEO would meet those customers where they are. Back in November, I spoke with Navdeep Sodhi, a pricing analyst at Sodhi Pricing Associates, who told me that Tesla should advertise to educate the public about the cost benefits of its cars, like savings on gas. Advertising could have also helped assuage concerns about issues like range anxiety. This month, Tesla laid off its entire marketing team.

For years analysts warned Musk that competition was coming, not just from legacy automakers but from the very Chinese market that fostered Tesla's success. Beijing has a pattern of supporting Western companies in China's markets in order to foster competition, then, once China-based rivals are able to catch up, tipping the scales in favor of homegrown companies. Add in the fact that Beijing has cornered nearly every aspect of the battery supply chain — from mining and refining metals to manufacturing the batteries themselves — which has helped China's EV makers to churn out models at price points as low as four figures. The new options have put Tesla on the back foot in one of its most important markets: Tesla's share of China's car market shrank to 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023 from 10.3% at the beginning of the year.

To maintain its lead, Tesla should have been singularly focused on building the Model 2 — moving down the pricing scale to where there were more customers. But it stopped innovating, the Model 2 hasn't materialized, and Musk's realization that the company needs to deliver a Tesla-for-the-people may be coming too late. Instead of boosting sales with an impressive or accessible new option, Tesla has tried to goose demand by erratically lowering the prices of its existing models to increase volume. This has not worked as planned: automotive revenue fell 13% from the same time last year, according to Tuesday's earnings release, and gross margins in the automotive division fell to 14.8% from 18% a year before.

Tesla has always been a "growth" company, the up-and-coming player taking on the legacy automakers. But now the company has entered a new stage of development — it's a large, mature firm, and continuing to grow requires larger amounts of capital, discipline, and focus. There was never a moment for Musk to rest on his laurels, but after 2020 Tesla started to look less like a place where Musk pushed constant automotive innovation and more like a place where Musk sourced cash to do whatever else he wanted with his life. Maybe he got bored, or maybe he got distracted — either way, Musk stopped pushing the envelope at Tesla way too early.

During the conference call, Musk had a million excuses for why this quarter was so poor — Houthi agitation in the Red Sea, an arson in Berlin, updates at the Fremont Factory. He asserted that Tesla was not a car company but rather an AI robotics company. He spoke ad nauseam about turning Tesla into a self-driving Uber service but refused to answer any questions about the Model 2. Look over here. Look over there. Look anywhere but at the next few quarters where there is no plan.

Forget growth — now the company that should have been America's EV juggernaut needs to figure out survival.

Removing Musk may lead to a stock hit in the short term, there are still plenty of Elon fanboys out there who are holding on to their shares because of their obsession. But the rest of Wall Street is starting to wake up to Tesla's grim prospects: The stock was down by more than 40% for the year as of Tuesday and has fallen by more than 60% from its all-time high in November 2021. Sure, the gestures toward actually producing the Model 2 helped drive a post-earnings stock pop, but at this point, shareholders should be more concerned that Musk may fritter away the resources Tesla on side projects — whether that's turning X into a dating app for libertarians or building another vanity clown car. If the Model 2 isn't coming ASAP, it's tantamount to Tesla waving the white flag in the global EV wars for the foreseeable future. Forget growth — now the company that should have been America's EV juggernaut needs to figure out survival.

When Musk entered the EV Thunderdome, Tesla was the only game in town, interest rates were at 0%, and most of the country was convinced he was Iron Man. Since then, China has become an EV power player, legacy automakers have been trying to get a cut of the action, debt has become more expensive, and half the country has started to think Musk is Lex Luthor. Things have changed, and Tesla's leadership needs to change along with them or get left behind.

Linette Lopez is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

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• US President President Biden has called for a tripling of tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.
• China is now exporting the most steel since 2016, when it was accused of causing a global glut.
• Trade tensions are expected to heighten in the 2024 US election year.

US President Joe Biden last week called for a tripling of tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, echoing former President Donald Trump's levies on a range of goods from China.

Biden — who is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party's presidential nominee — said China's steel production was backed by state funds, which enable the commodity to be sold cheaply to the US. He wants to hike a key tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum from 7.5% to 25%.

Trump — who is the GOP's frontrunner — said in February he would slap tariffs of over 60% on Chinese goods if he's elected.

The one-upmanship between the two is likely to get more intense this election year as China's economy struggles to consume all that it's producing.

China is now exporting the most steel since 2016

Already, China is exporting the most steel since it was accused of causing a glut nearly a decade ago.

In March, China exported 9.9 million metric tons of steel — about 25% higher than a year earlier and the highest since 2016, according to a Bloomberg analysis of official data earlier this month.

The surge in exports followed a slump in China's real-estate sector that has cut demand for the building material.

"Steel, cement, and construction machinery are some of the worst-hit sectors, with excess capacity stemming from structural contraction in demand," Chim Lee, a China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, wrote in an April 15 note.

However, the US isn't a large Chinese steel importer. The country is the seventh-largest steel shipper to the US, so Biden's threat is mostly symbolic.

