Federal agencies are investing $32 million nationwide and $4.4 million in three Oregon projects designed to reduce wildfire risk from the Coast Range to the high desert.

Work will be done on national forests and adjacent private lands in Deschutes, Lake and Tillamook counties. Funding comes from the U.S. Forest Service and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service through the Joint Chief’s Landscape Restoration Partnership.

“Wildfire, invasive species and water quality concerns don’t stop at the boundaries of private and public land,” said Jim Peña, Pacific Northwest regional forester. “By working together with agency partners, stakeholders and private landowners, we can better protect local communities, strengthen the resilience of our forests and contribute to rural economies.”

Oregon projects include the Greater La Pine Basin Cohesive Strategy, which launched in 2016. Partners are doing small tree thinning, brush management and digging fire breaks to reduce wildfire risk on the Deschutes National Forest, straddling southern Deschutes and northern Klamath counties.

The Greater La Pine Basin Cohesive Strategy received approximately $1.7 million for 2018 from the Forest Service and NRCS.

Another $790,000 went to the Salmon Superhighway Basin Management Project on the Siuslaw National Forest, in the Nestucca and Tillamook Bay watersheds. The project aims to restore native fish and wildlife habitat — including endangered coho salmon — while at the same time improving forest health and reducing fire risk.

Finally, the North Warner Multi-Ownership Forest Health Project in south-central Lake County, Ore., received $1.89 million for commercial timber harvest, small tree thinning and slash burning on both federal and private lands. Work there is being done in partnership with the Fremont-Winema National Forest.

The area is home to extensive stands of old legacy ponderosa pine, intermixed with aspen and meadows, with sage grouse habitat to the north and east.

Past projects funded by the Joint Chief’s Landscape Restoration Partnership include the East Face of the Elkhorn Mountains Project in northeast Oregon, and the Ashland Forest All Lands Restoration in Jackson County. The latter received $9.8 million over three years, and has been touted as a national model for collaborative forest management.

To date, landowners and partners have completed more than 8,400 acres of forest fuels reduction and restoration, generating 14 million board-feet of timber to support logging jobs in the area.

Conservationists in northeast Oregon are suing the U.S. Forest Service for reauthorizing livestock grazing on 44,000 acres of grasslands within the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 10 by the Greater Hells Canyon Council in La Grande, Ore., seeks to protect a rare and endemic species of plant known as Spalding’s catchfly — a summer-blooming member of the carnation family.

Spalding’s catchfly is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It is found today only in eastern Washington, northeast Oregon, west-central Idaho, western Montana and a small sliver of British Columbia, Canada.

Veronica Warnock, conservation director for the Greater Hells Canyon Council, said livestock grazing further jeopardizes the viability of Spalding’s catchfly in the area, as cattle displace soil, trample habitat and spread invasive weeds.

Fewer than 1,000 catchfly plants are known to exist in the grazing area along the lower Imnaha River. However, the Forest Service renewed permits in 2015 on four winter allotments, including Cow Creek, Toomey, Rhodes Creek and Lone Pine.

All permits are held by McClaran Ranch, based in Joseph, Ore. Scott McClaran, ranch manager, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Forest Service is obligated to protect Spalding’s catchfly under the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area Comprehensive Management Plan, Warnock said. The lawsuit also lists Kris Stein, Hells Canyon National Recreation Area district ranger, as a defendant.

Grazing is currently underway on the allotments, though Warnock said the group is not asking for an injunction.

“This isn’t about a rancher doing something wrong,” Warnock said. “This is about the Forest Service ignoring management recommendations on how to protect and recover a threatened species, something it is required to do in Hells Canyon.”

A spokesman for the Forest Service said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.

The Hells Canyon National Recreation Area is part of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, though they are technically managed under different forest plans. In 2015, Stein, the forest district ranger, signed off on the Lower Imnaha Rangeland Analysis, which authorized commercial grazing on the four allotments.

The Greater Hells Canyon Council argues that decision violates the agency’s obligation to protect threatened Spalding’s catchfly under the National Forest Management Act. The species was listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001 due to agricultural and urban development.

