"FDA banned three toxic food packaging chemicals and is considering banning seven cancer-causing food flavoring chemicals, but food safety advocates say the process highlights flaws in the system."
"In the first slate of nutritional recommendations it has issued since 2011, the federal government on Thursday gave health-conscious Americans the go-ahead to eat eggs and others foods rich in cholesterol, to drink as many as five cups of coffee daily, and to enjoy a range of fats long avoided by many."
After a mild and dry Christmas Day, a fierce blizzard whipped across the rolling plains of West Texas and eastern New Mexico. The wind blew mercilessly for 48 hours, leaving snow drifts as high as 14 feet."
"U.S. wildfires burned a record 10.1 million acres (4.09 million hectares) in 2015 and the Forest Service spent 52 percent of its budget fighting fires, the Agriculture Department said on Wednesday."
"Oil prices plunged again on Wednesday by more than 5 percent as investors paid more attention to signs that global stockpiles are growing than to increasing instability in the Middle East and North Africa."
"A major pesticide harms honeybees when used on cotton and citrus but not on other big crops like corn, berries and tobacco, the Environmental Protection Agency found."
"Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered new regulations, including stepped-up inspections and safety measures, for all natural gas storage facilities in California in response to the continuing leak that has displaced thousands of people in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles."
Although you, as a taxpayer, pay for reports by the Congressional Research Service, Congress does not allow you to read them. Fortunately, somebody leaked these reports of interest to environmental journalists.
Because it is digital, the Atlas can be overlaid with many kinds of information: data on abandoned mines, coalfields, butterflies, aquifers, or invasive plants — to mention only a few examples. And because scale is variable, you can zoom in or out to customize it to your story and audience.
Do consumers have a right to know where their food comes from? What if there is a federal law decreeing that they have that right? Not anymore. None of that matters. International trade treaties — nowadays often negotiated in secret — trump United States law aimed at protecting consumers.
