Greenwashing in dairyland

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“They can say as much as they want, ‘look at all of our promises, look at what good stewards we are,’ but the fact of the matter is that our groundwater quality is depleting in the sectors that they control, our ecological habitat diversity depleting, we are losing farmers at the same time.”

– Tara Greiman, the Wisconsin Farmers Union’s director of conservation and stewardship, speaking about corporate agriculture’s dominance of the dairy industry over the last 50 years and its effect on the environment

The world’s largest meat and dairy companies, many of which operate in Wisconsin, have made hundreds of claims that their practices are sustainable and promises of future climate protection initiatives. But a report released last month in the journal PLOS Climate found that hardly any of those claims are legitimate. Henry Redman reports.

Vaccine hesitancy fed by misinformation is causing new surges of measles and whooping cough, while COVID-19 hotspots persist in some states and a new threat looms from an Ebola outbreak in central Africa. Halfway through the year, 12 states and the District of Columbia already have more measles cases than they did for a full year in 2025. Tim Henderson of Stateline has the latest.

President Donald Trump’s extraordinary $1.776 billion fund to pay off allies and others who say they have been wronged by past administrations has drawn widespread condemnation by opponents, including some Republicans, who characterize it as an act of brazen corruption. Jonathan Shorman interviews academics who say the administration's actions harken back to an earlier era of American cronyism, while expanding the frontiers of political favoritism.

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