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Last month, I ate a strawberry. The taste exploded in my mouth as my throat was bathed in rich juices. The meat of the berry was soft and succulent. I was in France. Last week, I ate another strawberry. There was a slight reddish flavour, which combatted the petroleum essence of the packaging. The meat of the berry was corky, dry and flavourless. I was in Canada.

(CNN) -- Vermont's governor on Thursday signed a bill into law that will require the labeling of genetically modified foods -- hailing it as the first such law in the nation. Under the new law, food offered for retail sale that is entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering must be labeled as such by July 2016. "Vermonters take our food and how it is produced seriously, and we believe we have a right to know what's in the food we buy," said Gov. Peter Shumlin. "More than 60 countries have already restricted or labeled these foods, and now one...

White House adviser John Podesta told reporters Monday afternoon that Congress could not derail the Obama administration’s efforts to unilaterally enact policies to fight global warming. Podesta said that the president was committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions that they say cause global warming.

After nearly 30 years studying how plants use their genes to defend against viruses, Vicki Vance, a professor at the University of South Carolina, doesn’t see genetically modifying plants as a malevolent or arrogantly God-like endeavor. “There’s DNA in the world and it gets passed from one organism to another and it’s the natural thing. If that’s the problem you have with transgenic plants, that’s not a good reason to be against them,” Vance says. She does, however, have a problem with mega corporations allegedly using their money and power to hide the risks of new forms of genetic technology....

<p>WASHINGTON — Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is pushing a bill in Congress that would shift responsibility for any labeling of genetically modified foods to the hands of the federal government, potentially stopping the efforts underway in many states to mandate labels on such foods.</p>

Comcast has been named the worst company in America. The largest US cable provider "won" Consumerist's annual poll on the very same day it tried to convince the FCC that a proposed Time Warner Cable acquisition is in everyone's best interest. It's the second time Comcast has been awarded the unwanted label by Consumerist voters. Video game publisher Electronic Arts earned the "worst company" designation in 2012 and 2013 but lost out early this year when it was knocked out of the running by Time Warner Cable. Comcast was pitted against Monsanto, the oft-criticized chemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, in...

This story appears in the April 14, 2014 issue of Forbes. On one of the windiest days in recent memory Harry Stine, the richest man in Iowa, cranes his neck to examine the elevator shaft inside the 110-foot steel observation tower next to his garage. “The cables look awfully frayed. Who knows if it will last one more time?” he chuckles. Nonetheless, we hop into the elevator cab, he flips the switch to get it moving, and up we go as the wind rips into us at 40mph. Stine, the 72-year-old founder and owner of Stine Seed, the largest private...

On the off chance you might encounter people who don't understand why George Soros and Monsanto might want the Ukraine.... The official title of the tsars was "Tsar of all the Russias", meaning primarily 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'White Russia' (Belorus), and 'Little Russia' (Ukraine). That is the heart of the Slavic Orthodox world and Ukraine is the breadbasket of that world. The Ukraine could feed everybody from the Volga to the Atlantic and that in fact was Hitler's plan; the idea was to build a super-gauge train to haul foodstuffs from Ukraine to Europe and, as I read it at...

Microsoft is an insanely profitable company standing on the edge of disaster. It desperately needs new thinking. With word that 22-year Microsoft veteran Satya Nadella is likely the new CEO, attention turns to the leadership of the company's board of directors. It will have two former CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. So new thinking is unlikely to come from them. In fact, Gates has a track record of huge strategic errors that have cost the company years of progress in market share. Here's why he should be the one to go: 1. Gates' world was: Go slow. Microsoft needs...

Atheists and agnostics like to claim that religion or belief in God isn’t necessary for living a moral life. “I can be a good person without God,” they say. Some go a step further and try to build a case for why they can be even better people without God. For example, they might claim that whereas theists are concerned about obeying religious commands that will get them into a heavenly afterlife, unbelievers are able to apply all their energies to making this world a better place.In a certain sense, it’s correct to say that one can be a...

