The owner of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange "took emergency action ... to allow bigger-than-normal swings in its interest-rate futures" on election night, reported Reuters. The CME Group said market volatility might increase as votes are counted in the U.S. presidential election.

Some activist groups are abandoning the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil—a panel of palm producers, consumer companies, and activist groups that provides sustainability certificates for the industry—over complaints that it has not done enough to correct industry abuses.

John Wooden High School, a so-called continuation school in the Los Angeles school system, is small, operating without a pool or a gym but it has a farm. And most days, Alex Snyder, 17, "eats lunch with a pot-bellied pig named Peanut," says the Los Angeles Times.

Saul Berenthal, a co-founder of the company that hoped to assemble farm tractors in Cuba, told the Miami Herald, "We're not giving up," after Cuba rejected the proposal. Interviewed at the Cleber tractor booth at a trade show in Havana, Berenthal said the Paint Rock, AL, company will build its tractors in the United States and try to export them to Cuba and other countries.

A report from the Carsey Institute says immigrants are just as likely to hold a job as native-born Americans in rural areas but twice as likely to be part of the working poor, reports the Daily Yonder. Nearly one in six rural immigrants don't earn enough money for their household income to top the federal poverty level.

As several cities in the U.S. prepare to vote on soda taxes, researchers say that taxing more of our foods based on their climate impact would do a lot to help the planet and our health, says The Guardian. A 40-percent surcharge on beef, for instance, would produce a 13-percent decline in consumption, according to the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

One of the biggest meatpackers in the world, Tyson Foods, "appears to be the first big meat company to invest in a business that, among other things, aims to reduce consumption of chicken, beef and pork by replacing it with plant proteins, says the New York Times. Tyson purchased a 5-percent share of Beyond Meat, based in California.

An additional 16,000 square miles — larger than the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined — burned in forest fires since 1984 due to climate change, nearly double the area that would have burned otherwise, says a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "No matter how hard we try, the fires are going to keep getting bigger and the reason [rising temperatures] is really clear," said bioclimatologist Park Williams, a co-author of the study.

Five weeks after the Canadian meat industry suggested the government should withdraw support from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the Health Ministry has its answer: No, thank you. As iPolitics reports: "No adjustments to their support would be necessary at this time," said a spokesman for Minister Jean Philpott.

U.S. district judge Stephanie Rose sentenced Mo Hailong, a Chinese national also known as Robert Mo, to three years in prison for conspiracy to steal trade secrets, the Justice Department announced. Mo took part in the theft of hybrid seed corn, developed by Monsanto and Pioneer, for shipment to a Chinese conglomerate that owns a corn seed subsidiary.

The USDA will open a three-month enrollment period on Nov. 14 for the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers and ranchers for making soil, water and wildlife conservation a part of their daily operations. A small-farm group says producers should submit an initial application if they're interested in the program, but it says USDA has yet to fully describe its changes to CSP.

The farmer-funded American Egg Board will face annual audits and a round of ethics training for its undercover attempt to derail a vegan version of mayonnaise, say USDA regulators. Their report could bolster long-shot legislation to end compulsory participation in the two-dozen "checkoff" programs that promote farm goods, from watermelons and limes to beef, cotton and milk.

Rural Mexicans who rely on funds sent my their undocumented relatives in the U.S. are praying for Donald Trump to lose on Election Day, says Reuters. Trump has said he would deport illegal immigrants if he were president, cutting off a vital economic lifeline.

Forty percent of women working in fast food said they had experienced sexual harassment on the job, and 42 percent of those said they felt they had to accept the inappropriate treatment or else lose their jobs, according to a survey by Hart Research Associates.

Fast-food giant McDonald's, as part of updating its menu, will test smaller and bigger versions of its Big Mac across the nation in early 2017, says BuzzFeed. "Whether the new Macs are added permanently to the menu will depend on sales during the winter promotion."