The USFWS released a recovery plan for Spalding’s catchfly in 2007. In order to be delisted, the species must reach 27 populations that each have at least 500 individual, reproducing plants.

Darilyn Brown, executive director of the Greater Hells Canyon Council, said delisting is the ultimate goal.

“The area in dispute is really just a small fraction of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest,” Brown said. “However, it could have a big impact on the recovery of Spalding’s catchfly.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pendleton, Ore., claims the Forest Service “failed to take the requisite hard look at the potential environmental impacts of reauthorizing cattle grazing in the Lower Imnaha Rangeland Analysis.”

The record of decision for the Lower Imnaha Rangeland Analysis allows grazing on all four units between November and May, except for the Lone Pine allotment which allows grazing between December and May. The plan also defers grazing in pastures with Spalding’s catchfly every third or fourth year, depending on conditions.

The decision points out that livestock grazing has been part of the landscape for more than 300 years, and this strategy “best meets the purpose and need of the project, while providing the most balanced approach for mitigating significant issues and resource concerns, with a feasible and implementable livestock operation.”

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada rancher who led a 2014 armed standoff with government agents spoke Wednesday saying that it’s up to people in states, not the federal officials, to manage vast expanses of rangeland in the U.S. West.

To conservative followers, the plainspoken 71-year-old Cliven Bundy is an icon. He told them he’s angry after spending nearly 23 months in jail before and during a trial that ended in mistrial three weeks ago. He was freed Monday.

But conservation advocates characterized Bundy as an outlaw who escaped justice, and called for federal land managers to again round up and remove Bundy cattle from what is now Gold Butte National Monument.

“The Trump administration is coddling violent zealots and preventing the public from feeling safe to enjoy our new national monument,” said Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity director in Nevada.

Leaders of a coalition of public lands supporters said separately that they believe people are afraid to visit the national monument near the Bundy homestead outside Bunkerville.

“The Bundys used guns to express their displeasure with the government,” said Ralph Williamson, senior pastor at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in North Las Vegas and leader of the local Faith Organizing Alliance.

Williamson called Bundy’s release without a jury decision “the exact opposite of safety and a clear lack of justice.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the criminal case against Bundy, his two sons and a Montana militia leader. The judge cited what she called flagrant misconduct by federal prosecutors who failed to fully share evidence with defendants.

The Bureau of Land Management began rounding up Bundy cows in April 2014 after obtaining court orders against Bundy for 20 years of failure to pay grazing fees and penalties to the federal government.

“Bundy is still an outlaw when it comes to his grazing actions, and the prosecutorial failings in the Bunkerville case do not excuse him from the decades of unauthorized livestock trespass on our public lands,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project.

To cheers from supporters outside Las Vegas police headquarters, Bundy said that if the U.S. Bureau of Land Management comes again for his cattle, he’ll ask the Clark County sheriff to protect his life, liberty and property.

“I graze my cattle only on Clark County, Nevada, land,” he said, using what he has dubbed his 15-second defense. “I have no contract with the United States government.”

Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the elected head of the Las Vegas police department, didn’t meet with Bundy personally.

Lombardo issued a three-sentence statement saying he respected Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro’s decision.

“Mr. Bundy has his own beliefs and has the right to express his opinion,” the sheriff said, adding that Las Vegas police “will continue to follow the law.”

Some Bundy case analysts think his states’ rights message could find support from President Donald Trump, who has moved to open public lands to industry, than it did under former President Barack Obama.

Ian Bartrum, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, law professor who has been writing about the Bundy case and federal land policy, said he sees a blend of beliefs between Trump supporters and Bundy backers.

Bartrum noted that Trump dramatically reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah and that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending downsizing Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade Siskiyou monuments.

But Bundy said this week he doesn’t recognize federal authority, no matter who is president.

Advocates who fought for years to protect habitat for threatened species including the desert tortoise are angered that Bundy cattle are still grazing in Gold Butte. Obama declared the sprawling and scenic range 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas a national monument in December 2016.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. government will temporarily stop killing beavers in Oregon after environmental groups threatened a lawsuit alleging the practice reduces the number of dams that create deep pools that are ideal habitat for young, endangered coho salmon.

