James Hepp is a first-generation farmer in northern Iowa. He tills only narrow strips of land and avoids applying nitrogen fertilizer when he’s not growing crops. He is one of three "Lobe Rangers" who have taken to social media to highlight the gap between the Nutrient Reduction Strategy and the actual adoption of conservation practices on cropland.
U.S. health agencies are moving to launch new research and possibly pass regulations on ultraprocessed foods (UPFs). Industry and some scientists have long dismissed the term as misleading. The term has become both a focal point of the Make America Healthy Again movement and a source of scientific controversy.
According to FAO, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted worldwide every year and the annual economic cost of this waste is estimated at over $1 trillion. In Türkiye, 19-20 million tons are wasted every year in bread, vegetables and fruit. According to Richard Sennett, modern lifestyles have systematically weakened the link between the individual and society and between consumption and responsibility.
Toe River Health District is conducting a foodborne illness investigation at El Ranchero restaurant in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Four people from Mitchell County and two from Yancey County have been diagnosed with Salmonella and some also with Campylobacter. Two asymptomatic employees of the restaurant were found to be infected with salmonella. The district is working with the restaurant to ensure public health.
More than 50 sloths died after being imported from Peru and Guyana to a Florida business called Sloth World. The business closed before opening to the public, and the surviving animals were transferred to the Central Florida Zoo. Wildlife scientists, epidemiologists and veterinary pathologists say the mass deaths highlight public-health concerns with the multi-billion-dollar legal wildlife trade.
In June 2008, Campylobacter jejuni in raw milk from Alexandre EcoDairy Farm in Del Norte County, California sickened 16 people. Mari Tardiff had flu-like symptoms, blurred vision, numb hands, and her legs were on fire with a pain. She was airlifted to intensive care, intubated, and placed on a ventilator. She spent two and a half months in a hospital ward. Jim Orchard, 67, from New Castle, Pennsylvania, was paralyzed in intensive care after drinking raw milk.
Dave Owen argues that western water management often treats cities as villains. In recent decades, cities have helped improve water management in many ways, such as reducing per capita water use, water recycling, and outdoor water-use efficiency practices. Urban water districts usually have lots of money because they serve lots of people, rich and poor.
The week addressed urgent issues. Sociopolitically, nationalism, the National Guard, the interference of the former president and deficiencies in the IMSS-Wellbeing were analyzed. Health in the face of hormonal cancer, symbolic history of milk and cultural issues about the World Cup, injuries and childhood were also discussed.
Leaders of major AI companies are calling on Congress to impose tighter controls on firms that sell synthetic, made-to-order strands of DNA. There are concerns that AI products could make it easier for anyone to build biological weapons. The letter is signed by the heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and more than 50 other prominent players in AI, biotechnology and national security.
In May, Global Voices covered positive environmental stories from the global majority. The Aral Sea in Central Asia was partially restored. Governments are not ignoring the problems of the climate crisis. People are not trapped on a road to inevitable doom, even in the chronically under-resourced and usually dismissed global majority, according to Global Voices.