Patagonia becomes latest company to pull ads from Facebook

Patagonia is pulling its ads from Facebook, following in the footsteps of several other companies that hope to prompt the social media company to "take greater steps to police incendiary speech" on its platform. The ad boycott follows a virtual walkout on the part of Facebook employees earlier in June after moderators refused to remove President Trump's inflammatory posts about demonstrations in response to the death of George Floyd. Read more at The Hill…

Grocers get creative, consider robots to revive prepared food amid pandemic

Creative solutions and new safety measures are being formulated to bring self-serve bars at grocery stores back into the mainstream. At some stores employees are serving the ready-made food from behind a counter, while other retailers are betting on the success of pricy robots to make on-demand meals for shoppers. Read more at CNBC…

Despite their title, essential workers need food stamps more than others

The Center for American Progress released a new analysis of census data that found that over 13% of "essential" workers used SNAP benefits for a period of time in 2018. While unions pushed for an increase in wages for essential workers at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, many large companies began cutting these increases back in May, even though there is still no vaccine for the novel coronavirus and rates of infection are rising nationwide. Read more at Modern Farmer…

Dicamba has killed tens of millions of trees across the Midwest and South

Dicamba has contributed so greatly to tree mortality that in some areas of the U.S. it has surpassed the damaging effects of an insect that has killed tens of millions of trees nationwide. Drifting herbicides like dicamba lead to tree deformities and illnesses even in protected areas such as wildlife refuges. Experts also say that dicamba has contributed to a dwindling insect population, which affects everything from birds to wildflowers. Read more at The Counter…

As meat plants stayed open to feed Americans, exports to China surged

While America's biggest meat companies warned consumers of an impending meat shortage, these same companies were also sending record amounts of pork and other processed meat products to China; notably, the pork that is sent to China is often more profitable. As a result consumer watchdog groups are calling into question these companies' insistence on operating even as COVID-19 cases continue to be detected within meat processing plants. Read more at The New York Times…