Stevens Convicted of Concealing $250,000 in Gifts U.S. Senator Ted Stevens was convicted of all seven felony charges of failing to report gifts from a company in his home state of Alaska, a possibly fatal blow to the career of the Senate's longest-serving Republican. Stevens, 84, was convicted in Washington of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. He was accused of hiding more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from Veco Corp., an Alaska oil-services company, Bill Allen, the company's founder, and other friends. ``It's not over yet,'' Stevens told his wife Catherine as they left the courtroom. Later, he said in a statement he is innocent and will ``fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have.'' He said he is still seeking re-election Nov. 4. ``This is obviously the worst possible outcome, not only legally but politically, for Senator Stevens,'' said Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. Even so, she said, ``Remember, this is a guy whose poll numbers went up during the trial.'' Stevens, a member of the Senate since 1968, is the first sitting U.S. senator convicted of a felony since 1981, when the late New Jersey Democrat Harrison Williams Jr. was found guilty of bribery and conspiracy. The false-statement charges carry a maximum prison term of five years....

Less Ice In Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 Years Ago Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free. ”The climate in the northern regions has never been milder since the last Ice Age than it was about 6000-7000 years ago. We still don’t know whether the Arctic Ocean was completely ice free, but there was more open water in the area north of Greenland than there is today,” says Astrid Lyså, a geologist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU)....Hey Al Gore, what were the greenhouse gases 6,000 years ago? Will you and the UN blame it on buffalo farts?

Bush Administration Rushes Regulatory Changes Before Time Is Up The Bush administration is hurrying to push through regulatory changes in politically sensitive areas such as endangered-species protection, dismaying opponents on the left, just as conservatives were irritated by rules rushed out at the end of the Clinton administration. Proposals now in final stages of review at various federal agencies affect mining, endangered-species protection, health-care policy and other areas. In some cases, the administration has set unusually short deadlines for the public to comment -- so short that one agency summoned employees across the country to Washington this week to help agency leaders vet 200,000 comments in the space of four days. The rush to cement new regulations is a common ritual at the end of a presidency. When President Bill Clinton left office in 2001, conservatives accused him of pushing through numerous "midnight regulations" -- last-minute changes intended to cement his legacy before Republicans took power. In one January 2001 action, Mr. Clinton barred logging and road building in 60 million acres of federal wilderness -- outraging logging companies and many Western state voters. Earlier this year, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten set a Nov. 1 deadline for federal agencies to take final action on new regulations, allowing an exception for "extraordinary circumstances." Mr. Bolten's directive was aimed in part at avoiding a repeat of the Clinton administration's last-minute rush. Now, with the date approaching, federal agencies in some cases appear likely to extend action past the Nov. 1 deadline....Two gutless "leaders" and we're about to elect another one (no matter who wins).

Watching Yellowstone's Wolves On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took steps to revive a 2007 proposal to remove the gray wolf of the northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List. Environmentalists howled, calling it a last-gasp effort by the Bush administration to delist wolves. The Fish and Wildlife Service had officially delisted the wolves in March, and afterward wildlife officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana developed management plans that included hunting seasons. In Wyoming, anyone could shoot a wolf at any time in most of the state. A coalition of conservation groups sued in federal court. In July, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy issued an injunction that put the wolves back on the endangered list. Now Fish and Wildlife is reopening its plan for public comment, making clear that it believes the wolves have recovered sufficiently to allow the states to take over their management. Further litigation is a certainty. "All wolf stuff will always be in court," says Ed Bangs, the agency's wolf recovery coordinator. But for every 100 wolves at least six months of age, only 74 will live through the year, Bangs says. Of those that will not, 10 will be killed by government agencies because they attacked livestock. Another 10 will be killed illegally. Another three will die accidentally -- struck by a car, for example. And three will die from natural threats, including being killed by other wolves....

Preserving Western Agriculture and Open Space Perhaps no image is more emblematic of the changing West then an old barn surrounded by field of new houses. The irony in the image, of course, is that as residential development invades the West the agricultural land with its open space and wildlife habitat that draws people here is compromised. “What will happen if you lose us?” asked southwestern Montana rancher Jim Hagenbarth. “The last crop we plant will be a subdivision. It will destroy all the habitat that we’ve worked to preserve.” Hagenbarth spoke as part of a panel discussion on how to preserve working farms and ranches in face of mounting development pressure at NewWest.Net’s 3rd Annual Real Estate and Development Conference in the Northern Rockies in Missoula, Mont. on Friday....

