Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Legal analyst Ernie Canning on two suits pushing back at years-long, blatant voter suppression in Mike Pence's Indiana... Deadly Sierra Leone mudslide; Largest Gulf 'dead zone' ever; 'Super heat waves' on rise; Fossil fuel ind.
Drought conditions worsened in several states over the past week from extreme heat and weeks with little rain, raising the prospect that grocery staples such as bread and beans could cost more as the region that produces those commodities is hardest hit. Drought conditions have begun to stress corn, soybeans, wheat and livestock in some areas, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
It looks like next year might be a good time to cut the carbohydrates as a drought-fueled jump in wheat costs will make bakery goods the food items with the biggest price gains for U.S. consumers. Higher prices paid to farmers, combined with lower imports, may increase grocery and restaurant costs for baked goods and cereals as much as 4 percent next year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday in its first forecast of food-price inflation for 2018.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has authorized more Conservation Reserve Program lands for emergency grazing and haying in and around parts of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota affected by severe drought. USDA is adding the ability for farmers and ranchers in these areas to hay and graze CRP wetlands and buffers.
The Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program provides emergency assistance to eligible livestock, honeybee, and farm-raised fish producers who have losses due to disease, adverse weather or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, not covered by other agricultural disaster assistance programs. Eligible livestock losses include grazing losses not covered under the Livestock Forage Disaster Program , loss of purchased feed and/or mechanically harvested feed due to an eligible adverse weather event, additional cost of transporting water because of an eligible drought and additional cost associated with gathering livestock to treat for cattle tick fever.
World coffee stocks will fall next season to their lowest in six years - and for even longer in major exporting countries - sapped by record demand at a time of only marginally rising output. The US Department of Agriculture, in its first global coffee estimates for 2017-18, forecast stocks closing the season at 34.0m bags, a drop of 1.1m bags year on year, and the lowest since the end of 2011-12.
CHICAGO, May 19 Talks on restarting U.S. beef exports to China are moving fast and final details should be in place by early June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday, allowing American farmers to vie for business that has been lost by rival Brazil. As part of a trade deal, U.S. ranchers are set to face tests over the use of growth-promoting drugs to raise cattle destined for export to China and to log the animals' movements, according to the USDA.
Shortly after the 2008 election, President Obama's soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously declared, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." He elaborated: "What I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
Ideas of the Brazilian soybean and corn harvest got another boost, while crop reports from the US southern Plains showed little reason to start fretting over drought damage to winter wheat yet, and absent fund buying, grain markets trimmed their recent gains. The latest forecast for Brazilian soybeans from FC Stone came in at a hefty 109.07m tonnes, nearly 5m tonnes up from its February forecast, with favourable weather across most of the country's growing regions.
President Donald Trump's new immigration order will remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary U.S. travel ban, U.S. officials say, citing the latest draft in circulation. President Donald Trump's new immigration order will remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary U.S. travel ban, U.S. officials say, citing the latest draft in circulation.
Twelve years ago, widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast helped compel federal engineers 2,000 miles away in California to remake a 1950s-era dam by constructing a massive steel-and-concrete gutter that would manage surging waters in times of torrential storms. The nearly $1 billion auxiliary spillway at Folsom Dam, scheduled to be completed later this year, stands in contrast to the troubles 75 miles away at the state-run Oroville Dam, where thousands of people fled last week after an eroded spillway threatened to collapse - a catastrophe that could have sent a 30-foot wall of floodwater gushing into three counties.
State officials have discussed using helicopters to drop loads of rock on the damaged emergency sp... . This photo shows erosion caused when overflow water cascaded down the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, in Oroville, Calif.
A NASA report released Wednesday found that land in one of California's most productive agricultural regions continues to subside rapidly because of heavy groundwater pumping. For decades, and especially during the last five years of drought, growers have relied on pumping water from the ground when surface water wasn't available.
Authorities say inmates used "sharp objects" to take over a Delaware prison and hold three prison guards and a counselor hostage A former death row inmate at the Delaware prison where inmates took employees hostage says the prisoners were protesting what he called "inhumane" conditions at the facility Roaring storms that brought California almost a year's worth of snow and rain in a single month should make state water manager's Sierra snowpack survey Thursday a celebration, marking this winter's dramatic... California water managers say Sierra Nevada snow drifts are at a drought-busting 173 percent of average, with the most snow recorded since 1995 A group of Yemeni business owners plan to shut down their delis, grocery stores and bodegas around New York City in protest of President Donald Trump's travel ban on people hailing from seven Muslim-majority... Many Yemeni business owners ... (more)
Roaring storms that brought California almost a year's worth of snow and rain in a single month should make state water manager's Sierra snowpack survey Thursday a celebration, marking this winter's dramatic... California water managers say Sierra Nevada snow drifts are at a drought-busting 173 percent of average, with the most snow recorded since 1995 A group of Yemeni business owners plan to shut down their delis, grocery stores and bodegas around New York City in protest of President Donald Trump's travel ban on people hailing from seven Muslim-majority... Many Yemeni business owners have shut down their delis, grocery stores and bodegas around New York City in protest of President Donald Trump's travel ban Some Maine sixth-graders are pushing state lawmakers to pass a bill that would make it easier for residents to keep hedgehogs as pets Some Maine sixth-graders are pushing state ... (more)
Thanks to the news media having no incentive to tell you this, you may not have noticed but the California drought, which eighteen months ago was "historic" and "catastrophic," has suddenly effectively ended. The key mountain range where in 2015 Governor Jerry Brown famously revealed the snowpack to be virtually nonexistent is now at 180% of normal for this time of year, while state-wide "snow water" is 193% .
The image of a lonesome tumbleweed rolling across the plain is synonymous with the American West. But in eastern Colorado, tumbleweeds have become annual invaders, blocking roads and even burying houses.
The 46 counties covered by the designation range across the state. Farmers and ranchers in an additional 24 bordering Tennessee counties can qualify for natural disaster assistance, plus 12 in Kentucky, four in North Carolina, two each in Virginia and Mississippi and one in Alabama.