Supreme Court rules SNAP sales data are confidential
A solid majority of the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that SNAP sales data at the store level are confidential and outside of the reach of public-records laws. The Argus Leader newspaper fought for access to the information for eight years on grounds that taxpayers deserved to know how and where the largest U.S. anti-hunger program spends more than $65 billion a year.
Grocers ask Supreme Court to keep SNAP data secret
In a case testing the limits of public-records laws, a trade group for grocers asked the Supreme Court on Monday to bar the release of store-by-store sales data for the $65 billion-a-year food stamp program. A South Dakota newspaper has fought since 2011 for the data, arguing taxpayers deserve to know how and where the government is spending their money.
Robots seen replacing farm labor, slaughtering livestock
Farmers have embraced power equipment for decades, part of the transformation of agriculture from small-scale farms that relied on manual labor to a highly mechanized sector with a much smaller workforce.