By Jan Ellen Spiegel

Jeff Wieser remembers how, as a newly elected member of the Westport Representative Town Meeting nearly a dozen years ago, he carried his cellphone on his daily runs so he could document the plastic bag litter strewed around his coastal town.

Wieser’s photos became part of the debate the town was having as it considered a ban on single-use plastic bags — those checkout freebies that come mainly from grocery stores.

“Plastic bag trash is very, very noticeable,” Wieser said. “The goal was to change behavior to get people to use reusable bags. It was about reducing a very reducible item out of the waste stream.”

The ban, the first in the state since a short-lived one in New Haven in the early 1990s, passed 28-to-5 in September 2008 and has been in effect for exactly 10 years.

By Ana Radelat

Washington — Gun control supporters and victims of gun violence in the U.S. House gallery yelled “thank you” to the group of mostly-Democratic lawmakers who passed a bill today that would expand federal background checks for gun purchases and transfers.

The vote on the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 was 240-190, the first time in at least 25 years that the U.S. House has approved a substantial gun control measure.

The bill, which garnered only eight GOP votes today, was first introduced more than six years ago in response to the 2012 killing of 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, but failed to win enough support in the Senate and was not ever put forth for a vote in the House.

“This day has been a long time coming,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, who came over from the Senate to witness the historic vote on the House floor.