Corporate Corruption News Articles

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Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Several small, independent automakers are juicing up electric cars. Among the companies trying to lead the charge: Tesla. Tesla Motors...is taking orders for a $100,000 electric high-performance sports car...billed as capable of a Ferrari-like zero to 60 mph in four seconds. The car was designed in California but will be built by Lotus in Great Britain. Its sophisticated lithium-ion battery will allow a range of 250 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 130 mph. Wrightspeed...hopes to produce its own, $100,000 high-performance car within two years. It will have about a 200-mile range. Ian Wright, who heads Wrightspeed...says the new breed of electric cars could have three times the energy efficiency of gas-electric hybrids. "You can build something that's seriously fast and a lot of fun to drive." Zap. At the other end of the performance spectrum...Zap last month started selling a three-wheel electric "city car" imported from China that it says is capable of a top speed of 40 mph. Priced at $9,000, the Xebra has a range of about 40 miles. Tomberlin Group...plans to sell three versions of electric cars. Prices will range from $5,000 for E-Merge E-2 to $8,000 for the four-seat Anvil. The electric revival comes as...Who Killed the Electric Car? has started playing in theaters. The movie alleges that big automakers, oil companies and the government sank promising electric-car technology. The film singles out General Motors for...having created a futuristic electric car that became a Hollywood enviro-darling. When leases ran out, GM collected its Saturn EV1s and sent them to the crusher.

Note: I've heard that Who Killed the Electric Car? is an excellent, revealing film. For lots more on why car mileage has not significantly increased since the days of the Model T (which got 25 miles to the gallon), see http://www.WantToKnow.info/050711carmileageaveragempg

Ottawa. On the outskirts of the nation's capital, a tony high-rise hotel beside a golf course is hosting the annual meeting for one of the world's most secretive and powerful societies. They're called the Bilderberg group. Those who follow the Bilderberg group say it got Europe to adopt a common currency, got Bill Clinton elected after he agreed to support NAFTA, and is spending this week deciding what to do about high oil prices and that pesky fundamentalist president of Iran. The Bilderberg group is a half-century-old organization comprising about 130 of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people. They don't have a website. Bilderberg says the privacy of its meetings helps encourage freewheeling discussion. An unsigned press release...confirmed this year's meeting would deal with energy issues, Iran, the Middle East, terrorism, immigration, Russia, European-American relations and Asia. The 2006 group includes David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of Holland, New York Gov. George Pataki, the heads of Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, the Royal Bank of Canada, cabinet ministers from Spain, Greece and a number of media moguls. The group also includes a pair of prominent figures involved in planning the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- Richard Perle and Ahmad Chalabi. Fellow White House power-players Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, have spoken to the group in the past. The prime ministers of Britain and Canada -- Tony Blair and Stephen Harper -- have addressed the group before.

Note: For two excellent articles from BBC describing this incredibly powerful, highly secretive group of elites:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/051115secretsocietiesbilderberg

The inner-workings of a beef processing plant in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, might not sound like compelling national news, but in 2012, ABC changed that with two little words: “pink slime.” As you probably recall, the news outlet questioned Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) about its ground beef filler known as “lean finely textured beef” (LFTI), utilizing the pejorative term “pink slime” in the process. The backlash from the report hit BPI’s bottom line hard, despite the fact that they maintained that LFTI is safe and made from 100 percent beef, and so the South Dakotan company sued ABC News. The news organization eventually settled out of court ... paying nine figures to BPI to end the whole mess. BPI survived the ordeal and are back in the news again for – guess what – lean finely textured beef. But don’t call it “LFTI.” And definitely don’t call it “pink slime.” According to Beef Magazine, the USDA has given its approval for BPI to call “lean finely textured beef” simply “ground beef.” “We approached USDA about the possibility of reclassifying our product,” Nick Ross, BPI vice president of engineering, [said] “After reviewing BPI’s submission of a new product and new production process, [the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)] determined that the product meets the regulatory definition of ground beef ... and may be labeled accordingly,” a FSIS spokesperson [confirmed]. But for consumers, the change won’t really mean that much.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health.

