The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that the U.S. Forest Service has identified an additional 36 million dead trees across California since its last aerial survey in May 2016. This brings the total number of dead trees since 2010 to over 102 million on 7.7 million acres of California's drought stricken forests. In 2016 alone, 62 million trees have died, representing more than a 100 percent increase in dead trees across the state from 2015. [node:read-more:link]

The possible implications of the election is the topic of a recent reportpublished by the Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) group.  “Republican-controlled Executive and Legislative branches could mean swift action when the new administration takes office,” according to Pablo Sherwell, Rabobank’s head of food and agribusiness research and advisory, North America. [node:read-more:link]

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sure has a weird way of showing what it’s all about. In a recent lawsuit against the organization, PETA is accused of stealing and murdering a Hispanic family’s beloved dog named Maya in southeastern Virginia.  PETA’s response has hit a new low in hypocrisy and stupidity. It has filed several motions to dismiss the case on the grounds that the dog was legally worthless and that what they did was not “outrageous” conduct. [node:read-more:link]

In Trinidad, Colorado, revenue from eight recreational cannabis shops is paving streets and helping refurbish downtown apartments. Across the state in De Beque, nearly a quarter of the town’s general fund comes from marijuana sales tax. [node:read-more:link]

As part of a trade agenda that would begin on the first day of his presidency, President-elect Donald Trump “would order the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review food security in trade and reciprocity in international corporate takeovers (i.e. whether a U.S. company would be able to buy a Chinese company like a Chinese company would be able to be buy a U.S. company),” CNN said. [node:read-more:link]

In the vast and complicated U.S. economy, it is rare for an individual to exert much control over the price of a major commodity. But then there is Arty G. Schronce and the price of chicken. As director of a bulletin from the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Schronce makes a weekly calculation that gives supermarkets around the country the going rate for a pound of chicken. [node:read-more:link]

A Trump administration and new leadership of the Senate’s environment committee may breathe new life into efforts to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel standard, lawmakers and advocates say.  House members are continuing to build momentum around bipartisan legislation (H.R. 5180) to limit EPA ethanol requirements in total transportation fuel at 9.7 percent.Opponents of the mandate also are happy about the likely selection of Sen. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has launched its annual “Get Smart About Antibiotics Week” program, designed to provide information on progress to help the industry promote responsible use of antibiotics in pigs. The agency has set a goal of slowing the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant infections through improving the way antibiotics are prescribed and used, according Dr. Lauri Hicks, director of the CDC’s Office of Antibiotic Stewardship, in a news release. To that end, the CDC is using a $160-million allocation from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Not since then has the cultural chasm between urban and non-urban America shaped the struggle over the country’s direction as much as today. Of all the overlapping generational, racial, and educational divides that explained Trump’s stunning upset over Hillary Clinton last week, none proved more powerful than the distance between the Democrats’ continued dominance of the largest metropolitan areas, and the stampede toward the GOP almost everywhere else. [node:read-more:link]

Cattle and timber industry representatives say the proposed expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument will lead to lost grazing lands and timber production and injure the area’s economy.  In October, Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to expand the monument’s border by about 50,000 acres, much of which would involve Bureau of Land Management lands. [node:read-more:link]