The Kansas Department of Transportation has indefinitely postponed 24 road projects in the face of the state’s budget shortfall.  The department said Monday that 14 projects estimated to cost $32 million had been postponed. It said Tuesday that number was incorrect and should be 24. The overall cost is the same.  KDOT had planned to put the projects up for bid in December but decided to postpone them after it was announced last week that the state faces a $350 million budget gap.

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New Jersey is on its way to becoming the first state in the country to ban veterinarians from declawing cats. A bill that cleared an Assembly committee on Monday would add onychetomy — the medical term for declawing — to the list of criminal animal cruelty offenses. There would be exceptions for medical purposes. Veterinarians caught declawing a cat and people who seek them out would face a fine of up to $1,000 or six months in jail. Violators would also face a civil penalty of $500 to $2,000, according to the bill (A3899). [node:read-more:link]

Under myriad pressures, an increasing number of rural hospitals are either shutting their doors or joining up with large systems. Some, though, continue to do quite well as independents.  Scores of rural hospitals around the country have closed in the last six years, but Southeastern Health’s 452-bed main facility and 30 primary care and specialty clinics remain open. That gives Langley the ability to focus on local care. The challenges to viability are many. According to the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. [node:read-more:link]

Microbiologists have discovered that red squirrels in Britain and Ireland carry the two bacterial species that cause leprosy in humans. [node:read-more:link]

The global ag industry’s ability to feed a ballooning population may hinge on whether or not crop varieties created through genome editing and other new plant breeding innovations will fall under domestic and international regulations put in place for GMOs. [node:read-more:link]

Idaho agriculture employs more than 40 percent of all of Idaho’s undocumented immigrants. Idaho’s dairy industry is eager to see immigration reform and “certainty” in U.S. policy, said Idaho Dairymen’s Association Executive Director Bob Naerebout.

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Germany is considering ordering its poultry farmers to keep their flocks indoors following an outbreak of bird flu in the country, German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt said. Germany and Switzerland reported new outbreaks of a severe strain of bird flu on Saturday, the latest in a series of cases across Europe. The H5N8 virus has also been found in Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Croatia. Germany will consult with countries including the Netherlands, Poland and Denmark about possible action, Schmidt said ahead of a meeting in Brussels. [node:read-more:link]

Betting the farm on record crop, livestock and dairy prices has turned into a losing investment for an expanding share of America’s agricultural heartland. The level of debt to income is the highest in three decades, and growers are increasingly unable to make loan payments.  Four years after record U.S. crop and farmland values boosted purchases of land and equipment, a global surplus has sent prices tumbling and farm income into the longest slump since 1977. [node:read-more:link]

Trump’s message of economic populism resonated in rural America. Just think about it: commodity prices are low, inputs are high, jobs are leaving, kids aren’t staying home after college, schools are struggling and infrastructure is crumbling. Many of these things, even in the broadest sense, played into Trump’s message of more jobs, lower taxes, and infrastructure investment. Many Democrats, in 20/20 hindsight, have criticized the Clinton campaign for what they categorize as ignoring rural voters during the campaign. [node:read-more:link]

flight by Alaska Airlines on Monday marked the first commercial flight fueled at least in part with a new fuel from wood waste. The flight carried passengers from Seattle, Wash., to Reagan National Airport just outside of Washington, D.C. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was on hand to greet the passengers as a way to highlight the new biofuel, which came from wood waste off private lands in Montana, Oregon and Washington. The biofuel could potentially provide a sustainable bio-products industry in the Pacific Northwest utilizing wood harvest left-overs that would otherwise go to waste [node:read-more:link]