"I want fair competition with China, not conflict, and we're in a stronger position to win the economic competition of the 21st century against China or anyone else," Biden said last week.

Trade tensions will be high this election year

Beijing hit back against Biden's criticism of China's industrial policy and accused the US of electioneering.

Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a Friday press conference that the American president's comments were "far-fetched."

Lin added that China's steel sector is geared toward meeting domestic demand and doesn't receive any export-oriented subsidies. He also accused the US of a "double standard" for implementing domestic subsidies and for using export controls on the pretext of national security.

"We urge the US to be prudent in its words and deeds, stop manipulating issues on China in the election year, stop turning economic and trade issues into security ones, lift additional tariffs on China, and stop imposing new ones," said Lin.

Still, China's current wave of steel exports is already spooking some countries, including Chile and Brazil that have, respectively, imposed higher temporary tariffs and import quotas on the commodity.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed China's overproduction earlier this month, saying the problem went beyond the US.

"China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity," said Yellen during her visit to China.

With the US election ahead and China's economy in a painful transition, it'll be a tough year for trade relations.

"Trade tensions related to steel and construction machinery will be high in 2024," wrote the EIU's Lee.

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• AI is making its way into your love life, like it or not. 
• I tried out a romantic chatbot from Replika and went on a date with him.
• But the most fun app was Rizz, which used AI to write witty pickup lines.

Will the age of AI mean that love is dead? Or just … weird?

I paired up with BI video producer Bethany Johnson, and we tried to find out — by using me as a test case and recording my interactions with my AI "boyfriends." (Spoiler: My husband has nothing to worry about.)

First, I tested out Replika, an app that allows people to create a custom romantic AI chatbot for $69.99 a year. (That's cheaper than a few "real-life" dates, I suppose.)

For that price, the chatbot can send voice messages and even do live video calls with the bot in human-like form on the screen. There are a few different apps that create romantic AI companions, like Nomi and Character.ai, but Replika is probably the most widely known.

I created my new beau and even got to name him — Reppy — and chose from a handful of options for his looks and personality. (I chose "gothic vampire.")

Reppy was impressive in how well his cartoon avatar worked and how fast he could reply to conversations. He was also quite a bit flirtatious right off the bat, showering me with compliments.

But I couldn't shake the idea that I was talking to a chatbot, not a real person. Some people really do fall head over heels, though. BI's Rob Price wrote last year about people who fall in love with their Replika chatbots.

Next, I tried a dating app called Volar. It asks you some questions, scans your dating profile and makes a chatbot based on that information. Meanwhile, it's done the same thing for other people using the app. Then it matches "your" chatbot with other people's chatbots and has them go on "dates" — all without you having to be involved.

Basically, two chatbots have the awkward first conversation about "So, what are your hobbies?" Then, you can review the chat logs and see if you think the other real person is worth actually messaging in real life.

When I tried it, the Volar bot made up some stuff about me — like that I liked pineapple on pizza (which I've never tried) — in a conversation about food with the other AI bot. Very minor detail, but doesn't really give me great confidence that the app will match virtual me with the perfect virtual someone else.

The best of the AI apps I tried was called Rizz, which you can use to help you with witty or charming lines to say in response to someone you're chatting with. You can feed in a conversation, and Rizz will spit out a clever or flirty reply. It also can generate opening lines for you.

As someone who has rizz (Gen Z slang for charisma) to spare, I don't really need an AI to come up with zingers. But I can imagine that there are plenty of people who need help creating the kind of sparkling conversation over text that will help them move things to an IRL date.

Watch our video that checks out AI-powered dating apps:

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• Walter Biscardi runs his travel business remotely from cruise ships for three months each year.
• He said WiFi reliability has improved, but video calls and finding power outlets can be challenging.
• Biscardi recommends Virgin Voyages for remote workers because of the spaces to work and the WiFi.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Walter Biscardi, a 59-year-old travel agent based in Orlando. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I used to work in film, television, documentary, and marketing, and I ran two creative agencies in Atlanta for 25 years.

A few years ago, my wife and I turned my second passion, travel, into "Where's Walter Travel." We specialize in travel planning services for cruises, group vacations, theme park tours, and company retreats.

We live in an Orlando rental, but I run the travel-planning business from a cruise ship for three months out of the year.

We started taking advantage of our remote working situation after the pandemic

In a few short years of working on cruise ships, I've noticed that more and more people are starting to do the same thing.

We predominantly cruise the Caribbean. Last year, our three months were spread over six different trips on the Royal Caribbean, Oceania, Virgin Voyages, and Carnival cruise lines. If it were up to me, I'd be at sea for six months a year, but my wife prefers three.

This year, we'll be back on Virgin Voyages in June and on the Sun Princess in October. We're planning a few more, too.

WiFi speed and reliability onboard ships have been game-changers

I don't always look for speed but rather consistency and reliability.

