Julian A Nowogrodzki

Hard to convey how much you can tangibly feel the love and care for one another people are showing here in Minneapolis. Even in the few days we’ve been here more businesses have come on board with the strike and we've met people from every walk of like doing the work to keep each other safe.

I've talked to people on the ground about the strike here tomorrow, and the single thing everyone brings up is just how shockingly wide the support for the strike is. Businesses that no one would have expected to support it are doing so.

National media should really be covering the fact thay every major school, museum, and arts institution in the Twin Cities, and hundreds of local businesses are closed tomorrow to protest federal occupation.

Nothing like this at this scale has happened anywhere in America anytime in living memory.

Margaret Killjoy is now reporting from Minneapolis, and if you find yourself doomscrolling, I highly recommend just reading her newsletter instead, it has 1000x more vitality, clarity, solidarity: margaretkilljoy.substack.com/subscribe

Dairy and Meat Industries Push for Access to H-2A Farmworkers While the Trump Administration Slashes Their Pay The H-2A visa program, which recruits farm laborers largely from Mexico, has been likened to indentured servitude. The dairy and meat industries want in.

Trump slashed H-2A farmworkers' wages roughly in half, in what's been called "one of the largest wealth transfers from workers to employers in US agricultural history."

The H-2A visa program was already prone to exploitation.

The dairy and meat industries want in.

@greymoran.bsky.social reports:

Sure. AI companies have ALWAYS been training their models on Wikipedia content, which under the free and open access model is available to anyone — including AI companies. Agreements like these require AI companies to limit and offset the strain they place on Wikimedia infrastructure.

Long time followers are familiar with the environmental issues of CAFOs. This is a great example

"manifesting is a process whereby large factory farms transfer their manure to smaller farms that aren’t subject to manure disposal regulations... sometimes the smaller farms are owned by the CAFO."

The Paperwork Trick Letting Factory Farms Pollute With Impunity The practice called ‘manifesting’ lets CAFOs make manure pollution legally invisible and evade liability.

On paper, factory farms can make manure pollution legally invisible. This little-known loophole is called "manifesting" and it's part of why 70% of CAFOs in the US don't have discharge permits: @sentientmedia.org sentientmedia.org/trick-lettin...

RFK Jr.’s New Dietary Guidelines Are Out, and They’re Full of Red Meat New guidelines say they want to “end the war on protein” and tout full-fat dairy.

RFK Jr.'s new dietary guidelines: living in the upside down

@sentientmedia.org sentientmedia.org/rfk-jr-new-d...

GLP-1 Users Lose Weight, and Their Taste for Meat People taking blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy report eating less meat, dairy and processed foods. These shifts could reshape the food system.

People tend to eat less meat and animal products, such as beef, pork, seafood and eggs, as well as fewer processed foods, when taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, according to new research. @byng.bsky.social reports:

Dismantling of US federal agencies will ‘destroy science’ From NASA to the National Institutes of Health, federal agencies conduct research that universities cannot. Agency scientists speak out about the irreplaceable facilities, institutional knowledge and ...

"Science is being destroyed across many agencies" say federal researchers.

For my latest @nature.com piece, I spoke to 19 different scientists across EPA, NOAA, NIH, NASA, and USGS to document how science is being dismantled across US federal agencies.

Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.)

RTs appreciated.

How New York City’s largest food rescue organization stepped up during the SNAP crisis City Harvest’s food rescue efforts are a win for both climate and food insecurity

When the 43-day shutdown halted SNAP benefits for millions, the demand for emergency food in New York surged. This 40-year-old organization stepped up — rescuing surplus food that would have gone to waste and expanding distributions to fill the gap.

NEW in Floodlight and @SentientMedia.Org:

Yikes! Less than 20%?!

Why Is There Soy in Practically Everything? If you’re avoiding tofu and soy milk, you’re still probably eating more soy than you think.

Why is there soy in everything from meatballs to chicken nuggets to froot loops? sentientmedia.org/why-is-soy-i... from @jesslsr.bsky.social

Michigan’s New Tougher Limits on Factory Farm Waste Are a Long Time Coming The water pollution regulations were issued five years ago. Why are they only being enforced now?

Michigan’s new water pollution regulations targeting factory farms are 5 years old. Why are they only being enforced now? a primer on industry's delaying tactics by Seth Millstein @sentientmedia.org: sentientmedia.org/michigans-ne...