Investigators have revealed that targets of high-tech spying in Mexico included an international group of experts backed by the Organization of American States who had criticized the government’s investigation into the disappearance of 43 students. Previous investigations by the internet watchdog group Citizen Lab found that the spyware had been directed at journalists, activists and opposition politicians in Mexico. But targeting foreign experts operating under the aegis of an international body marks an escalation of the scandal. The experts had diplomatic status, making the spying attempt even graver. The spyware, known as Pegasus, is made by the Israel-based NSO Group, which says it sells only to government agencies for use against criminals and terrorists. It turns a cellphone into an eavesdropper, giving snoopers the ability to remotely activate its microphone and camera and access its data. The spyware is uploaded when users click on a link in email messages. Citizen Lab said the spyware attempts against the international experts occurred in March 2016 as the group was preparing its final, critical report on the government investigation into the disappearances. The 43 students were detained by local police in the city of Iguala on 26 September 2014, and were turned over to a crime gang. Only one student’s remains have been identified. The experts criticized the government’s conclusions, saying ... that government investigators had not looked into other evidence.

Note: Read the report by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto for the details of these suspicious spyware attacks. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and the erosion of civil liberties.

Neil Young ... has a new album coming out at the end of June called "The Monsanto Years." And it's a biting attack on the seed giant -- as well as other big corporations. The title track refers to "the poison tide of Monsanto" and describes a farmer who "signs a deal for GMOs that makes life hell with Monsanto." Young also lashes out at Starbucks in a song called "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop." "I want a cup of coffee but I don't want a GMO. I like to start my day off without helping Monsanto," Young sings in his trademark nasal whine. The singer announced ... that he would no longer drink Starbucks lattes because the company, along with Monsanto, was part of the Grocery Manufacturers Association trade group. That organization sued the state of Vermont to overturn a law that would require food and beverage companies to disclose on their labels if GMOs are used in the products. "GMO labeling matters. Mothers need to know what they are feeding their children. They need freedom to make educated choices at the market," Young said. Young also rails against the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling on campaign finance in several songs. And he criticizes Walmart's labor practices in a song called "Big Box," which has the following verse: "People working part-time at Walmart never get the benefits for sure." So far, it looks like Walmart isn't planning to retaliate against Young. You can preorder "The Monsanto Years" at Walmart.com.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing genetic modification news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.

Syngenta, a Swiss chemicals company, produces one of America’s most popular herbicides. It is called atrazine, and 73.7 million pounds of the chemical compound were applied in the United States in 2013. It was used on more than half of all corn crops, two-thirds of sorghum and up to 90 percent of sugar cane. The weed killer is banned as a pesticide in the European Union as well as in Switzerland over concerns that it is a groundwater contaminant. Syngenta, however, did not get the memo. Even though the European Union banned atrazine over a decade ago, the company has long insisted that the pesticide was not banned. Sensitivity over regulatory gaps between the United States and Europe has flared during trans-Atlantic trade talks, which have been underway since 2013. An increasing number of critics of the process are concerned that the outcome could favor corporations more than consumers. Advocacy groups have particularly focused on chemicals, given the disparities in policy. Baskut O. Tuncak, a senior lawyer at the Center for International Environmental Law, said that in his view the chemical proposals that have surfaced so far “reflect a lot of industry’s demands and their concerns with more protective E.U. policies.” He added that proposed changes could “slow or stop and possibly weaken efforts to develop stronger chemical regulation in either the E.U. or the U.S.”

Note: Syngenta did everything in its power to discredit atrazine researcher Tyrone Hayes after Hayes published science proving that Syngenta's products were poisonous. The New Yorker published a detailed article on Syngenta's smear campaign. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

In mid-February, [reporter Matt] Taibbi announced he was leaving Rolling Stone, where he has worked for almost a decade, to start a digital magazine for First Look Media, the company owned by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. The last few weeks have been consumed with business matters—hiring editorial staff, signing off on designs. Taibbi won’t discuss the exact format of the new venture, nor its name—that’s still being worked out, too—but he sees it focusing, in part, on the same matters of corporate malfeasance he’s been covering for years. What people expect, of course, is the ribald, loudly antagonistic voice of a writer who is, in his own words, “full of outrage.” The guy who compared Goldman Sachs to a “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” None of Taibbi’s anger at the “toothlessness” of the media has dissipated. Taibbi says his decision to leave Rolling Stone was predicated in part on ... his desire to “be on Glenn’s side.” Glenn being Glenn Greenwald, who, along with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, is currently editing another First Look property, the national-security-centric The Intercept, which has been live since February. “Glenn’s in this position of being a reporter trying to put out material that came from a whistle-blower, and now they’re both essentially in exile. It’s crazy. If the press corps that existed in the ’60s and ’70s had seen this situation, they’d be rising as one and denouncing the government for it,” Taibbi says.

Note: For more on corporate corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.

