BREAKING: A deleted plan from the USDA website suggests the Trump administration had intended to release contingency funds to keep SNAP running during a government shutdown @greymoran.bsky.social has the story sentientmedia.org/usda-deletes...

When livestock trucks crash, the results can be gruesome. Bodycam footage obtained by Animal Partisan reveals a pattern of deference to the meat industry, blocking journalists from reporting on the ground. Fascinating yet disturbing read by @greymoran.bsky.social: sentientmedia.org/police-bodyc...

must read reporting from @ninaelkadi.com

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador. Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

When a realtor asked Merrill Cauble about selling his land to Innovative Livestock Services for their planned feedlot, he didn’t think about it: there was no way he would sell to the organizations he deems to be wreaking havoc on Kansas. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Glad to see this article about scientists struggling to obtain field-level avian flu data, which the U.S. government collects from farms, republished in @undark.org It's one of the reasons why avian flu surveillance remains very limited undark.org/2025/09/16/a...

As I wrote about for @motherjones.com, people are already crossing state lines to get the Covid vaccine—which may become more common if the CDC vaccine advisory committee recommends limiting them this week. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I would sue if I found out my therapist was using AI during therapy. A total privacy nightmare. "Suddenly, I was watching him use ChatGPT,” says Declan, 31, who lives in Los Angeles. “He was taking what I was saying and putting it into ChatGPT, and then summarizing or cherry-picking answers.”

Scientists studying avian flu are often denied access to on-farm data that could help them develop better surveillance tools. The reason? Government agencies cite privacy protections for farms and producers. Fascinating story by @greymoran.bsky.social sentientmedia.org/data-from-fa...

Scientists tracking avian flu are working in a vacuum of data. Often citing the need to protect farm privacy, officials deny scientists access to data on the location of the farms with outbreaks, details on the infected animals, and precise dates of the outbreak. sentientmedia.org/data-from-fa...

For years, veterinary researcher and @ucdavisvetmed.bsky.social associate professor Maurice Pitesky has attempted to obtain — but has been denied — state and federal data revealing the location of avian flu outbreaks on U.S. farms. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:

In case you're wondering how biodigesters are doing at saving the world: In Wisconsin, private equity convinced a tiny town to serve as a conduit for almost $42 million in municipal bonds. The massive project, developed tax-free, just missed their principal payment.

It’s up to the discretion of RFK Jr to define what ”medically frail” is when it comes to potential Medicaid work requirement exemptions—which may play a huge role in deciding which chronically ill and disabled people could qualify. My latest for @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This great story from @sentientmedia.org just underlines the point I was trying to make in my article for @currentaffairs.bsky.social. The Trump admin is going to spend the next few years giving meatpacking companies a pass on food and worker safety requirements. sentientmedia.org/former-tyson...

Canadians and Americans are working together to stop the construction of two new mega-dairies in North Dakota. At the core of the fight? Clean water. @jesslsr.bsky.social shares how advocates and residents are fighting against factory farms.

Homeless people in Auburn say they were paid $30 to falsely attest to making $250 donations to a young Republican’s state Senate campaign — fake donations that reaped many multiples in state matching funds. A shocker from @emiliemunson.bsky.social www.timesunion.com/capitol/arti...

Trump has always cherry-picked data. But now he's poised to use the power of the federal government to grow his own cherries. www.pbump.net/o/donald-tru...

The modern GOP: Justin Ransom helped launch Tyson’s label for “climate friendly” beef, which has been pulled from the shelves and accused of misleading consumers. Now, Republicans have put him in charge of the federal agency charged with overseeing meat labeling. sentientmedia.org/former-tyson...

Justin Ransom helped launch Tyson’s label for “climate friendly” beef, which has been pulled from the shelves and accused of misleading consumers. Now he leads FSIS, the federal agency charged with overseeing meat labeling. @sentientmedia.org sentientmedia.org/former-tyson...

Justin Ransom helped launch Tyson’s controversial label for “climate-friendly” beef. Now, he leads the federal agency charged with meat label oversight. @greymoran.bsky.social reports: buff.ly/DZW56pw

Native American groups say tribal sovereignty trumps state and federal efforts to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for their LGBTQ+ and two-spirit citizens. From @kffhealthnews.org:

great reporting by @ninaelkadi.com into how two leading pork producers touted their use of anaerobic digesters to capture methane. But an excess of gas led to the flaring of methane & release of dangerous sulfur dioxide into the air sentientmedia.org/iowa-pork-pl...

JBS is poised for explosive growth in the coming years. Its brazen tax avoidance schemes--such as shifting money to a network of 18 shell companies in Luxembourg--allow the meat giant to retain more profits while dodging taxes in the U.S. & elsewhere sentientmedia.org/jbs-the-worl...

I wrote about how an outpouring of community support has helped free 3 detained farmworkers in VT “The speed and efficacy of the response is due to the groundwork that we’ve been laying now for over a decade,” -Rachel Elliott of @migrantjustice.bsky.social sentientmedia.org/vermont-resi...

