The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles that threaten to derail the state’s plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.  The program has been a symbol of the state’s leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. [node:read-more:link]

Delaware is plagued with numerous health care issues. There are shortages of psychiatrists and dentists, and the general health of the state's population is less than stellar, ranking 32nd in the nation, according to the United Health Foundation. But one of the most urgent problems, experts say, is the cost to the state for providing care. Doctors, hospital officials, insurance companies, patient advocates and policy analysts are now working to change Delaware's costly and very sickly path. [node:read-more:link]

Two years at sea have fostered a close relationship between the two fellow sailors as they cross the globe, through warm weather and cold.  One is a 24-year-old male. The other is a hen. Guirec Soudee - the 24-year-old - is the one who does most of the hard work on board the boat. Monique is the hen, who spends most of her time admiring the view from the deck, and laying the occasional egg.  Guirec had planned to bring along a pet for company, but a hen wasn't originally on the cards. "I thought about a cat, but decided it would be too much effort to look after it," he says. [node:read-more:link]

Health officials say there have been 10 cases of plague and 19 cases of tularemia in dogs and cats in New Mexico so far this year.  Recent rabbit deaths from tularemia also have been confirmed in the Santa Fe and Eldorado areas of Santa Fe County. [node:read-more:link]

Between 2005 and 2010, increasing demand for biofuels contributed to growth in U.S. corn area by more than 6 million acres and channeled a third of U.S. corn output into ethanol feedstock. An understanding of the multiple effects of this rapid growth on rural economies can help inform policies geared toward greater economic and environmental sustainability. Focusing on just one of these effects, ERS researchers estimated the extent to which biofuel expansion helped reshape the spatial pattern of acreage and planting decisions across a wide swathe of the U.S. Corn Belt. [node:read-more:link]

The population in U.S. nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties stood at 46.2 million in July 2015—14 percent of U.S. residents spread across 72 percent of the Nation's land area. Nonmetro population declined by just 4,000 from July 2014 to July 2015 after 4 years of population losses averaging 33,000 yearly, according to the latest county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The 2014-15 improvement in nonmetro population change coincides with rural economic recovery and suggests that this first-ever period of overall population decline (from 2010 to 2015) may be ending. [node:read-more:link]

Job Losses for First Time in Five Years. Survey Results at a Glance: • For a ninth straight month, the Rural Mainstreet Index fell below growth neutral. • Almost one-third of bank CEOs see slow or negative rural growth as the biggest economic threat to their bank over the next five years. • Approximately nine of ten bankers see low agriculture commodity prices as the greatest challenge to the rural economy for 2016. Farmland prices remained below growth neutral for the 30th straight month. [node:read-more:link]

While Meatless Monday supporters are busy trying spread the concept through schools, restaurants and other institutional food systems, Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is busy trying to keep out of military cafeterias. Ernst is offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in an effort to head off future attempts to expand Meatless Mondays within the military. The amendment would eliminate the current Meatless Monday program at the Coast Guard Academy and ensure that all military personnel have access to animal protein on a daily basis. [node:read-more:link]

Since over half of Pennsylvania lies within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, farmers and forest landowners play a major role in helping to clean up the Bay by installing water quality conservation practices that assist the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania meet its Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) goals in the watershed. [node:read-more:link]

Indiana could be headed for another drought this summer, according to the Indiana State Climate Office. Some northern Indiana counties already are abnormally dry. It depends on the strength of a developing La Niña weather pattern. Stronger La Niña conditions in summer typically result in hotter and/or drier Midwest summers, such as what happened during the historic drought in the summer of 2012. [node:read-more:link]