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The US Supreme Court said on Friday that it will take up the issue of federal preemption over pesticide warning labels, a move sought by Bayer as a means of blocking costly future litigation over the Roundup weed killer products it inherited from its purchase of Monsanto.

The high court said it will hear the case with the limitation of answering one question: “Whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act [FIFRA] preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where [the Environmental Protection Agency] EPA has not required the warning.”

Bayer celebrated the news and said it expects a decision during the Court’s 2026 session, which ends in June.

Lawmakers removed language in a 2026 federal spending bill that would’ve blocked lawsuits and limited state warnings on pesticide risks — a major win for public health advocates after intense lobbying.

TNL Editor-in-Chief Carey Gillam explains.

Read more: A “hard fight”- Pesticide industry protection stripped from appropriations bill

New US dietary guidelines released by the federal government this week received mixed reactions from the health community, with many praising the move to explicitly advise against consuming highly processed foods in favor of whole foods but others concerned about a recommendation to consume red meat, which is linked to heart disease, as well as full-fat dairy, a source of saturated fat.

The updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), published Jan. 7 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), advise consumers to avoid foods with added sugars and highly processed foods, such as hot dogs and frozen meals that contain chemical preservatives, emulsifiers and sweeteners and other additives, aligning with a key priority of the Make America Healthy Again movement (MAHA).

In a setback for the pesticide industry, Democrats have succeeded in removing a rider from a congressional appropriations bill that would have helped protect pesticide makers from being sued and could have hindered state efforts to warn about pesticide risks.

US Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine and ranking member of the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, said Monday that the controversial measure pushed by the agrochemical giant Bayer and industry allies has been stripped from the 2026 funding bill.

The move is final, as Senate Republican leaders have agreed not to revisit the issue, Pingree said.

“I just drew a line in the sand and said this cannot stay in the bill,” Pingree said in an interview, noting that she had both Republicans and some Democrats in opposition. “There has been intensive lobbying by Bayer. This has been quite a hard fight.”

The journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has formally retracted a sweeping scientific paper published in 2000 that became a key defense for Monsanto’s claim that Roundup herbicide and its active ingredient glyphosate don’t cause cancer.

Martin van den Berg, the journal’s editor in chief, said in a note accompanying the retraction that he had taken the step because of “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented”.

When a team of scientists embarked two years ago on a $1 million landmark study of Iowa’s persistent water quality problems, they knew that the findings would be important to share. The state’s stunningly high cancer rates amid its inability to stem the tide of pollutants flowing into rivers and lakes was a growing public concern.

But now, after the completed study pointed to agricultural pollution as a significant source of the key US farm state’s water problems, public officials have quietly stripped funding away from plans to promote the study findings, according to sources involved in the project.

Syngenta is another step closer to potentially putting an end to thousands of lawsuits brought by people blaming the company’s paraquat weed killer for causing Parkinson’s disease.

After signing a preliminary agreement with plaintiffs’ attorneys in April, the company now has in place a signed “Master Settlement Agreement”, according to a recent court filing.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Several hundred Iowa residents gathered in the state capital this week, calling on public officials – and each other – to take swift action against dangerously polluted water supplies that are closely linked to the state’s powerful agricultural industry.

Some attendees drove for hours from rural farmsteads for the Aug. 4 event, squeezing into a packed auditorium on the campus of Drake University to listen to a team of  scientists detail new research showing how multiple harmful pollutants flowing through Iowa watersheds are jeopardizing public and environmental health.

Agricultural operations across Iowa are a leading cause of significant water pollution problems in the state, posing dire risks to public and environmental health, according to a new scientific report that is sparking heated debate in the key US farm state.

The 227-page “Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment” (CISWRA) was formally released by Polk County, Iowa, officials on July 1 after months of what multiple sources said were intentional actions by public officials to suppress details of the report.

The report caps a two-year-long research review by a team of 16 scientists that focused on pollution patterns in two “essential” rivers fed from a watershed running from southern Minnesota through the central part of Iowa to the state capital of Des Moines.

Those rivers, the Des Moines and the Raccoon, are the primary source of drinking water for roughly 600,000 people and are considered important recreational state assets, but the rivers are commonly laden with harmful contaminants that include phosphorus and nitrogen, bacteria from animal and human waste, pesticides and other chemicals.

New research out of Iowa adds to a wide body of evidence showing that when pregnant women are exposed to nitrates in drinking water, it raises the risks of problematic birth outcomes, including low birth weights and pre-term birth.

The study, published June 25 in PLOS Water, found that the risks persist even when exposures are lower than the regulatory standard for allowable levels.

It comes as the US farm state wrestles with near-record levels of nitrates in prominent waterways, and as residents increasingly question high levels of cancer and other health problems occurring across Iowa.

Nitrate levels have been so high recently in key Iowa rivers that in June, public health officials banned about 600,000 businesses and homeowners in central Iowa from watering lawns to limit demands on utility operations seeking to filter nitrates from water for household use.