In a letter released Wednesday by a coalition of environmental groups, the government said it will further study whether the actions violate the Endangered Species Act.

Wildlife Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in the Dec. 27, 2017, letter that it would “cease all aquatic mammal damage management activities” directed at beavers, river otters, muskrats and mink.

Wildlife Services killed more than 400 beavers in Oregon in 2016 as part of a federal effort to control damage to agricultural fields, timber land and roadways caused by flooding that resulted from beaver dams.

It’s a little-known program in Oregon, where the beaver is the state animal, appears on the state flag and is the mascot of Oregon State University. Beavers played an important role in the state’s early economy, earning Oregon the nickname “the beaver state.”

Environmentalists say killing beavers to mitigate damage to private agricultural interests harms the environment and particularly endangered salmon species because the dams help salmon - another icon of the Pacific Northwest.

Beavers are “nature’s engineers” and their complex dams form deep pools in bubbling streams that shield young salmon and give them a resting place to fatten up as they migrate to the Pacific Ocean, said Andrew Hawley, a staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.

The dams have also been shown to reduce turbidity in streams and maintain stable water levels even in drought by blocking and slowing the flow of water.

“Instead of going in and just killing them, there are options for live-trapping them and figuring how to move the family units into other areas. Let them do what they do best,” he said.

“They do exactly the type of restoration work that the biologists say we need to do for salmon and coho and steelhead recovery and they do it for free - and better than we could ever do.”

A message and email left for David Williams, state director of the Wildlife Services program in Oregon, were not returned Wednesday.

Beavers are the largest rodent in North America. They can grow to four feet in length and reach 65 pounds.

They build dams to create ponds in fast-moving streams and then build a lodge of felled trees in the middle of the pond. The lodges have underwater entrances and the beavers - which can hold their breath for 15 minutes underwater - enter and exit without attracting attention from predators.

BUTTE FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say another calf was found dead on the same ranch in southwestern Oregon where the Rogue Pack of wolves was linked to killing a calf last week.

The Mail Tribune reports U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel were installing wolf deterrents on the ranch near Medco Pond when they found the carcass Wednesday morning.

Authorities say wolf prints were found at the kill scene and a tracking collar places the young female wolf OR-54 near the scene earlier that morning.

Rancher Ted Birdseye says his calf was devoured, leading him to believe multiple wolves were responsible.

Authorities say OR-54 was likely responsible for killing one of Birdseye’s calves last week.

The pack of gray wolves is named after the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon.

U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown on Tuesday ordered Malheur occupation leader Ryan Payne back into custody in Oregon. A day earlier, Payne and members of the Bundy family were handed a stunning legal victory in Las Vegas in a separate case.

Payne must report to the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Portland by noon Thursday, Brown ruled from the bench.

“We need to return him to the position he was in when he went to Nevada,” Brown said during a court hearing Tuesday.

Payne is currently on pretrial release in Las Vegas and subject to GPS monitoring. U.S. Marshals previously transported Payne to Nevada to face charges related to a 2014 armed standoff between the Bureau of Land Management, ranchers and members of the Bundy family.

Payne was granted pretrial release in December after it surfaced that prosecutors had withheld information from defendants.

The only reason Payne was released, rather than being held in  pretrial custody, was that he was “preparing his joint defense with other defendants,” Brown said Tuesday. “Now that no longer exists.”

Arranging Payne’s transportation from Las Vegas to Portland has proven challenging.

U.S. Marshals said they could take Payne into custody in Las Vegas and transport him to Oregon, but that would take at least one week. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoff Barrow said that was the government’s preference, but Brown seemed to want Payne moved as quickly as possible.

Commercial fights were also discussed, but Payne’s attorneys said his photo ID was seized by the FBI when he was arrested along a rural Oregon highway nearly two years ago. Identification is required at airport security.

Brown eventually agreed to allow Bundy family supporter Kelli Stewart to drive Payne the 973 miles from Las Vegas to Portland, pending a background check of Stewart.

A release hearing for Payne was set for Jan. 23 in Oregon.

Lisa Hay, Payne’s attorney in Oregon, pushed to get a hearing later this week. But Brown said she wasn’t available and out of town next week on court related business.

