Homes for unwanted horses get harder to find
We have often reported, most recently in October, how the recession and lack of U.S. horse slaughter plants had caused a glut of horses. Now horse rescues are having to turn unwanted horses away, Jack Brammer of the Frederick News Post in Maryland reports. According to a 2009 survey of horse industry officials, conducted by The Unwanted Horse Coalition, more than 90 percent believed the number of unwanted, neglected and/or abused horses to be growing.Horses removed from racing due to injury or poor performance are sometimes recommissioned

Recession may keep U.S. from using ethanol Congress ordered; EPA ponders blend change
Two years ago Congress mandated that the U.S. use at least 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012, up from seven billion in 2007. Now the recessionary drop in demand for gasoline has some wondering if the country will ever use that much biofuel. Ethanol proponents say the Environmental Protection Agency must increase the allowable ethanol blend in gasoline at the pump to meet the mandate, Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times reports.EPA may increase the current 10 percent blending standard as early as next week, but that decision would have several detractors. The automobile industry says an increase would harm catalytic conver

Tasty Thanksgiving leftover: Interactive maps show which recipes were sought most or least, by state
Kentucky is the corn-pudding capital of America, and its mother state, Virginia, is runner-up. But in West Virginia, the traditional Thanksgiving dish seems less popular than nationwide, based on geographic counts of search terms typed into Allrecipes.com, as reported by Kim Severson of The New York

Something we can all give thanks for: A man is free because a journalist and a newspaper cared
One of the most thankful Americans tomorrow may be Lebrew Jones, and he is doubtless grateful to a journalist, Christine Young of the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. She thought he was wrongfully convicted for the murder of a Manhattan prostitute, and her reporting led to his release on

National Farmers Union backs Senate health bill, focuses on Arkansas, Nebraska and Maine
The National Farmers Union, which represents about 250,000 households, endorsed the Senate health-care reform bill yesterday and "stressed the importance of major health care legislation to agricultural workers in Arkansas, Maine and Nebraska. Those states, of course, were carefully chosen," reports David Herszenhorn of The New York Times.Herszenhorn notes that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., has threatened to oppose the bill "if big changes are not made," especially over the "public option that would compete with private insurers. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has said li