LUBBOCK, Texas Farmers in the nation's leading cotton-producing state have gone from dealing with Texas drought -- to now hoping things dry out and heat up. If the seedlings don't start growing within about two weeks, producers have to decide whether to replant -- or go to another crop. Heavy rains _ nearly two and a-quarter inches above normal for May alone _ have also chilled cotton fields. Soil temperatures need to average about 60 degrees for planted cottonseed to germinate and begin...

As Greensburg cleans up and prepares for years of reconstruction, some provocative questions hang over the tangle of storm-tossed bricks, wood and metal: Can the town be saved? And if so, will enough folks return to make it the community it was 10 days ago, before the tornado? City leaders and other residents are determined to rebuild even though it could cost at least tens of millions of dollars in public and private money. As Greensburg cleans up and prepares for years of reconstruction,...

Much of Eastern Arkansas is dedicated to row cropping and has benefited from commodity payments made under the Farm Bill, while Northwest Arkansas and River Valley farmers have received far less because they don't grow the typical commodity program crops like rice, wheat and cotton. Food stamp programs will gobble up two-thirds of the total $602 billion, up from $492 billion under the current bill, which will expire in September. Much of Eastern Arkansas is dedicated to row cropping and...

He was not against trade, Mishel began; transactions among consenting adults are seen as a good thing by all respectable economists, and Mishel clearly wanted to be one of them. As of Sunday night it wasn t clear whether the administration would secure a free-trade pact with South Korea in time to submit the deal to Congress before its fast-track negotiating authority expires. Harvard s Dani Rodrik, a long-standing globalization skeptic, argued recently that closed markets may have been a...

It's that freedom to fail that's helped make America as prosperous as she is, because it frees people to do more productive things. You may not like it that someone in India takes your customer service call, but outsourcing helps the middle class by bringing lower prices and faster service. It's hard to think of them as needy with all that land, but costs have increased faster than prices. Fred Starrh said he looks at it as "a way to maintain a viable agriculture in this country. We give...

Speaking at an AfricaBio Biotechnology Communicators training workshop in Pretoria, South Africa recently, the International Agro Biotechnology Research Specialist, Willy de Greef, said the EU was not opposed to the development of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Speaking at an AfricaBio Biotechnology Communicators training workshop in Pretoria, South Africa recently, the International Agro Biotechnology Research Specialist, Willy de Greef, said the EU was not opposed to the...

At least 50 people kept telling me it was a ''great hat or a great look on me,'' so I thought it would be fun to let other people experience that feeling. No hat looks the same on everybody, and the same person can wear a hat differently depending on how it is twisted or turned. One woman brought in a red strapless dress with white polka dots, with a black and white buckle and black and white shoes. Some people are convinced they can't wear them, but sometimes it just takes the right hat....

AROUND 200 Liverpool fans staged a noisy protest before the club s final home game of the season to express their anger over the way tickets were allocated for the Champions League final. In unprecedented scenes at Anfield, chants of where s our tickets gone? and you re not fit to run our club were followed by calls for the resignation of the club s chief executive Rick Parry as demonstrators walked the short distance from their meeting-point to the stadium, where they gathered outside the...

A new survey predicts that while global wool textile demand currently remains solid, it is starting to peak and there are signs that it may soften in the next six months. The results are from the latest WoolmarkBusiness Survey, and show orders within the pipeline, particularly at combing, are starting to soften. Mr Wilcox says that global economic indicators are weakening, although they remain relatively solid. Mr Wilcox says that while current wool prices may be maintained for a few...