Senate Wildfire Caucus holds inaugural meeting
Senators from Arkansas, California, Colorado, and Montana held their first meeting on Tuesday as members of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus as advocates of disaster relief funding, wildfire prevention, and science-based fire management policies. Wildfires have burned an average of 6.4 million acres, or 1,000 square miles, of land over the past five years.
U.S. aims to vaccinate livestock workers against seasonal flu
The government will spend $5 million to vaccinate livestock workers against the seasonal flu to prevent a potentially dangerous mingling of the seasonal and H5N1 avian flu viruses this fall, said the Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday. Nirav Shah, CDC principal deputy director, said there was “active discussion” of going a step farther, to give the H5N1 vaccine to workers culling flocks infected with bird flu, but that it was not warranted at present.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Rural cardiologists are scarce: Some 86 percent of rural counties have no cardiologist, almost twice the national average of 46 percent, said research in a medical journal. (Washington Post)
Agrivoltaic research on a large scale: A 1,900-acre solar farm in central Ohio will become one of the country’s largest testing grounds for agrivoltaics, the combination of energy and agricultural production on the same land; hay and soybeans are potential crops. (Ohio Capital Journal)
Recruiting rural college students: The University of Arizona is joining a network of colleges that has the goal of giving students from rural and small-town America “the information and support they need to enroll and graduate” from college. (Arizona Daily Star)
Two more weeks to comment: The USDA extended to Sept. 11 the comment period on its proposed livestock marketing regulation, which would make it easier for producers to claim that a processor used unfair practices against them. (Agricultural Marketing Service)
Super-black wood: Canadian researchers experimenting with high-energy plasma discovered by accident a way to create super-black wood that absorbs more than 99 percent of light that strikes it, a product that could be used in astronomy, solar cells, and jewelry. (University of British Columbia)