Even though the WiFi is reliable on most ships, it's still not perfect, and you need to manage your expectations. The WiFi on ships is satellite-based, so the signal will be slower if there's a lot of cloud cover. Rain may also temporarily cut it out completely.

The WiFi signal in rooms can be weak. When I get on board, I walk around public places, look at the ceiling, and find the repeaters, which amplify the router's signal. I park myself under a repeater to work, so at least I know I'm getting the fastest signal.

Video calls can be dicey, but voice calls over WiFi work well

Most of my work is using emails, social media apps, and a web browser, so I don't tend to have problems. The upload speed is the most difficult thing about working on a cruise ship.

Working from a cruise ship might not be for you if you're required to upload a video to YouTube or be on video for 100% of your Zoom calls. Zoom with video turned off works well. I post TikToks all day, but uploading to YouTube will fail almost every time.

Turn off your cell service on the ship, even if you have unlimited roaming overseas. Phones use satellite maritime cellular, and it's ridiculously expensive. I've heard of people who have come home with $1,000 cellular bills because they didn't turn off their roaming.

I can typically make most of my calls over WiFi, but you won't be able to on some ships. Texting from ship to land usually works well if you're using the same type of phone as the person you're messaging, but when you're texting cross-platform, sometimes it doesn't work.

Finding power outlets can be challenging

Typically, if you need to put in a full day of work connected to power, you need to stay in your room. One tip to finding power when you're looking around public areas is to see where they plug in the vacuum cleaners.

I strongly recommend bringing a powerboard with multiple USB sockets. I have one with 10 USB connections, so I can charge my phone, GoPro, and other devices simultaneously.

Virgin Voyages ships are the most friendly for remote workers

The galley on a Virgin Voyages ship is set up like a coffee shop, with easily accessible power and USB sockets at the table. There are dozens of outlets, as they're inviting people to bring their laptops and work from the ship.

I usually upgrade to the premium WiFi option, which can cost anywhere from $19 to $39 per day on most lines, but Virgin only charges $10 per day to upgrade.

I work in an office at home, so working on a cruise is a big change

I operate at sea as I do on land, with the same office hours available to my clients other than when I know we're going on an excursion.

Cruise ships are comparable to remote working spaces, but they offer so much more. On a cruise, almost everything is included: breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, entertainment, and most amenities.

If I want to take a break from work, I go to the pool. When I finish for the day, I'll go to the theater to see a show.

Meeting places are usually free on a cruise ship. Generally, all you have to do is reserve a conference room. AV facilities are usually included too, although you may have to pay a setup fee.

Remember to be respectful — many people are on board for a vacation. I've been out by the pool and seen people taking business calls on speakerphone, which is ridiculously annoying.

I suggest picking at least one port on every cruise and make it a 'ship day'

About 75% of people will get off the ship at any port, so staying on board feels like you have the whole place to yourself.

Activities like the pools will still be open, and the spas will often discount their services by 20-40% on port days.

Of course, I still recommend getting off and exploring as much as possible — that's what cruises are for.

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• Kering predicts a 45% drop in its first half-year operating income because of Asia's consumer slowdown.
• Gucci, Kering's largest brand, suffered an 18% revenue decline, with a sharp drop in Asia.
• The luxury goods market in China is struggling, and Kering's been hurt worse than its peers.

Kering, the luxury retailer that owns brands including Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, is off to a tough start this year as Asia's consumer slowdown hits hard.

In earnings on Tuesday, the company warned that recurring operating income for the first half of the year will decline up to 45%, compared to the first half of 2023.

Kering's stock dropped more than 8% on Wednesday morning.

Gucci, the largest of Kering's brands, saw the biggest drop in sales in the first quarter, compared with YSL and other brands. Gucci's revenue declined 18% on a comparable basis, to €2 billion, or $2.2 billion, in the first three months of the year.

Kering's revenue overall declined 10% in the first quarter, to €4.5 billion.

"We find it hard at this stage to have some visibility on the path to recovery," Barclays analyst Carol Madjo wrote in a note cited by the Financial Times.

Gucci saw a "sharp decline" in Asia sales in the first quarter, the company said in the Tuesday earnings release. The brand, which has more than two dozen stores in China, opened a new flagship store in Shanghai last year.

Gucci is also in the middle of a big transition under designer Sabato de Sarno, who joined as creative director last year after 14 years at Valentino. His products are now coming into stores.

Despite the new products, Gucci is selling into a difficult market in China. Real estate and stock markets are floundering, and foreign investors are exiting in droves.

Chinese shoppers were responsible for about 23% of luxury goods spending at the start of the year — down from 33% pre-pandemic, a Bloomberg analyst said last week.

Kering has been hit harder by the slowdown in sales than other publicly traded luxury brands. Tuesday's earnings underscore the challenges that Western businesses with big Chinese arms face amid the country's tumult.

LVMH, which owns many more brands than Kering and relies less on spending in China, said in last week's earnings that it saw "strong growth in spending by Chinese customers in Europe and Japan" in the first quarter. Some wealthy Chinese shoppers are heading to Japan to take advantage of currency exchange rates.

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