Across the Treasure Valley this week farmers are planting sugar beets and most of them are genetically engineered to tolerate the popular weed-killer Roundup.

Farmers had to wait for U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California to rule in a request by a coalition of organic seed growers, and environmental and food safety groups for a temporary ban on genetically engineered sugar beets and sugar beet seeds. White denied the request Tuesday for a temporary injunction.

But he left the impression he may rule in favor of the food and environmental groups.

Idaho Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keith Allred said Thursday he wouldn't have signed the Idaho Health Freedom Act but he also doesn't like the health care reform bill up before Congress.

"The Health Freedom Act and the federal health care reform bill both suffer from the same problem: they lack the broad and diverse support that our Founders told us most often signals a wise solution," Allred said in a statement provided in response to a question from the Idaho Statesman.

Allred said neither bill addresses the real health care problems Idahoans face.

One of the enduring and successful programs of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is Job Corps.

Since Sargent Shriver established the program based on the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps in 1964, it has provided more than two million young men and women with the skills they needed to join the work force. Most of these kids came from poor families or had dropped out of high school and needed a new start.

If you hate grizzly bears and resent how they are being coddled by environmentalists then I have a web site for you.

No More Grizzlies says that bears hate us and will destroy our cities if we don’t do something about it. It says on its website it is dedicated to the eradication of grizzlies through nonviolent methods. But the Alberta-based group is supporting the reopening of grizzly hunting season there.

Imagine a rainbow trout sculpted like a body builder, stronger and meatier than the wild version raised on the same amount of feed as a normal trout.

Scientists at the University of Rhode Island have genetically engineered trout with lots more muscle mass and they hope it will help the aquaculture industry, reports the Mother Nature Network.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has to go to court to defend its right to land helicopters in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness so it could dart wolves for research.

It completed it flights this month and here’s what they report: Fish and Game biologists darted and radio-collared four wolves from three different packs in the Coxey, Marble and White Creek drainages.

It took biologists 12 landings to collar the wolves.

A teacher may have been killed by a pack of wolves while she was jogging in Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News
reports.

Candice Berner was found Monday along a lonely gravel road and on Thursday Alaska State Troopers concluded it was likely she was killed by the pack of wolves that mauled her. It is the first time a human kill by wolves has been recorded in Alaska.

The news that Hailey conservationist Jon Marvel had been cited for making false statements to the BLM, spread through the ranching community like the Murphy Springs fire.

They have been sitting around country cafes gleefully talking about how the outspoken anti-grazing activist is getting a piece of his own medicine.

The Clinton Roadless rule was in court again today but who knows if it’s the last time or just the latest in a long strong of legal disputes.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals heard the federal government’s appeal of a 2008 ruling by Wyoming U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer, who ruled that the Clinton Administration had overstepped its authority when it approved the rules in 2001 shortly before leaving office.

Brimmer said the roadless rule made roadless lands “defacto wilderness” and only Congress could designate wilderness so he ruled it invalid.

Work on Pocatello’s $390 million polysilicon plant may get going again now that Hoku Scientific has gotten $34 million it had been waiting for from its customers.