U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins Tuesday at the opening of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new, modernized Midwestern Food Safety Laboratory, launched a  comprehensive plan to bolster USDA’s efforts to combat food-borne illness.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring American consumers have the safest, most abundant, and affordable food supply in the world. When it comes to food safety, USDA is charting a bold new course in giving consumers confidence their meat, poultry, and egg products meet our best-in-class food safety standards,” said Secretary Rollins. “I look forward to continued collaboration across the Trump administration, with states, and with food producers from farm to table, to reduce food-borne illness and protect public health.”   

A recent study by researchers at Cornell, Columbia, and University of California- Berkeley links addictive screen use by adolescents to an increase in suicidal behaviors. The study followed 4,285 U.S. adolescents over a four-year period, and the results imply overwhelmingly that the key element driving risk of suicidal behavior is not total time but rather addictive use of social media, mobile phones, and video games. 

“This is the first study to identify that addictive use is important, and is actually the root cause, instead of time,” said lead author Yunyu Xiao, assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced during a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in New Mexico, June 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. This outdated administrative rule contradicts the will of Congress and goes against the mandate of the USDA Forest Service to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands. Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of the National Forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production.