On Monday, a federal judge in Nevada dismissed with prejudice the government cases against Payne, brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and family patriarch Cliven Bundy.

The Bundy brothers led the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and were acquitted by a jury.

But in July 2016, before the refuge trial, Payne pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a felony. During previous court hearings, federal prosecutors in Oregon have said they plan to recommend Payne serve 3-4 years in prison.

Brown set Payne’s sentencing date for Feb. 27.

Oregon winegrowers raised a glass Wednesday to state Sen. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, presenting the 20-year lawmaker with the first Oregon Wine Leadership Award.

Jim Bernau, founder and winemaker at Willamette Valley Vineyards, gave the award on behalf of the Oregon Winegrowers Association, which wrapped up its annual meeting and legislative reception at the state Capitol.

The award recognized Winters for her role in promoting the Oregon wine industry, which now generates more than $3.35 billion in statewide economic impact.

“I’ve watched over the years an industry that has come into its very own,” Winters said. “I think it’s only going to get bigger and better.”

The Oregon Winegrowers Association represents 725 wineries and more than 1,000 vineyards, though Winters said she can remember the naysayers who insisted Oregon wines would never catch on.

“It’s been a growth industry that has done not only a tremendous job with economic development, but we can brag about our wines!” Winters said.

Bernau, who established Willamette Valley Vineyards in 1983, ran down a list of Winters’ contributions to the industry. Just last session, she helped to secure $500,000 for marketing and research, and in 2013 she was the chief sponsor for creating Oregon Wine Country license plates, with proceeds going to Travel Oregon for wine and culinary tourism programs.

Winters was also a force behind planning for Senate Bill 841 in 2013, a comprehensive winery land use bill that, in part, allows permitted use wineries to have professional kitchen facilities, and to pair food with wine.

“In a pretty big way, we are the creature of the changes in public policy that have been made over the last 40 years,” Bernau said.

Legislators like Winters are a big part of that momentum, Bernau added.

“They are shoulder-to-shoulder behind our industry,” he said.

The Oregon Winegrowers Association will continue to award the Oregon Wine Leadership Award to those who take a strong role in promoting, as well as advancing, the Oregon wine community, the group announced.

Fridays

For the second time in as many weeks, wildlife officials are investigating whether wolves are to blame for preying on cattle at the Mill-Mar Ranch in Jackson County, Ore.

John Stephenson, Oregon wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said a second dead calf was found early Wednesday morning at the ranch south of Prospect.

An investigation is underway into whether the animal was killed by wolves. No determination has been announced yet, though Stephenson said GPS collar data show OR-54, a member of the Rogue pack, was in the area.

Investigators confirmed wolves from the Rogue pack killed one calf at the same ranch overnight on Jan. 3. Stephenson arrived Jan. 10 to put up more fladry around the property when he discovered the second dead animal.

Rancher Ted Birdseye said he is concerned about wolf predation becoming a chronic problem for his herd.

“I hope (wolves) don’t come in once a week over the next few months,” he said. “There’s nothing I can really do about it.” Wolves are listed as federal endangered species west of highways 395, 78 and 95 in Oregon.

Birdseye said the most recent dead calf weighed between 350 and 400 pounds.

“It was devoured,” he said. “All that was left was skin, bones and the head.”

Before the first confirmed attack, Stephenson, with the USFWS, said wolves had been frequenting the ranch property for several years. He said the agency will be stepping up nonlethal deterrents, such as fladry and flashing strobe lights, to keep wolves away from the livestock.

Birdseye, who serves on the Jackson County wolf compensation committee, said the losses are eating into his bottom line.

“The margin of making any kind of money in this business is slim,” he said.

THURSDAY, JAN. 11

BUTTE FALLS, Ore. (AP) — A wolf from the Rogue Pack is believed to be responsible for killing a calf last week on a ranch in southwestern Oregon, authorities said.

A rancher found a 250-pound calf dead on his property near Medco Pond on Thursday, the Mail Tribune reported .

Rancher Ted Birdseye said his wife heard the attack on their livestock Wednesday night, but they didn’t find the scene of the kill until the next morning. Wolves have been previously heard and spotted on their 276-acre ranch, which is in a rural area between Butte Falls and Prospect, he said.

