The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

Necklacing Returns to South Africa, Tutu Calls for Peace, and History Repeats Itself

Ted Kennedy’s Malignant Brain Tumor: Sad News, But the Work Goes On

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Nicole Hughes:

Bush’s Food Aid Package Promotes Use of GMOs

Gas Prices Exceed Those of 1973 Oil Crisis

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Andy Kondrat:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Cost US 38 Trillion Annually

USDA Budget Squeeze Forces Agency to Stop Tracking Pesticide Use

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Jon Popham:

Brooklyn Bridge Birthday Celebration!

Smokey the Bear: Environmental Icon

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Giulia Rozzi:

Suicide Tourism in New York City

Kristin Davis and Her Solar Powered Home

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Gina Telaroli:

Media That Matters Film Festival Premieres on May 28th

Top 10 Ways Indiana Jones Saved the World: Part #1

The USDA has announced that due to budget constraints, it is unwillingly shutting down the only national public survey that tracks and measures pesticide use on crops.   Looks like we need Food & Water Watch more than ever now.   Because the report soaked up $8 million of the USDA’s $160 million annual budget, it’s just not a feasible expense anymore, even though the agency admits the data is “actually needed” by the public.

From the Contra Costa Times, probably the only newspaper in the world to have printed my name (and even then in the Walnut Creek Journal insert, but still),

Eliminating the program “will mean farmers will be subjected to conjecture and allegations about their use of chemicals and fertilizer,” said Don Lipton, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau.

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