Biofuels might not be the greenest of alternatives Could gasoline be more green than biofuels, the farm-grown darlings of Iowa farmers and Willie Nelson? The counterintuitive, provocative question has been posed by several University of Texas researchers in a pair of recent papers that look at how much water is required to produce fuels such as gasoline and ethanol. The papers underscore the trade-offs at play as the United States plots its energy future. An analysis by the researchers, postdoctoral fellow Carey King and mechanical engineering professor Michael Webber, shows that the entire biofuel production cycle — from growing irrigated crops to pumping biofuel into a car — can consume 20 or more times as much water for every mile traveled than is used in the production of gasoline. "We're trading off foreign oil for domestic water," Webber said in an interview. Webber is also associate director of UT's Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy. Biofuels make up only a fraction of the fuel at the pump and the federal government has locked in subsidies to encourage biofuel production. Under a current mandate, at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel must be blended into motor-vehicle fuel sold in America by 2012. By 2030, Americans are set to get about 15 billion gallons a year from biofuels. Water consumption by light-duty vehicles, in turn, will increase from 1.4 trillion gallons a year in 2005 to nearly 2.7 trillion gallons in 2030, according to a second paper written by King and Webber, along with Bureau of Economic Geology associate director Ian Duncan. The paper was presented in August at the International Conference on Energy Sustainability, organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers....

Landowners concerned with frog habitat plan The California red-legged frog that helped make Calaveras County famous long ago has now become infamous among some local groups. Proposed expansion of designated critical habitat for the frog, declared a threatened species in 1996, calls for a 4,449-acre section of the county to be part of a statewide expansion of protected areas for the amphibian. According to the California Farm Bureau Federation, FWS rules allow ranching activities to continue despite potential for "taking" of a protected species. However, the Farm Bureau notes the proposed designation can harm ranchers who participate in conservation programs under the federal farm bill as they could see applications delayed by lengthy consultation requirements subsequently imposed. Concern for the frogs' habitat has previously stirred up snags in projects in northern Calaveras County. In January 2007, the Army Corps of Engineers refused to issue a permit to clean up Cosgrove Creek in Valley Springs, making flooding a greater hazard within the area. Franziska Schabram, a Valley Springs rancher, called the delay on repairs to Gillam Road, held up by frog habitat considerations, "a nightmare." Initially, Schabram said she was "kind of excited" when told red-legged frogs were found on the ranch she bought with her husband three years ago. "That's part of the heritage here," she said. However, the gravel road could not be maintained by the county because of the discovery and "fell into total disrepair," she said....

Urban-rural interests squabble over water Neighbors across the West have squabbled over water and who gets to use it since the first irrigation ditches were dug. While many of those decades-old disagreements continue, more and more farmers and ranchers find themselves arguing with urban neighbors. At the height of the development boom, three or four years ago, 1,800 acres a year of prime agricultural land was being converted to urban uses in the Treasure Valley. The Magic Valley and eastern Idaho also saw urban growth. A few irrigation districts in Idaho, including the Post Falls Irrigation District in North Idaho, have become totally urbanized and have either dissolved or changed focus. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, 109 canals throughout the Pacific Northwest are defined as urbanized. Of those, 42 deliver 200 cubic-feet-per-second or more, 23 deliver between 100 and 199 cfs and 44 deliver less than 100 cfs. That creates plenty of potential for conflict, as participants in a summit on agricultural-urban water issues learned....

Mountain lion that stalked Ariz. hiker killed Authorities have killed a mountain lion that had stalked a hiker and his dog in a popular recreation area in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. Coronado National Forest spokeswoman Heidi Schewel said Sunday that the hiker had been walking with his dog on a trail Saturday when he saw the mountain lion following him. She said the hiker shouted and made himself look bigger by waving his arms - "everything that he was supposed to do," Schewel said. When the animal got closer, the hiker fired two warning shots into the air with his gun. When the lion continued to advance, he shot at it, scaring it away. Schewel said the hiker didn't know whether he hit the big cat. U.S. Forest Service officials found the incident troubling because the lion showed no fear of humans....

Forest Service providing copies of easements Long-awaited copies of historic forest road easements started trickling into Missoula County offices Friday, a partial response to an information request county officials made to the U.S. Forest Service. "It's a start," said Deputy County Attorney James McCubbin. "We still have a long way to go on this, but at least some of the information is coming in." On Friday morning, McCubbin received copies of forest road easements held by the Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Co. but only for the Lolo National Forest, and only on Lolo lands within Missoula County. He still has not received easements from other national forests within the county, nor has he received related documents that detail how the easements were to be implemented....

