Americans say they care more about animal welfare than children’s education and hunger. That’s according to the findings of the “Causes Americans Care About,” a new study that gathered responses from 1,000 adults, 41% of which chose animal welfare number one. Children’s education ranked second with 38% of respondents, followed by hunger, chosen by 33% of respondents.  The top five causes Americans care about in 2018 is rounded out by disease research (No. 4) and disaster relief (No. 5), which bumped the environment out of the top five to the No. 6 position this year. [node:read-more:link]

Toronto-based Flashfood and Tyson Innovation Lab have partnered up to “stop food waste and save money.” The two companies’ new initiative to offer food boxes, called flashfoodbox, to the Detroit metro market was launched on April 22, Earth Day.
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Amid the Trump administration’s vocal efforts to crack down on the hiring of undocumented immigrants, little attention has been paid to a federal program that, if used uniformly, could go a long way toward stopping the practice. E-Verify — which is run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and matches job applicants and federal immigration data — has been touted as a solution to helping employers determine whether a potential hire is legally entitled to work in the United States. [node:read-more:link]

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has demanded that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stop its “reckless” and “serious disregard for the rule of law” in the agency’s efforts to find illegal immigrants. [node:read-more:link]

Meat production in the U.S. during the January-March quarter was up over 2% compared to a year earlier. The increase in meat production took place virtually across the board as all major meat production sectors, except turkey, posted year-over-year production increases. The largest increases, in percentage terms, were in pork production (+3.7%) and beef production (+2.6%), followed by chicken production (+1.4%). Despite the relatively large meat production increase, fed cattle and feeder cattle prices were stronger than one year earlier. [node:read-more:link]

The Connecticut House of Representatives gave final passage Wednesday night to legislation that opens financial aid in the state to “dreamers,” the undocumented immigrants brought here as children, only to find themselves priced out of higher education as they come of age. The legislation, passed on a 91-59 vote, makes undocumented immigrants eligible to apply for help from the $150 million pool of financial aid awarded annually to students at the state’s public colleges and universities. [node:read-more:link]

With the stroke of a pen, hemp could be treated like any other food ingredient under Colorado law. A bill is on its way to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk to apply existing food manufacturing guidelines to products such as hemp oil-infused coffee and CBD-rich extracts made from the non-psychoactive cannabis plant variety. At its simplest form, House Bill 1295 — which unanimously passed the Colorado Senate on Wednesday — merely codifies a state policy and program in place since July. [node:read-more:link]

A group of Arkansas farmers had little more than a week of access to dicamba before the state Supreme Court intervened on Wednesday, April 25. [node:read-more:link]

Bayer AG agreed to sell more crop science businesses to BASF in a deal that fulfils undertakings to the European Union and other regulators as part of its takeover of Monsanto Co. [node:read-more:link]

The New York state Senate has voted to prohibit any individual convicted of animal cruelty from working in animal shelters.The measure passed the Senate on Wednesday and now moves to the Assembly for consideration.The bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Patrick Gallivan of Erie County, says the measure aims to protect dogs, cats and other animals from people who have mistreated them in the past. [node:read-more:link]