The New Lede

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). Amid a busy season of summer food recalls and illnesses, sustainable farming advocates are warning that salmonella bacteria found in poultry is increasing strains most likely to cause illness, hospitalization and death, and that such bacteria are also increasingly resistant to antibiotic medicine.

Brian Bienkowski, managing editor of The New Lede, joined The Happy Disruptors Podcast to talk about the state of environmental journalism and the challenges and opportunities ahead. Bienkowski and host Kaitie Hartmann of the Great Outdoors Foundation cover the importance of access to information, the skill of staying curious, and the need for media literacy in the digital age.

McDonald’s, Subway and Taco Bell are failing to keep up with pledges to reduce the use of antibiotics in their beef supply, according to a group of food safety advocates. Despite promises to reduce or even eliminate the practice entirely, all three companies failed to meet their commitments on reducing antibiotic use over the past decade, according to a report released last week by the Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), the Keep Antibiotics Working Coalition and US PIRG Education Fund.

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wisc. — Ever since Jacob Leinenkugel discovered spring waters here that were pure enough to brew his famous beer, this small Wisconsin city’s devotion to clean water has been paramount. That’s why in 1997, when Chippewa Falls utility managers detected potentially dangerous concentrations of nitrates in a well supplying city water, officials acted.

TNL managing editor Brian Bienkowski spoke with Susan Kaplan, author of “A Healthy Union: How States Can Lead on Environmental Health,” about how states are leading the way on environmental health. Kaplan, a research assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago, says both red and blue states have put in place innovative policies to reduce environmental exposures — and have seen both public health and economic wins.

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). North Carolina’s poultry industry continues to add more birds to already highly concentrated barns, generating millions of tons of manure that is largely unregulated by the state, according to a new report.

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). This is an adapted excerpt from A Healthy Union, 2025, published by Island Press, an imprint of Princeton University Press and reprinted here by permission. When my older son was two years old, our family moved to a small city that boasts a reputation as politically and environmentally progressive.

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). A group of over 30 scientists, health professionals, and public health advocates is urging the Senate not to weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a move they say will put children in harm’s way from toxic chemicals and pollutants.

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). Pesticide manufacturers have voluntarily cancelled registrations for products containing paraquat in California — kickstarting a statewide phase-out of the controversial herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease, according to a California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announcement on Monday.

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is making it harder for manufacturers to deem their own chemical ingredients as safe.