Germany

In the United States, Covid-19 has been sweeping through meatpacking plants, infecting more than 24,000 workers and killing at least 92 of them. Those figures are more than nine-times larger than at meat plants in Europe, though the U.S. industry has only a third more workers.  Bridget Huber explains how Europe largely avoided the crisis sweeping the U.S. industry in FERN's latest story. (No paywall)

Ending a year-and-a-half of indecision, EU nations voted for a five-year extension of its license of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world. Germany was pivotal in reaching the qualified majority – 55 percent of EU nations with at least 65 percent of EU population – for passage with France, the largest EU agricultural producer, opposing the extension, said online newspaper EU Observer.

In the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, California is teaming up with China and Germany to fight climate change.

“Once seeds are secured in gene banks, it is a never-ending — and expensive— job to keep them viable,” writes Virginia Gewin at Yale Environment 360.

The widely used herbicide glyphosate "could get a new life in Europe after being deemed safe by a key assessment largely based on classified industry papers," says the Guardian.