Cruelty-Free, Anyone?

China used to require cosmetics to be tested on animals, which effectively banned cruelty-free brands like The Body Shop and Burt’s Bees from the stores. Now it’s changed the rules and many tests are done on living skin samples. The $30 billion Chinese makeup market responded to increasing demands from consumers in other countries for cruelty-free products. [Bloomberg]

Plus, four top food and beverage companies with $27 billion of annual sales just promised to stop testing on animals. Some of their products include Top Ramen and Jim Beam.

1. There are 311 threatened species protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Trump Administration wants to narrow the definition of “threatened” to a case-by-case basis and bar the sage grouse and burying beetle from the endangered species list for 10 years. [Vox]
2. Latinos are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than whites. Their families (and family restaurants) are rallying around them and going vegan. [NPR]
3. 3,300 baby birds were grounded after flying into lights from one salt mining company in Chile over the course of just three months. [Atlantic]
4. Cats have contributed to at least 63 extinctions around the world. There’s a $1.5 million conservation effort underway in the District of Columbia to count all of the city’s feral and house cats. The estimated completion date is 2021. [New York Times]
5. Termites half-a-centimeter long build covered walkways up to 230 feet long by eating the grass, vegetation, and cow poo in their way. The result is a network of 4-inch-wide corridors that works like one big superorganism. [Popular Science]