Featured

NewsMatch launches today. With your help, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting could receive up to $75,000
NewsMatch opens with more than $3 million in matching support for nonprofit newsrooms across the U.S.

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The campaign doubles donations to 155 nonprofit newsrooms in nearly every state across the country, starting today and running through Dec. 31, 2018.
The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting will also receive an additional match.

Opinion: California Prop 12 could reshape nation’s commerce of eggs, veal and pork

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I expect an increase in retail prices for pork, veal and eggs until enough farmers in California change animal housing systems.  The big question is whether the courts will require that out-of-state ag-giants comply with Prop 12 in order to trade with California ... and if so, what will the Smithfield Foods of the world do?

Opinion

Opinion: Smithfield may profit from U.S. China trade war

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Generally speaking, pork barrel politics amounts to politicians trading favors to constituents or special interest groups for political support, often as campaign contributions. Pork barrel spending, better known as earmarks in federal spending bills, have surged in 2018. Who may be profiting this year? Smithfield Foods.

agriculture

U.S. Department of Justice appeals pesticide ban

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The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing a federal appeals court to reconsider their decision on the pesticide chlorpyrifos more than a month after a three-judge panel ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban it.

Energy
A diagram of the Vermilion Power Station coal ash ponds and the Middle Fork River

The costs of closing a coal ash waste site
Who pays and for how long?

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At Dynegy's coal ash ponds at the Vermilion Power Station, toxic pollution is already impacting groundwater and the Middle Fork River. The company is preparing several options for completely closing the site, including removing the coal ash, or simply capping the ponds and leaving the coal ash in place. Both options have costs; the question is who pays how much, and when.