WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says raising beef for the American dinner table does far more damage to the environment than producing pork, poultry, eggs or dairy.
The study says that compared with the other animal proteins, beef produces five times more heat-trapping gases per calorie. It spews six times as much water-polluting nitrogen. And it uses 11 times more water for irrigation and 28 times more land.
The research was conducted by Gidon Eshel, a professor of environmental physics at Bard College in New York, and appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cattle industry says the study is a “gross oversimplification.”
OREGON- A driver was injured in at accident at 5:15 a.m. on Monday in Holt County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Nissan driven by Kyle J. Kelly, 24, Scotts Hill, TN., was southbound on U.S. 59 three miles north of Oregon.
The vehicle traveled off the west side of the road, struck a culvert and overturned.
Kelly was transported to Heartland Regional Medical Center.
The MSHP
ARMA, Kan- A Kansas man was injured in an accident at 9:20 a.m. on Monday in Crawford County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Ford passenger car driven by William D. Raine III, 25, Shawnee, was northbound on U.S. 69 eight miles north of Arma.
The car drifted across the southbound lanes and sideswiped a southbound 2012 Freightliner semi driven by Larry R. Carrell, 37, Henderson, TX. The semi had moved to the southbound shoulder in attempt to avoid the collision.
Raine was transported to Mercy hospital. The semi driver and a passenger were not injured.
The KHP reported Raine was properly restrained at the time of the accident.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he supports statehood for the nation’s capital.
Obama was asked Monday about the prospect of the District of Columbia becoming the 51st state during a town hall at a city school.
The president said, “I’m for it,” adding that he has been “for quite some time.”
Obama added that: “The politics of it end up being difficult to get through Congress, but I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do.”
Obama has previously spoken in favor of giving the District voting representation in Congress, and the White House has consistently supported giving the local government full control of the city’s budget and laws.
Following his re-election in 2012, Obama added District license plates with the phrase “Taxation Without Representation” to his official vehicles.
SEYMOUR (AP) – Authorities say a southwest Missouri woman died in a house fire but a man and three children were able to escape.
The fire was reported early Sunday near Seymour. The woman’s identity has not been released.
Southern Webster County authorities say the home was 80 percent involved in flames when firefighters arrived at the home early Sunday, and the flames were too intense to rescue the woman.
KYTV-TV reports the man and one child were taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries that were not life threatening.
The Missouri Division of Fire Safety says an investigator could not determine the cause of the fire because the home was so damaged, but nothing suspicious was found.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft crew module has been stacked on the service module inside the Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center — renamed on July 21, 2014 as the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building in honor of the legendary astronaut and first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong-NASA photo
NASA has honored one of its most famous astronauts by renaming a key building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It now bears the name of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon when the Apollo 11 mission landed there 45 years ago.
Armstrong, who died in 2012, was remembered at a ceremony Monday as not only an astronaut, but also as an aerospace engineer, a test pilot and university professor. Michael Collins, who flew with him on Apollo 11, said he had a powerful combination of curiosity and intelligence, along with an intuitive grasp of flight machinery and its complexity.
Buzz Aldrin, another Apollo 11 crew member, and backup mission commander Jim Lovell also spoke at the ceremony, as did Armstrong’s sons Rick and Mark.
TOPEKA – The attorney general’s office received more than 14,000 applications for concealed carry licenses in the recently ended 2014 fiscal year, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a news release Monday.
There were 478 concealed carry applications in Atchison County.
Between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, the Concealed Carry Licensing Unit received 14,205 applications. This was the second-highest year on record, following the 25,316 applications received during the 2013 fiscal year. Since the licensing program first began in 2006, the office has received more than 90,000 applications.
“The concealed carry program continues to be popular for Kansas citizens interested in becoming trained and licensed to protect themselves and their families,” Schmidt said. “Our office will continue to administer this program in an efficient manner as the Legislature intended.”
