Small amounts of damage to salad leaves in bagged salads encourage the presence of Salmonella enterica, new research has found. Juices released from damaged leaves also enhance the pathogen’s ability to attach to the salad’s plastic container. [node:read-more:link]

It is an argument that comes up every Thanksgiving season: using corn for ethanol drives up food prices. Another study proves this is simply not true. [node:read-more:link]

To understand what makes Burlington unlike almost any other city in America when it comes to the power it consumes, it helps to look inside the train that rolls into town every day. The 24 freight cars that pull up to the city’s power plant aren’t packed with Appalachian coal or Canadian fuel oil but wood. Each day 1,800 tons of pine and timber slash, sustainably harvested within a 60-mile radius and ground into wood chips, is fed into the roaring furnaces of the McNeil Generating Station, pumping out nearly half of the city’s electricity needs. [node:read-more:link]

Michigan and Minnesota are exemplar Midwest states when it comes to state-level policy pushing for clean energy development, according to a recent report from the Georgetown Climate Center.  Michigan is credited largely for its commitment to energy efficiency, which has been emphasized by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration as state lawmakers craft sweeping energy policy reform. [node:read-more:link]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is speeding up Canada’s planned elimination of traditional coal-fired power plants, doubling down on green pledges as its top trading partner moves in the opposite direction. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Monday the country would phase out traditional coal power by 2030, an acceleration of existing measures that the government says affects four facilities in Canada not already facing retrofit or shutdown by then. They include two facilities in Nova Scotia-owned Nova Scotia Power, an Emera Inc. [node:read-more:link]

Lowell City Council has had enough with Lowell Energy AD's problematic biodigester.  Council members spent more than an hour Monday, Nov. 21, discussing and hearing neighbor complaints about the smelly waste-to-energy plant. As a result, City Council ordered a shutdown of the facility.  Monday's consensus came after Lowell Energy AD, the plant's owner, failed to eliminate foul odors emitting from the 625 Chatham St. biodigester by a Nov. 1 deadline. The company was cited for violating its contract with the city five times between Nov. 7-14, each as a result of the foul smell. [node:read-more:link]

Hormel Foods Corp. today reported record net income in the fourth quarter and all of fiscal 2016 and told industry analysts that it is working on a goal to post overall annual margins of as much as 19 percent by 2020. [node:read-more:link]

If President-elect Donald Trump is successful with his proposed $1 trillion, 10-year program to fix America’s disintegrating and inadequate infrastructure, the states have a list of critical projects handy for him. And while a trillion could be a decent down payment, it’s not nearly enough. [node:read-more:link]

Federal judges struck down Wisconsin’s legislative map as illegally partisan, an unusual ruling that will require the Supreme Court to once again consider whether political gerrymandering violates the Constitution.  It is a question the court has addressed in the past without resolution. In its last attempt, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, wrote that it was impossible for courts to come up with a test to decide when partisan line-drawing goes so far as to violate the rights of those who don’t belong to the party in power. [node:read-more:link]

The state’s health commissioner announced Monday that the opioid addiction crisis is an official public health emergency in Virginia and created a standing order that anyone can obtain a rescue drug at pharmacies to treat overdoses. State Health Commissioner Marissa Levine announced at a news conference that the drug naloxone, which can be used to treat narcotic overdoses in emergencies, can now be obtained at pharmacies without a prescription or any explanation as to why it is needed. [node:read-more:link]