The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a legal dispute involving 15 states that want to strike down laws in California and Massachusetts requiring larger living areas for some farm animals.
The attorney general’s office in Missouri, which spearheaded one of the lawsuits, vowed Tuesday to continue fighting for local farmers and consumers and said it was considering the next step.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice had urged the Supreme Court not to accept original jurisdiction over the states’ lawsuits. It said the dispute over interstate commerce was best suited for a district court.
California voters approved a ballot initiative in 2008 requiring that caged hens spend most of their day in spaces large enough to lie down, stand up, turn around and extend their limbs. After California egg farmers raised concerns that they would be put at a competitive disadvantage, state legislators in 2010 expanded the law to bar the sale of eggs from any hens that were not raised in compliance with California standards requiring at least 116 square inches of floor space per chicken.
The lawsuit claimed the California law cost consumers nationwide up to $350 million annually because of higher egg prices since the requirements took effect in 2015.
World Bank trims economic outlook
The World Bank is downgrading its outlook for the global economy this year, citing rising trade tension, weakening manufacturing activity and growing financial stress in emerging-market countries.
In a report titled “Darkening Skies,” the anti-poverty agency said Tuesday that it expects the world economy to grow 2.9 percent in 2019, down from the 3 percent it forecast back in June. It would be the second straight year of slowing growth: The global economy expanded 3 percent last year and 3.1 percent in 2017.
“Global growth is slowing, and the risks are rising,” Ayhan Kose, the World Bank economist who oversees forecasts, said in an interview. “In 2017, the global economy was pretty much firing on all cylinders. In 2018, the engines started sputtering.”
The bank left its forecast for the U.S. economy unchanged at 2.5 percent this year, down from 2.9 percent in 2018. It predicts 1.6 percent growth for the 19 countries that use the euro currency, down from 1.9 percent last year; and 6.2 percent growth for China, the world’s second-biggest economy, versus 6.5 percent in 2018.
Samsung warns profits to decline
Samsung expects its quarterly operating profit to fall 29 percent compared with last year, adding to the tech sector’s unease about the effect of slowing global economic growth on the industry.
Samsung said there’s weak global demand for chips amid a worldwide economic slowdown, while its smartphones are facing stronger competition. The weakening trend follows many record-breaking profit quarters from Samsung. In October, the company said there was strong demand for its memory chips, although it had previously noted the slowdown for smartphones. It has been revamping its lower-cost phones lineup.
China is a huge smartphone market, accounting for one-third of the world’s handset shipments, but its economy has been slowing and many people are leery of the rising trade tensions with the U.S. They have also begun to buy smartphones from Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi.
Samsung said late Monday that it anticipates a quarterly operating profit of about 10.8 trillion won ($9.6 billion). It expects fourth-quarter sales to drop almost 11 percent from a year ago, to 59 trillion won ($52.4 billion).