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...
You can tell a lot about a person by assessing his priorities.So it’s clear President Donald Trump places a greater value on beef, pork and chicken than he does on human life. It could be due to his love for Quarter Pounders and other fast food. Think that’s hyperbole? Consider...
A team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been deployed to Virginia after Gov. Ralph Northam, with the governors of Maryland and Delaware, sent a letter on Friday to President Donald Trump seeking assistance in combating coronavirus outbreaks at poultry plants on the Delmarva Peninsula,...
As meatpacking plants across the United States become coronavirus hotspots, some Virginia poultry workers say that cases in the commonwealth’s processing facilities exceed company-provided figures and are not consistently revealed to employees.“Word of mouth was that we have maybe 10 or more cases up there, but us employees were...
