Texas Sen. [node:read-more:link]

t may have taken about three years, but a lobbying campaign by the cotton and dairy industries to increase their subsidies may just pay off.  The budget and disaster-aid package worked out by congressional leaders on Wednesday would make seed cotton eligible for Price Loss Coverage, which makes payments to growers when crop prices drop below certain levels, starting with the 2018 crop year. [node:read-more:link]

A handful of Canadian companies that make solar panels are suing the Trump administration over the 30-percent tariffs the president imposed last month on their products. In their lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the United States Court of International Trade, the three companies say that since Canadian solar imports do not harm United States producers, the tariffs violate the Trade Act and the North American Free Trade Agreement. [node:read-more:link]

Doctors. Honeybees. A small Christian college in Kentucky. Racehorses. The rum industry. The Federal Reserve. Livestock producers. Advocates of nuclear energy. Critics of the federal budget process. They all got a piece of the massive budget bill. Born of bipartisanship and propelled by a “must-pass” urgency, the measure, which includes disaster relief and stopgap spending, has been loaded up with little-noticed deals for lawmakers’ favorite causes. [node:read-more:link]

Colorado’s Republican-led Senate gave initial approval Wednesday to a bill that would expedite the construction of high-speed broadband service in rural areas by taking money from a state fund that has long subsidized rural telephone service. Rural broadband is a top session priority for lawmakers and for Gov. John Hickenlooper, who acknowledge that Colorado’s eastern plains, western slope and many mountain towns have missed out on the economic boom that is centered in metropolitan Denver.Republican Sens. [node:read-more:link]

A new bill in the Legislature aims to seal Alaskans' convictions for low-level marijuana possession — nearly four years after voters approved a citizens initiative to legalize the drug's commercial sale.Anchorage Democratic Rep. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration submitted its fiscal 2019 budget request to Capitol Hill on Monday, outlining the president’s priorities for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.  Roll Call analyzed the documents and put together the following graphic on the departmental winners and losers in the proposed budget The agriculture budget loses more than 15%.  About the same level as defense gains. [node:read-more:link]

Safety net hospitals could see their state Medicaid payments decrease by $170 million under a proposal in the budget that the Florida Senate is poised to approve Thursday. The proposal, which targets about $318 million in payments that currently go to 28 hospitals with a higher percentage of Medicaid patients, would funnel those funds into the base rates paid to all hospitals instead. [node:read-more:link]

This is the farm that was started in 1868 by my great-grandparents and farmed by the generations that followed. My father died in 1969, and my brother Ralph and I inherited the farm when our mother passed away in 1999. We tried to keep it going as a working farm, even as we moved to other places and pursued other ways of living. Ralph once told me that, in the 1960s, he and my father talked about his staying on the farm and concluded that a small farm could not support a growing family. Ralph continued his education, eventually becoming a banker in a town two hours to the north. [node:read-more:link]

A newly redesigned water website from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln offers quick access to information from the university’s water experts. The site was redesigned to better meet the needs of the public and their use of mobile devices. Water experts plan to add information to the website regularly on agricultural water, manure management, residential water and water resources. At the conclusion of each month, a water newsletter will be published, delivering the latest articles directly into the email inboxes of its subscribers. [node:read-more:link]