"A new generation of pesticides is making honeybees far more susceptible to disease, even at tiny doses, and may be a clue to the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has devastated bees across the world, the US government's leading bee researcher has found. Yet the discovery has remained unpublished for nearly two years since it was made by the US Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory."
"The Trump administration is backing Monsanto in its effort to get the Supreme Court to shield it from liability over cancer claims related to its Roundup weedkiller, a move that could anger the Trump administration’s allies in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement."
"As the Trump administration is expected to finalize a standard to prevent heat-related injury and illness for workers by early next year, a new study shows that clear, comprehensive rules save lives."
"With dwindling oversight, cattle are grazing where they’re not supposed to and in greater numbers or for longer periods than permitted. This can spread invasive plants, pushing out native species and worsening wildfire risk."
For more than a century, oil and gas companies have been drilling — and abandoning — wells across the country, leaving hundreds of thousands to potentially leak pollutants into the air, water and soil. Climate and environment reporter Martha Pskowski looks at how funding and regulatory issues are impacting efforts to identify and plug these wells, and offers resources for drilling into their story.
"A new legal petition filed by a dozen public health and farm worker groups demands the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop allowing farms to spray antibiotics on food crops in the US because they are probably causing superbugs to flourish and sickening farm workers."
"When the Trump administration began freezing federal funding for climate and ecosystem research, one of the programs hit hard was ours: the U.S. Geological Survey’s Climate Adaptation Science Centers." "The centers have been helping to track invasive species, protect water supplies and make agriculture more sustainable in the face of increasing drought conditions. They’re improving wildfire forecasting, protecting shorelines and saving Alaska salmon, among many other projects."
UPDATE: As of Dec. 1, NPR reports funding for USDA's Beltsville, Md., research center has been resored. No link available.
"Industry groups and scientists have urged the Trump administration to reconsider its plan to close a renowned Agriculture Department center in Maryland and disperse its work around the country."
"The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency has classified atrazine – the second most widely used herbicide in the United States – as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” adding to growing concerns about toxic exposures in the nation’s farm belt."
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