Ted Cruz and Ronny Jackson push legislation to help ranchers who lost livestock in Panhandle wildfires

 

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, both Republicans, are pushing legislation offering additional financial aid to ranchers who lost an excessive amount of unborn livestock in a disaster. It could help those in the Texas Panhandle trying to recover from devastating wildfires that killed more than 15,000 head of cattle, including pregnant cows.

The bill aims to enhance the Livestock Indemnity Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program was first introduced in the 2018 Farm Bill and pays livestock producers for excess deaths from severe weather, disease, or attacks by certain other animals. These payments are determined by the Secretary of Agriculture and typically equal to 75% of the average market price for the animal.

But the program doesn’t cover the death of unborn livestock. This has created another financial setback for Panhandle ranchers, who are trying to recoup their losses after the region was engulfed by wildfires in February and March. The largest of the fires was the Smokehouse Creek fire — which became the largest in state history after burning more than 1 million acres in the rural region...more

Democrats have beef with a Montana GOP Senate candidate’s cattle ranch

 

As they navigate a tough 2024 map to maintain their slim Senate majority, Democrats are attempting to frame a key race in Montana around issues with unique resonance in the state: authenticity and access to public land.

They emphasize the dirt farm roots of the incumbent, Sen. Jon Tester. By contrast, they portray likely Republican challenger Tim Sheehy as a “rhinestone cowboy” who only dons a big hat when posing for pictures on social media.

Sheehy, an ex-Navy SEAL and Minnesota native, holds up his Little Belt Cattle Co., founded in 2020 in central Montana, as a success amid profound challenges in agriculture. Democrats hope voters will instead view it as a threat in a state settled and developed through federal homesteading programs dating back to the 1800s.

More recently, Montana has seen a rush of deep-pocketed outsiders buying up land. Democrats are trying to tie Sheehy to the trend — another outsider eager to capitalize on how the popular television series “Yellowstone” has romanticized Mountain West living. Little Belt, which raises and sells cattle and beef, encompasses land once divided among three smaller ranches in prime elk-hunting country. It only allows private hunting on its grounds...more

Bill Gates Harvests $113 Million In Nebraska Farmland, Takes Out $700 Million In Loans

 

Over the past six years, billionaire Bill Gates has spent more than $113 million purchasing Nebraska farmland and has taken out two loans totaling $700 million against it.

Gates owns about 20,000 acres of farmland in Nebraska, where longtime friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett resides. The farmland is held by more than 20 shell companies.

Why would one of the world's richest people need to take out a loan? Many high-net-worth individuals borrow against their assets if they need money they can spend. If Gates sold the assets, he would generate taxable income, according to University of Nebraska College of Law professor Adam Thimmesch.

Gates's farmland acquisitions are raising concern in Nebraska because of his involvement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which includes programs addressing sustainability and climate change. If he donates the land to a nonprofit, it could become tax-exempt, which would "decimate" the counties where it's located, according to an email from state Sen. Tom Brewer, a Republican whose district covers 11 rural counties...more

The Klamath River’s Iron Gate comes down, one scoop at a time

 

Deconstruction of Iron Gate dam, the lowest of the four dams along the Oregon-California border, has begun

...Roughly one million cubic yards of clay, sand and rock will have to be removed. A procession of dump trucks will carry the material along a road from the dam up a nearby ridge to a “borrow pit” — a crater in the hill where material for the dam was removed in the early 1960s. About 20% of the material will be used to fill in and cover the concrete spillway that was cut into the hillside on the north side of the Klamath River adjacent the dam.

...Once FERC determines there’s no risk of high water that could compromise the earthen structure, they’ll authorize the removal of the rest of Iron Gate as well as J.C. Boyle, the most upstream of the remaining dams, which is located in Southern Oregon.

The deconstruction of Copco 1, which is a heavier and stronger concrete arch dam, began earlier this spring; just the day before, crews engineered a blast to remove the gates and superstructure at the top of that dam.For Brook Thompson, a Yurok Tribe member who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Environmental Science at University of California, Santa Cruz, the day was equally significant.

“This is the start of the end of a really long journey for me: the removal of the Iron Gate dam on the Klamath River after 20-plus years of fighting to have the dams removed,” she said...more

Hunter ignores fresh grizzly track and faces angry mother bear, Montana officials say

 

...The ridge was covered with low trees and brush that might have obscured both his and the grizzly’s sight, plus he walked with the wind at his back, officials said.

He noticed a fresh grizzly track in a patch of snow — and kept going, officials said.

Minutes later, he stumbled upon the bear standing near the top of the ridge about 20 yards away from him, officials said. “The bear dropped to all four legs and charged,” according to the release.

The man did not have bear spray, officials said. He pulled out a gun and fired five shots while the bear was between 30 and 10 feet away from him. One shot initially grazed the bear but another hit and killed her, according to the release.

He was not hurt, officials said.

The adult female bear had been in good physical condition, estimated to weigh around 300 pounds at about 12 years old, officials said...more

A billionaire’s fence is the latest fault line in a 150-year-old San Luis Valley land war

 SAN LUIS — For more than 150 years, going back to when this high desert of sandy arroyos and snow-capped peaks was ceded by Mexico, they have gone to “the mountain” as part of their survival.