Since taking office in 2011, Schmidt has expanded the number of states that recognize Kansas concealed carry permits from 24 to 36. A law passed last year by the Kansas Legislature, recommended by Attorney General Schmidt, allows all valid out-of-state permits to be recognized in Kansas when the non-resident permit holder is traveling temporarily in Kansas.
Currently, more than 83,000 Kansans have active concealed carry permits. More information on the concealed carry licensing program is available on the attorney general’s website at www.ag.ks.gov.
WATSON- Four teenagers were among five people injured in a single-vehicle accident on Saturday at 10:40 p.m. Atchison County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Ford Pickup driven by Cole B. Ward, 18, Hamburg, IA., was westbound on 130th Street eight miles northeast of Watson.
The truck went off the north side of the road, struck a tree and overturned.
Passengers in truck Kelli C. Robinson, 19, Dayne A Sturm, and Nicholas D. Kuhr, 20, of Hamburg, IA., and Holly R. Campbell, 19, Bellvue, NE., were transported to Grape Community Hospital.
Ward sought his own medical treatment. The MSHP reported none of them were wearing seat belts.
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – City Utilities in Springfield has begun receiving some power from a solar farm in Greene County.
The utility’s spokesman, Joel Alexander, says the solar farm northeast of Springfield began producing power on June 26, and a formal dedication is planned for August.
The Springfield News-Leader reports the 4.95-megawatt generation system is part of a 40-acre project located on City Utilities land. The system is being operated by Strata Solar.
City Utilities has an agreement to buy all the energy produced by the solar farm, and will find customers interested in using it.
Customers might eventually able to choose how much of their energy use they want to come from solar power. That rate for solar would be higher than other electricity but would be locked in for 20 years.
MANHATTAN – Judging by the number of phone calls he receives, Dallas Peterson is very popular this time of year.
The typical topic is weeds – something Peterson, a Kansas State University agronomist, knows well.
Spurred by late spring and early summer rainfall, farmers’ row crops across much of the state are thriving. And so are the weeds they’re trying to control, including Palmer amaranth, an aggressive and invasive weed that used to be controlled by the popular herbicide glyphosate. Increasingly, however, Palmer amaranth is resisting glyphosate.
“We have had numerous calls about poor control of Palmer amaranth with glyphosate this year,” said Peterson, who is a weed specialist with K-State Research and Extension. “Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth was first confirmed in Kansas three years ago but seems to be exploding across central Kansas this year. Poor control doesn’t mean you have resistance, but if the herbicide treatment provides good control of some plants and not others, that is an indication you may have resistance.”
The weed, also known as Palmer pigweed, is a warm season summer annual weed that generally starts to emerge in May as soil temperatures warm and continues to germinate into summer, especially following rainfall events, Peterson said. It grows rapidly with hot conditions, maybe as much as 1 to 2 inches per day. It is competitive with crops and is a prolific seed producer, up to several hundred thousand per plant.
The hardy weed has been a serious problem in Kansas for many years and had previously developed populations resistant to atrazine and the ALS (acetolactate synthase) inhibiting herbicides. With the introduction of Roundup Ready crops in the late 1990s, glyphosate helped to solve some of those problems initially, but glyphosate resistance has now become a problem because of the heavy reliance on it for weed control.
Glyphosate resistant Palmer amaranth first showed up in the southeast United States and has had a dramatic impact on farmers’ production systems and weed control costs there.
“Producers need to use an integrated approach to weed control that utilizes a variety of cultural practices and herbicide modes of action to help control weeds and minimize herbicide resistance,” Peterson said. “The use of effective pre-emergence residual herbicides is probably going to be very important to help manage Palmer amaranth in the future.
“If a producer notices just a few scattered Palmer amaranth that have escaped a glyphosate treatment, it may even be worth hand removing those from fields to prevent seed production. If not, the resistant biotypes will increase and get spread across the field and to other fields by the combine.”
“If poor control was achieved with glyphosate, it is probably best to assume that it is resistant and plan accordingly, both this year and in the future,” he said.
SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
