State Sen. David Johnson will return to the Iowa Legislature in January, not as the pivotal, powerful wild card that some anticipated, but nevertheless as a public servant determined to play his own hand.  He’s the first independent to serve in the Iowa Legislature in generations. [node:read-more:link]

Canadian ranchers are seeking government relief following an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis that has already led to the destruction of more than 1,200 head of cattle and the mandatory quarantine of 22,000 more from 36 cattle ranches in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. [node:read-more:link]

The law’s goal is to reduce the prevalence of foodborne illnesses by focusing more on prevention, rather than responding to outbreaks once they occur. (According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 48 million Americans get sick every year from pathogens transmitted through food; nearly 128,000 people are hospitalized and more than 3,000 die.) To meet this objective, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate fruit and vegetable production has been greatly expanded. [node:read-more:link]

Japan ordered the culling of 326,500 poultry after confirming bird flu in two northern Japanese farms, marking the worst outbreak of the disease since 2011, according to the Agriculture Ministry. [node:read-more:link]

A federal court on Tuesday ordered North Carolina to hold a special legislative election next year after 28 state House and Senate districts are redrawn to comply with a gerrymandering ruling.  U.S. District Court judges earlier this year threw out the current legislative district map, ruling that 28 of them were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. They allowed the 2016 election to continue under the old maps, but ordered legislators to draw new districts in 2017. [node:read-more:link]

n a grim statistic that surprises no one close to the problem, Ohio leads the nation in opioid overdose deaths, a new report shows. Along with the overall category, Ohio also had the country's most deaths related to heroin: One in 9 heroin deaths across the U.S. happened in Ohio. The Buckeye State also recorded the most deaths from synthetic opioids: About 1 in 14 U.S. deaths. In all the categories, Ohio easily surpassed states with larger populations. [node:read-more:link]

Exploring the nascent field of sustainable farmland investment, a new report from the Yale Center for Business and the Environment found that innovative investment strategies focused on sustainable agriculture appear to deliver financial, environmental, and social returns. [node:read-more:link]

CRISPR/Cas9, a powerful genome editing tool, is showing promise for efficient correction of disease-causing mutations. For the first time, researchers have developed a dual gene therapy approach to deliver key components of a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene targeting system to mice to treat hemophilia B. This disorder is also called factor IX deficiency and is caused by a missing or defective clotting protein. [node:read-more:link]

From shuttered textile mills and furniture factories to dormant tobacco fields, the traditional industries of North Carolina’s Appalachian region have drastically declined.  But new areas have emerged, says Lukas Brun of Duke’s Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness, who set out to show that the Appalachian economy is more than a tale of decline: “There are great stories that are not being told.” In 2015-16, a new Bass Connections team focused on using the value chain framework in one part of the state. [node:read-more:link]

The wild pig bomb has detonated, ripping and rooting billion-dollar scars across U.S. farmland every year. The search for a silver bullet has come up empty, and the past 30 years have seen an established wild pig presence balloon from 19 states in 1985 to 39 states in 2016. High-end estimates of 11 million wild pigs make warnings over impending wild pig invasions mostly moot: The porcine beasts have already set up shop. However, with new trapping techniques in hand, and promising control tools on the horizon, the means to halt wild pig advances may soon arrive. [node:read-more:link]