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President Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he intends to visit the southern border while he’s in Mexico next week.

The president said that arrangements to visit the border are being worked out but that the visit could take place before he goes to Mexico City for the North American Leaders’ Summit. The summit with Mexican and Canadian leaders is set to start on Jan. 9.

“That’s my intention. We’re working out the details now,” Biden said about visiting the border.

The visit to the southern border would be Biden’s first since taking office. The president has faced criticism for months because he has not visited the border amid the migrant crisis.

The Supreme Court last month ordered that the Title 42 border policy must remain in place, reversing an order from a federal judge in Washington, D.C., who ruled that the Trump-era border policy must end.

Biden, who has been under pressure from Republicans to reinstate Title 42, last week said that the end to the policy is “overdue” but that it has to be enforced in the wake of the court’s decision. Title 42, implemented at the start of the pandemic, allows for migrants to be quickly expelled at the border without asylum processing.

The president has also recently renewed calls for Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform measures and for Republicans to “move past political finger-pointing” and join Democrats to solve the challenge at the border.

The White House, which has tried to declare that the southern border is not open even if Title 42 ends, is asking Congress for $3.5 billion in funding to help with the situation at the southern border.

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 Red meat is a key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. 

New research shows menu labels that warn of red meat’s high climate impact may encourage consumers to opt for more environmentally sustainable options.

However, some consumers may conflate a food’s sustainability with its overall healthfulness. 

Labels placed on fast food items highlighting their high climate impact may sway consumers to make more sustainable choices, new study results show. 

Food accounts for around one-third of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, while animal-based foods like red meat and dairy products make up a large proportion of these emissions. 

Researchers carried out a randomized clinical trial with over 5,000 participants to determine whether calling attention to red meat’s climate impact could change consumer menu selections. 

Individuals were shown a sample online fast food menu and asked to select an item for dinner. 

A control group received a menu with a quick response code label on all items and no climate labels. Another group received a menu with green low-climate impact labels, positively framing options like fish, chicken, or vegetarian options. The third group received a menu with red high-climate labels on items containing red meat, negatively framing the options. 

Results showed 23 percent more participants in the high climate label group ordered a sustainable, non-red meat option, and ten percent more in the low-climate group ordered a sustainable option, compared with controls.

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“In the United States, meat consumption, red meat consumption in particular, consistently exceeds recommended levels based on national dietary guidelines,” researchers wrote in the study. 

“Shifting current dietary patterns toward more sustainable diets with lower amounts of red meat consumed could reduce diet-related [greenhouse gas emissions] by up to 55 [percent].” 

Excess red meat consumption can also be harmful to human health and has been linked with increased risks of diabetes and certain cancers. Fast food restaurants are a key source of red meat in many Americans’ diets, authors noted, adding more than one-third of U.S. individuals consume fast food on a given day.

“These results suggest that menu labeling, particularly labels warning that an item has high climate impact, can be an effective strategy for encouraging more sustainable food choices in a fast food setting,” said lead study author Julia Wolfson in a statement. Wolfson is an associate professor in the department of international health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Participants were also asked to rate how healthy they perceived their order to be. No food items included in the study were considered healthy based on Nutrition Profile Index scores.

Regardless of the climate label, those who selected a non-beef option perceived their choice to be healthier than those who selected a red meat item, researchers found. 

These results suggest climate labels may make a food item seem more healthy than it is.

“An undeserved health halo conferred to unhealthy menu items could encourage their overconsumption,” said Wolfson. “So we have to look for labeling strategies that create ‘win-wins’ for promoting both more sustainable and healthy choices.”

The randomized trial was carried out online between March and April 2022.

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Moody’s Analytics warned in a new report that the U.S. could face what it called a “slowcession” this year but maintained that the economy will most likely avoid a full-blown downturn.

“Under almost any scenario, the economy is set to have a difficult 2023,” Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi said in the January report. “But inflation is quickly moderating, and the economy’s fundamentals are sound. With a bit of luck and some reasonably deft policymaking by the Fed, the economy should avoid an outright downturn.”

Fears of a looming recession have been pervasive throughout the last year, as inflation skyrocketed and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in an effort to rein in the rising prices.

Two-thirds of economists at 23 major financial institutions predicted that a recession would occur this year, according to a recent survey from the Wall Street Journal.

However, Zandi warned that such recession pessimism could be self-fulfilling.

“Recessions are ultimately a loss of faith — a loss of faith by consumers that they will hold on to their jobs, causing them to curtail their spending, and a loss of faith by businesses that they will be able to sell what they produce, causing them to lay off workers,” he said. “A self-reinforcing vicious cycle — a recession — takes hold.”

Despite recession concerns, there have been positive indicators in recent months, as inflation has continued to slow after reaching 40-year highs last year. The annual inflation rate for November came in at 7.1 percent, down from 7.7 percent in October.

Although that is still much higher than normal, the improving outlook allowed the Federal Reserve to limit its interest rate hike to 0.5 points last month, following four straight increases of 0.75 points.

The economy also has “generally solid fundamentals,” which could help it avoid a recession, Zandi noted.

“Typically, prior to recessions, the economy is plagued by significant imbalances such as overleveraged households and businesses, speculative asset markets, an undercapitalized financial system that has extended too much credit, overbuilt real estate markets, or financially stretched state and local governments,” he said. “For the most part none of these imbalances exist today.”

The most significant threat to the economy is a potential misstep in policy by the Federal Reserve, Zandi said. If the Federal Reserve were to increase interest rates higher than necessary in an effort to continue to bring down inflation, it could push the economy into a recession, he added.

However, “the baseline outlook holds that the Fed will be able to accomplish this without precipitating a recession,” Zandi said.

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