In 2013, the Chinese firm Shuanghui received wide public attention when it purchased U.S. pork producer Smithfield Foods for a record $4.7 billion.In an overlooked part of the deal, Shuanghui also acquired more than 146,000 acres of farmland across the United States, worth more than $500 million, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The deal made Shuanghui, now the WH Group Limited, into one of the biggest foreign owners of U.S. [node:read-more:link]

For many years, environmental and other interest groups have filed lawsuits to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct rulemakings on a variety of issues. During President Barack Obama's administration, his EPA faced sharp criticism for a seeming willingness to readily settle with those groups on such lawsuits, resulting in new rules being drafted. Now, the EPA reportedly is moving in a different direction. The chairmen of five different Congressional committees that conduct oversight of EPA last week asked new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Rural hospitals are nearly three times more likely than urban hospitals to lack a rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. That could lead to consumer confusion about the quality of care those facilities offer, UNC researchers say. [node:read-more:link]

Kathy Bartlett watched helplessly this spring as Kentucky lawmakers cut back on mine safety inspections and replaced them with coaching sessions on miners' safety habits. [node:read-more:link]

The N.C. House and Senate agreed to restore the solar compromise provisions of a reform bill on renewable energy regulation and cut a proposed wind moratorium from four years to 18 months. Duke Energy, a principal in the more than nine months of negotiations that led to the original House version of the "Competitive Energy Solutions for NC" act, welcomed the final result.The bill establishes a bidding procedure initiated by Duke for new solar construction and commits the company to seeking 2,660 megawatts worth of new solar projects over the next 45 months. [node:read-more:link]

The California Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge by business groups of the state's cap-and-trade law, a ruling that environmentalists hailed as ending a legal fight that had cast a cloud over the program. The state supreme court did not issue a written opinion on the program itself but declined take up the case on appeal from a lower court. California's program to cap emissions and trade carbon permits is a crucial component of a broader effort to reduce the state's output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of the decade. [node:read-more:link]

A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Monday that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped his authority in trying to delay implementation of a new rule requiring oil and gas companies to monitor and reduce methane leaks.In a split decision — the first major legal setback for Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator — the three-judge panel from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Keystone XL is facing a new challenge: The oil producers and refiners the pipeline was originally meant to serve aren't interested in it anymore. Delayed for nearly a decade by protests and regulatory roadblocks, Keystone XL got the green light from President Donald Trump in March. But the pipeline's operator, TransCanada Corp., is struggling to line up customers to ship crude from Canada to the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

How the Center for Dairy Research helped Wisconsin makers of vastly different cheeses improve production and quality—and bring home top honors in international competitions. Many of the world’s greatest cheeses are made in Wisconsin. It’s a fact that begs the question: How do those cheeses get to be great?A key ingredient is the Center for Dairy Research (CDR), based at CALS and operated with funds from dairy farmers, dairy food manufacturers and processors, and other industry partners. [node:read-more:link]

Richardson said opioid prescriptions issued at veterinarian clinics are not recorded in the province's prescription monitoring system, which means there is a risk of "doctor shopping." "The same client could go into another veterinarian with the same complaint and potentially get the same medication from that veterinarian and so on down the line," said Richardson."There's an opportunity for some of these drugs to be diverted to the street, which is never a good thing, and certainly something that we're all conscious of, and we want to minimize the risk of those things happening." [node:read-more:link]