Thad Cochran, former chairman of the Senate Appropriations and Agriculture Committees, passed away Thursday morning in Oxford, Mississippi.

Dallas Tonsager, the chairman of the Farm Credit Administration since 2016 who earlier served as an undersecretary for rural development at USDA, died Tuesday. He was 64.

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday advanced a trio of Agriculture Department nominees who were originally named in 2018 but never confirmed by the Senate before the last Congress adjourned.