The House has passed a new stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded through next week - and buy more time for negotiators to reach a deal on a new coronavirus relief package.

A handful of ag groups have been pushing the federal government to get farm and food employees right behind health care workers and vulnerable populations in the COVID-19 vaccine distribution line. Now, that request has also been filtered to the nation’s 50 governors.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has been involved in just about every consequential piece of agricultural legislation in the last four decades. But the bill he thinks may have the most lasting impact is the 1996 farm bill known as Freedom to Farm (or “Freedom to Fail” by its detractors). The bill formally ended the system of production controls and commodity subsidies first imposed during the Depression.

There are expressions of optimism on both sides of Capitol Hill that lawmakers could reach a deal during the lame duck session on a government-wide spending bill for fiscal 2021.

The gray wolf in the lower 48 states has recovered to the point where it no longer needs to be listed as an endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.