David Friedberg, the founder of The Climate Corporation and a lifelong vegetarian, is drawing ire from the agricultural advocates for his “charity” of choice going into tonight’s final round of Celebrity Jeopardy!: Humane World for Animals, the anti-livestock activist group formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States.

The Center for the Environment and Welfare said it is pleading with the producers of the Jeopardy! series to more rigorously vet the nonprofits eligible to receive the $1 million grand prize money from the game show. While Charity Navigator shows that HWA currently has a high charitable rating, the organization (under its previous name HSUS) has seen its rating revoked multiple times by watchdog groups in the past decade or so. One rating site, CharityWatch, gives far harsher assessments of HWA, often slapping the activists with “C” and “D” ratings.

Among the complaints that the nonprofit has long endured under its HSUS name is that it doesn’t actually have a connection to local Humane Societies — rather, it has piggybacked off of the good work of local shelters, allowing that name recognition to help bring in roughly $170 million a year in donations. Much of the money it has received as donations has gone toward “administrative” costs and lobbying against animal agriculture. By some accounts, 44 percent of HWA’s budget is overhead.

“An organization with $92 million in offshore assets in the Caribbean doesn’t need — or deserve — another million-dollar handout,” said Jack Hubbard, executive director of Center for the Environment and Welfare. “Despite featuring homeless cats and dogs in fundraising commercials, only one percent of the group’s budget is given to local pet shelters via financial grants. The prize money should instead support the work of local pet shelters and their volunteers who help the hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs whose lives are in jeopardy across the country.”

The call to action against Friedberg and HWA comes at a time when President Donald Trump is already challenging how the U.S. defines charitable work. The Center for the Environment and Welfare has long challenged HSUS (and its new iteration HWA) over its spending, most recently pressing the organization to offload its substantial investments and donate them to local shelters in need rather than spending that money on “marketing materials” and supporting a staff of several hundred people, about a quarter of whom make more than $100,000 annually. CEO Kitty Block, a former lawyer for PETA, reportedly makes $650,000 annually.

“Make no mistake: HWA is a radical, scandal-ridden activist group,” Hubbard added.

Friedberg is a former Google employee and an agtech pioneer who now serves as CEO of Ohalo Genetics. At the age of 35, he sold his startup, The Climate Corporation, to Monsanto for $1 billion. The company has since been acquired by Bayer, and the suite of products is recognized today as Climate FieldView. The tools he created are used on millions upon millions of acres of U.S. farmland.

Tonight, he will be competing against comedian and filmmaker W. Kamau Bell, who’s charity is Donors Choose, and comedian and writer Robin Thede, who’s charity is Women in Film.

Kubota’s Hometown Proud community grant program will invest in communities across the country by awarding 10 grants in 2025. Each grant is valued at $50,000 (includes $25,000 cash and a $25,000 equipment voucher). Kubota will announce the 10 winning hometown projects on September 1, 2025. Nonprofit organizations with a community project are encouraged to enter; the application is easy: just fill out the form below and upload a short video!

During the last four years, the Kubota Hometown Proud program has awarded $2 million in grants that have benefited communities across the country. Last year’s recipient projects included: infrastructure updates for Fed by Faith, which helps feed those in need in Joelton, Tenn.; revitalizing a downtown park to bring a community together for Leave it Better Inc. in Eastman, Georgia; and the renovation of a neighborhood ballpark for Cross Plains Youth Sports in Cross Plains, Texas.

“We are thrilled to reach the fifth anniversary of the Kubota Hometown Proud grant program which has awarded $2 million in grants that directly benefited communities across the country,” said Todd Stucke, President, Kubota Tractor Corporation. “Kubota is committed to partnering with local Kubota dealerships and investing in local hometowns. From coast to coast, Kubota has helped fund community projects that are the most meaningful and impactful to those who are spearheading them locally. We look forward to seeing how this year’s grants, along with our equipment, continue this tradition.”

