Agriculture

"A worker caught on undercover video abusing turkeys at a Butterball factory farm in North Carolina pled guilty Tuesday to felonious cruelty to animals."

"FRESNO, Calif. – The federal government and McDonald's Corp. suspended purchases of meat Wednesday from a California slaughterhouse under investigation for animal cruelty and possible health issues."

"FRESNO, Calif. -- Federal regulators who shut down a Central California slaughterhouse after receiving an animal welfare video were investigating whether beef from sick cows reached the human food supply."

"The deadly Salmonella outbreak linked to Indiana-grown cantaloupe in 20 states is the latest in a series of foodborne illness crises that underscore the need to implement rules in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Pew Health Group told Food Safety News on Tuesday."

Lawyers who won hundreds of millions suing tobacco companies have now set their sights on a big payday from food manufacturers. They are filing suits alleging that food companies are "misleading consumers and violating federal regulations by wrongly labeling products."

" ... wouldn't it be lovely if somebody came up with a biofuel that didn't take food out of people's mouths? A few years ago, some people thought they'd found it: A miracle tree called Jatropha. Unfortunately, the miracle turned out to be a mirage."

"AZTEC, N.M. — The land is parched, the fields are withering and thousands of the nation’s horses are being left to fend for themselves on the dried range, abandoned by people who can no longer afford to feed them."

"Beside Seattle’s notoriously polluted Duwamish River, an excavator scoops up small pieces of waste metal and slings them onto a rusty mountain at Seattle Iron & Metals Corp. A pile of flattened cars and trucks squats nearby amid vast sheets of scrap metal. For at least the last four years, this auto-shredder and metal recycler has dumped more pollutants into the river than allowed under the federal Clean Water Act, government records show. The levels have ranged higher than 250 times above what’s known to harm salmon that migrate through the river."

"ST. LOUIS -- The worst drought in the U.S. in decades may be leveling off or even be easing ever so slightly in some lucky locales, federal weather forecasters announced Thursday in a report of little comfort for farmers and ranchers who already have begun tallying this year's losses."