Agricultural business giant Monsanto reported worse-than-expected losses for its fiscal fourth quarter ... due to lower sales of its genetically engineered seeds. The company forecast for fiscal 2014 also came in below Wall Street expectations, and it revealed plans to buy farming software and data firm The Climate Corporation. The combination sent shares lower in morning trading. The St. Louis company recorded a loss of $249 million, or 47 cents per share, for the quarter ended Aug. 31. That was wider than its loss of $264 million, or 42 cents per share, in the 2012 fourth quarter. The company's performance was hurt by a steep drop in sales of genetically modified soybean seeds, which fell 38 percent to $87 million.

Note: For more on the destructive impacts of Monsanto's GMO seed/pesticides technology, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.

Dozens of companies, non-profits and trade organizations including Apple, Google, and Facebook sent a letter [on July 18] pushing the Obama administration and Congress for more disclosures on the government's national security-related requests for user data. Together with LinkedIn, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Twitter and many others, the companies asked for more transparency of secret data gathering in the letter. Tech companies have been scrambling to assert their independence after documents leaked last month by former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden suggested they had given the government direct access to their computers as part of the NSA's secret surveillance program called Prism. The classified nature of the data gathering has barred the participating companies from disclosing even their involvement, let alone the content of the requests. Some companies, including Facebook and Apple, in June struck an agreement with the government to release some information about the number of surveillance requests they receive. But they were limited to disclosing aggregate government requests for data without showing the split between surveillance and criminal requests, and only for a six-month period.

Note: For more on government and corporate privacy invasions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.

In his bid to become Secretary of Defense, former Sen. Chuck Hagel has come under fire from both the left and right for his comments on Iraq, Israel and gays. His membership on the board of one of America's largest oil companies, however, has caused barely a stir. Since 2010, Hagel has served on the board of Chevron Corp., a position he would have to leave if he wins Senate confirmation as defense secretary. He received $301,199 in compensation from the San Ramon company in 2011, including $184,000 in stock. Chevron is a major federal contractor, with more than $501 million in sales to the U.S. government in the last fiscal year. But critics of the "revolving door" between the federal government and the private sector haven't raised any complaints about Hagel. That's largely due to the nature of Chevron's federal contracts. Almost all the money Chevron made from the U.S. government in fiscal year 2012 came from selling fuel to the Pentagon, according to a government website that tracks federal spending. Chevron, the nation's second-largest oil company, has a history of politically connected board members. Condoleezza Rice served on the company's board before becoming national security adviser for President George W. Bush. The practice of former federal officials landing jobs with government contractors - and vice versa - has long angered many government watchdogs. They were appalled when Obama, early in his first term, nominated a lobbyist for the Raytheon Corp. to serve as deputy secretary of defense.

Note: US Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel has also been implicated in serious elections manipulations by none other than the New York Times. For more, see this link.

Most companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index pay their CEOs annual bonuses that are conditional on meeting specific goals. Yet companies often find ways to lower or reset the performance benchmarks to ensure that their CEOs get at least a portion of their bonus. The practice, which has become more frequent since the 2007 economic downturn, risks turning bonus plans into a “meaningless exercise,” says Carol Bowie, head of Americas research at ISS Governance. Bonus plans are “not simply a mechanism to deliver pay,” she says, “but they should be designed to focus executives on the kinds of operational metrics that are going to deliver value.” Companies often justify moving the goal posts as a way to protect executives from events out of their control—bad luck, such as a hurricane or rising fuel costs. Yet CEOs also benefit financially when good luck strikes. Departing from a bonus plan “only works if a board is willing to use it on the upside and the downside,” says Blair Jones of Semler Brossy Consulting Group. “If it’s only used for the downside, it calls into question the process.” Several studies of U.S. CEO pay have confirmed the lopsided practice. One study, from researchers at Claremont Graduate University and Washington University in St. Louis, found that executives lost far less pay for bad luck than they gained for good luck.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on financial corruption, click here.

Former President Jimmy Carter issued a blistering indictment of the U.S. electoral process ..., saying it is shot through with "financial corruption" that threatens American democracy. Carter said "we have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money." The 39th president lamented a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited contributions to third-party groups that don't have to disclose their donors. The dynamic is fed, Carter said, by an income tax code that exacerbates the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the electorate, allowing the rich even greater influence over public discourse and electioneering. He added that he hopes the "Supreme Court will reverse that stupid ruling," referring to the case known as Citizens United. He said the United States should return to publicly financed elections for president. The system technically is still in place, but it is voluntary and both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have chosen to bypass the taxpayer money because they can amass far more on their own. "You know how much I raised to run against Gerald Ford? Zero," Carter said, referring to his 1976 general election opponent. "You know how much I raised to run against Ronald Reagan? Zero. You know how much will be raised this year by all presidential, Senate and House campaigns? $6 billion. That's 6,000 millions."