Markets fall, trees don't, raising risk of wildfires Wallowa-Whitman National Forest managers are concerned as the housing construction market continues to stagnate. The decreased demand for wood products means that mills are struggling, and in some cases closing. Without them, says Steve Ellis, the forest supervisor for the past four years, forests, already at a high risk for wildfires, could become even more dense. How is the timber industry affected by the troubled housing and construction market? What we're seeing here in northeast Oregon is that some (timber) sales this year went without bid. That is very unusual. Within the Blue Mountain Forest this last fiscal year, there were several timber sales in which no one came to bid. Last year in Wallowa-Whitman, we had to repackage one sale to make it go. The other thing is that the price that we're getting is less this past year. In September, one (timber sale) went for just the appraised price. Nothing more. ....

Got Weeds? These Sheep Will Make House Calls Chilled by an autumn wind, Enrique Marquez watched from horseback as the sheep gamboled down the mountain. A border collie nipped the heels of wayward ewes. All summer and into the fall, the flock grazed on noxious weeds infesting about 1,000 acres of public lands above the Missoula Valley as part of this city’s effort to restore its native prairie grasses. Nationwide, sheep grazing is gaining popularity as a low-cost, nontoxic tool in the battle to control leafy spurge, knapweed, dalmatian toadflax and other invasive weed species. The approach is catching on in places like Nantucket, Civil War battlefields in Virginia, ski slopes in Vermont and vineyards in California. Tom McDonnell, a staff consultant with the American Sheep Industry Institute, called this kind of grazing a “growth industry.” Mr. McDonnell cited a study by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University that indicated nonnative weeds had invaded 40 percent to 50 percent of America’s croplands, pasture and public lands and were spreading at a rate of 1.75 million acres per year. Sheep grazing is a long-term solution best used in conjunction with other methods, like beneficial insects, controlled burns, herbicides and hand pulling, officials said....

City celebrates woolly heritage This southern Utah city was wild and woolly for a time Saturday morning as residents celebrated their heritage by herding more than 1,000 sheep down Main Street. The parade was part of the third annual Livestock and Heritage Festival, featuring sheep wagons, horses and an impressive collection of antique tractors and pioneer handcarts. The tractors also competed in a pulling event at the Cross Hollows Event Center. Shearing demonstrations with sheep dog herding competitions rounded out the event. About as many spectators as sheep lined the parade route to see the woolly animals that were guided by the crack of a herder's bull whip. The lamb and wool industry began in Cedar City in 1890 when livestock owners realized that the mountains east of Cedar City were ideally suited for sheep, offering meadows with plenty of grass, wild barley and larkspur, a flower toxic to cattle but tolerated by sheep. Warren Williams, one of the parade's grand marshals, and third-generation sheep rancher, said the sheep are taken into the mountains about the middle of June. Some are hauled in trucks to the ranchers' allotments and some follow the same trail used for a century. Williams, whose family has raised sheep for 100 years, said the sheep are brought down from the mountains in October and graze in fields west of Cedar City. In January they are trucked to Nevada where the winters are milder and brought back to Iron County three months later where the lambs are born in April....

Australia's Outback cattle trails under threat from plans to lease and sell them off For generations of Australian ranchers the criss-crossing trails known as the Long Paddock have been at the heart of a frontier way of life which shaped a nation. The trails, together with the grasslands and bush along them that stretch across the Outback from Queensland to New South Wales, were the sinews of a continent for 170 years - mythologised in poetry and song - until drought and the spread of suburbs threatened to destroy them. The trails were started in the 1830s as settlers pushed into Australia's interior. As ranchers went deeper and deeper into the bush, drovers would take the cattle back on epic drives to the coast. They wrote songs and poems about the white clouds and saltbush plains they crossed on the trips, and 170 years later ranchers still rely on the Long Paddock to graze their stock as drought has shrivelled much of Australia's bush grazing. Robert Groth, whose family has worked the land for 156 years, is one of the farmers who has joined forces with conservationists to protest against a feared sell-off of land to loggers....

Trail Dust: Conrad Richter — author of the West The other day, I came upon a fine essay by historian David McCullough that dealt insightfully with the life and writing career of novelist Conrad Richter. Although Richter spent much of his life in his native Pennsylvania, he had a close connection to New Mexico, having lived in the Albuquerque area from 1928 to 1938. McCullough thinks he stands alone as an author of frontier stories that ring true and are veiled in authenticity. And he adds that too little has been said about Richter, even though he won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Reading McCullough's piece brought to mind my own experience with Conrad Richter many years ago. It entailed a long correspondence that began in a rather unusual way. In 1961, I was working as a horseshoer and wrangler at Bishop's Lodge north of Santa Fe. Two other wranglers and I occupied a large bunkroom above the stables....

