A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant alleges that during the initial stages of the pandemic, Tyson Foods ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly...
Halloween has come and gone. The clocks have been set back. Every evening darkness falls just a little bit earlier. But for much of Virginia, the first frost still remains elusive. Over the past century, the average date of the first frost has been moving progressively backward throughout the commonwealth, today...
A legislative attempt to force Virginia to reveal more information about COVID-19 outbreaks in the state’s poultry plants and other workplaces, introduced after months of stonewalling from Virginia health officials and their insistence that the plants are entitled to privacy protections, stalled Wednesday with no prospect of being revived...
Mustard. Cabbage. Morning glory. Mint. Sage.That’s not a shopping list for a visit to the plant nursery. It’s five of the types of seeds federal scientists have identified among the hundreds mailed to U.S. residents without warning over the past few weeks, largely in packaging containing Chinese writing. According to...
Virginia is the latest state to report residents receiving unsolicited mysterious seeds in packets marked with Chinese writing, according to a release from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Friday. VDACS “has been notified that several Virginia residents have received unsolicited packages containing seeds that appear to have...
The Virginia Department of Health defended its refusal to release information on COVID-19 outbreaks in poultry plants, saying the poultry plants don’t operate like long-term care facilities and the state has been able to identify cases among workers without having to notify the public.VDH previously cited a section of...
Virginia is refusing to release information on COVID-19 outbreaks at poultry processing plants on the grounds of privacy concerns, despite a June decision to provide such data for long-term care facilities.In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Mercury in June after Gov. Ralph Northam’s...
By M. James FaisonCOVID-19 has brought to the forefront fundamental issues within our food system; mainly that the “good” of providing inexpensive food is largely dependent on the “bad” of an exploitative agricultural system.As Americans, we have constructed a system that allows us to spend the smallest percentage...
A week after the results of widespread testing at the Eastern Shore’s Tyson and Perdue poultry plants revealed about 18 percent of workers were positive for coronavirus, state health statistics still don’t reflect the full case numbers and local officials have not been provided updated figures.Following nationwide outbreaks of...
By Tom Pelton and Mariah Lamm
With a Chesapeake Bay cleanup deadline bearing down in less than five years, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring yesterday joined his counterparts in Maryland and the District of Columbia in filing a notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over its failure to enforce a landmark...