Like their ancestors who settled in the San Luis Valley before it was even Colorado, the descendants still gather firewood and graze their livestock on what they call “La Sierra” — more than 100 square miles of juniper and piñon pine forest rising to a 20-mile stretch of the saw-toothed Sangre de Cristo range. 

That was the deal made when the valley was subdivided in the mid-1800s. The settlers each got a plot of desert with access to an acequia irrigation ditch, and they were allowed to go into the high country to harvest timber, hunt deer and elk, and graze their cattle and sheep. 

The arrangement for the heirs of the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant of 1844 has remained mostly in place even as a line of wealthy men have purchased the land — not always peacefully, but with court battles, armed security guards, suspected arson and even a shooting. 

Now, the battle line between the current billionaire landowner, who is the son of a Texas oil baron, and the few thousand descendants with a legal right to use the land is a fence...more 

The Largest Wild Hog Ever Caught in Texas

 

While a 300-pound hog is considered “large” in Texas , true monsters can tip the scales at 500 pounds. But “Boarzilla”, the largest wild hog ever caught in Texas, nearly broke the scale weighing in at an astonishing 790 pounds. For reference, that’s close to the size of an average grizzly bear !

Blaine Garcia and Wyatt Walton captured the behemoth boar in De Leon, TX on January 16, 2015. The two had started a business called “Boar Collector Feral Hog Removal” because of the large population of feral hogs running around Texas.

Although Garcia and Walton had hunted their fair share of wild hogs before, they’d never seen anything quite like the legendary Boarzilla. Garcia spotted the great animal and set off with two bulldogs, calling in his buddy Walton for backup. One of the dogs got a hold of the hog’s jaw, but according to Walton, it looked like a piece of hanging jewelry due to the pig’s enormous size.

Despite securing three of the hog’s legs it continued to fight, momentarily overpowering the two men, Finally, however, they managed to subdue the hog and move it to a temporary home...more

Mystik Dan wins 150th Kentucky Derby by a nose in the closest 3-horse photo finish since 1947

 

 

The 150th Kentucky Derby produced one of the most dramatic finishes in its storied history — three noses at the wire.

Mystik Dan desperately fought to hang on with two challengers coming to him in the closing strides. He did, too, after a delay of several minutes while the closest three-horse photo finish since 1947 was sorted out.

That year, Jet Pilot won by a head over Phalanx, who was another head in front of Faultless.

This one was much tighter.

Mystik Dan, an 18-1 shot, edged Sierra Leone by a nose, with Forever Young another nose back in third on Saturday. Sierra Leone was the most expensive horse in the race at $2.3 million...more

Florida bans lab-grown meat

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Wednesday banning the sale of lab-grown meat in the state. The legislation is a clear handout to the state’s cattle industry: the state’s commissioner of agriculture said it was about protecting “our incredible farmers and the integrity of American agriculture.” But DeSantis’ statements make it clear that, like many of his other pet causes, the lab-grown meat ban is a culture war issue.

“Today, Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,” DeSantis said in a statement the day the bill was signed. A press release declared Florida was “taking action to stop the World Economic Forum’s goal of forcing the world to eat lab-grown meat and insects,” hinting at a fringe conspiracy theory that has taken hold among some on the right.

In reality, lab-grown, or “cultivated,” meat isn’t even available to most consumers yet. Unlike meat alternatives, cultivated meat is made from animal cells. The Food and Drug Administration has only approved lab-grown meat from two companies — Upside Food and Good Meat — neither of which sell their products in stores...more 

The new era of global migration

 

JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, Calif. — Shortly after dawn, in the desert east of San Diego, a group of migrants huddled around a campfire. They had come together on this desolate stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border from four different continents: Young men from India shared snacks with women from Nicaragua, while a man from Georgia stood next to a family from Brazil.

A volunteer with a local humanitarian group hauled over a beverage cooler filled with papers: legal information printed in 22 different languages. As he handed them out — in Gujarati, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian — he said, “Welcome to the United States.”

This is the new normal of migration to the southern border: What was once mostly a regional phenomenon has become truly global, with the share of migrants coming from the four closest countries dropping and the number from elsewhere around the world increasing.

An NBC News analysis of newly released data from the Department of Homeland Security shows a fundamental shift. Before the pandemic, roughly 9 in 10 migrants crossing the border illegally (that is, between ports of entry) came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the four countries closest to the border. Those countries no longer hold the majority: As of 2023, for the first time since the U.S. has collected such data, half of all migrants who cross the border now come from elsewhere globally.

The greatest numbers have come from countries farther away in the Americas that have never before sent migrants to the border at this scale. In the 2019 fiscal year, for example, the number of Colombians apprehended illegally crossing the border was 400. In fiscal 2023, it exploded to 154,080 — a nearly four-hundred-fold increase.

But they come, too, from countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and every region in Asia. There have been dramatic increases in the number of migrants from the world’s most populous countries: Between fiscal 2019 and 2023, the number of migrants from China and India grew more than elevenfold and fivefold, respectively. And some countries that previously sent negligible numbers of migrants to the U.S. border have seen staggering increases. In fiscal 2019, the total number of people from the northwest African nation of Mauritania apprehended at the border was 20. Four years later, that number was 15,260. For migrants from Turkey, the number went from 60 to 15,430. The list goes on: More than 50 nationalities saw apprehensions multiplied by a hundred or more...more