"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 Yet the discovery has remained unpublished for nearly two years since it was made by the US Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory."
"Monarch butterflies that hatch in the spring and early summer live fast and die young at only two to six weeks. But those that emerge in late summer can survive six to nine months. That’s long enough to migrate thousands of miles south for the winter and start the return north the following spring to breed."
"At least one Republican lawmaker is formally pushing back on President Trump’s effort to boost a controversial herbicide, glyphosate, that’s reviled by supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement."
"A bill banning the pesticide paraquat died last week in the Virginia House of Delegates after the chamber’s Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee voted 22-0, with little explanation, to carry the measure over to next year for consideration."
"About 6.5 million people in Somalia face acute hunger due to drought, the government and the United Nations said on Tuesday, sounding the alarm days after the U.N.'s food agency warned that food aid could grind to a halt by April without new funding."
"Federal regulators have a range of solutions available to tackle the widespread contamination of farmland with toxic chemicals, according to a new report by US academics."
"President Trump issued an executive order late Wednesday aimed at spurring the domestic production of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller that has figured in health lawsuits."
"America’s farmers and farmworkers, their families and neighbors, are being diagnosed with cancer at rates higher than the national average. A growing body of research indicates that pesticides are partly to blame."
"Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Friday released text for the farm bill and announced they will mark up the bill on Feb. 23 — with the framework drawing immediate criticism from the top Democrat on the panel who accused Republicans of filling the package with poison pills."
