Local news in brief, May 7, 2011 Santa Fe New Mexican.com LAS CRUCES — Regents at New Mexico State University have selected Jeff Witte for the state's top agriculture job. The appointment of Witte as secretary of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture was announced Friday afternoon. ... Las Crucen tapped as new NM Ag SecretarySilver City Sun News all 9 news articles »

US Department of Agriculture invests in North Dakota organic farms, ranches In-Forum The US Department of Agriculture recently announced another $50 million in funding for the EQIP Organic Initiative, which provides a 75 percent share of the cost of implementing organic conservation measures to those who qualify and 90 percent for ... Government to provide $50M to organic farmersBizjournals.com all 6 news articles »

Rolling Acres Farm of Monroe awarded agriculture grant VillageSoup Belfast According to a press release from the Governor's Office, the Maine Department of Agriculture awarded 13 farms a total of $518700 in Agriculture Water Source Development Cost Share grants for 2011. The grants are designed to help farmers build new water ... Farms get $500000 boostMainebiz Daily all 2 news articles »

The average American generates about five pounds of trash per day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Expand . Australia's sovereign wealth fund dumped holdings in mine and cluster-bomb makers as the nation prepares to ratify a treaty banning the...

Expand . Ding, dong, the witch is dead. Osama bin Laden, the author of the 9/11 atrocities in the United States and various lesser terrorist...

The present political scenario in the State is in a confused state and administration is in doldrums and major political changes can be seen once...

The LePage administration unveiled $250 million in budget changes Friday that propose to cut health insurance to 28,000 adults, eliminate vacant...

Press Statement . . . I am deeply troubled that the Syrian Government chooses to continue to use force and intimidation against the Syrian people...

Media Note . . . Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton has appointed Ambassador Carlos Pascual as the Department of State Special Envoy and Coordinator...

The Legislature will face many decisions next winter regarding the future of health care services in South Dakota. The agenda has largely been...

THE people will decide whether the KC Stadium should be sold to Hull City's owners, the new council leader has revealed.. . Councillor Steve Brady...

The newly appointed chairman of the Scottish Beef Cattle Association, Dumfriesshire farmer Scott Henderson, has indicated his top priority is to ...

A new media boot camp will be held later this month a day before the Mekong Tourism Forum in Pakse, Champasak, Laos. The event will gather travel bloggers who are expected to learn more about the tourism potential of the Mekong region. Written by Mong Palatino · comments (0) Share:...

The House of Opium in Thailand features the history of opium and its trade in The Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. It also has a collection of materials which celebrate the culture of north Thailand. Written by Mong Palatino · comments (0) Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon...

Independent media network The Democratic Voice of Burma reports that 17 of its video journalists are under detention in Myanmar. Some are serving sentences of 27 years for reporting about the real situation inside Myanmar. Written by Mong Palatino · comments (0) Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon...

The website of Singapore's National Art Gallery features interactive games and other educational resources to teach children and the general public about art. Written by Mong Palatino · comments (0) Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

This week was the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Washington Watch meeting in our beautiful Nation’s Capitol.  It definitely was an interesting time to be in DC after the events of last weekend. Washington Watch gives NAFB members an opportunity to sit down with folks inside the Beltway and get an update on some of [...]

GPB

Deal signs two bills, speaks at graduation WALB-TV Governor Nathan Deal spoke at Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College's commencement. He also handled some business while he was in Tifton. Deal spoke at ABAC's commencement which had only standing room only. It's the largest graduating class the school ... Gov. Deal Signs New Agriculture BillGPB Deal signs bill removing deer, hog baiting restrictionsGreenfield Daily Reporter all 31 news articles »

Natividad Medical Center and two of its doctors are facing a second lawsuit over the death of a teenager who killed himself while he was on suicide watch at the facility.

K-State Settles Lawsuit with Former Head Football Coach. . MANHATTAN, Kan. - Kansas State University and K-State Athletics, Inc., have reached an ...

The parents of Spc. Bowe Bergdahl have declined to say much publicly since their son went missing from his base in southern Afghanistan on June 30 ...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new majority government will quickly table a budget when Parliament is convened in the coming weeks and it is ...

Less than four months after opposition anger over contested national elections triggered deadly clashes with police, Albanians vote for local ...

THE WRONG Clifton Jones showed up at Thursday's Savannah City Council meeting. . . Either that, or the veteran city alderman suffered a temporary...

Anilnetto links to an article published by Aliran about the amount needed to wipe out poverty in Sarawak, Malaysia. Written by Mong Palatino · comments (0) Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Mexican citizens are on alert over a reform to the National Security Law. After much pressure, the project is now on hold. According to human right groups, political annalists, lawyers and even some politicians, the reform would legalize the abuses of the army against civilians in the name of national security.