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on our dysfunctional electoral system, click here.

Authorities granted protesters a four-month extension to continue occupying Freedom Plaza in D.C.. A deadline for protesters with the October 2011/Stop the Machine demonstration to pack up and leave Freedom Plaza came and went Monday afternoon. The protesters were given until 2 p.m. to break down their stage and other equipment after their original four-day permit expired Sunday. While the protesters cleaned the space and took down the stage where they led rallies, made speeches and played music, they didn't leave. At about 2 p.m. Monday, Park Police went to Freedom Plaza and requested a private meeting with protest organizers. They met at National Park Service headquarters about 4 pm. Before leaving Freedom Plaza, the organizers told the crowd they'd stay until they're ready to leave. The organizers returned to a round of applause when they told demonstrators that authorities offered the four-month extension. Park Police realized it was not in their best interests to shut the demonstrators down or make arrests, organizers said, and asked if demonstrators needed to be arrested to make their point. The organizers replied that they don’t need to be arrested over a permit issue and want their issues addressed.

Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply. In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook ... repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further." A second senior IEA source ... said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been [claimed].

Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The revelations came in response to a bipartisan inquiry of how more than 30 Internet companies might have gathered data to target customers. Some privacy advocates and lawmakers said the disclosures help build a case for an overarching online-privacy law. "Increasingly, there are no limits technologically as to what a company can do in terms of collecting information . . . and then selling it as a commodity to other providers," said committee member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). "Our responsibility is to make sure that we create a law that, regardless of the technology, includes a set of legal guarantees that consumers have with respect to their information." Markey said he and his colleagues plan to introduce legislation next year, a sort of online-privacy Bill of Rights, that would require that consumers must opt in to the tracking of their online behavior and the collection and sharing of their personal data. Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said lawmakers are beginning to understand the convergence across platforms. "People are starting to see: 'Oh, we have these different industries that are collecting the same types of information to profile individuals and the devices they use on the network," he said. "Internet. Cellphones. Cable. Any way you tap into the network, concerns are raised."

Note: For lots more on increasing threats to privacy from reliable sources, click here.

Scientists at a California company reported yesterday that they had created the first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells taken from adults, a significant advance toward the goal of growing personalized stem cells for patients suffering from various diseases. Creation of the embryos -- grown from cells taken from the company's chief executive and one of its investors -- also offered sobering evidence that few, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies. The study leader, who is also the medical director of a fertility clinic ... emphasized that he has no interest in cloning people. "It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either," said Samuel H. Wood, chief executive of Stemagen in La Jolla, whose skin cells were cloned and who led the study. The closely held company hopes to make embryos that are clones, or genetic twins, of patients, then harvest stem cells from those embryos and grow them into replacement tissues. Opponents of research on human embryos lashed out at the approach. "This study seems to confirm that human cloning ... is technically possible," said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "It does not answer the ethical or social questions about the mass-production of developing human lives in order to destroy them. It only tells us that these questions are more urgent than ever." Other critics noted that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin recently discovered a way to "reprogram" stem cells directly from skin cells, without having to make embryos as a middle step. "In light of the recent cell reprogramming developments, cloning-based stem cell research is less justified than ever," said Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society.

They were smart, scrappy brothers who rose from modest circumstances in Baltimore to become lacrosse stars at Princeton, succeed in business and land big government jobs. Now the Krongard brothers — who have carried childhood nicknames, Buzzy and Cookie, through long careers — are tied up in the tangled story of Blackwater, the security contractor accused in the deaths of at least 17 Iraqis while guarding a State Department convoy in Baghdad. The shorthand version boils their involvement down to that Washington catchall conflict of interest. The full story appears more complicated. Alvin [Buzzy] Krongard, 71, ... left a $4 million-a-year job in investment banking to serve in top posts at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1998 to 2004. Buzzy Krongard spoke [to the New York Times] in his 15,000-square-foot Georgian mansion, Torch Hill, north of Baltimore. After rising to the helm of Alex. Brown & Sons, the venerable Baltimore investment banking firm, Buzzy Krongard oversaw its acquisition by Bankers Trust in 1997 and left the next year for the C.I.A., as a counselor to George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. He became executive director, the No. 3 post, in 2001 and helped design the agency’s secret detention program after the Sept. 11 attacks. Buzzy Krongard vigorously defends Blackwater’s record in Iraq. “It’s very easy to second-guess them when you’re sitting back in an air-conditioned office,” he said.

