You want fries with that? The Grand Old Party is fighting the Green New Deal…with hamburgers. Following President Trump’s claim that aggressive emissions cuts would effectively outlaw cows, some Republicans have taken to brandishing ground beef in protest. At a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah ate a Good Stuff burger. Later, his Congressional Western Caucus posted a bizarre cartoon of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez astride a mound of buns. Trump admin alum Sebastian Gorka, speaking at CPAC Thursday morning, took it even further: “They want to take away your hamburgers,” he said. “This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved.”
Sheriff Buzzkill. We’ve already told you about California’s bee thieves. Now, here’s the sheriff who tracks their every move. Vice News rode along with Butte County Deputy Sheriff Rowdy Jay Freeman as he tried to relocate stolen hives. The documentary crew filmed Freeman making one arrest, but the vast majority of bee poachers are still flying free.
Who says it’s heart-healthy? Chocolate’s good for your heart. At least, that’s the claim chocolate company Barry Callebaut would like to print on its wrappers, Food Dive reports. Callebaut has presented research backing that assertion to the Food and Drug Administration in hopes of getting permission to put a “qualified health claim” on its product. The evidence appears to still be shaky but, hey, there’s a precedent: The European Commission approved such a claim for products sold in Europe in 2013.
WeEat. For New Yorkers, weekday lunch breaks just got a little more interesting: A unique social media-based app is connecting hungry Manhattan workers with restaurants in neighborhoods as far away as Flushing, Queens. The service, called YBB, runs on a platform called WeChat, which is popular among Chinese-speaking groups, Eater reports, in a feature that’s part of the publication’s new guide to Chinese food in NYC. That’s not WeChat’s only contribution to culinary culture in the Big Apple—the platform is also an influential driver of restaurant reviews. Mala soup’s on!
Symbol of scarcity. Farmers and water conservationists both share an interest in reckoning with the realities of a water-scarce future. But they share different visions of just how that should happen. In a feature for Grist, Margiana Petersen-Rockney tells the story of the Shasta Big Springs Ranch, formerly an abundant source of salmon in Northern California that has all but dried up—thanks to drought and economic misfortune, as well as ranchers, environmentalists, and government working at cross-purposes.
