The next time you call someone a chicken, think again – animal rights activists want the insult banned. Campaign group PETA has written to the Oxford English Dictionary, demanding it scrap the definition of chicken as a cowardly or faint–hearted person. In a letter to chief editor Michael Proffitt, the organisation claims the description is unfair, inaccurate and harmful to the bird's reputation. PETA argues that linking chickens with cowardice promotes speciesism – the belief that animals are inferior to humans. According to the group, the stereotype also helps justify the treatment of chickens in the food industry.

The nonprofit Rainforest Alliance, headed by Santiago Gowland, runs one of the world's largest sustainability certification programs--partnering with farmers and brands around the world to support climate resilient growing practices under its iconic green frog seal. In 2025, the organization's efforts resulted in some 5.5 million metric tons of emissions being avoided or sequestered. The group recently announced a new regenerative agriculture standard aimed at transforming the way tropical commodities are grown, certified, and traded. The standard supports farmers looking to better understand and employ regenerative agriculture practices--focusing on areas such as soil health and fertility, biodiversity, and crop resilience. The first crop the framework is focusing on is coffee, but the organization plans to extend the certification to cocoa, citrus, and tea.

Is the war entering a new phase? Three black naval drones resembling oversized plastic toys struck a freighter sluggishly navigating the Black Sea off the coast of Bulgaria on October 28. Aerial drones joined the attack, and explosions rocked the Liberian-flagged Contship Jet Monrovia, loaded with more than 400 terracotta-coloured containers. The vessel, travelling from the Israeli port of Haifa to Romania, listed and sank, but all 18 crew members were rescued, Bulgarian authorities said. The drones were Russian, Kyiv claimed, adding that the attack was designed to make the Black Sea unsafe for civilian ships, paralyse Ukraine's exports of grain and further hobble its war-ravaged economy.

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Sudan's army says it struck RSF command centres in South Darfur, but the RSF and its allies say a crowded livestock market was hit. The UN says drone strikes are now the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan, as Al Jazeera's Almigdad Alruhaid reports from Khartoum. Why is Trump now encouraging mail-in voting? Paris residents tell Al Jazeera they're dismayed by protest damage'No Kings' protests spread across the US ahead of midterm elections

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Environment Agriculture Rocky the pumpkin wins'Superbowl of Pumpkin Weigh Offs' at 2,389 pounds Minnesota's Travis Gienger won the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh Off for the fifth time. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. The Atlantic giant named Rocky won this year's competition, For the fifth time, pumpkin legend Travis Gienger won the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh Off today in Half Moon Bay, California. The gigantic gourd named Rocky weighed 2,389 pounds . It could be baked into approximately 1,194 pumpkin pies, and weighs about the same as an American bison () or a 2015 Chevy Spark. The biggest gourd from this event tipped the scales 2,749 pounds and was grown by Gienger in 2023 .

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Maine lobsterman Frank Thompson vows to keep fighting a GPS tracking mandate after the Supreme Court declined to hear his Fourth Amendment challenge.

The April 16 attack was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, and its fighters then opened fire from all sides of the Sarki Piyala police checkpost in Hangu district, about 30km (18 miles) from the border with Afghanistan and a hotbed of deadly attacks by armed groups, mainly the TTP. "There was a great deal of fear because we were in the middle of a battle. At that moment, we did not even know whether we would make it back home alive," Khan told Al Jazeera. To defend against such attacks, the police in Hangu came up with an unlikely, low-cost solution - fishing nets strung several metres overhead between the checkpost's rooftops and perimeter walls, forming a kind of aerial ceiling. Simple in construction and resembling what fishermen use for their work, the netting was first installed two months ago, according to the local police.