Note: Buzzy Krongard took quite a cut in pay to move from Bankers Trust to the comparatively modest salary of even a high-ranking CIA position. Bankers Trust was purchased by the same company that placed the highly unusual and suspicious "put options" on United Airlines stock just days before 9/11. For a powerful summary of similarly strange, unexplained facts related to 9/11, click here.

In a major legal action alleging misdeeds in the mortgage business, New York's attorney general [Andrew Cuomo] has accused appraisers of helping fuel the nation's foreclosure crisis by pumping up home values at the behest of lenders and other real estate professionals. The lawsuit said that First American eAppraiseIT, a subsidiary of Fortune 500 company First American Corp., caved in to pressure from Washington Mutual to rely on "proven appraisers" who were willing to inflate home prices. Washington Mutual profited from the artificially high appraisals because they allowed the company to close more home loans at greater values, the lawsuit said. First American, a provider of business information, title insurance and related services, wanted to win more business from Washington Mutual, the suit said. The lawsuit comes in the midst of the nation's subprime lending crisis, which industry experts say could cause up to 2 million homes to be lost to foreclosure over the next couple of years. Most subprime foreclosures are caused by a confluence of two factors: mortgage payments that rise when adjustable loans reset, and home prices that are lower than the amount owed on the mortgage. A moribund real estate market has caused prices to flatten or fall. But if home prices were artificially high to begin with - which would be the case if appraisers inflated values, as the lawsuit alleged - the likelihood increases of homeowners owing more on the mortgage than their properties are worth. Cuomo said fraudulent appraisal practices were pervasive in the industry. At a news conference announcing the lawsuit, he said lenders, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and others frequently pressured appraisers to "come in with the right number, the number that justifies the transaction" so that everyone in the chain would receive commissions.

[Las Vegas], famous for being America's playground, has also become its security lab. Like nowhere else in the United States, Las Vegas has embraced the twin trends of data mining and high-tech surveillance, with arguably more cameras per square foot than any airport or sports arena in the country. Even the city's cabs and monorail have cameras. Some privacy advocates view the city as a harbinger of things to come. In secret rooms in casinos across Las Vegas, surveillance specialists are busy analyzing information about players and employees. Relying on thousands of cameras in nearly every cranny of the casinos, they evaluate ... behavior. They ping names against databases that share information with other casinos, sometimes using facial-recognition software to validate a match. And in the marketing suites, casino staffers track players' every wager, every win or loss, the better to target high-rollers for special treatment and low- and middle-rollers for promotions. "You could almost look at Vegas as the incubator of a whole host of surveillance technologies," said James X. Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. Those technologies, he said, have spread to other commercial venues: malls, stadiums, amusement parks. After Sept. 11, 2001, several airports tested facial-recognition software, with little success. But the government is continuing to invest in biometric technologies. "We often hear of the surveillance technology du jour, but what we're seeing now in America is a collection of surveillance technologies that work together," said Barry Steinhardt, the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty project director. "It isn't just video surveillance or face recognition or license plate readers or RFID chips. It's that all these technologies are converging to create a surveillance society."

Note: For revealing major media reports of privacy risks and invasions, click here.

Despite the protests of more than 50 scientists, including five Nobel laureates in chemistry, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday approved use of a new, highly toxic fumigant, mainly for strawberry fields. The new pesticide, methyl iodide, is designed for growers, mainly in California and Florida, who need to replace methyl bromide, which has been banned under an international treaty because it damages the Earth's ozone layer. In a letter sent last month to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, 54 scientists, mostly chemists, warned that "pregnant women and the fetus, children, the elderly, farmworkers and other people living near application sites would be at serious risk." Methyl iodide is a neurotoxin and carcinogen that has caused thyroid tumors, neurological damage and miscarriages in lab animals. But EPA officials said Friday that they carefully evaluated the risks and decided to approve its use for one year, imposing restrictions such as buffer zones to protect farmworkers and neighbors. Growers, particularly those who grow strawberries and tomatoes, have been searching for 15 years for a new soil fumigant to replace methyl bromide. Fumigants are valuable to growers because they can be injected into the soil before planting to sterilize the field and kill a broad spectrum of insects and diseases without leaving residue on crops. But fumigants are among the most potentially dangerous pesticides in use today because the toxic gas can evaporate from the soil, exposing farmworkers and drifting into neighborhoods. Methyl iodide ... will be allowed on fields growing strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, ornamentals, turf, trees and vines.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.