Chuck Wagner has given up on drawing clean water from his faucets. When he moved, 23 years ago, to 80 acres situated between dairy farms in northeastern Wisconsin, he built a home and drilled a 123-foot well. The water tested clean, and his family drank it. Five years later, tests showed it was contaminated with bacteria and nitrates, potentially harmful and often derived from nitrogen in manure and fertilizer.One in seven Americans drink from private wells, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. [node:read-more:link]

About a week after Iowa's ag-gag law was struck down over free speech violations, a national animal rights group is advertising for an investigator to work undercover in Iowa livestock and meat processing facilities. [node:read-more:link]

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history will scar the federal bureaucracy and U.S. economy long after the doors are unlocked and workers return. The feds will struggle to dig out of a backlog of hiring and training that’s essential to pushing out tax refunds, protecting U.S. borders and guiding air traffic. [node:read-more:link]

Famers’ earnings for their milk, determined by milk prices, have remained relatively low in recent years, and as production costs continue rising, several struggle to keep up with their expenses. Many have widely blamed low milk prices on an international oversupply of dairy goods.The average milk price is expected to rise slightly this year from $16.20 per hundredweight in 2018 to $16.80, but could rise as much as one or two dollars.Mr. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. President Donald Trump told members of the American Farm Bureau Federation that the agriculture industry needs immigrant workers, but those workers need to be in the country legally. Trump on January 14 addressed the AFBF national convention. [node:read-more:link]

The announcement by the nation's largest utility that it is filing for bankruptcy puts Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s problems squarely in the hands of Gov. [node:read-more:link]

Less than two weeks after being sworn in as the 33rd governor of Idaho, Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, has broken with national party leaders on climate change, declaring unequivocally that the phenomenon is real.In an address Jan. [node:read-more:link]

For six decades, the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, tucked along the coast of the Bering Sea, has been protected as one of the wildest nature spots on Earth, remote enough to escape development. But that isolation has been shattered. Seven noisy helicopters swooped down 80 times over two days in July to land on the narrow isthmus where animals nest, feed and migrate. [node:read-more:link]

Currently approximately 600 species might be inaccurately assessed as non-threatened on the Red List of Threatened Species. More than a hundred others that couldn't be assessed before, also appear to be threatened. A new more efficient, systematic and comprehensive approach to assess the extinction risk of animals has shown this. [node:read-more:link]

A decision this week by a federal court to block the U.S. government’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census is more than a political setback for Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and President Donald Trump. It also represents a strong vote of confidence in the U.S. statistical community and the value of research. On 15 January, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York declared that Ross had been “arbitrary and capricious” in deciding last year to add the citizenship question. [node:read-more:link]