Former Vice President Al Gore raised eyebrows last week when he suggested that “fertility management” was the key to fighting global warming and promoting economic development in poor countries. Gore’s comments drew criticism from free-marketeers who said his remarks amount to “eco-imperialism.” “Gore’s agenda for saving the world from global warming has always included population control,” Myron Ebell, director of global warming and international environmental policy at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Advocating population control specifically for Africa is just another form of imperialism. Gore’s eco-imperialism is uncomfortably close to the original racist goals...

Why is the EPA altering state boundaries in Wyoming - and reversing over 100 years of established law? Well, apparently the city of Riverton now falls under the jurisdiction of the Wind River Indian Reservation. Wyoming Governor Matt Mead warned of the dangers to all Americans of this type of unilateral land redistribution by the EPA: ...My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state's boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law. "This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from...

The other day I saw “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” which I thoroughly enjoyed. In it, the wizard Gandalf laments the growth of the “Power of the Shadow” and how the forces of good had been blind to its resurgence. That same week, Organizing for Action (President Obama’s political army) tweeted “On one side: Shadowy groups spending millions to obscure the facts.” I realized there was a connection between the two. OFA is right, the power of shadowy groups grows, and dark money spreads across our body politic. Yet many have been blind to the destructive power these groups...

General Mills says some Cheerios made without genetically modified ingredients will start appearing on shelves soon. The Minneapolis-based company said Thursday that it has been manufacturing its original-flavor Cheerios without GMOs for the past several weeks in response to consumer demand. It did not specify exactly when those boxes would be on sale. Original Cheerios will now be labeled as “Not Made With Genetically Modified Ingredients,” although that it is not an official certification. The labels will also note that trace amounts of GMO ingredients could be present due to contamination during the manufacturing process, said Mike Siemienas, a company...

Six Chinese nationals have been charged with conspiring to steal US trade secrets in an alleged plot to obtain bioengineered corn seed from American seed companies and send it to their own company in China. The case was revealed in a one-count, 21-page indictment unsealed Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. According to documents filed in federal court, the Chinese company officials allegedly drove through rural areas of Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana to dig up freshly planted seeds or collect samples of grown corn to obtain specimens of the valuable engineered seed stock. The seeds represent years of work by American...

Rigid criteria exist for a serious scientific journal to accept a peer-reviewed paper and to publish it. As well there exist strict criteria by which such an article can be withdrawn after publication. The Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology has apparently decided to violate those procedures, announcing it is retracting a long-term study on the toxic effects of Monsanto Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)—GMO Maize it published a year ago. The bizarre reports come only six months after Elsevier created a special new position, Associate Editor for Biotechnology (i.e. GMO), and filled it with a former Monsanto employee who worked...

Since its publication in September 2012, a study that showed rats fed Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant NK603 maize developed more tumors than controls has been roundly criticized for its poor experimental design and dubious statistical methods. Yesterday, the study was retracted. The retraction was initiated by the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology after the authors refused to withdraw it themselves.

Argentine union members on Thursday clashed with environmentalists protesting the construction of a plant by U.S.-based seed giant Monsanto. … Construction of the corn-processing plant was halted in October when environmentalists began disrupting entry of supplies. Activists oppose the use of genetically modified crops, which Monsanto produces and (environmentalist Vanina) Barboza says they’ll continue to block roads and access to the plant. …

Late last year, in a small health-food eatery called Cafe Sprouts in Oberlin, Ohio, I had what may well have been the most wholesome beverage of my life. The friendly server guided me to an apple-blueberry-kale-carrot smoothie-juice combination, which she spent the next several minutes preparing, mostly by shepherding farm-fresh produce into machinery. The result was tasty. But at 300 calories (by my rough calculation) for a 16-ounce cup, it was more than my diet could regularly absorb without consequences. Nor was I about to make a habit of $9 shakes, healthy or not. Inspired by the experience nonetheless, I...

Did you know that the Obama administration is negotiating a super secret “trade agreement” that is so sensitive that he isn’t even allowing members of Congress to see it? The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called the “NAFTA of the Pacific” and “NAFTA on steroids”, but the truth is that it is so much more than just a trade agreement. This treaty has 29 chapters, but only 5 of them have to do with trade. Most Americans don’t realize this, but this treaty will fundamentally change our laws regarding Internet freedom, health care, the trading of derivatives, copyright issues, food...