“They howl off and on,” Birdseye said. “Three months ago, I had two right outside my back door — 30 yards away.”

The dead calf was linked to a wolf after finding tracks in the area and tooth scrapes and bites on the carcass matching a wolf, according to a livestock investigation report by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists.

Authorities traced the kill to OR-54, a young female wolf in the Rogue Pack. A tracking collar on the wolf placed it less than a mile from the scene of the kill on Thursday, according to the report.

The collar was put on the wolf in October after it was captured in Klamath County’s Wood River Valley, which is in the eastern section of Rogue Pack’s home range, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The pack is named after the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon — the area where it typically roams.

The wolf OR-25 was linked to a calf killing near Prospect in February, and the Rogue Pack was blamed for three livestock kills in southern Oregon in 2016.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada rancher who had his charges dismissed in a 2014 armed standoff with government agents insisted Tuesday that it’s up to the states, not the federal officials, how to manage vast expanses of rangeland in the U.S. West.

Some watching Cliven Bundy’s case think his message will find more traction under President Donald Trump, who has moved to open public lands to industry, than it did under former President Barack Obama.

But the states’ rights figure who has become an icon in conservative and anti-government circles said public land belongs to states, no matter who is in the White House.

“I don’t recognize the federal government to have authority, jurisdiction, no matter who the president is,” he said.

Ian Bartrum, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, law professor who has been writing about the Bundy case and federal land policy, said he sees a blend of beliefs between Trump supporters and Bundy backers.

“It certainly seems like this is a good moment for the Bundys to find a receptive ear in the White House, federal agencies and, perhaps, Congress,” Bartrum said.

Bartrum noted that Trump dramatically reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah and that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending downsizing Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade Siskiyou monuments.

Bundy cattle are grazing in Gold Butte, a rugged area 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas that Obama declared a national monument in December 2016 after years of calls to protect habitat for endangered desert tortoises. The standoff began over U.S. agents rounding up his cows some 20 years after he quit paying grazing fees to the federal government.

The 71-year-old Bundy appears to relish the return to the public eye after being set free from federal custody Monday for the first time since early 2016.

“Nevada, the Western U.S. and all of America, I think we do need changes. The federal government, BLM, is through suing Western ranchers,” he declared, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. “This is the last fire they’re going to set.”

Bartrum dismissed Bundy’s contention that the federal government has no authority over vast public land in the West, saying in a draft law review article that “constitutional doctrine, well-settled in the Supreme Court, expressly recognizes the federal government’s power to acquire, retain and regulate” property within a state.

John Lamb, a farmer turned blogger from Bozeman, Montana, who attended trials for those charged in the standoff case, said he believes states’ rights are prevailing.

“The government has been heavy-handed taking away our rights,” Lamb said. “It isn’t just about grazing or farming. It’s about government overreach and people being locked up on federal charges. I think Trump sees that.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro in Las Vegas dismissed all federal charges this week against Bundy, his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy, and Montana militia leader Ryan Payne, citing federal prosecutors’ misconduct with evidence.

The case drew the attention of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who launched an investigation last month after Navarro declared a mistrial. Sessions also announced this week the appointment of a Texas federal prosecutor, Dayle Elieson, as interim U.S. attorney in Nevada.

Elieson, who replaces the Bundy prosecutor, Steven Myhre, as head of the Las Vegas office, has not said whether she will appeal the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Las Vegas declined to comment Tuesday.

Gregg Cawley, a University of Wyoming professor who is following the case, said he doubted the Justice Department will appeal the dismissal so prosecutors can retry Bundy.

“I don’t think the Trump administration directly explains this,” Cawley said. “But it might reflect the general mood.”

The end of the case alarmed the Anti-Defamation League in New York.

“This result can only embolden anti-government extremists,” especially in Western states, organization chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement, “and make future confrontations and standoffs with the government more likely.”

BANDON - New Artists Productions youth theater is the recipient of the third 100 Strong Bandon charitable donation.

Oregon wolves have notched their first confirmed depredation of livestock in 2018.