How to enter

Any authorized employee or officer with the authority to act on behalf of the registered 501(c)(3) organization can enter. Take just three easy steps to get your application submitted:

• Step One: Visit KubotaHometownProud.com now through May 9, 2025.
• Step Two: Fill out the online application form, including information on your organization, your community project in need, and how Kubota equipment can help you reach your goals.
• Step Three: Upload a short video, then click ‘enter.’ 

After the application period closes on May 9, Kubota will review all applications and select 10 winners — one from each of the company’s 10 operating districts — to receive a grant of $25,000 and a $25,000 Kubota equipment voucher. Organizations who have entered before can enter again; however, previous winners are not eligible.

Additionally, consumers nationwide will have their own opportunity to participate in the Kubota Hometown Proud grant program through a sweepstakes launching on May 10. In this sweepstakes, individuals can enter themselves for a chance to win either a Kubota zero-turn mower or a BX tractor.

An in-depth comparison and analysis of the genomes of apple species is giving Penn State biologists better methods for identifying genes associated with desirable traits, like tastiness and resistance to disease and cold, that could help guide future apple breeding programs.

The researchers set out to understand how apple genomes have evolved over the past nearly 60 million years, and their paper published in the journal Nature Genetics points to the structural variations they identified.

“There are roughly 35 species in the genus Malus, but despite the importance of apple as a fruit crop, there hasn’t been extensive study of how this group’s genomes have evolved,” said Hong Ma, Huck Chair in Plant Reproductive Development and Evolution and professor of biology in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State and an author of the paper. “In this study, we were able to do a deep dive into the genomes of Malus, establish an apple family tree, document events like whole-genome duplications and hybridizations between species, and find regions of the genome associated with specific traits, like resistance to apple scab disease.”

The team newly sequenced and assembled the genomes of 30 members of the genus, including the domesticated golden delicious apple variety. Of the 30 species, 20 are diploid, meaning that they have two copies of each chromosome, like humans, and 10 are polyploid, having three or four copies of each chromosome, likely due to a relatively recent hybridizations of diploid and other relatives in Malus. By comparing the sequence of nearly 1,000 genes from each species, the researchers built a family tree of the genus and then used biogeographical analysis to trace its origin to about 56 million years ago in Asia.

“The evolutionary history of the genus is quite complex, with numerous examples of hybridization between species and a shared whole-genome duplication event that make comparisons difficult,” Ma said. “Having high-quality genomes for such a large number of the species in the genus and understanding the relationships among them allowed us to dig deeper into how the genus has evolved.”

To further analyze the history and evolution of the Malus genomes, the team examined the 30 sequenced genomes in an analytical approach called pan-genomics. This approach involved comprehensive comparison for both shared, or conserved, genes and other sequences, such as transposons — sometimes called jumping genes for their ability to move in the genome — across the 30 genomes, as well as genes that are only present in subsets of the genomes. Pan-genomic analyses combine the genomic information from a closely related group to understand evolutionary conservation and divergences and were greatly facilitated by the pan-genome graph tool.

“The use of the pan-genome of 30 species was powerful for detecting structural variation, as well as gene duplications and rearrangements, among the species that might be missed by comparisons of only a few genomes,” Ma said. “In this case, one of the uncovered structural variants allowed us to pinpoint the genome segment associated with resistance to apple scab, a fungal disease that impacts apples worldwide.”

The team also developed a pan-genome analysis tool to help find evidence of selective sweeps, a process where a beneficial trait rapidly increases in frequency in a population. Using this method, they identified a genome region responsible for cold and disease resistance in wild Malus species that also may be related to unpleasant taste in fruit.

“It’s possible that in the efforts to produce the best tasting fruit, there was an inadvertent reduction of the hardiness of domesticated apples,” Ma said. “Understanding the structural variations in the Malus genomes, the relationships among the species and their history of hybridization using pan-genome analysis could help guide future breeding efforts so that the beneficial traits for good taste and disease-resistant can both be retained in apples.”