Pioneer Boykins left mark on eastern New Mexico Sid Boykin was one of the cowboys of the early days on the Llano Estacado who made the successful move from the ranch to the business world. According to Col. Jack Potter, Boykin made his first trip to New Mexico in 1881 with Old Man George Taylor, when Taylor moved the Boot-Bar cattle from Texas. They arrived in December at the Hondo and turned the cattle loose with Jimmy Sutherland’s herd. Sid went back to Sweetwater, Texas, and stayed that winter and then came with Jim Newman to the DZ Ranch in the spring of 1882. Sid worked for the DZ until 1892 and then started in business for himself on a little spread southeast of Portales. He and Lizzie Walters MacDonald were married in 1895. Most cattlemen settled wherever there was room, without the formality of land papers, but Sid filed on his place. He ran about 300 cattle under the “SW” brand and did most of the work himself. His brother, Frank “Babe,” lived with him until 1897, when he married and moved to a place near the sandhills....

The Madam of Missoula When Mary Gleim finally died, the Missoulian had one last heyday with her. In the Feb. 23, 1914, newspaper, editor Arthur L. Stone attempted to recap the colorful, mysterious life of Missoula's foremost mistress of prostitution, without once mentioning the word. She was “of the underworld,” Stone asserted. “Mrs. Gleim had been a smuggler of laces and diamonds in her time,” he wrote. She was believed to be connected with the trafficking of Chinamen and “a great deal of opium” through the “old underground railway which had its outlet at Thompson Falls years ago.” Well, Mary has returned, and she's hell-bent on revenge. “The Missoulian always gets it wrong. I was a legitimate businesswoman, a real estate agent and a capitalist,” she says, fairly stomping her high heel at the foot of Gleim's mammoth headstone in the Missoula Cemetery. She isn't really Madam Mary, but Kim Kaufman of 21st century Lolo. On Sunday, Kaufman will set up her props for the cemetery's annual Stories and Stones historical tour in a ground-length Watteau dress, hand-sewn from a period American dress pattern catalog. She'll hang a railroader's red lantern near the fascinating photo of Missoula's Front Street in the 1890s, Mary's “business district.”....

Cowboy legend's books come home to Millarville Will James was 15 when he left his Montreal home with $10 and a bag of his mom's cookies, heading west to fulfil his dream of becoming a cowboy. James would become a Canadian cowboy legend, whose illustrated books about the West were bestsellers even at the height of the depression. A century after he began his ranching career in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, a piece of James' legacy returned to the province Friday when his complete works were donated to the Millarville Community Library. "His work is as relevant today as it was yesterday because he's capturing that lifestyle that we fear is gradually vanishing," said Wendy Dudley, an author. Dudley presented the books to the library on Friday on behalf of the Will James Society, of which she is a member. His books about Smoky the Cowhorse, Cowboys North and South and Horses I've Known inspired generations of children to fall in love with the rural lifestyle -- including musician Ian Tyson, who wrote a song about his childhood hero....

Arizona's Gadsden Hotel plays host to history The doors of the Gadsden Hotel first swung open in 1907, in the days when Wyatt Earp and Geronimo still blazed the West, and Arizona was not yet a state. The hotel would soon become the home-away-from-home for cattlemen, ranchers, miners and businessmen in the territory. It seemed like the Gadsden was doomed on Feb. 7, 1929, when fire ripped through the hotel. But, like many of Arizona's Old West men and much of its history, it was just too tough to die. The hotel was rebuilt more grandly than its original incarnation. No expense was spared. An authentic Tiffany stained glass mural runs across 42 feet of one wall of the lobby. A beautiful stained glass skylight lets light in from outside and brightens the massive lobby. The columns in the lobby are covered in 14K gold leaf — worth $20,000 in 1929. There were not a lot of hotels in the day that could boast an electric elevator, complete with operator. Travelers were amazed at the accommodations. The five-story Gadsden Hotel was one of the first to feature indoor outhouses in all 160 air-cooled rooms. You could even take a bath and then go down and enjoy a steak in the dining room, as well as a drink or two in the Saddle and Spur Saloon. On your way out the next morning, you could grab a quick cup in the Cattleman's Coffee Shop....