Oregon’s first-in-the-nation bottle recycling program will now double the payout for used soda cans and glass bottles, and frugal residents have been stockpiling for months in anticipation. With other recycling options now commonplace, this eco-trailblazing Pacific Northwest state is hoping to revamp the program with the increase from 5 to 10 cents for bottled and canned water, soda, beer and malt beverages — regardless what their labels say.Oregon’s 1971 Bottle Bill — groundbreaking for its era in combating litter — has been replicated in nine other states and Guam. [node:read-more:link]

South Dakota Board of Animal Health officials are continuing to investigate the discovery of bovine tuberculosis in a cattle herd in Harding County. Since February, 41 infected animals have been found. South Dakota State Veterinarian Dr. Dustin Oedekoven says a cow calf herd was quarantined in February after Bovine TB was found and traced back from a routine inspection at a slaughter plant of cull cows in Nebraska. He says the South Dakota Board of Animal Health is working with the USDA and the herd owner on how to dispose of the herd. [node:read-more:link]

Feeding peanut butter kibbles to millions of prairie dogs – by flinging the treats from four-wheelers and dropping them from drones – could be the next big thing to help a spunky little weasel that almost went extinct. Slinky with a robber-like black mask across its eyes, the endangered black-footed ferret is a fierce predator. The up to 2-foot-long weasel feeds almost exclusively on prairie dogs, rodents that live in vast colonies regularly decimated by plague outbreaks.The disease keeps threatening the food supply of ferrets bred in captivity and reintroduced on the landscape. [node:read-more:link]

The state has released new rules for doctors, veterinarians and pharmacies in support of a state law designed to curb drug abuse by setting limits on opioid prescriptions. Veterinarians hoped the rules would address a host of concerns about their role in the policing of opioid prescriptions.They don’t.“There aren’t very many changes that I could see,” veterinarian Amanda Bisol, legislative chairwoman for the Maine Veterinary Medical Association and owner of Animal Medical Clinic in Skowhegan, said. [node:read-more:link]

Experts in the industry have already pointed out, repeatedly, that the coal jobs are extremely unlikely to come back. The plight of the coal industry is more a function of changing energy markets and increased demand for natural gas than anything else. The chief executive of the nation's largest privately held coal operation said that Trump “can't bring coal back.” Another largely overlooked point about coal jobs is that there just aren't that many of them relative to other industries. [node:read-more:link]

DuPont will sell the majority of its 600-employee Stine-Haskell Research Center in Newark to Philadelphia-based FMC Corp. as part of a multibillion-dollar asset swap. The Wilmington-based company also announced it has pushed back the expected closure date of its proposed $130 billion merger with the Dow Chemical Co. DuPont now expects the deal to be completed between Aug. 1 and Sept. 1. Originally, Dow and DuPont said the merger would be finalized in the first half of 2017.  FMC will acquire the 515-acre facility's agriculture research space, known as the Stine portion. [node:read-more:link]

In its annual prospective plantings report released Friday, the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

French yogurt maker Danone will sell its Stonyfield Farms business to gain approval from U.S. regulators for a $12.5 billion buyout of Denver's WhiteWave Foods. The Justice Department made the deal, first announced last summer, contingent on the sale, citing the potential for reduced competition in the organic milk market if Stonyfield were owned by Danone. [node:read-more:link]

JBS SA, the world’s largest meatpacker, has been named in a new federal investigation into purchases of cattle that were grazed on illegally deforested land. JBS has denied any wrongdoing.  IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental protection agency, released the results of Operation “Carne Fria” which is a three-year probe of more than a dozen meat packers and at least 20 farms that sold cattle raised in Para, which occupies a large swath of the Amazon Rainforest. The state capital is Belem, which is located near the mouth of the Amazon River. [node:read-more:link]

In response to a House-approved bill that would legalize raw milk, lawmakers are considering a bill that would label it and products made from it.  Senate Bill 300 would make it so “fresh” or unpasteurized milk and related products would require a warning label for consumers who are vulnerable to bacterial infections. That would include pregnant women, young children or infants.The bill passed the Senate 29-to-21 in February and is now in the House of Representatives.Another bill, House Bill 325, would allow milk producers to sell unpasteurized milk. [node:read-more:link]