MSGA Mid-Year Meeting set for June 9 to 10 at MSU High Plains Journal MSGA members will gather to discuss the issues facing Montana ranching families and set interim policy to guide the association through the rest of the year. On June 9, Bill Donald, Melville, Mont., rancher, past president of MSGA and current president ...

al.com (blog)

Twisters Pummel Poultry Industry Wall Street Journal Last year, Alabama churned out 1.04 billion chickens, or about 12% of total US production, ranking the state behind only Georgia and Arkansas, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Much of Alabama's bird business is located in the hard-hit ... Alabama tornadoes rip apart chicken houses, set back poultry industryal.com (blog) all 7 news articles »

USDA Surveys to Provide Insight on 2011 Agriculture Outlook Ag Weekly This information will provide a comprehensive picture of how things are shaping up in 2011 for the US agriculture industry. “For the agricultural survey, we contact producers by mail, phone or personal visit. We ask them to provide information on their ... Biotech seed research to be outsourced by USDASouthwest Farm Press all 2 news articles »

Big crop of agriculture commissioner candidates competing for votes ahead of ... Daily Journal A big crop of agriculture commissioner candidates has been trying to cultivate support among a largely indifferent electorate in Kentucky. Five Democrats and two Republicans, all of whom have farming backgrounds, are vying for their parties' ... Wilson finishing up ag commissioner campaignMt. Sterling Advocate all 18 news articles »

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), issued by FDA, will provide resources for research into the development and qualification of alternative methodologies in the area of reproductive toxicology. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-FD-11-017.html...

This FDA-issued Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications from institutions/organizations that propose applying novel technologies and approaches to developing new biomarkers for well-defined human or veterinary diseases and toxicity in areas where an unmet need exists. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-FD-11-016.html...

Still-secret photos of the dead Osama bin Laden show a precision kill shot above his left eye, a U.S. official said, as fresh details emerged of an...

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is not among those attending President Barack Obama's visit with troops at Fort Campbell to celebrate the successful ...

US lawmakers visited Qatar on Friday, discussing bilateral ties and regional security issues with its crown prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

Tunisians are back on the streets calling for the overthrow of the government, after former Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi announced on Facebook that Tunisia continues to be run by a shadow government, headed by a friend of Ben Ali, Kamel Ltaief, among other things. And once again, protesters were faced with police brutality and repression.

Debtocracy, a documentary by Katerina Kitidi and Aris Hatzistefanou about the causes and possible solutions of the Greek debt crisis, can be viewed with the English subtitles beginning today. It's distributed under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license and allegedly has had over 1 million views so far. This “documentary produced...

In the last several years, West Bank Palestinian villages have seen their land claimed both by Jewish settlements in the West Bank and by the security wall erected by Israel. In villages such as Nabi Saleh, Bi'lin and Ni'lin, village residents have responded by holding weekly nonviolent protests. The week after Hamas and Fatah inked their unity agreement was no exception.

New York Daily News

With Budget Unveiling, Bloomberg Draws the Battle Lines WNYC "We are forced to do the best we can with what we've got. The state has shifted the burden from them to us." Following the unveiling of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's final budget, the battle lines are now drawn between the mayor and City ... Bloomberg to cut more than 6000 NYC teaching positionsCNN International Bloomberg's $65.7 Billion New York City Budget Proposes 6000 Teacher CutsBloomberg NYC Mayor's Budget Would Cut 1 Out Of 12 TeachersNPR Brooklyn Daily Eagle -Patch.com -The Associated Press all 331 news articles »

While children of all ethnicities can contract Kawasaki disease (KD), a study led by researchers at the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California, San Diego and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego finds that Filipino children with KD are at a higher risk for inflammation of the blood vessels of the heart than those of other Asian and non-Asian backgrounds.

People in countries with governments that have a greater number of social services are more satisfied with life, a Baylor University researcher finds.

In the May-June issue of the journal American Mineralogist, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the new mineral krotite, one of the earliest minerals formed in our solar system. It is the main component of an unusual inclusion embedded in a meteorite (NWA 1934), found in northwest Africa. These objects, known as refractory inclusions, are thought to be the first planetary materials formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of the Earth and the other planets.

A bold new design for thin film solar cells that requires significantly less silicon -- and may boost their efficiency -- is the result of an industry/academia collaboration between Oerlikon Solar in Switzerland and the Institute of Physics' photovoltaic group at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

It is an article of faith among critics of public schools that there is no correlation between spending and learning. But it's not so -- at least where library spending is concerned. When support for school libraries rises, reading scores go up and learning by other measures increases also.

In the work published in the May 2011 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Dr. Huang and his students, Guo, Feng and Trivedi, offer a first step towards understanding the source of the stable pattern of gene expression profiles by testing whether gene expression profiles are indeed established by a gene regulatory network that has the structure of a "medusa," with a command and control "head" and an enslaved periphery, as proposed by theoreticians.

Green roofs like the one atop a Con Edison building in Long Island City, Queens can be a cost-effective way to keep water from running into sewer systems and causing overflows, Columbia University researchers have found.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have established a new method to patch a damaged heart using a tissue-engineering platform that enables heart tissue to repair itself. This breakthrough, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is an important step forward in combating cardiovascular disease, one of the most serious health problems of our day.

Grains futures traded higher Thursday on the Chicago Board of Trade.. . . Wheat for July delivery rose 13.50 cents to $7.6750 a bushel; July corn...

We all need a few basic necessities every so often…a loaf of bread, some 2% moo juice, a few pantry staples and since we’re at it, it’s probably high time that hole riddled socks be replaced with a crisp, day-glow-white 18-pack. We’re not talking about an extravagant shopping spree – just the basics. Let’s face [...]