Residents Flee as Homes Fall in Calif. Landslide A landslide sent 17 multimillion-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Southern California early Wednesday as residents alarmed by the sound of walls and pipes coming apart rushed from their homes in their nightclothes. At least five people suffered minor injuries. About 1,000 people in 350 other homes in the Bluebird Canyon area were evacuated as a precaution. In addition to the 17 houses destroyed -- earlier reports said as many as 18 had been destroyed -- 11 were damaged and a street was wrecked when the earth gave way around daybreak in this Orange County community about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles....
Schwarzenegger Issues Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Speaking to hundreds of international leaders gathered here for the United Nations World Environment Day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a plan to reduce California's contribution to gases that many scientists believe cause global warming. Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, outlined his ambitious goals on Wednesday in a three-tiered Environmental Action Plan intended to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions in less than five years to less than the levels in 2000. The plan calls for the further reduction of emissions by 2020 to less than the levels produced in 1990, and for the reduction, by 2050, of emissions to 80 percent less than the levels in 1990. "I say the debate is over," Mr. Schwarzenegger told about 500 guests, including mayors from more than 70 cities from around the world invited to hear the announcement at City Hall. "We know the science. We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now."....
Betting The Farm On Free Trade Across the midwest, rural radio stations are airing ads that feature a famous quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower: "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield." The ads are sponsored by the National Farmers Union, a group representing family farms, and it's no secret that the Washington pencil-pusher being targeted is American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman. Even Stallman, who grew up on a 1,100-acre rice and cattle farm in Columbus, Tex., ruefully calls himself "a cell-phone farmer." But it's not his pinstripe suits or corner office overlooking the U.S. Capitol that get the goat of the NFU. It's the way Stallman is dividing farm country by leading the 5.6 million-member Farm Bureau, the nation's most powerful agricultural lobby, in a strong free-trade direction. Stallman favors low worldwide tariffs and a cut in government handouts, reasoning that large-scale, mechanized, and superefficient American farmers can export their way out of the commodity glut dogging the industry. That stance puts Stallman at the epicenter of a raging controversy over the future of American farming. Other voices representing small farmers and their struggling rural communities -- the NFU and the National Family Farm Coalition among them -- fear being crushed between giant U.S. agribusiness and tons of food from developing countries....
Myers Confirmation on Chopping Block In that now-famous, or perhaps infamous, compromise deal by 14 U.S. senators hoping to end a quarrel over judicial filibusters, the name of former Interior Department Solicitor General William Myers (search) was excluded from an agreement not to filibuster. For months, Republicans claimed to have the votes to confirm Myers to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals were it not for democratic filibusters. But now he remains in judicial limbo. Detractors say it is because he lacks the necessary Washington gravitas. The American Bar Association rated him "qualified," but supporters say that's too lukewarm. By far, the most resounding charge against Myers is that he's anti-environment. Opponents point to positions he took as a lobbyist, lawyer and as solicitor general for the Department of the Interior and accuse him of attacking laws protecting lands, water and endangered species....
Retail beef prices hit near record highs With grilling season in full swing, retail beef prices are near record highs, thanks to tight supplies, more demand and rising fuel costs. Retail prices for choice beef averaged $4.25 a pound in April, the latest period available from the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service. April's price was second only to November 2003, when beef prices rose to $4.32 a pound after Canadian imports were cut off due to a case of mad cow disease. June prices should drop slightly to a range of $4 to $4.10 because demand will ease as grilling season drops off and supplies will increase, said Ron Gustafson of the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service. Average beef prices have increased every year since 1999, climbing from $2.87 a pound that year to $4.06 a pound in 2004, according to the research service. Beef consumption has climbed 25 percent since 1998 to 27.6 billion pounds last year....
Farmers, new fishing group to work on water together The Klamath Water Users Association last week signed an agreement to cooperate with a newly formed fishing group that says it represents Pacific Coast commercial fishermen who use hook and line. In the agreement signed Friday between the water users and the Oregon Trollers Association, the groups say they will support salmon restoration efforts that provide water for both farmers and fishermen. They also agree to work at providing timely information to each other and educate each other, and to "avoid media statements and public policy positions that fuel conflict between our constituencies," according to a press release issued by the water users....
Wolves plan still lacking consensus Utah's wolf management plan has been kicked, poked and argued about from one end of the state to the other. Now it is in the hands of the Utah Wildlife Board. Following a sometimes heated series of regional meetings held earlier this month and one final gathering of the state's wolf task force on Tuesday, the board will get a plan that is mostly finished but continues to lack consensus on the most contentious issues. Most significant of the unresolved issues: protocol for the lethal control of wolves, levels of compensation for livestock killed by wolves and how to address the impacts of wolf predation on big game....

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