This is a great obit, and I appreciated Alice’s fight for Palestinians in Gaza being highlighted. I also want to give a shout out to Miles for asking permission to cite my post when technically you don’t have to do that re media law but still an ethical thing to do.

How America’s Largest Meat Company Leverages Palantir's Surveillance Tech Palantir’s controversial software platform is capable of integrating vast amounts of data — but at what risk?

Full article on Tyson's use of Palantir's surveillance tech here: sentientmedia.org/tyson-foods-...

During the height of the pandemic, Tyson used Palantir to predict Covid-19 infections among meatpacking workers down to a nearly exactly figure. But rather than using this data to increase worker protections, Tyson used it plan for labor shortages + plant closures
My latest for @sentientmedia.org

Your Squid May Be Harvested By Chinese Vessels With Forced Labor Officers on fishing vessels often subject workers to physical violence, intimidation and fraud. Most of the crew members interviewed by the Environmental Justice Foundation reported being trapped in…

Most buyers sourcing squid from Chinese vessels accused of crew abuse and deaths are based in North America — nearly half in the U.S. and one-third in Canada, according to a September report by the London-based nonprofit @ejfoundation.org.

(via @gaeacabico.bsky.social for @sentientmedia.org)

Sentient is hiring an audience manager with newsroom experience!

This is a newly created position.

@sentientmedia.org is a nonprofit news outlet covering factory farms, food, and climate. Happy to answer questions.

sentientmedia.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers...

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day.

certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

USDA Deletes SNAP Emergency Funding Plan From Its Website The Trump administration’s USDA is refusing to release around $6 billion in contingency funds designated for a lapse in SNAP benefits.

BREAKING: A deleted plan from the USDA website suggests the Trump administration had intended to release contingency funds to keep SNAP running during a government shutdown

@greymoran.bsky.social has the story
sentientmedia.org/usda-deletes...

USDA Deletes SNAP Emergency Funding Plan From Its Website The Trump administration’s USDA is refusing to release around $6 billion in contingency funds designated for a lapse in SNAP benefits.

BREAKING: In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration’s USDA is refusing to release around $6 billion in contingency funds designated for a lapse in SNAP benefits. @greymoran.bsky.social reports:
buff.ly/tlC9gRP

A text excerpt reads: The study also finds that emissions from transportation are a small fraction of overall livestock emissions, as has been shown in other research. For consumers eager to make a dent in their own climate emissions from what they eat, that means that eating locally, while appealing, does not in fact have much impact on emissions. “Food miles and related emissions are largely a myth,” Goldstein writes to Sentient. “Emissions from transporting food account for around 10% of total emissions related to producing and distributing food products to retail.” By and large, he adds, “most emissions occur during production, especially in the case of meat which requires lots of feed and generates lots of on-site emissions” that come mainly from enteric fermentation, primarily cattle burps, and the manure lagoons used to hold animals’ urine and feces.

The transportation piece is super interesting, too, and I probably didn't do it justice with the release. Fortunately, though, Sophie Kevany did an excellent job for @sentientmedia.org. sentientmedia.org/meat-consump...

In the Arizona Desert, Where Your Neighbor Is an Alfalfa Farm Water resource “hedge funds” and corporate farms are running the desert dry.

As an AZ native, I've known this for years. And still. The madness never ceases to shock
"In Arizona, 76 percent of water use goes toward agriculture. Mature alfalfa (hay) is largely used to feed cattle, and in Arizona, alfalfa is a commonly planted thirsty crop."
sentientmedia.org/arizona-dese...

In Tracking Avian Flu, Data Privacy Stymies Researchers Specific data about H5N1 outbreaks on farms has generally been deemed confidential by state and federal officials.

Glad to see this article about scientists struggling to obtain field-level avian flu data, which the U.S. government collects from farms, republished in @undark.org
It's one of the reasons why avian flu surveillance remains very limited

undark.org/2025/09/16/a...

The Study Big Meat Tried to Bury — and Why It Matters Again When a sweeping scientific study called for eating less meat, the meat industry launched a full-scale attack. And we could be in for a repeat.

Every time science says to eat less meat, Big Meat loses its mind

sentientmedia.org/the-study-bi...

Why are Saudi Arabian cattle eating alfalfa grown in the Arizona desert and then shipped around the world?

@ninaelkadi.com traveled to western Arizona to find out: