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Truck carrying 600 pounds of nitrate stolen in Dania Beach

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Frederick police say four tons of fertilizer have been stolen from a farm supply store. The fertilizer disappeared from the Southern States store in the 500 block of East South Street in Frederick some time Saturday night or early Sunday. A store representative told police that 2,000 pounds of urea and 6,000 pounds of other fertilizer are missing. The fertilizer was in white 50-pound bags with a company logo. Lt. Clark Pennington says they don't know what the motive behind the theft is, but they have notified the Maryland Coordination Analysis Center, which alerts all federal...

A remote Indian town has come up with a government-backed plan to teach people health safety by giving them cash for using the toilet, a resident says. Residents of Musiri in the Tamil Nadu state can earn 14 cents a month by going to the bathroom in a specially made potty, CNN reported Monday. The amount of cash involved may not seem large but it could help needy families supplement their income by simply doing nature's business, the report said. In addition to promoting good hygiene habits, the program is focused on providing waste to fertilizer-testing research efforts. We're motivating...

YEKATERINBURG — Urals fertilizer billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev is the new owner of Florida's most expensive house after paying U.S. property tycoon Donald Trump $100 million for the waterfront property. Rybolovlev, whose fortune has soared by $10 billion in the last year on an unprecedented boom in demand for fertilizers, said through a spokesman that the purchase was an investment and that he had no plans to swap Moscow life for the Florida coast. Trump more than doubled his money on the sale of Maison de l'Amitie, a 3,000-square-meter mansion on Palm Beach bought for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction...

DAYTON — Corn stalks normally dominate the fields of farmer Lyle McKanna. But this summer, leafy green soybean plants will swallow up more acreage than ever. McKanna, who farms 800 acres near Lima, has replaced more than one-fourth of his corn crop with soybeans, which require far less fertilizer. In part because of a global surge in demand, the price of fertilizer has skyrocketed 228 percent since 2000, forcing U.S. farmers to switch crops, cut back on fertilizer or search for manure as a substitute. Wholesalers and retailers are scrambling to find and buy fertilizer and juggle what supplies they...

XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents. The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer. Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse. Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had...

Electricity, diesel, fertilizer prices tough on farmers, ranchers LUBBOCK, Texas (AP)--South Plains cotton producer Don Langston is eager for a "big rain." Without it he'll have to keep irrigation pumps running to water thousands of acres of dusty, parched land so there's enough moisture to plant this year's crop in a couple of months. He figures he'll spend as much as $50 more an acre than he did last year, when rainfall was plentiful, even by West Texas standards. "We're going to have to have a good crop just to break even," Langston said. "I'm OK. Just need a big...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Tuesday to require the registration of sales and purchases of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which has been converted into the explosive of choice for terrorists ranging from the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 to the 2002 attack on a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. The bill, passed by voice vote, orders producers, sellers and some purchasers of ammonium nitrate to register with the Department of Homeland Security and makes producers and sellers maintain sales records. The department would check purchases against terrorist watch lists while retailers who refuse to sell to customers would receive civil...

Hey, CO2! What Have You Done for Me Lately? Volume 4, Number 28: 11 July 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From its pre-industrial level of 150 years ago (approximately 275 ppm), the air's CO2 concentration has risen to nearly 375 ppm today. What has this extra 100 ppm of CO2 done for world agriculture? Experiment Method: Mayeux et al. (1997) analyzed this question with respect to wheat, which they studied in a 38-meter-long controlled environment chamber located in a ventilated glass house. This chamber was composed of five 7.6-m lengths of a 0.76-m-deep and 0.45-m-wide soil container topped with a transparent and tunnel-shaped...

(MAYUGE) - If you are a farmer, you may want to think twice about flushing your urine down the toilet. Urine may be a waste product but it also has many uses, and the best part of it is that it comes with no price tag. Farmers in various parts of the country use human urine as fertilizers and to fight crop diseases. The method started in Baitambogwe Village in Mayuge District but has now spread to over 21 districts. Through knowledge sharing via telephone Short Message System commonly known as SMS, farmers in Baitambogwe are propagating the method to...

Shortages in raw materials slowing production of makeshift rockets, lead to decline in rocket fire from Gaza Ali Waked Published: 08.12.07, 11:07 / Israel News Shortages in fertilizers used by Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip to produce makeshift rockets have led to a decrease in the number of rockets fired towards Israel. Ynet found that Palestinian terror groups prefer to save their rockets for rainy days. But rockets continued to be fired towards Israel on Sunday, with three rockets landing in the western Negev. The shortages have been blamed on Egypt's clampdown on smugglers operating along the border...

Los Angeles (AP) -- A hijacked big rig that police believed was carrying tons of potentially dangerous fertilizer was actually holding a less threatening cargo — vacuum cleaners, authorities said Monday. The truck was being driven from Texas to Northern California when it disappeared from an industrial area. The Los Angeles Police Department publicized the theft as a precaution because the truck at that time was believed to be hauling 10,000 pounds of fertilizer. Certain types of fertilizer can be used to make explosives. After further investigation, police said the missing goods were commercial-style vacuum cleaners, not fertilizer.

A tractor-trailer that was stolen while the driver took a break has been recovered, but authorities were still searching Monday for the five tons of fertilizer it was carrying. Sheriff's deputies recovered the empty big-rig just before midnight Sunday, less than 12 hours after it was taken from a stretch of road used as a popular rest stop for truckers. The driver had parked in the industrial area near Griffith Park Sunday afternoon. When he returned about five hours later, the truck was gone, said Lt. David Young of the Los Angeles Police Department's Northeast Division. The truck turned up...

Riyad Aldahas, director general of the State Company of Fertilizers in Northern Iraq, gives his thanks to Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of Defense for Business Transformation, for visiting the facility Jan. 10, 2007, at the Bayji Fertilizer Plant. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Joshua R. Ford Undersecretary Tours Salah Ad Din Fertilizer Plant U.S. leaders, industry executives meet to discuss bringing the plant to full capacity. By Spc. Joshua R. Ford 3rd Brigade Combat Team 82nd Airborne Division BAYJI, Iraq, Jan. 16, 2007 -- Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for Business Transformation, and Brig. Gen. Francis...

A resident of Jiff Jaffa casts his vote during the Agricultural Union elections on Sunday. Department of Defense photo by Army Cpl. Michael Molinaro, 2nd BCT, 4th Inf. Div. FOB KALSU -- Mimicking other recent success stories in Babil province, on Sunday farmers from the city of Jiff Jaffa held elections for their Agricultural Union board at a primary school in town. The election comes as a further demonstration of the concepts of democratic governance taking root around the country, this time with a commercial twist. Seven members were elected to lead the union into the future and help farmers...

ELDRIDGE, N.D. - A stowaway who made it past Customs agents and into the United States on the metal frame of a fertilizer truck has won over locals, who call her the "sweetest illegal immigrant we've ever met." The migrant — a cat — hopped aboard a semitrailer hauling fertilizer from Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, to Eldridge, near Jamestown. Customs agents at the border alerted the driver, but no one could catch the feline. When the semi arrived in Eldridge, the furry stowaway was still clinging to the frame. The trip Wednesday took about eight hours. "She had nothing to grip with...

The 1980s and 1990s were the Belle Époque - the beautiful age - of commercial development, a time when getting project approval could be as simple as shaking the right hand or making the right campaign donation. And Americans were all for it, ready to embrace the next mall or Home Depot or Starbucks Coffee outlet that gave them easy access to consumer products. Mike Saint was there for it and remembers when making proposed developments reality was simple. No more. "At a conference in 2004, I heard a developer say 'Up until 1999, anything I wanted to do was...

Yara wins Ethiopian contracts after handing out prize Oslo-based Yara International, one of the world's largest fertilizer makers, has won some major contracts in Ethiopia, just three months after it awarded a controversial prize to Ethiopia's prime minister. Yara boss Thorleif Enger (left) awarded a prize and USD 200,000 to controversial Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi. Yara said it wanted to honor Zenawi's contribution to the African Green Revolution. PHOTO: HEIKO JUNGE/SCANPIX Protesters outside the Oslo Concert House didn't think Ethiopia's president deserved the prize. PHOTO: HEIKO JUNGE/SCANPIX Related stories: Yara ponders ship sale - 22.12.2005 Yara establishes African prize -...

HELENA, Mont. - The Rocky Mountain West, long a Republican stronghold, is fertile ground for Democrats hoping to take back Congress and the White House in coming years, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean told supporters here Saturday. Democrats have more in common with Westerners than the GOP, the former Vermont governor said. They appreciate the free-spirited, independent thinking that dominate states like Montana, and understand the wish for a balanced budget and a strong military, as well as treating soldiers well when they get home, something Dean said the Bush administration has neglected. "I think we're going to have a...

Koreas Can't Break Nuclear Impasse By PAUL ALEXANDER, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago SEOUL, South Korea - The two Koreas concluded their first face-to-face talks in 10 months Thursday without making any progress on the impasse over the North's nuclear program, although they did agree to hold Cabinet-level talks next month. The agreement came hours after word emerged of a secret meeting last week between U.S. and North Korean officials. The focus of both efforts was to get Pyongyang to rejoin six-nation talks on getting it to abandon its nuclear program, but the reclusive communist country -- which regularly uses...