"Many pesticides used in consumer products and agriculture received federal approval through a loophole that doesn't require thorough testing, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental group."

"Snow-surveying crews across the Sierra are seeing bad news up close this week. California has about half a snowpack."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January proposed a food safety rule that lacked a requirement for food makers to actually test for germs. The requirement had been removed by a shadowy White House office known as OIRA -- where industry can lobby in secret to overturn science-based rules such as this one, meant to prevent one million illnesses per year.

For a while, the Naga Viper was the hottest pepper in the world. Today, breeding peppers for hotness is an area of military research.

"Congress holds the purse strings, but who holds Congress these days when it comes to farm policy: the meatpackers and Monsanto?"

"Environmentalists and beekeepers are calling on the government to ban some of the country's most widely used insect-killing chemicals."

"U.S. environmental regulators are failing to protect honey bees and their role in pollinating important food crops, and should immediately suspend use of some toxic insecticides tied to the widespread deaths of the bees, a lawsuit filed on Thursday charges."

"Tucked inside a short-term funding measure that Congress approved Thursday is a provision that critics are denouncing as a 'Monsanto Protection Act.'"

"MACON, Mo. — Five years ago, rural America was giddy for ethanol."

"The inside story of how the government let one company squash biotech innovation, and dominate an entire industry."

"The American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on using one of the globe's most widely used classes of insecticides in seed treatments and for a suspension of all other uses, pending an independent review of its impact on birds and other wildlife."

"Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt said on Monday that he is placing a hold on Gina McCarthy, President Obama’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, which could delay a full Senate vote on the nominee."

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- An undercover video that showed California cows struggling to stand as they were prodded to slaughter by forklifts led to the largest meat recall in U.S. history. In Vermont, a video of veal calves skinned alive and tossed like sacks of potatoes ended with the plant's closure and criminal convictions."

"Now in a pushback led by the meat and poultry industries, state legislators across the country are introducing laws making it harder for animal welfare advocates to investigate cruelty and food safety cases.

"PARIS -- Will Brussels try to give bees a break? In a case closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials plan to vote Friday on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of pesticides that had been implicated in the decline of global bee populations."

"The rotting bodies of about 6,000 pigs in a river that supplies tap water to Shanghai has drawn attention to an ugly truth -- China's pig farms are often riddled with disease and one way or another, sick animals often end up in the food chain."