An estimated 1,000 undocumented migrants form the backbone of Vermont’s dairy industry. Those workers are now being detained and deported. And sometimes freed, with the help of organizations like @migrantjustice.bsky.social. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:

"These ads reflect a rhetorical trend in rightwing political campaigns: the use of language invoking meat to dehumanize transgender people — and then justify extreme anti-trans laws...This grotesque language is trafficking in a common form of disinformation." reporting by @greymoran.bsky.social

New reporting from @greymoran.bsky.social traces the disinformation in anti-trans political ads in the 2024 cycle, and the funding back to cattle and meat industry trade groups. sentientmedia.org/anti-trans-c...

I looked into the meat industry's funding of anti-trans political ads. These ads also invoke meat and cattle as a way to dehumanize trans people -- and then justify extreme anti-trans laws. @sentientmedia.org Fair warning: these ads are disturbing! sentientmedia.org/anti-trans-c...

NEW: The attack on a Gaza aid ship didn't come from nowhere. In 2010, Israel raided a fleet of civilian ships trying to bring aid to Gaza, killing 10 people. The Obama administration blocked UN efforts for an independent investigation. Joe Biden & Chuck Schumer *defended* the attack.

As avian flu decimated poultry flocks, two major U.S. egg producers — Vital Farms and Cal-Maine — have seen their profits and stock values soar. www.truthdig.com/articles/as-...

A wild carbon credit boondoggle in which Chevron bought credits for a project on Indigenous land that residents didn't (and still don't) know anything about, painstakingly documented by the great Andres Bermudez-Lievano @elclip.bsky.social @mongabaylatam.bsky.social drilled.media/news/CLIP-Ch...

The EPA’s new mission under Trump includes making the U.S. the capital for AI and reviving the auto industry. “They’re doing all this under the guise of efficiency, but what they really are doing is dismantling this agency from doing its job,” one staffer told me. theintercept.com/2025/05/13/t...

Amazon and other investors in major egg companies saw their stocks dramatically rise in value as consumers suffered from soaring egg prices. Amazon owns 4% of Vital Farms, which saw an increase in stock value by 157% in a year. My latest for @sentientmedia.org sentientmedia.org/egg-prices-s...

As avian flu decimated poultry flocks, two major U.S. egg producers — Vital Farms and Cal-Maine — have seen their profits and stock values soar. Investors, such as Amazon, have also benefitted. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:

You may remember Michael Hickson, a Black disabled man who was denied life-saving care in early Covid. His estate’s case is before the conservative Fifth Circuit of Appeals, where judges could gut disability rights in healthcare. My latest for @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Civil Eats has been nominated for 2 James Beard journalism awards! One, for our member newsletter + another for @greymoran.bsky.social's story about a solution to protect farmworkers. Big congrats to our associate editor, Christina Cooke, for "Black Earth," published in The Bitter Southerner. 🧑‍🌾🥬

Very honored to be a James Beard Award finalist for a story about the really incredible farmworker organizing of @fairfoodprogram.bsky.social @immokaleeworkers.bsky.social 🎈

NEW at @motherjones.com: HHS plans to cut federal funding to the state protection and advocacy agencies who investigate abuse in group homes. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Letters from the USDA’s Food & Safety Inspection Service reveal that the world’s largest meat producers raised cattle that tested positive for antibiotics despite USDA-approved labels advertising the beef as free of antibiotics. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency. Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

BREAKING: An Iowa dairy manure spill kills over 100,000 fish in a 10-mile stretch of Dry Run Creek. State records reveal a faulty manure control structure noted in previous inspections. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

"You can’t let your children go outside and play like you should because of the air in Duplin and Sampson Counties," Deborah Maxwell told @sentientmedia.org, describing the hog farm pollution that prompted her civil rights complaint still awaiting justice. sentientmedia.org/epa-civil-ri...

I spoke with former and current EPA staff about new restrictions facing the agency's civil rights investigations. Staff are allowed to conduct investigations, but they're not allowed to *issue findings of discrimination* or *accept new complaints.* sentientmedia.org/epa-civil-ri...

The Trump administration is undermining EPA investigations of environmental racism, including cases tied to poultry and hog farm pollution. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:

When so many institutions are cowering to the demands of the Trump Administration, it was refreshing to read @gracehussain.bsky.social's profile of lawyer Dãnia Davy leading workshops for farmers with titles like "What to Expect When You're Expecting Fascism" sentientmedia.org/helping-farm...

This assault on universities is an attack on free speech & academic freedom. It's also going to result in the increased privatizing of university research funds. Here's just one example of how that can warp the information ecosystem, from @sarasneath.bsky.social drilled.media/news/bp-univ...

Businesses, including meatpacking plants, are not obligated to fix safety problems pointed out by OSHA while the commission is reviewing appeals. @jmcjmc.bsky.social reports via @investigatemidwest.bsky.social:

I’m about to go on live on River to River on Iowa Public Radio with @ninaelkadi.com to talk Clean Water Act, ag pollution and the recent SCOTUS developments. Listen if you can! We’ll be in the middle segment, with a farmer starting the program off.

From a source: “Just had a co-presenter for a buildings research conference bow out. She’s a dual citizen and the FBI came knocking to ask her about her involvement in coauthoring chunks of the Paris Agreement. Climate science is being literally (and I mean literally) criminalized.”

SCOOP: More than 300 FTC blogs published under FTC Chair Lina Khan disappeared this morning. They included posts critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and generative AI. www.wired.com/story/federa...