A 250-pound calf was found dead and partially eaten Jan. 4 at Mill-Mar Ranch in Jackson County, which wildlife officials attributed Monday to wolves from the Rogue pack in southwest Oregon.

The Rogue pack was established by Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, which traveled more than 1,000 miles from northeast Oregon to California and back into southern Oregon before finding a mate in 2014. The pack had at least six individuals by the end of 2016, according to the state’s most recent population estimate.

GPS collar data shows OR-54, a female member of the Rogue pack that biologists believe is directly related to OR-7, was less than a mile from the dead calf the morning it was found. Investigators also documented numerous wolf tracks and bite marks consistent with a wolf attack.

Ted Birdseye, who purchased Mill-Mar Ranch near Boundary Butte about two years ago, said wolf activity is not unusual around the area, but until recently the predators had kept to hunting deer and elk.

Birdseye said he is fascinated by wolf behavior — he even hand-raised a pup years ago. At the same time, the animals are capable of causing serious damage, he added.

“They are major apex predators, and eat a lot of meat,” Birdseye said. “They still fascinate me, but I have to make a living and the way I do that is by selling these calves.”

Birdseye, a sixth-generation rancher, sold the historic Birdseye Ranch in Jackson County to Del Rio Vineyards. He looked to continue in the cattle business, mulling land in British Columbia, Canada before returning to southern Oregon and buying the Mill-Mar Ranch.

“We knew wolves were out here,” Birdseye said.

Birdseye used a combination of fladry fencing and flashing lights to haze wolves from his fields. The last confirmed wolf attack on livestock in Jackson County happened in February 2017 on private land near Red Blanket Creek.

“I don’t think the rest of society realizes the damage these animals can and will do,” Birdseye said.

The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife is in the home stretch of updating its Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. The plan is scheduled for adoption at the Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting April 19-20 in Astoria.

LANGLOIS - The Langlois Public Library offers the following events:

SOUTH COAST - The winter edition of SpotLines is available at libraries, art galleries and book stores from North Bend to Brookings and east to Coquille. Be sure to stop by one of the locations listed below to pick up…

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada rancher who was accused of leading an armed uprising against federal authorities has walked out of a federal courthouse in Las Vegas as a free man.

Supporters cheered Monday as Cliven Bundy hugged his wife. He says that he had been jailed for 700 days as a “political prisoner” for refusing to acknowledge federal authority over the land around his cattle ranch.

A judge who found what she called “flagrant misconduct” by prosecutors dismissed criminal charges against the 71-year-old states’ rights figure, two of his sons and a Montana militia leader.

The collapse of the case is a stunning failure for the U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada.

Newly appointed Interim U.S. Attorney Dayle Elieson (el-AYE’-eh-sun) didn’t immediately respond on whether the government will take the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jenny Freeborn of Oregon was the runner-up in the Young Farmers & Ranchers Discussion Meet Monday at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 2018 Annual Convention & IDEAg Trade Show.

Freeborn, who is from Rickreall, Ore., was elected chair of the Oregon Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee in December. Her father, Dean Freeborn, is a member of the Oregon Farm Bureau board of directors, according to Anne Marie Moss, spokeswoman for the Farm Bureau. Her sister, Kathy Hadley, has served as YF&R chair as well.

As runner-up, Freeborn will receive a Case IH Farmall 50A tractor courtesy of Case IH.

The Discussion Meet simulates a committee meeting in which active discussion and participation are expected. Participants are evaluated on their ability to exchange ideas and information on a predetermined topic, according to a Farm Bureau press release.

Martha Smith of Colorado won the Discussion Meet. She will receive a new Ford truck, courtesy of Farm Bureau Financial Services and will receive paid registration to the AFBF YF&R Leadership Conference in Reno, Nev., Feb. 16-19.

Jared Knock of South Dakota placed third, receiving a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH. In addition, he will take home $2,000 worth of Stanley Black & Decker merchandise, courtesy of Black & Decker.

Fourth place went to Matt Jakubik of Michigan. He receives a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH.

The Discussion Meet was held along with the Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award and Excellence in Agriculture competitions, the winners of which were also announced Monday.

