Saskatoon veterinarian says "there's a very good chance" Saskatchewan could see human cases of a potentially lethal tapeworm in the foreseeable future. About one-quarter of wild dogs in North America are infected with Echinococcus multilocularis. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that it is mandating the statutory maximum 15 billion gallons of ethanol be added to the domestic fuel supply in 2018, the second consecutive year EPA has mandated the maximum amount of ethanol allowed under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The currently mandated volume for 2017 is also 15 billion gallons; with only weeks left in 2017, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

More than 110 national and state animal health organizations have joined forces with the AVMA to urge Congress to preserve an important program that provides debt relief to veterinarians and others working in the nonprofit and public sectors. [node:read-more:link]

The AVMA has joined an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to level the playing field between online retailers and veterinarians by requiring online retailers to collect sales taxes.The brief, filed in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, notes the impact of the case on veterinarians and asks the court to require online businesses to collect sales tax.Online retailers without an on-the-ground presence don’t currently have to collect sales tax because of a 1992 Supreme Court decision, Quill v. North Dakota. [node:read-more:link]

Public opinion estimates by political party are produced using a statistical model based on national survey data gathered between 2008 and 2016 by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication. The model combines survey data with voter registration statistics at the state and district level. Note that party registration data is available for 32 states; party registration is imputed in the remaining states, as indicated. [node:read-more:link]

Joshua Lenart, Utah state chapter leader of the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, has spent countless hours exploring the vast region. “There’s this sense in the rural communities of Utah that things are changing, that new people are coming to the area and that the economy has changed for good. Some of the people that have lived there for a long time, they feel like the Monuments represent the new people and the changes they see around them,” Lenart said. Many of these “old timers” are opposed to the new visitors and land management the National Monument brings. [node:read-more:link]

Journalist Ted Genoways is an award-winning author who has received prestigious fellowships from both the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation. Ted lives in Nebraska, where he grew up on his father’s farm. [node:read-more:link]

The number of jobs in rural America increased in the last year, but rural counties remain well below their pre-recession employment level.  A comparison of the geography of jobs in 2007 and October 2017 reveals how unequal the recovery has been. Cities have done much better than rural areas in recovering from the recession, which officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. [node:read-more:link]

Republicans’ tax-rewrite plans are riddled with bugs, loopholes and other potential problems that could plague lawmakers long after their legislation is signed into law.Some of the provisions could be easily gamed, tax lawyers say. Their plans to cut taxes on “pass-through” businesses in particular could open broad avenues for tax avoidance.Others would have unintended results, like a last-minute decision by the Senate to keep the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to make sure wealthy people and corporations don't escape taxes altogether. [node:read-more:link]