Young farmers and ranchers from around the country competed for the awards by demonstrating knowledge of and achievement in agriculture, as well as commitment to promoting the agriculture industry.

Russell and Amelia Kent of Louisiana won the Achievement Award. They are the winners of a new Ford truck, courtesy of Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance, and will also receive paid registration to the AFBF YF&R Leadership Conference in Reno.

The runners-up in the Achievement Award contest are Justin and Lori McClellan of Virginia. They will receive a Case IH Farmall 50A tractor courtesy of Case IH.

Ben and Katie Furnish of Kentucky are the third place finalists, receiving a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH. In addition, they will take home $2,000 worth of Stanley Black & Decker merchandise, courtesy of Black & Decker.

Fourth place went to Cassie Lyman of Arizona. She receives a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH.

The Achievement Award recognizes young farmers and ranchers who have excelled in their farming or ranching operations and exhibited superior leadership abilities. Participants are evaluated on a combination of their agricultural operation’s growth and financial progress, Farm Bureau leadership and leadership outside Farm Bureau.

Greg and Rose Hartschuh of Ohio won the Excellence in Agriculture Award. They will receive a new Ford truck, courtesy of Country Financial, and will also receive paid registration to the AFBF YF&R Leadership Conference in Reno.

The runners-up in the Excellence in Agriculture contest are Casey and Stacey Phillips of Virginia. They will receive a Case IH Farmall 50A tractor courtesy of Case IH.

Robert and Lindsay Elliott of Tennessee won third place, receiving a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH. In addition, they will take home $2,000 worth of Stanley Black & Decker merchandise, courtesy of Black & Decker.

Fourth place finalists Wade and Shelby Hampton of Maryland receive a Case IH 40-inch combination roll cabinet and top chest and a $500 Case IH parts card, courtesy of Case IH.

The Excellence in Agriculture Award recognizes young farmers and ranchers who do not derive the majority of their income from an agricultural operation, but who actively contribute and grow through their involvement in agriculture, their leadership ability and participation in Farm Bureau and other organizations.

Also at the convention, members of the AFB YF&R Committee elected Russ Kohler of Utah as the committee’s chairman for 2018. Kohler will take over in February, at the end of the committee’s leadership conference, and will serve for one year. He will also serve a one-year term on the AFBF board of directors.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A decision is due Monday from a judge in Las Vegas about whether the federal government can try again to prosecute a Nevada rancher and followers accused of leading an armed uprising against federal authorities in April 2014.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro signaled when she declared a mistrial last month that she might dismiss the case outright against 71-year-old Cliven Bundy, sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy, and Montana militia leader Ryan Payne.

The judge severely criticized prosecutors for what she called “willful” violations of due process rights of defendants, including failing to properly turn over evidence to their lawyer.

But she gave the government a chance to submit written documents opposing dismissal of all charges.

The decision is sure to reverberate among states’ rights advocates in the Western U.S., where the federal government controls vast lands that some people want to protect and others want used for grazing, mining and oil and gas drilling.

The tense armed standoff outside Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, stopped a federal Bureau of Land Management roundup of Bundy cattle from public land including what is now Gold Butte National Monument.

About three dozen heavily armed federal agents guarding corrals in a dry riverbed faced hundreds of flag-waving men, women and children calling for the release of some 400 cows. The cattle had been rounded up under court orders issued over Bundy letting his herd graze for 20 years without paying government fees.

No shots were fired before the outnumbered and outgunned federal agents withdrew.

Several gunmen among the protesters who had assault-style rifles were acquitted of criminal charges in two trials last year.

Ryan and Ammon Bundy also were acquitted of federal criminal charges in Oregon after an armed occupation in early 2016 of a national wildlife refuge to demand the government turn over public land to local control.

Payne awaits sentencing in that case but is trying to withdraw his guilty plea to a felony conspiracy charge that is expected to bring a sentence of more than three years in prison.

In Las Vegas, Navarro declared a mistrial Dec. 20, leaving Cliven Bundy as the only one of the four defendants still jailed after refusing the judge’s offer of release to house arrest.

His lawyer, Bret Whipple, says Bundy is holding out to walk out a free man.

Tuesdays